Holiday Adventure

Happy New Year! Christmas has come and gone and all of our decorations are boxed away. Only the snowmen decorations remain to celebrate winter.

We have had a nice Christmas. As I mentioned last time, brunch was moved to Morgan's house and we had a wonderful time. Mom was able to go to that and we spent more time with her the next day. The boys got a Ring Fit Adventure game for their Nintendo Switch which is all about physical activity. Now when they play their new game the whole house shakes.

After celebrating Christmas our primary concern was packing for our Florida vacation! Eight days and 1770 miles later there are a few adventures to tell about.

Both of the last two Fridays (the 27th and the 3rd) were spent driving. Not much to say there except that traffic made our drive 2-3 hours longer than planned each way.

We spent the first half of our time in Florida staying with the Cotters and the remainder of our stay in a VRBO we rented down in Kissimmee (which, to our delight, Siri repeatedly mispronounced as "Kiss-a-me").

We enjoyed a lot of family time when staying at the Cotter's house—visiting, playing games, and eating. We went out to eat at Four Rivers Barbecue and Yellow Dog Eats in addition to enjoying Dianna's cooking. And to cap off our visit with them we watched Jim blow up a decorated gingerbread house with fireworks on New Year's Eve Eve, certainly a twist to the normal fireworks celebration. Several of us filmed it and the slo-mo is cool!

One of the things I enjoyed most was talking to Aunt Linda as she reminisced about my dad, Uncle George, and others in the family. Some of the memories she shared with me I had not heard before. There are so many people in the family who had passed away before I was born so I really appreciate knowing some of these tales. This makes their faces in the old pictures come alive as real people for me. Aunt Linda and I had three very nice visits which I will always treasure.

The most exciting adventure on our trip was spending New Year's Day at Universal. Chris, who works on Hogwart's Express, met us there before his shift and then rejoined us after his shift. Our tickets were good for both the Islands of Adventure and Studios theme parks so we got to ride the train between the parks and see Chris on the job. Given that we spent about half of our time in the Harry Potter areas of Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley, it really felt more like we had visited Harry Potter World and made a couple of brief excursions into the Muggle areas for some additional entertainment.

The next day was beach day. We headed to Spessard Holland Park in Melbourne for an afternoon of fun in the sand and sun. The water was too cold to do more than wade in, but at least the weather was more cooperative than when we were in Destin this time last year.

So that's how we celebrated the new year and enjoyed the last half of our Christmas break. I've got in-service at school tomorrow and the second semester classes begin on Tuesday. Nate, however, gets to enjoy another adventure which will cause him to miss a couple of days of school. He leaves early tomorrow morning to go on a class trip to New York City! More on that next time.

Joe