Thanksgiving Weekend

We shared an awesome Thanksgiving with our friends The Richards from Atlanta.  

We went to St. Augustine on a cold and blustery day.
This is the Fort of Castillo de San Marcos.  St.  Augustine is the oldest city in North America being settled by the Spaniards in 1565








They indulged us in our Gingerbread House on Thanksgiving tradition and helped us eat the candy too!






Clare and Callista showing off their masterpieces!


Ryan describes Dane as "practically my cousin".

Callista and Clare.....2 peas in a pod.  They both love blue, neither are fond of "princess stuff", and both have blond hair and blue eyes.

Atley, Chloe, and Brynne.

A friendship that started our first week of college at BYU.  I think she is the only reason I was meant to go to there!

 

Disney World - Magic Kingdom

We took another 3 day weekend down to Orlando to attend the temple.  Yet again....we got no pictures of the temple because it was pouring rain.....AGAIN.  But here are a few pictures of Disney.

Not much else to say about the 3rd Happiest Place on Earth....

It was fun, and definitely made us HAPPY!

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween 2013!

Spookily the Square Pumpkin

 A cute boy who was mature enough to recognize his anxiety to go trick-or-treating and opted to wear a handsome "minion" shirt  and help me pass out candy.

 An elegant witch, not to be confused with a scary, or wicked witch.

 I have no idea who this guy is,  but I think I'll keep him.

The Alligator Farm - St. Augustine

 Ryan didn't have a baseball game this morning so we decided to drive down to St Augustine which is about 45 minutes away to check out the Alligator Farm.  It was "way more cool" (as Ryan said) than we expected.

The first exhibit you come to is the Albino Alligator.  A genetic anomaly for sure.  What we were most amazed by is that the alligators and turtles co-habitate together.  These turtles were climbing all over the alligator and even in front of his mouth and it never seemed to phase him.

 

 

Soon we came upon this large exhibit and thought this must be the highlight because we counted over 40 gators hanging out in the enclosure.

 

 Alas......we were wrong.  The swamp had hundreds of these gators.

 They had little vending machines like gumball machines where you could put 25 cents in and it would dispense disgusting smelling pellets.  All smells aside.....the gators loved them.

  There was also a "Galapagos Turtle" exhibit that was interesting as we learned the turtles actually liked to petted on their necks.  They were just as big as this statue that the girls are on!

There was a rogue gator roaming the planks that went right after Ryan!

 

But Paul came to his rescue, tackled him, and made sure we were all safe.

Thanks for saving us Dad, and for taking us to this awesome exhibit of reptiles.

 



Sea World - Orlando

The great thing about our Temple being in Orlando is that there are so many other fun things to do there as well.  We left right after school on Friday and Paul and I attended a temple session and the next morning we went to Sea World.

Callista's favorite animal (for this week) is the stingray due to the fact that she got to touch one.  For the next 24 hours we were asked to call her "Stingray Callista" instead of just "Callista". 

FYI.....as I am writing this blog her new favorite animal is an eagle!

 Ryan convinced Paul and Callista that they should sit in the soak zone.  Not sure if you can fully appreciate it in the picture, but they are SOAKED!!!!!

 The joys of getting older is you get to ride roller coasters without your parents....Paul and I are grateful for that.

 

 

 Beautiful exhibits, adventurous attractions, and video games?  Yes.....outside of Turtle Trek is a fun video game where you help the turtle hatchling make his way to the sea.  I even got sucked into buying the app on my phone and have to admit.....it's pretty cool.

The weather was perfect, as usual I cried during the dolphin show, some of us got soaked.....

I'd say it was great day at Sea World!!!



Dining Out!

Paul and I attended the JAX Naval Hospital's Dining Out.  It was quite the celebration....of what....that's debatable, but we got to dress up and that was the fun part.  

Typically speaking the "dining out out" is used as a fun way to press charges and accusations against fellow co-workers.  If you are found guilty you must drink the "grogg" a disgusting concoction of alcohol blends (even those who like alcohol do not enjoy this cocktail), or you can drink the "hair of the dog", another disgusting beverage concoction of the non-alcohol type.  They began the ceremony by parading the beef which was hilarious coming form hospital staff as you can imagine.  A gurney was wheeled in by a fellow surgeon from the command with a patient under the blankets.  A saw was brought in and it was supposed to look like the surgeon was removing some meat from the patient.  It was quite funny!  Madame President (aka the Commanding Officer of the hospital) appoved the beef and dinner could begin.  Paul thought he was for sure going to have charges brought against him due to his incident of leaving his ID in his computer during an anti-terrorist drill which delayed him from work about 45 minutes, however....he was overlooked for more serious charges by fellow colleagues.  The key note speaker was a former special ops officer who made amazing strides in the war on terror and at one point had a bounty on his head for $25,000 in Afghanistan.  His convoy was hit one day and his face was completely blown off, along with a leg, and a hand.  He is an inspiration to all as his message rang out loud and clear, "treat people the way you want to be treated and the world will be a better place".

 Leslie, Clay, and Paul.....these three are inseparable starting at 5:00 am daily where they meet up at the gym for their grueling work out.

 The Naval Hospital JAX Ortho Department.

The Riverside Hyatt sits right on the St. John's river with a breathtaking view of the Main Street bridge.  It was a fabulous night!

First Day of School

NEW HOME, NEW STATE, NEW SCHOOL!

First Grade, here she comes....

Third Grade, he's on his way....

6th Grade, ready to be conquered....

This is the last year the SHUPE TROOP will all be at the same school!