Christmas and Florida

 Already it's 2026.  Christmas vacation was gone in a blink.  I realize as I go through the pictures that I really didn't take very many.  Such a bummer that I'm like that.  I always say that when I'm rich I'll hire a personal chef.  I apparently also need to add "photographer" to that list.  Some highlights:

Prior to Christmas:

We went up to Frankenmuth to the Bronner's Christmas store.  It's 7.5 acres of nothing but Christmas decorations.  It's a Christmas tradition for many families around here to take a trip to it every year but we have only gone once and that was off-season.  Bella thought it was time to go when it was a crazy madhouse and I agreed.  Christian was looking forward to the driving practice hours, so we went, just the three of us.  We had a wonderful time looking at everything in the store and then driving around town, getting hot chocolate, looking at the lights, and just hanging out.  It was a great idea.  Only picture I took:

Couldn't resist that adorable couple.

We also did our usual Hines drive light show (picture below) and our visit to Mr. Perrin's Light Show (no pictures).  We attempted to visit Glenlore Trails for their 1 mile light show walk but the weather had turned the trails to ice and so they canceled the event.  That was so sad because I'd missed the email about it and we'd all driven up there before seeing the place was dark and empty.  We were all bundled up and 30 minutes from home so we tried to make the best of it by going to get hot chocolate and spending time together anyway.  It turned out ok.  (Also no pictures)

Mostly it was just fun to be home together with nothing pressing on our schedules.  Peter and Christian practiced piano together which made this mom so happy to see!

Christmas Eve:

My mom and our friend Thea joined us as usual and we had a great ham dinner plus presents, the nativity play, and board games.  

Peter was a cow and a sheep.  He was a bit wired, though, and mostly just jumped all around making animal noises and attacking Christian (the shepherd).  It was a more chaotic nativity than in past years and not what I would have liked, but I guess that's what you get with a six year old who's eaten too many Christmas cookies.

He did love his presents, though.  Most especially the 5 lego sets he got.  I thought this type-writer lego was adorable.  So many little white dot pieces!  

I never thought Pandora would still be with us at Christmas, but she is here to stay, it seems.  Peter has really fallen in love with her and it's adorable to behold.

After Christmas:

We drove down to Orlando, Florida to meet up with Jill and her family for New Years.  It was a wonderful place with mini golf, swimming, etc.  Also, this random game where you tried to swing a ring on a string at a hook on a turtle.  Looks easy but its actually impossible.  There's a sign on it that says, "If you're having trouble, come talk to us and we'd be happy to show you how."  I never saw a single person successfully ring a turtle.  I really should have taken the employees up on their offer and had them prove it's possible.  I'm skeptical.

Fun lake by the property - no swimming allowed because it's Florida so every body of water could potentially have alligators.  We looked long and hard but didn't see any here.  We spotted them at Kennedy Space Center, though.  Here we just saw a really cool bird called an anhinga that can swim like a fish and looks like a snake when it's in the water.  We walked all around the lake watching it.  So cool.

Bella also wanted to take pictures in the beautiful places on the property.  Christian is the better photographer so I just watched.

On New Years' Eve they had a ball drop at the pool.  They did it at 8pm so everyone could bring their kids and still get them to bed at a reasonable hour.  Genius.  Peter had a blast.

The hot tub right outside our door was the favorite spot of all.

My favorite spot of the whole trip was Kennedy Space Center.  That place was made for me - a historian and engineers dream.  Want to read all about John F Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Werner Von Braun, the space program, the cold war, the space race with Russia, the Challenger disaster, etc etc.  Come to Kennedy Space Center.  Want to read all about rocket propulsion, aerodynamics, heat resistant shielding, thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, astronomy, materials science, control systems, and computer simulations?  Come to Kennedy Space Center.  One day was simply not enough.  It even had a play place for kids when Peter wasn't tall enough to ride the simulator that the bigger kids were riding. 

Oh, and did I mention that the whole place is on a giant nature preserve, so we saw heron, wild pigs, bald eagles, and alligators (not just this one)?!  It was so cool!

Long before I was done, the kids were done and I decided they needed a pick-me-up of hot chocolate and a stroll through the outdoor "rocket garden."  If I had to pick a theme for this entire Christmas break, it would be "hot chocolate."

It was so fun to have Jill's family join us on all our excursions.  I really wish we could spend more time with them on a regular basis, but it's fun how no matter how much time has passed, we always seem to be able to pick right up where we left off.

We also went to Sea World.  5/10, wouldn't recommend.  It's hard because the sea lion, dolphin, and killer whale shows were clear 10/10 but they were only 15 minutes each and everything else was 0/10.  The lines were ENDLESS!!!  No matter what you wanted to do.  Food, rides, and bathrooms all meant standing in line.  And not just a little bit.  A LOT.  I waited 70 minutes for lunch.  50 for dinner.  10 every time we needed to pee.  And hours for rides.  It was like the employees operated on a different time dimension from the rest of us.  They honestly looked like they moved in slow motion.  I'm not kidding.  I was not the only one who mentioned it.  Plus, we forgot the stroller so I had to walk all day with Peter at his snail pace and the app was so user unfriendly that we were always getting lost.  We walked sooooo long in the wrong direction!  This lunch picture is missing me and Peter because we were wandering all over the dang place trying to find the group!  We got there just as everyone else finished.  I will never go back.

The shows were the highlight of the day and Peter's reaction whenever a dolphin jumped or a killer whale splashed the audience was priceless.  

There was one area called "Sesame Street Village" where Peter found some rides he was tall enough to ride.  We waited 55 minutes for this one.  It lasted 90 seconds.  Glad you liked it, buddy, because I'm never doing that again.

Saturday Bella and Kelly went to Universal Epic Adventure and I took Peter to Legoland.  Legoland was wonderful.  Lots of fun rides, food that was ready immediately, and a very functional app to announce line wait times and directions around the park.  10/10.  Peter had a blast and got to ride his first roller coaster.  He loved it so much that we did it multiple times.

This is the picture the park took on one of our rides.  I love Peter's face soo much in this picture.  He was screeching so long and loud that the people behind us started laughing.  I kind of look like I'm crying but honestly, Legoland rides are really my speed.  I think it was the first coaster that didn't scare me.  I had a great time too.

We also took a trip to the beach one evening.  What a beautiful sunset and fun time on the beach.  A bit too cold for swimming that evening, but we waded in a little.

Christian went with the Brewers to the beach while I was at Legoland and Bella was at Universal with Kelly.  He said they had a great time.  Much warmer during the day.

When it comes to long lines, Disney and Universal win hands-down.  They waited 4 hours for the Harry Potter ride!!  At least you wait in style when you're there.  Kelly had the best comment when Jill asked what we wanted to do on our last day in Florida.  He answered, "I was hoping we could find a line somewhere and just stand in it."

Our last day was Sunday, so we all went to church.  We chose the church across the street from the Orlando temple so we could also walk over there.  It was under construction so we couldn't get close, but it was still lovely to have our family all together at this sacred place.  I love that Jesus Christ makes it possible to be with our families forever.  There is so much commotion and trouble in the world, but being at the temple with my family reminded me of the power of covenants and how thankful I am for the gospel of Jesus Christ and his atonement.

Happy 2026!

Christmas Fun Is Beginning

Some fun holiday traditions this week.  Starting with the annual Merry and Bright Parade.  Every year all the scout troops/businesses/marching bands/government elected officials/etc. march in the parade.  It's such a wonderful Michigander thing to do - a parade in December in the snow.  All the candy they throw disappears immediately into the snowdrifts at your feet and kids freeze their fingers off looking for it.  When it's over your fingers are too cold to fold up your chair properly.  You wear so many layers you almost can't sit down. By the end of the parade route most of the metal instruments have frozen and don't play anymore.  But it's all worth it when Santa comes driving down the street on the firetruck wishing you a very merry Christmas and his face is just so bright and cheery that you can't help but smile.  We do it every year and every year I honestly look forward to it.  Our last chance to see our sweet kids in their marching band uniforms before turning them in and calling the year done.  My last chance to see Bella march.  Benjamin's last year the weather was so terrible they actually had to cancel it and that made me sad.  I was glad that despite the low temps, this year we got to have it.  Plus, Bella's band was at the very front of the parade so she was able to finish and join us to watch the rest of it, just like old times when she was little.  Couldn't have been more perfect.  Peter was a candy-collecting machine.  He was digging in the snow and scrounging in the dirty slush at the edge of the street.  Don't tell him, but I threw away half of what he collected because it was nasty filthy, but he was so happy collecting it that he didn't notice the cold.

Christmas concerts are also always fun.  The kids are so amazing with their multiple instruments.  Bella performed on the tenor sax, the alto sax, and the flute during various parts of the concert.  I loved when she played the flute because I could actually see her!   She just started playing this summer when a friend loaned her a flute during vacation and she taught herself and joined a flute choir when school started.  She's amazing.  Christian plays drums in marching band but plays saxophone in jazz band and symphony band.  For jazz band he sat in the front so I got good pics of both my kids for the first time ever. although the lighting and distance made it a bit fuzzy.

The kids have also been touring around to other schools to perform and increase interest in younger kids to join the band in high school.  Parents haven't been permitted to come but luckily the director posted this picture of Christian's band at his old middle school today.

Bella asked me to take her and a friend, Katie, downtown to see the lights, visit the Light The World Giving Machine, and go skating.  We had a wonderful time. We parked a ways away and took the Q-line into downtown and rode the People Mover around the inner city. I am amazed how much Detroit is revitalizing.  It was sooo busy and so fun!  It really felt like a vibrant down-town scene.  It's so exciting to be in an area that's developing like this.

As the temperature has dropped, Newburgh Lake has frozen over and I couldn't pass up the chance to skate on it.  Sunday after church I took the boys skating.  (Bella had other commitments, sadly.)  We had a blast and had the lake all to ourselves.  Other than freezing wind so cold it froze your eyeballs, we had a great time (as long as we kept our backs to the wind.)

Sadly, I didn't get a picture of Peter after he fell through a spot in the lake where there was no ice.  A drain pipe poured water into one small part and Christian was exploring the hole.  Peter decided it was also interesting but didn't have the maturity to know where to step and where not.  Down he went.  Mother's worst nightmare.  Amazingly, he floated.  Swim lessons for the win!  I was able to grab him out in seconds and he was fine other than his clothes became solid blocks of ice within minutes and he had to stumble to the car in a jacket and pants that weighed about 50 lbs. and were so rock solid he walked like a zombie.  I ended up carrying him the last little bit.  No tears or fear, though.  Just part of the adventure.  It was a really great adventure all around.  However, let's not talk about the unfortunate car accident we got into on the way home as a woman zoomed out of a gas station and crossed 4 lanes of traffic right into our car.  :(  Bye, bye beautiful Ford Mustang.  We will choose to focus on the good things we did that day, not how it ended.

Peter and I went shopping for stocking stuffers.  It was such fun to be able to say "yes" to toy requests.  Saying no nearly every time we shop is draining.  But this was the reason we went and Peter was thrilled.  To top it off, we had to take a ride on Sandy.  As he was riding, an elderly Chinese man came over and started talking to Peter in heavily accented broken English.  He was so taken by cute little Peter.  He started telling us about his grandson that used to ride Sandy but is now in medical school.  Then he offered to take our picture.  It was a good Christmas shopping day.

Miscellaneous:

Peter's teacher often posts pictures from school.  I love seeing him happy and smiling with friends.

Christian is going through a medical journey right now as we investigate how to proceed with a scoliosis and pectus excavatum diagnosis.  We have found some good doctors at the University of Michigan and hopefully we'll have some plans in place soon.  In the mean time we log many, many hours of driving between home and Ann Arbor and many moments of frustration in large public parking garages.