My Thanksgiving Pics!

Well, it's finally here! After a long twelve months another Thanksgiving is upon us. For those of you who don't know already know, this is my favorite holiday because I love to eat and I especially love to eat those types of foods prepared on the fourth Thursday of every November. I love watching the parade and holiday movies. I love creating new traditions with my girls and reliving old ones that I've practiced for years. Normally we would be celebrating at Disney World as we have the past few years with the Cross family but this year our plans were changed and we went camping with the Schraders. We were supposed to eat at the campsite but after a month of non-stop sun, Thursday held an overcast and very wet looking sky. So we ate at our house instead and then rushed to the campsite where we enjoyed hot dogs, doughnuts, marshmallows and for some, a late night turkey sandwich! As a side note, HOLLA, to all the Aussie's and they represented at the dog show taking home first place! Boo-YAH!
I hope everyone had a great day and I really missed all my people up North! Wouldn't yall love to go camping next year??? Who DOESN'T want to see a black bear(amongst other wild animals) in it's natural state on a national holiday?

Paige started the cooking with our pumpkin bread. It was so delish, we made it for Jen but it smelled so good we kept some for ourselves!


Getting along for five minutes!


Oops! My pic is cock-eyed! Either way, a nice table set by Jen! And my lovely Thanksgiving day outfit! Sweat-shorts in the house!

Yum! Let's see...we have HOMEmade gravy, broccoli casserole, sweet potatoes, HOMEmade cranberry, turkey and stuffing! What a feast!


The kids being served. The adults ate on the porch. We had a lovely set up with turkey plates and napkins. The boys made us each our own place name card thing too!


Soph is not exactly sure what I'm expecting her to eat off of this plate.


Will was happy to dig in. Em is still waiting.


Paige, not happy at all to be eating that delicious food. She is at least thankful that her boys were with her.

Ready to camp! They managed to hold still for 5 seconds so that I could take a pic! They love this park and after all of the bear excitment the last thing they wanted to do was pose. So what am I thankful for? Kids posing!


Our awesome campsite. How do I define awesome? Me not having to take any part in putting it together! Thanks MEN!


I just want to take this oppurtunity to clear up a few things. Some people out there might be under the impression that the bear Mike previously posted about is fake. As you can see from my picture it is clearly in front of our faces. I know, I know, it is easy to look at our blog and think Mike is just posting stock photos of Florida Black Bears when in fact his photos are just THAT good. Anyway, here is the bear...RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR FACES! Watch out faces!


Peek a boo! I see bear poo! Ok, I didn't see any poo. But I did see the little guy eating something. He was behind this palm the whole time I was there.


Nice butt shot!

After a walk it was time for another Thanksgiving doughnut.


Loki was very out of breath after his romp thru the campgrounds.


Paige, the coolers and our trashcan in a tree.


Everyone enjoying a doughnut!


Take my picture mommy! Take it with my pet! She loves that Loki is her "pet." And don't ask me why she wanted to pose by the canoes!

Mike borrowed a cool screen room from his boss. It came in handy since there were sooooo many bugs! The kids were playing cards and we put the dogs in there so that their chances of contracting heartworm were decreased!




Here, the girls pose with Thankful Turkeys...Jen made turkeys and we each had to write something on them that we were thankful for. We decorated the campsite with them. Very cute!




More turkeys.




My hero of the hour....Chris! Our lovely campsite was covered in sand in under a minute. What to do? Our little boyscout cut down a palm and swept with that. When that wasn't good enough, he trimmed the frond so that it was even better! I felt so much cleaner after watching him clean!


Oh no, that long palm frond with never do!

OMG!!! How cute are we?? Loki is the best camp-dog ever!


Kids goofing off.


Are we on fire or what?


Yep, that's us being cute again! Paige joins in this time.


Thanksgiving pie, doughnuts and now marshmellows!

Camping machines

We went camping with the Schraders this year for Thanksgiving. I think everyone had a good time and the girls are already asking when we can go camping again. It might be the only way we have to get rid of the huge stacks of firewood in the back yard since it's not really cold enough for our fireplace to bet getting any real use. We took 3 Rubbermaid bins of wood and had a nice camp fire going by the time the sun went down. Our original plan had called for preparation of all of the Thanksgiving food to be done at home then carried to the park and we would eat it there. The forecast wasn't looking too good since it called for scattered thunder storms so we ate at home and then drove out to get set up for camping. We went to Blue Springs for the camping, and we got a pretty good camp site. They have electricity and water and we were close to the bathrooms and the trail down to the springs. Loki and Hanzie got to make the trip, since the tents we got have little dog houses attached. Loki even slept in his! Melissa felt bad for him being stuck in there and let him into the main tent and he was in there for about 3 minutes before he went back into his little den on his own. Anyway, it didn't rain until we got a few light showers off an on overnight, but we were tucked into the tent by then.

If we do this again next year I'm going to lobby for a 2 day trip. It's a lot of work to get everything set up and then take it back down again just for one night...

While Chris and I were setting up the tents Jen called on the cell phone and said there was a bear down by the Springs and I had better get my camera and get down there... I thought she was being a pain in the butt and just hassling us while we were trying to be productive, but there was a Florida Black Bear down there after all.



There are only about 1500 of these bears left in the state, and Central Florida has a bunch of them.


Since it's so warm in Florida, most of these bears don't hibernate or only do so for a short time.


Males average a little over 300 lbs and females could be half that. This could be a male, since a female is more likely to stay in a den with her cub than be out in the Winter months.


~80% of their diet is vegetarian and they also eat the occasional armadillo or some road kill.


Speaking of bears, here is another wild creature shocked to be caught by the camera while eating pumpkin pie.


Camp fire!


I borrowed a screen tent from my boss and the kids made good use of it while playing some Uno. The mosquitoes were insane. I had to put bug spray on over and over and I'm still covered in bites today.


Don't worry... she's the one who dealt it. Okay, I'm not really sure what was going on here, but it may have been her protecting her delicate lungs while Chris and I were using the remnants of the campfire to conduct a few scientific experiments relative to the melting points of select materials in non-controlled environment.


June-squatch catching a nap by the fire.


Once we packed up all the camping gear and broke down the tents we went for a walk in the morning. This is the view toward the St Johns river from up near the head of the Spring.


Camp hair.


The tree hollow that the kids play with every time we go to this park.


Strike a pose.


The girls posing for daddy.


More wildlife. Right next to the trail where I was taking the girls picture this little guy was climbing a tree.


Grey Turd! That's the name I gave this baby manatee. On account of he looks like a giant grey turd.


The ladies posing with their dogs.

Thanksgiving at St. Pauls

St Pauls had a Thanksgiving feast last Thursday, yes that's right, they managed NOT to cancel Thanksgiving! Paige's class dressed at Pilgrims and Soph's dressed at Native Americans, or Indians as they call them down here! Paige went all out though....we got the "poor Cinderella" skirt from last year, along with her apron and black slipppers and she totally made the most awesome Pilgrim ever! Soph was not so lucky. She just dressed in orange and brown! I was working that day so Grandma was their guest. At the last minute though I was able to go because I realized my lunch break was at 1130, right when their party started. I only stayed long enough to read a Thanksgiving book with them and then throw down a turkey sandwich. But I was so thankful that I was able to make it over there, if only for a few minutes!

Aly-Cat, Paige and Lindsey. There are only 5 girls in the class so these 3 are pretty close.


Our own little Priscilla Alden!


Pocahontas and her friend Lauren.


Clearly the most authentic looking Pilgrim!


The Native Americans were all done-up! They had necklaces, "vests," drums and headdresses! I don't know who is next to Paige, but the other girl is Gabrielle, her best friend!