McKinley Jane and Grant Alan

Hot air balloon festival Visiting the manatees Sugar Mill pancake restaurant Playing with the neighbor kids Leadership dinner  

For Christmas, I got the best surprise ever from Derek...a frenchie from a rescue!  He definitely compromised on this because he likes big, purebred dogs and I like small, rescue dogs.  This little girl has a cleft palate and was rescued from an amazing organization that absolutely loves their dogs! (Achy Brachy Clefties)  

We started out the morning at our house and after stockings were opened, we headed to Grandma Verna's!  

For Christmas Eve we went to church and then played a new Christmas Eve game where there was a specific number we picked.  Each kid rolled the dice and if they got the number, they got to pick anything out of the middle of the pile.  It was a blast and will definitely be a Christmas Eve tradition!  

We managed to get incredibly cheap plane tickets and a hotel room, so last minute we decided to hop on a plane and head to New York for Christmas!  The crowds were so low, but we were able to hit all the tourist destinations.  Unfortunately, the restaurants had been shut down again right before we went, which made walking around a little tough when we couldn't escape the cold by going into restaurants!