Catching Up is Hard to Do

Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and have a great Valentine’s Day!

Am I caught up?

I have no excuse for not blogging in a long time. Things have just been really crazy in Florida the last few months. But that is good. I have always done better working under a tight deadline.

This craziness started back in 2017 when I decided that I would throw a surprise birthday party for Hubby D in 2018. He turned 65 on December 9.  That added to the normal crazy activity of the holidays. And, we just returned on Monday from an adventure in Egypt so I was preparing for that as well.

While I was getting ready for our Egypt adventure, I read a book about Egyptian history, The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt by Toby Wilkinson. The book covers 3000 years of Pharos.

It is pretty dry and hard to read with a repeating theme of “he came into power, married his sister, killed a large number of people, built a tomb and died.” The very last chapter about the last pharo was the most interesting because it was about Cleopatra. I will start working on my blog about Egypt just as soon as I post this one (I promise).

In November Hubby D and I traveled to Newton, Kansas to be with his family for Thanksgiving. Granddaughter MVL and son, BB joined us there. It was fun, filling and we almost got caught in the big ice and snowstorm that hit the day we left.

Son BB bought his first home this year so I brought him a White House Ornament so he can start his own collection.  BB was recently elected a Board Member for the Board of Alumni at Colorado State University. We are very proud of him.

The big party for Hubby D was on December 9. It went off without a hitch. For the big celebration we had guests from California, Colorado, Texas, Virginia and other parts of Florida. It was a great party and really, really fun to see Hubby D so surprised.

Son BB traveled 3 days from Colorado TO BE AT THE PARTY.  He told me that being there was very important to him. (IT WAS GREAT TO HAVE HIM THERE.) Granddaughter MVL made the trip to Florida from Oklahoma even though she was in the middle of her mid terms for her masters program (she graduates in May). She told me being there for Opa (Hubby D) was very important to her. She took one of her tests via the Internet on the morning after the party then she popped on a plane and headed back to Oklahoma. It was an impressive effort on her part!!!

Even more impressive – the very next day was her birthday but she still was working on her tests and projects.  Student life can be tough but she is doing a super job.

Granddaughter MVL was right up front in the crowd surprising Hubby D at the party.

There was plenty of dancing - the DJ did a great job.

I came up with the idea for the cake. Everyone thought it was really cute. (except Hubby D)

LW was exhausted after all the dancing!

After the big party, our home was all decorated for the holidays so I decided to through an impromptu Holiday party on the Friday evening before Christmas. After the last guest left, Hubby D said we probably overdid it this year.

We managed to work into our schedule selecting the Christmas tree with grandson LWB.

Son BB, LW and MVL put the angel on the tree after Hubby D's big party.  I was ABSOLUTELY thrilled to have all three of them there but it was an extra special treat for BB to do the honors. He used to always be the person in our family that put the angel on the top of the tree and he usually had MVL help him. In fact, the angel he is putting on the top in this photo is one that he and MVL bought for us.

Good friends gave Hubby D a bottle of Grey Goose for his birthday along with this happy lemon.  LOL

Later in the month, granddaughter MVL came BACK to Florida from Oklahoma to spend the holidays with us and daughter AJ came from Jacksonville. Grandson BSJ managed to get off a couple of days from his new job to come down as well.  It was a very full holiday season.

We managed to work in a cookie decorating session during the holidays.

Even daughter AJ got in on the fun! It was just SUPER!!!!

Both boys had blue tongues from eating the icing while they were decorating.

LW enjoyed reading PaPa's birthday cards for several weeks after the party. 

On January 25 LW celebrated his 4th birthday.  I asked him earlier in the week what kind of cake he wanted.  It has been my tradition to let the kids pick their cake. Mostly we have homemade angle food cake with homemade ice cream. However LW said, “I want a blue cake.”

I reconfirmed this with him as it seemed a strange request, but he assured me he really wanted a blue cake.  So a blue cake it was. I picked him up at school on his birthday and later when his mom arrived he told her, “Mommy, I have a blue birthday cake!” It was so much fun!

We also made homemade ice cream. Tasting it to make sure it was coming along is a favorite activity for both of these  boys.

CARS! and an elevator to raise them up and down!

We had a few of our friends over and they brought some terrific gifts. I have this awesome video of LW golfing with the toy golf club, but it is very poor quality so I won't post it.  What you might want to know is that he hit balls for 30 minutes without stopping.  He is going to be great at golf.

On January 30 we began our Egypt adventure. Now looking back, it seems like a long time ago that we set off on this trip, and now the memories are growing.

I will probably break the Egypt adventure into several blogs, as it is massive – just like the temples, tombs and pyramids.

Cheers,

Brenda