Parties and Birds

A lot has happened, as it usually does, but I thought it was time to not have the foot post be the first thing people see on our blog. We had a really fun Thanksgiving with Uncle and Tia.

Who needs a little black dress when you have a black apron with pearls? How about that turkey? That's the first bird in this post.

Talk about biting off more than you can chew.

 Then we took everybody up north for a fun day of Pineapple Park, Butterfly Garden and Aquarium

 My brother watched our kids so we could see the whale shark feeding. It was something we had never had a chance to see as the kids are not that patient.

The next few pics are the kids playing while Mom does Christmas shopping. These Winter activities are quite the contrast from the Forks.

Good times for the fearless kids.

We next went to an international festival they called it, out the gate on the road we take to church. There were parades, Eisa dancers and a huge tug of war

 Now that's a tug of war rope

When we first got here we really thought these guys were cool, but as they live right behind us and practice all summer with the drums and the endlessly repetitive few note guitar, we are not as fond of the music as we were when we arrived. The dancing is still impressive.

 This has been a tradition of ours for many years, making a prefab gingerbread house for family night.

Skilled artisans at work...she's even got her artsy hat.

 Then it was our eldest boy's birthday!

 We, of course, took him for dinner to his favorite place in the world...Chili's. This is when they sang to him and brought his chocolate shake.

Life is good.

 The proud parents under the dangling Captain Jack and Will Turner.

 Spiderman candles, Pirate decor and orange letters all made to order.

Little brother is more than willing to help eat the cake.

 Uncle and Tia delivered a b-day doughnut to complete the sugaring up :)

 And now the other bird of the post. We got a pet. This is the first one since our fish when we were newly married. We almost bought a dog, but luckily we came to our senses.

His name is Julian (because he's "already a pretty good whistler, actually"--King Julian). He's an orange canary that has a beautiful song.

Merry Christmas, everybody!