Vacation is over.

Well we have returned from the Happiest Place on Earth and I truly believe it is.   We arrived at the airport on Thursday December 15th for a 5:45 flight.  The boys knew where we were going but didn't know we were going to have guests.  As we are walking Evan looks over and says 'Hey there's papaw'.  We kept walking and he said it again.  I said lets go find out what they are doing here.  He went up to them and asked what they were doing and they said going to Florida.  'We are too'.  Where are you going?  To Orlando, where are you going?  'Us to.'  He figured out that they were going with us.  Then we kept walking and at a table in was Tara, John and Jackson and Hayden saw them.  Same conversation.  It was then 'Is anyone else going?'  No boys, 9 people is enough in one 2 bedroom condo!  Upon arriving everyone was excited and ready to start vacation.  Tara, John and Jackson stayed until Wednesday night and we stayed until Friday December 23rd.

 A great time was had by everyone.  Miles and miles of walking, a lot of laughing, some arguing between the boys (it got worse after Jackson left, he must have been their buffer).  Lots of food and more walking.  Papaw Terry got sick while we were down there with a sinus and ear infection but started some antibiotics and was good to go after being down for a day.

We visited the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at the Universal Islands of Adventure.  The boys each got a wand and we tried butter beer.

I didn't care for it, it tasted like I was drinking a thick cream soda, or syrup.  Hayden downed his, Chris downed his, Evan didn't finish his though.  Got the cups to bring home so we can have butter beer at home, aka root beer in the Mickel house.

The boys got along great (most of the time) and I think they enjoyed spending an entire week together since it doesn't happen to often.  We had the occasional, don't touch me or he did this, but nothing that we couldn't handle.

After a great 9 days we had to head home, but we were all ready.  Christmas was in 2 days and we couldn't miss Santa Claus coming to town. Here are some additional random pictures that I wanted to ensure were included!

Oh Poop.

We returned from a FABULOUS trip to the Orlando area.  Universal one day and Disney for 4 days, an entire pool day, downtown disney for some shopping, many great meals, I could go on and on.  After a long morning in one of the theme parks we (Tara, John, Jackson, JoJo, Papaw, Evan, Hayden, myself and Chris) all decided to head down to the pool since the temps were 80 and sunny.  Tara and Jackson were in the pool for probably an hour when Tara swam to the side and asked me 'what do I do if I think I found poop in the pool?'  You have to tell the lifeguard.  This was after both her and Jackson got their goggles on to see what was at the bottom of the pool and Jackson wanted to touch it, maybe it is chocolate he said when they came up for air!  When she told the lifeguard the pool was cleared and the specimen was removed (yes it was poop, ugh).  And everyone had to stay out of the pool while they tested it etc.  30 minutes later everyone was allowed back in, Tara decided she was done swimming.

My view of the experience.....

#1 Popcorn Seller.

Evan had his cub scout pack meeting last evening and he was the #1 popcorn seller of the entire group.  This is thanks to dad buying A LOT of popcorn for his clients!  For his efforts he won a $50 giftcard from the pack and a $55 giftcard for meeting a certain sales goal.  He was so excited he could hardly see straight.  He wanted to leave the meeting and go straight to Walmart to purchase an iPod touch.  He has been saving for over a year to get the iPod touch and he needed $50 to reach his goal.  I told him to calm down a bit and lets see what Christmas brings....

Hello Santa Claus.

Another fun Christmas party with the Valeo group on Friday.  I only get so see a lot of them once or twice a year (depends on if they have a summer event for the twice a year) so it is always nice to catch up with everyone.

Our annual neighborhood christmas party was last evening at Greek Tony's Pizza in Carmel.  There is pizza, salad and the most awesome breadsticks dripping in butter and garlic - not fattening at all.  There were about 20 families there which is always so much fun since we haven't seen many of them since the pool closed!  Santa makes a visit and each child sits on his lap and gets a gift.  Santa asked Hayden what he wanted for Christmas and it was answered with 'I don't know, I forget'.  Typical.  Evan wants an iPod Touch, which I would have never guessed,  not.  His list that he wrote up was iPod Touch circled, underlined, starred and anything else he could do to make it stand out.

After the party Evan and I went to the Live Nativity at St. Luke's.  It was great with the live animals and I know who played Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus was their 'real' baby.  Here is Evan nervously standing by a camel, he thinks it is going to spit on him.

Crystals are interesting.

I really just wanted to get this picture out there.  Hayden is looking at the crystals that they (Hayden, Evan and Morgan) grew.  We were out to eat with crystals all over the table.

Blue II

Who can't love this ugly mug?  I surprised the boys with Blue II as their mystery reader.  The mystery reader gives hints to their identity and then the big reveal is on Friday when they show up.  Here were the hints.  1.  Scared of thunderstorms.  2.  Named after a lawyer from the 1800's (Ovid Butler)  3. Favorite color is Blue  4.  Has made numerous TV appearances  5.  Works at a school but is not a teacher.

The kids were all surprised to see the 'real live mascot' from Butler.  There were also a group of High School kids there to read to the younger kids that got all excited when they saw him.  We had kids coming out of the classrooms to see what was snorting down the hall and then you would have the teacher come out and tell them to get back into the room.  I am so happy that I can do things like this for the boys, hopefully they will always remember when Butler Blue II came to visit their school.

Memories with warm milk.

Evan came downstairs this evening and said he was thirsty. I told him he could have some water and her said 'oh I wanted warm milk like when I was little'. Well how can I say no to that? So Evan made himself some warm milk and came into the living room with me, sat down and said, 'so what do you want to talk about?'. He then asked me to tell him something about Deacon and Baron (our miniature schnauzers that we had from 1997 to 2009). I told him that we brought Deacon home about this time of year because we put a big bow on him. He then wanted to know about himself and I said he used to chew on his crib and crawl thru the doggie door. He said he remembered this.  I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up and he said 'president or maybe the Govenor'.   I then said I was going to write about our conversation on the blog and he wants his own blog. Maybe we will work on that this weekend so I can get his thoughts down forever! One thing he wanted included in this entry was that he is just finishing up a book called City of Embers, he wants me to read it so I think I will.

Star gazing.

On Saturday night it was clear and you could see the stars.  Evan had just gotten home from an evening with his friend Christopher and he asked me if we could go out and star gaze.  This is something that I had done with him several times when he was smaller.  We get a blanket and lay it on the drive way and just lay down and look up at the stars.  Our neighbors must think we need to be put in a looney bin, but it is perfect.  Just 5 minutes of absolute silence holding Evan's hand and pointing to what we see.  I hope he always wants to look at the stars with me.

Colts Game, not fun.

We split season tickets with one of Chris's co-workers and we selected a game for December and we aren't even going to be here, poor planning on our part.  So we switched our December tickets with their friends for the Carolina game on Sunday after Thanksgiving.  I thought it would be fun for all 4 of us to go.  Not so much.  Evan begged to stay home and when Hayden heard this nonsense he decided he didn't want to go either.  So both boys have bad attitudes about going.  They did perk up when we told them we were going to lunch at Weber Grill, I think they thought this may make the trip worth it.  But lunch was long forgotten as Evan is sitting in his seat staring at the roof and I ask him 'Are you having fun?'  His response 'No, not at all.'  The ladies behind us started laughing.  At half-time the game was tied at 10-10 and we thought there might be hope since the Colts were 0-11 coming into the game.  We left at half time and the Colts lost, 0-12 so far.  Evan being the wise football know it all said 'The colts aren't going to be in the Super Bowl this year'.  Um no they are not which is a shame considering that the super bowl is in Indianapolis.