We had an absolutely delightful holiday break this year in Florida! We wound up flying out on Christmas Eve and didn't get to my parent's new house until after midnight. The next day we got settled in - my parents did a great job of unpacking all of the critical items from their old house into the new one (beds, sheets, towels, etc), but they still had a lot of smaller things they needed help with. So we helped distribute shampoo, soap, razors, etc to the bathrooms, unloaded 3 boxes of my great grandma's china and helped wash that and put it away, sorted wall art and figured out what rooms it should be hung in, put all of the nice stuff away in the dining room hutch, etc.
On Christmas we celebrated with the family as Jews all over the country always do - with Chinese food and movie. Then the next day my brothers started arriving and then family from the rest of the state started pouring in to celebrate together the next day and it was a full house!
We totally played Cards Against Humanity with my grandma and, as I'm sure you can imagine, it was hysterical. The rest of our trip naturally included bike rides around my parents' new neighborhood, trips to the pool, and beach days.
As a holiday gift for my parents, all of us kids chipped in on a nice Italian dinner out one night as well. It was dicey at first when they put us in a room with a "singer" who was essentially performing bad karaoke (a nephew of the owner, we hypothesized), but after the manager moved us and we could hear eachother better it turned into a great evening with wonderful food!
As my holiday gift to my cousin, her daughters, and my sisters in law, we also had our second annual girls' craft day. I reduced the number of projects this year to only 2 as last year it took a LOT of time and sort of felt overwhelming. I'd say it was a huge success! We made Chihuly inspired artwork and painted our own planters and then planted mini succulent gardens:
On one day S and I took off on our own to do some wedding band shopping for him at a few South Florida jewelers. It was our first time even looking and it was pretty productive because he got an idea of what he was looking for. Afterwards we went to Moe's to pick up a late lunch (Welcome to Moe's!!!!) and brought that to 26 Degree Brewing Company to eat while we had a few local craft beers. Mine was a hibiscus sour beer that I swear tasted like I was drinking grapefruit juice.
For New Years Eve this year we went back to our old favorite, the bowling alley to celebrate. My grandparents and cousin joined us and we had so much fun! We may or may not have snuck in a couple of water bottles of alcohol, which was a great addition to the pizza, wings, soda, beer, and festive free stuff included in our entrance price. We also had raffle tickets that snagged us numerous free bowling games, a pair of sunglasses that were passed around and a women's t-shirt that S claimed as his own... and of course there was bowling!
My sister-in-law J and her brand new bowling ball totally nabbed her a personal record high score that night too - exciting stuff! Over the next couple of days my brothers and their significant others began filtering out of the house. We spent more time hanging out with family and getting things done and reorganized around my parents' house. On Sunday, my cousin brought over her two little girls and they took a road trip with us to Merritt Island so I could check in on my townhouse, which thankfully is looking much better this year than it did last. After looking in on the property, we all drove up to the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Center and S and I took the girls to see their very first space shuttle and rockets!!!
The weather was cold and rainy (we had to buy the girls hoodies at Target since we hadn't realized just how cruddy the weather would be), but we still had a fantastic time! The girls got to see the awesome piece of space magnificence that their cousin Rachel used to work on, we took the bus tour to see the launch pads and the Saturn V rocket, and the girls got some cool NASA swag to show their friends at school the next day.
Over the next couple of days we helped my parents around the house a bit more, spent one more evening with my grandparents (after a lovely dinner out, the guys kicked the girls butts in a rousing game of spades), and took one last bike ride and then on Tuesday we headed back to the airport and were Houston bound. I'm glad we stayed those few extra days to relax a bit and spend some quality time with my parents and grandparents. But it was good to get home too. A certain puppy and 2 fuzzy kitties were all pretty psyched that we were home too.
