Jacksonville Zoo Trip

Along with my annual trip home to Jacksonville for Christmas come our annual trip to the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens with my niece and nephew. I always look forward to this and dread the day they become too old for this. Hopefully, I'll have my own kids by then.

Now, in my opinion, I think the JAX Zoo is one of the best in the nation. Granted, I've never been to the infamous San Diego Zoo, but compared to some of the zoos I've been too, it rocks! It Definitely blows the Indy Zoo out of the water. I think a lot of that has to do with space, though... the JAX Zoo has a lot of land to work with! But I'm probably a little biased, too, since this is where I go with my niece and nephew all the time.

It seems no matter how hard we try, we can never get out of the house as early as we want to. This always leads us to rushing at the end of the day to see everything we want, but we know to catch the exhibits we want as early as possible. One of our favorites is always the Lorikeets. We always want to catch them early when they're still hungry. But this year we had a new exhibit to catch - a baby leopard! He was SO adorable at only 4 months old! Sadly, he can't go in the cage with his mother, so he'll likely be sent to another zoo when he's old enough, but he was fun to see, none the less.

The kids always love the Great Ape loop, too, though if the weather is too cool, there's not as much action. That really goes for all of the animals, just about... if they're even out, they seem to just be trying to capture warmth from the sunlight. Except for the penguins... they seemed to be loving the weather! Darian managed to be the last one to feed one of the giraffes today, as well... did you know they can eat up to 1% of their body weight, which can be more that 20 lbs of food a day??!!

So all in all, we had another wonderful trip to the zoo. I really think this is such a fun tradition to have - there's not too many zoos you can go to between Christmas an New Year's. So all in all, another great end to a great trip home for the holidays.

Christmas in Jacksonville

Eric and I made it down to FL late Christmas afternoon... but we still beat my sister and her family, so we were still good.

After getting all of our gifts settled, and the Pitts' finally showed up, we had a nice ham dinner and then proceeded to the 'big tree' to open gifts. I don't think we ever opened gifts on Christmas night - it was quite a different ambiance with the darkness outside and opening the gifts by tree light, essentially. As always, the gift opening flew by and we only saw half of the gifts open since there were so many being opened at once between the nine of us. But it was still fun and there were still those moments that were made into memories.

We weren't done yet, though. It got too late and some of us were too tired from traveling, so we didn't make it to the 'middle tree' and the stockings. We had to save that until the next morning. It was tough to keep the kids from it until after breakfast/brunch, but we managed. After that, we could all finally sit back and breathe a huge sigh as we took it all in. Another successful Christmas down. So much anticipation leading up to it, and no matter how much you try to make it last or spread it out, it's done, just like that. But it was another merry one.

I hope everyone out there had a Merry Christmas, as well!

Christmas in Indy

Wow... Christmas already! Not that I didn't see it coming, but where did the year go??

We celebrated the Strickland family Christmas today, complete with a yummy ham dinner. As Eric put it, "We're getting good at these", meaning, the more we host, the easier it gets. And I always have fun with the desserts. I tried not to go overboard (I did have the stuff from last night, which I made with the intention of using for both evenings), but there are just some things I can skip out on! (i.e. My $250 Nieman Marcus cookies)

After dinner, we opened gifts. Santa even came to our house this year for the boys. Unfortunately, AJ was trying to get over a sinus infection, so he spent most of the evening on the couch with little energy to spare - he even struggled getting some of the gifts open. Regardless of being off pace, though, he got it done and I think the presents sparked a little energy. Not much though. In the meantime, Nolan go enough construction trucks to start is own construction company - the boy loves his 'diggers'!

After the family left, Eric and I opened out gifts for each other. I always have fun figuring things out for him, even if it is so hard! He got me one of the RCA Dome messenger bags, which I really wanted... okay, so I knew I was getting it. But it doesn't change my appreciation factor.

Tomorrow morning we're off to FL to celebrate Christmas with my family. Yay! I'm anxious for a break from the snow, personally... and a little sunshine, to boot!

Christmas Eve Eve

Ah, the holiday get togethers. You gotta love 'em!!

Eric has been on a roll this year as wanting to play host. For anything and everything. This year he decided we need to have a neighborhood Christmas drink night. Well, more so a 'neighbor' drink night as it was primarily our neighbors in the condo building next door that we invited. It was decided that the best night for this was the night before Christmas Eve. #1 - everyone had off the next day and #2 - no one was doing family stuff that night. So that was the plan.

We decided to keep it low key, as far as food and such. Just some snacky food, though I did delve into a new dessert (Lemon Blackberry Gingerbread Trifle - YUM). Eric insisted on a couple of 'house drinks' and we pulled some recipes from drinks we learned about in FL that may be new up here (Dark and Stormies and Washington Apples). No one had heard about Dark and Stormies, and they were a definite hit. The Washington Apples usually are in shot form (for good reason), but we did full glasses. Plus there was wine and anything else someone might desire.

All in all, it was a great night. Everyone who braved crossing the front yard had a great time and it was a nice way to celebrate with the neighbors you see almost everyday but don't get to really talk to that much.

So to my neighbors that read this, Merry Christmas and thanks for the fun night!

DONE!

I can finally breathe. I'm done!! I'm done shopping. I'm done wrapping. I'm done with Christmas cards. I'm even done with the shipping. So now I can finally site back and enjoy this last week before Christmas. I actually have some time to take it all in.

*sigh*

I love this time of year and so often get so wrapped up in, well, getting things wrapped up, that I miss out on some of the good stuff. Stuff like sitting in the living room, with just the tree lights on, and enjoying a cup of hot chocolate. Taking a walk and looking at Christmas decor, whether in a neighborhood or along a downtown commercial district (well, maybe not this year with all the snow and frigid temperatures). Just the overall spirit of the holiday season...

Now don't ask me what all I have planned for the next week. I just know I'm going to do my best to enjoy every moment and take every opportunity I can to put myself deeper into the Christmas spirit. If that's possible. I think it is, though... in my opinion, you can never spread enough cheer with those around you.

You're a Mean One... Mr. Grinch!

I love Christmas. Love, Love, LOVE Christmas!! That's probably apparent from my blogging done around this time of year.

Unfortunately, some people don't share the same enthusiasm as me for Christmas. So much, in fact, that he tried to destroy my Christmas this year!

I almost wasn't able to stop him! But that's okay... I have enough Christmas cheer for both of us.

Merry Christmas, to all of our friends and family out there!

And the Stockings were Hung by the Chimney with Care...

This year while decorating the house, I had to think long and hard about what went where since I was (1) combining decorations and (2) didn't want to overwhelm Eric with my decorations.

I love Christmas. It's my favorite time of year. I love the decorations, I love how everyone is so merry, I love making other people smile when they open that perfect gift (or at least one they really like). And of course I love spending time with family. Because of my great fondness for this time of year, I go all out on the decorating, inside and out, usually. But Eric isn't into Christmas the way I am. So in the end, I limited my decorating this year and just got enough up to show some festiveness around the house. But next year... next year there will be more. That I can promise.

But for this year, I still have two decorated trees and a the standard stuff you expect at Christmas, like the stockings and greenery wrapped banister on the stairs. When the boys were over on Saturday, they had a blast with all of the interactive ornaments that have music, lights, and motion to them (thanks Hallmark!). Nolan was actually fascinated... he kept asking me to come over and press buttons... but by the end of their visit, he figured it out and started pressing buttons on his own.

I miss my outside lights. For me, that is tradition that dates back to when I was young in Palm Bay and my sister and I would go out and put lights on our roof and palm tree out front. Every year... and I always loved that time. So much, in fact, I carried on, by myself, at my house. All white lights for the most part, with ice cycles on the roof, my porch column wrapped like a candy cane, and the gardens lined with red and green. I'd put white lights on my small tree off the corner of my house, and on the bush at the other corner. And of course, my door had a wreath on it with with lighted greenery around the door itself. So eventually, I'd like to do more outside here... but I need to figure out what all can be done, first... we've got a great front porch to work with, so I guess we'll just have to see what sparks my imagination. I definitely want some lights to some extent...

Less than three weeks till Christmas!

First Snow

Today, we got our first 'real' snow fall. In fact, it's still snowing as I write this... and coming down pretty good, actually.

I say 'real' because it's more than a dusting... and it's sticking. The first glimpse of snow came last Wednesday. But it was truly a dusting. A little more fell on Thursday night, into Friday morning... more than the first day, but again, not enough to stick around. Just enough to screw up any rush hours both time. Not that it impacted me.

It started snowing late last night, with the weather man promising 2-4" when it was all done. It's been coming down all day, a little heavier at times, but usually just enough to be pretty. It's always nice to look at when you don't have to drive in it.

Eric's nephews came over for a bit and we went out back to play in the snow. Nolan, the youngest, still isn't too sure about it, but AJ had a blast. I'm sure Nolan will be into it by the next snowfall.

Let's just hope all the craziness of the first snowfall (like people not remembering how to drive in it) only lasts for the first snowfall and not all winter! I know just the dustings earlier in the week made for a lot of mishaps on the road... you'd think people would remember from year to year and not get all crazy...