Bon Voyage Grandpa!

After several (at least 3) years of talking about wintering in Florida, Grandpa is finally heading south for the winter to join Uncle John, Aunt Anne, Aunt Nina and her husband Dick. His plan is to be gone for 6 months, so we had an early Thanksgiving and mini-Christmas in St. Helen on Sunday. We missed Josh, Paige, Taylor and Phil. However, that meant Aunt Jennifer got all the hugs! After a great Thanksgiving dinner, Grandpa wanted to jump right into Christmas! He was worse than the kids!
Zachary got a really cool front loader truck... And Emily got a talking Dora van...
And good thing that Emily and Zachary are good share-ers because Zachary loved to play w/ Emily's toy... (he about played himself to sleep right on the floor!)
And Emily loved to play w/ Zachary's toy...Rick and I loved our present from Grandpa too. It's one of those easy-up tent awning covering things... if you were at the rainy/yucky/cold/rainy/sleety/snowy/yucky football game on Saturday, you know what I'm talking about. Seems everyone had them except us. I'm so excited to try it out!! Well, not for a repeat of the weather, but it'll be nice to place the table under it so at least the food doesn't get wet!

After presents, it was time for dessert. Emily had gotten Halloween fruit snacks from Aunt Jennifer (fruit snacks are her FAVORITE!) She continued to ask to eat her fruit snacks, so she was given the choice between the fruit snacks and the blackberry cake that Grandpa made. She chose fruit snacks... even though she was warned that this was her only choice, and she wouldn't get cake after eating her fruit snacks. SO, she ate the fruit snacks while Grandpa cut the cake and doled out the whip cream. She was done w/ her treat when we started ours... and she just sat there wide eyed at us eating the cake. Then she says "I won't choose the fruit snacks next time." Funny. And then, being at Grandpa's house, rules don't count and he proceeded to give her a piece of cake.

Here Zachary was getting used to our new house-mate... (Bucky, not Aunt Jennifer)Grandpa taught us all something new... he cut out all the pictures of Dora from the van's box for Emily to play with. She thought that was the greatest thing!And then one more picture before we got ready to go... (the "badge" on Emily's shirt... that's a Dora cut-out that Grandpa did. She wore it taped to her shirt... and even tried to wear it to school the next day!)Bucky is coming to stay w/ us for the winter... so he gave his kisses to Grandpa...And then was welcomed home by Bailey and Molly...