The Holidays in the Good Old USA

After returning from Australia, it was time to visit the US family some more. We headed to Wyoming for another visit with Leslie’s mother and sister for a couple of weeks. Leslie reviewed her mother’s Social Security options while we were there. How in the world does the government expect older citizens go through this whole Medicare parts and figure out what is best for them?

huge veggies Leslie cousin grows

deer in Ally's back yard

Mom, Ally and Lila

we all feast

Ally hosted an early family Thanksgiving dinner which was magnificent! It was great seeing all the family together. It was a wonderful dinner.

David and family

Jessie with two of her kids
Mckay and Davidson

Mckay

On our way down to Tampa to visit with Aron’s family we stopped in Tennessee so Leslie could have the implant put into her mouth.  We got to see Dave and his family neat to stay with ones dentist.  Carl got to experience an old time hardware store and was tasked with removing Leslie’s stitches in 14 days.

Madison at the museum  

We shoot Madison out of a cannon

 It was great seeing Aron, Katie and the kids. We had a great time down south and took the opportunity to spend a couple days visiting my brother Bret and his family as well as cousin Anita and her family. We also spent a day visiting Frantz and Xaiver, two French men we met during our sail with the kids 25 years ago, who we hadn’t seen since our trip.  While with Aron, Carl got to remove the 3 stitches. He is starting to get quite good at it.

Bret's daughter Arcadia

Darryl, Bret and VAl

Xaiver, Leslie and Frantz

Anita, Julie, Jennifer, Yvone,
Paul, and Leslie

The family at the cabin

Cloe and Cole

a float at the parade

For Thanksgiving we got the whole family together at a log cabin in the mountains of northern Georgia. It was cozy and it even dusted snow on Thanksgiving Day.  The local town of Blue Ridge had their annual Christmas parade.  Amazing floats for a small town.

 

Tali and Cloe with St Nick

the guys skating with the girls

For Christmas we were up in St. Louis with Eric, Kelly, and the girls. What a great time! We visited old St Charles where they had a Christmas program with dozens of people playing various Christmas characters. It was also Cloe’s Birthday and we brought the girls to an ice skating rink for their first experience ice skating. They did very well, especially Tali. She was skating on her own after only an hour of help.

Cloe's birthday

We headed down to Tampa for New Years We had a family game night  and watched the ball fall with Aron’s family, Paul and Genny, the in laws.

 

New Year's Dinner

Madison and Cole in their natural
pose

With the start of the new year we headed down south Florida to visit Bret and Val, Carl’s brother and sister in law, and pack up some boat equipment to be shipped to BVI. The packing and paper work took about 2 hours so we visited more family, Anita, Paul and Julie, before heading back to Aron and Katie’s house.

We are all packed up now and will now head back to Frolic to start another year of cruising. Hope this blog finds everyone in good health and we wish all a Happy, Prosperous, and Healthy New Year!