Happy Thanksgiving

We did something unique this Thanksgiving. A few weeks ago we received an e-mail from Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse inviting us to Thanksgiving. They had a special 3-course meal and special pricing for kids. So, we decided instead of cooking Thanksgiving dinner ourselves, we would let them do the cooking for us. If we did it ourselves, we figured by the time we bought the bird and the sides, it wouldn’t be that much more expensive (we were wrong by the way).

Jennifer got everyone dressed up for dinner (including myself) and we took some pictures before heading over to the steak house. We arrived at Ruth’s Chris to find no parking spaces available that weren’t valet, so I reluctantly did valet parking. I hate valet parking, mainly because I hate tipping someone to just park my car.

This is the fanciest dinner we’ve ever taken the girls to, so there was a lot of “training” going on. The hardest part was keeping their napkins in their laps and not on the floor. It was also hard to keep their attention between courses, so thank goodness for Fruit Ninja on the iPhone.

I got steak and Jennifer and the girls got turkey. The food was good, but not up to Ruth’s Chris’s normal quality level. The steak was a little over done and Jennifer said her turkey wasn’t hot. Still, all-in-all, it was a good meal that we were all thankful for.

We were sad that we couldn’t make it back to Texas, but we are all thankful for our family and each other this holiday. We are thankful for the smooth transition moving back to Florida (we’ve now been back longer than we were away). Hope everyone out there had a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving, hopefully with the people you love.

Abby’s 10th Birthday

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It’s hard to believe it has been ten years since Abby was born, but there’s proof on this very web site. Abby has now officially moved into the “tween” years, so she couldn’t just have a regular birthday party. She had a slumber party, inviting four of her friends from school over to watch Avatar and stay the night. I got pizza on my way home from work and Jennifer picked up a cake from a local baker. When the movie was over, the girls went upstairs to the game room. There was a lot of giggling coming from up there and Jennifer said she heard whispers of them asking each other which boy they liked at school. Is it time to get that shotgun from Jennifer’s dad? At around midnight, we gave up and went to bed. Not sure how late they stayed up…

Happy Halloween 2010

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Happy Halloween. As you can see from the picture to the right, the costumes were pretty interesting this year. Izzy was a frog, but not really any frog. She was a Littlest Pet Shop Frog (Hasbro good job marketing to a five-year-old). She loves these little toy creatures and is always playing with them upstairs. This weekend I caught her digging into some candy corn early in the morning and when I went to tell her that candy corn wasn’t for breakfast, she stated that she wasn’t eating the candy corn. It was for the “Little Pet Shops”. “They are Trick-or-Treating,” said stated.

It was little surprise that Emily chose an animal of some sort. This year a cat. She was wearing the cat ears for weeks ahead of Halloween. She’s probably counting the days until it’s socially acceptable to wear her reindeer antlers again. Not that any time is a socially acceptable time to wear reindeer antlers.

Finally, there’s Abby’s costume. Some sort of female prisoner called “Miss Behavin'”? The only thing I can think of is that she’s starting to enter her “tweens” a few weeks early (she turns 10 on the 19th). I don’t really understand that choice. Maybe I’m not supposed to.

Anyway, it was the standard fare. We have about 40 houses in our gated community and we just swung around the block hitting any of the houses with their lights on. Three very full plastic pumpkins made their way home and Jennifer is making me take some of the candy up to work so that it isn’t in the house tempting her and the girls.