Hope everyone out there had a good and safe Christmas this past weekend. This is the second Christmas we’ve had since moving back to Florida and also the second time we didn’t make the drive back to Texas. With all the expenses on fixing the Sequoia this year, we felt it best not to spend additional money driving back to Texas this year. Hopefully, we will be able to make it back next year.

On Christmas Eve, we went to an early church service and then headed home for some dinner. After dinner, the opening of presents began. Our tree was overflowing with all the gifts from both of our families, mostly for the girls. I screwed up and actually bought Jennifer a James Avery necklace charm that I had bought her before. Oh well, I guess I had good taste twice. Izzy’s favorite toy was her Dancing Mickey and all the Littlest Pet Shop toys she got. Abby’s favorite was her iPod Shuffle. She had me putting songs on it right once we were done opening presents. Emily’s favorite present was a ZuZu Pet, but it pales in comparison to the real guinea pigs that she received from Santa. Besides the guinea pigs, now named Oreo and Nibbles, the girls received new bikes and video games for their Wii and DS.

Thanks to everyone who sent gifts and thought of us on this holiday. We are blessed to have such great friends and family. Merry Christmas from the French Family and hope you have a great 2011.

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.

The day started early with a trip over to the beach. The resort doesn’t border the beach, but they have what they call a Beach House. It’s a small property with a smaller pool and access to the beach. We went down early for a tour of the different creatures that inhabit the beach. The girls quickly lost interest and headed down to play in the waves.

After lunch, we headed over the pool area’s community room in order to make “vacation pillows”. The girls picked out two pieces of fabric and then cut some fringe along the sides and tied to together. They stuffed the pillow and closed up the forth side.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the pool. Where Abby had the quote of the day. They were getting ready to start “Pool-Side Karaoke” and she said, “When are they going to start singing so that we can judge them.” I’m already judging them by electing to participate in pool-side karaoke.

The evening was “Kids Night Out”. We took the girls back up to the community room where they had some pizza and then went out to the movies to see Nanny McPhee Returns. While they were out, we went out to eat at a local restaurant, CQ’s. Afterwards, we walked around the harbor before heading back to the resort to pick up the girls.

At the suggestion of Abby’s counselors, we entered her into a county sponsored summer reading program. It was four weeks long and ran Monday through Thursday. Abby passed to the fourth grade by the skin of her teeth and it was our hope that this would help boost her reading skills. My only problem with the program was that I had to get her to a bus by 7:00 in the morning. It was a small price to pay, but this was supposed to be summer. I was wanting my extra 30 minutes of sleep in the morning before going to work. Anyway, it appears that it has helped. We’ve been reading the Magic Tree House series of books and tonight I could tell she was reading a lot better.

Meanwhile, Emily and Izzy have been attending swim lessons for the past three weeks. Izzy has already “graduated” up one class. Although that isn’t saying much, for her age group. I think the different is whether or not they get their head wet. I can tell Emily has gotten a renewed confidence in the water. She used to not go anywhere without hanging onto my back. Now she’ll jump in and swim back to the ledge no problem. She didn’t have near as much confidence at the beginning of the summer when we were hopping down to Disney to go swimming in their pools.