December Vacation Melbourne

The next leg of our trip took us to Melbourne, FL to visit Nick's dad.  

We just hung out, went shopping, and let the kids play the first day.

The second day we headed over to Tampa to take the kids to Busch Gardens.  We were able to get into the park for free through the Waves of Honor program.

While we were in Tampa, we headed over to the mall to see the frozen castle and characters.  Come to find out it was a Santa Frozen display.  Since we just saw Santa at Busch Gardens, we bribed the kids to leave, and it worked.

Sterling loved the rides and Xander loved the characters.

On the 19th, this handsome man turned 34!  His dad gifted us a spa package for this day.  This was our first time going to a spa so we had a lot of anxiety built up of what to expect.  In the end, we went with the flow of everything and enjoyed ourselves.  Opa kept the kids all day and spoiled them by taking them to the duck pond, park, a barbecue with his friends, and shopping.

That evening we all headed to Carraba's for dinner.   

Another fun stop along our vacation journey.

December Vacation Savannah

Our next stop on vacation was Savannah.  It was a last minute decision, but so glad we stopped.

We stayed downtown in the historic district because we knew we wanted to walk around the area.  People, this place is beautiful!  We obviously didn't get to do everything we would want because we only had 5 hours the first day and 3 hours the next.  We made due with our time restriction and enjoyed the historic town.  Definitely will make plans to go back and explore more.

Sterling loved the moss trees all over the place!  She'd say, "Mom, moss tree, look!"

We took a trolley ride, like Daniel Tiger :).  Kids loved it! 

December Vacation Charlotte

We pretty much were on vacation the entire month of December.  We hit the road on the 10th and we drove the entire thing.  Just over 5000 miles were spent in the car traveling to the east and south coasts.  We had a lot of fun.

We saw a lot of sleeping kiddos.  The most beautiful sight!


We had an episode of vomit everywhere on the first night.  People, it's not fun having a motion sick child.  Dramamine kids every 7 hours has worked for the rest of the trip.


We made it to North Carolina!

Dec 11th-14th were spent in Charlotte, NC.  We stayed at the Residence Inn next to the stadium.  It was the most uncomfortable hotel bed I've ever been in!  The hotel and staff were nice though.  We had tickets to the Panthers game that Sunday and we're wanting to retire in the area so it was a perfect opportunity to check out the area communities of where we might want to settle down.  We both fell in love with Weddington, NC.  We also took our Saturday and drove up to Winston Salem to visit our friend and her kids.  So much fun.

On Friday we walked over to the Discovery Place.  We got in for free because of our museum pass in NE.  Kids loved discovering everything.  Although I felt a lot of it was over their heads because it was a science center and they are only toddlers.  They still had fun and that's what our outing was for.

On Saturday we headed up to Winston Salem to visit our friends!  It was so nice to catch up and let the kids play. 

On Sunday we had tickets to the Panther's game.

I love this picture of Xander.  He's all about posing with his hand on his hips and his feet crossed in. 

Kids got tattoos on their cheeks.

We sat in the nose bleed section.  

 

Packed house! 

In the end, Panther's took the win! 

Such a fun start to the vacation!

Merry Christmas

From our family to yours, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Five on Friday

Linking up with the lovely ladies for another round of Five on Friday

{ONE}  Do you all read Mix and Match Mama blog?  I've been reading it for the past year after coming across it when searching adoption blogs.  I love reading other peoples adoptions stories.  This week Shay and Andrea from Pinterest Told Me To are hosting Five Days of Fabulous.  I don't typically enter myself in giveaways because what's the luck?  Yesterday was my lucky day!  I won!  Holy Fabulous :)!!  What did I win?  A $250 Kendra Scott gift card for myself and FOUR friends!  Yep, totally fabulous!  It was hard to pick just four friends, but I narrowed it down to who I thought would actually like the jewelry.  It's going to be fun picking out new jewelry to make me fancy :)  Thank you Shay and Andrea for hosting such an amazing giveaway!  If you haven't entered todays giveaway, GO ENTER!!  It's worth the try.

{TWO} We were chosen to be this little man's Godparents.  How exciting to watch him grow through his journey in faith.

{THREE} I had to take a look at the gifts for the "little's".  I'm going to take one of Sterling's away and put away for later.  I know that Xander won't like Sterling opening one more present than him so to save the headache, one present will be saved for her birthday.  This picture don't include their LeapPad Ultra's.  Those will be given this weekend by our elf...or "Santa's helper" according to Xander.

 {FOUR}  I actually didn't plan on bring out the elf this year.  With being busy, I didn't want to fuss with him.  But, my awesome sister convinced me and I'm glad that I did.  Xander loves looking for him every morning and Sterling loves talking to him when she gets home from school.  He showed up 3 days late, but this is our 3rd year of him making this season extra special, so late or not, welcome elf!  (Found the printable on pinterest, of course)

{FIVE}  Beautiful weather.  Oh my, we've had the most beautiful weather this week.  I love when the kids can play outside for longer than 10 minutes.  They love it too.