Noah & Luke's Ordination & Birthday

Luke and Noah's birthday was on Sunday this year! We had interviews done earlier so they could both be ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood on the 30th while Papa and Grandma were still here. Emilee and boys came down too. It really was a great day. The Spirit was strong as Jason ordained the boys and gave each of them a special blessing. I am amazed at how much they have grown - especially spiritually - in the past few months.

 

Grandma and Grandpa Smith were able to participate from Russia! Emilee facetimed them on her phone, with our bishop's permission. It was so great that they could be there! It was in the early morning in Russia. I got this picture from Emilee - it's not great, but it's the only one we have :)

After church and dinner we had a birthday party! I made Luke's cake this year - chocolate raspberry, and Dessa made her famous lemon cake for Noah's. It was so fun to be able to share all of these good times with family. We are usually celebrate by ourselves. Grandma Smith prepared before she left on her mission and had sent blankets she made for Luke and Noah's 12th birthday.

I had to include all of us squeezed in around the table! We had 11 people! and the delicious ham that mom and dad sent for our Christmas gift.

Christmas 2018

Christmas Eve

Luke and I started a new Hardy tradition. We all watch The Great British Baking Show and decided we would adopt the English yule log cake. It was fun and tasted good - it was too rich. Next year we will improve it! Sophie and her beloved pig. She found this at an antique store and had to have it. Every holiday she makes a new bow for the mama and the baby. Cracks me up!!!!

Christmas morning the kids all wanted to do sibling gifts first. I was happily surprised! They were all sooo excited about what they got their sib. It was nice and set a great tone for the morning.

We tried to go on a goat walk - but they were too hungry and wouldn't follow us. So it was a family walk in the woods.

We had a yummy ham dinner. It was so fun to have Craig and Dessa here to celebrate with us!

Happy Thanksgiving!

 
We had such a nice Thanksgiving today. Weird faces and all! The Pikes went to Utah and celebrated with Ben's family. It may be the last time with his Grandpa and all his cousins and family were together. We missed them today but we had a great day just us Hardys. Jason did another amazing turkey - I did pretty much everything else. -Kids helped of course. I made the best rolls yet - they were seriously delicious. Our family has had lots of fun playing Scrabble lately. Sophie had the best play you can make - she was first, used all of her tiles and got a double word score with the word digital. So she started the game with like 65 points or something! It is fun that all the kids are old enough to play seriously. We watched silly movies and sung Christmas carols. It was one of those days at a family where everything works - or mostly works- everyone is happy and we enjoy one another. They are so far apart. I am just going to enjoy this one as much as I can. Thanksgiving is Jason's favorite holiday - it is so nice to focus on gratitude and our blessings. I felt very blessed today.

 Noah and Luke had their first concert this week! I did not take a picture of Luke - such a bummer. I have a video of his solo though. Super proud of both these boys!!!

Ollie had to go the the vet this week - needed to be fixed. We learned that male goats smell REALLY bad when they are not fixed. If we are lucky maybe Tillie is pregnant already :) 

Swimming with Manatees!!!!

 Our last day of vacation we drove over to Crystal River. It is on the gulf side of LF, to snorkle with manatees. They come into the river and the hot springs during the winter.  It was cold! We left at 6:30 am - best time to interact with manatees is in the early morning when they are active and feeding. Wet suits helped and the boat had a portable heater and hot chocolate. We had the boat, captain and guide all to ourselves. It was a semi private tour but because there are 6 of us we took all the seats!

 This is Sophie with the first manatee we saw. She was sleeping - her calf was by her a few yards away. We were all amazed at how big the manatees were - we just watched as they slept and came up for air to the surface. Was cool to see them but not nearly as amazing as our next stop. It also was weird, we were just right off of people's private yards and docks in super shallow water.

We moved closer to a nationally protected area for manatees to winter in. Again, in a small cove of private docks we found a whole group of manatees. There were 2 sets of moms and calves. We watched the one calf nurse- it was amazing!The manatees were so mellow and gentle. WE could watch but not touch them until this guy came up to our guide and wanted to interact. We all got to touch him, scratch him a bit and pet him. It was a better time  then I even dreamed we would have!

This is Sophie again - our guide knew she was the manta phile of our group and took lots of pics of her and the manatees. Luke and Jason did not get in this time - it was really cold and Luke has lots less insulation then the rest of us.


The last place we went was a protected spring. We had to snorkle in - the boat can't go in here. It was so beautiful! I love this shot our guide got on the surface. Again there was a mother and her calf - a lot older calf - eating. We got to hang out and watch them as long as we wanted. It was a super fun ending to a great vacation!

Nasa

Friday morning we drove to the Kennedy Space Center before heading west to Crystal River. We did not have as long as we would have liked, but the things we saw were really great. We had a good tour bus driver that taught us a lot about the space program and it's history.

This is one of the Apollo rockets that did not get launched. So huge!

Girls Night - Halloween Horrors at Universal

 The girls and I had so much stinking fun at Universal's Halloween celebration! The Stranger Things haunted house was amazing - and not very scary. It was a good first haunted house for the girls We laughed and laughed all night long. A crazy clown lady with a chainsaw kept chasing after us...she scared us a bunch of times. I'm sure it was hilarious to people watching. We also went to Diagon Alley again - everything looks different at night.

 I'm not sure why getting this ice cream was important to Sophie - I'll have to ask and then add it. So we may have eaten ice cream for dinner so we could spend all our time riding rides and trying to avoid scary employees chasing us.

Family Florida Vacation - October 2018

 Here is our family selfie in front of the iconic Universal Studios Globe...I guess when there are 6 of you it is hard to see the globe. Or when you are a selfie challenged mom...

 The first Harry Potter thing we saw was the Night Bus - it was all so fun and well done! You could go up to the window and interact with the talking head - we just wanted a picture.

Also outside of Kings Cross Station - phone booth to the Ministry of Magic



Diagon Alley - all of the shops were there, tons of things to see. The dragon on top of Gringots breathes fire every few minutes. We all decided Butterbeer was ok - way too sweet to have more then once, and I am glad we decided to share!

 Honeydukes Candy Shop - we wanted to buy the whole store!

The Gringot Vault ride - sooooo fun! A mix of roller coaster and 3D movie. 

 The next day we took the Hogswart Express to Hogsmead and Hogswart. Again - super fun and better then we thought it would be.

and old mom had back issues....luckily we could rent a wheel chair. I got pushed around all day and it wasn't a total bummer. 

Hogwarts!

 Hogsmeade was done in the winter, at Christmas

I can't remember which ride this was, but we were having fun

 Grace and I were the only ones that wanted to do the Mummy ride. It wasn't as scary as it appears by our reaction :) The Halloween celebration was Stranger Things themed. Inside the main store they had actual video games from the 80's that they play in the show. Jason spent some time teaching the kids how to do low tech video games. It was fun!