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.