Merry Christmas 🎄

What an amazing holiday weekend!  We were blessed with the kids all being home, COVID free and amazing food and friends. Not mention, LOTS of football and Christmas movies.

A few highlights.... 

Movies - Die Hard, Elf, Four Christmas's, Home Alone 2, Grinch ...

Food - Smoked Seafood Chowder, Appies, 7 layer salad, prime rib, Bill's famous pasta sauce with sausage, 3 HUGE loaves of challah bread, banana bread, coffee cake, home made cookies

Football - Packers win, Vikings do not

Kids - Jimmy played in all the Christmas Eve services, Kay hung out and watched movies with us, Billy started a job at Tracy's work in the Rec department and also helping with maintenance

The kids got everything they ever wanted thanks to the generosity of Grandma and Grandpa. In fact, Kay was SO in love with her new Nike Air high tops that it almost brought Tracy to tears.  She was so grateful and kept saying "Mom, these are amazing!!!"  Tom gave Tracy a TON of winter gear that all led up to a dog sled/yurt weekend in late January. I can not wait!!  Tracy gave Tom all RV related items with a heavy emphasis on cassette tapes - Journey, Springsteen, Lyle, Jimmy Buffet, Mary C - we cant wait to put on the road trip sound track for our next camping trip.

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend, stays healthy, took care of yourselves, got sleep and know you are loved.

T.T.J.K.B.

Watching the Packers win and Rogers make history!

Grandma and Grandpa were able to spend the holidays with Julie and the boys in Costa Rica, VERY jealous and love that Maria and Ced are such a lovely couple

Smoked seafood for chowder. BEYOND delicious

Stocking!!

 Lots of treats, Kuks, caramels, gum...all the kids favorites

Our friend Jonathan always has the best decorations

Tom won the ugly sweater contest 

Tom got coffee and chocolate peanut butter cookies

"Someone" got at the treats left for Santa and was caught trying to hide it in his dog bed

Homemade pumpkin bread and Coffee cake gifts from Jim and Jen and Bill. SO delicious and what a treat!

Everything is better with bacon (chicken and pheasant) 

Heavy appetizers for Christmas Eve, Tracy's favorite meal

Vikings/Rams game, they played like crap but it was fun that they were able to go to the game together

Our annual family selfie 

Love our tree

Billy ballo turns 17 ...

Billy, what is there to say about Billy?  He completed our family in a way we never expected and never knew we truly needed.

He's the intro to our extroverts.

The zen to our madness.

The calm to our storm.

The deep to our silly.

The steady pace to our erratic-ness

The yin to our yang.

The peace to our frantic.

He's an old soul that loves deeply, notices everything, asks big questions and goes with the flow. 

He's smart, funny, insightful, logical, detailed, observant, thoughtful a romantic and a man of few words. 

We are so blessed by him and send all our love peace kindness support and healing to everyone that brought him into the world. His birth family, especially his birth mother, his foster family, social workers, teachers, coaches, friends, relatives .... He's truly something special.

We love you Billy Ba-Loo!!

xoxoxo

Mom and Dad

We always wait to decorate until post Billys birthday dinner but the Grinch always holds a special spot on the tree

Full family event this year, missing Jimmy 

Presents! 

Thanksgiving and other gratitude including 18 years of Kay in our family!

 

Ok, somehow we go this written but forgot to post. (note: photos are in NO particular order, which is also maddening.)

Jimmy blessed us with this presence for 6 days and it was lovely. He took a true break and just hung out, saw his friend and watched football. A few workouts and good food but no homework. I have no idea what this means when he gets back to school as I'm sure he has papers due but...to each his own. Good life lessons.

Aunt Sue visited for 5 days as well and it our family dinners were so fun! Turkey with all the fixings, fondue to celebrate Kay's gotcha day, spaghetti and meatballs (Sue's favorite) not to mention A Christmas Story, in the movie theater, with Jim and Jen. BUT...the best part of the whole week was listening to the kids tell stories and relive their youth over dinner. We were all in tears laughing so hard and it was a true blessing.

We celebrated Kay's arrival day with her favorite, fondue and stories.  I know we say it all the time but...she's such a complex human. Funny, fierce, creative, kind, generous, courageous, insightful and at the same time, endlessly maddening, impulsive, unorganized, messy and stubborn.  We love each and every cell of her being even if sometimes we want to simultaneously hug her and strangle her. 

Billy had a rare "down" week with very little homework or taekwondo. I think he was just happy to lay in bed with Maui and play video games.  He did have his winter orchestra concert and its amazing to hear how well the kids play, especially when you "remember" the grade school concerts.

Tom cooked up a storm and won the Movember contest at work.  Someone said he looked like Captian Kangaroo so he promptly shaved once he won.  He also had a chance to go pheasant hunting with Wade and get caught up, lots of good winter recipes in the works!

Tracy had to fill in shifts at work but..given 26 years of compulsory Black Friday Target "work", its really isnt any different than past years.  She also got her COVID booster.

We got Jimmy and Sue off to the airport and then, a mere, 5 days later, made the trip to Mecca (I mean Green Bay).

Tracy had tickets to see her crush (Manitowoc Minute guy Charlie Berens) and we stayed with Sue. We decided to do a full Wisconsin immersion experience - fish fry, old fashions, Lambeau and Al's for breakfast. It was truly the perfect date night (not including the 4 hour drive there and back). We also discovered that gas stations in Wisconsin are full of unexpected treats - salami dipped in cheese, cheese curds and...a candy cane full of single shot multiple flavored liquors. Yum.

Kay took advantage of us being gone by inviting friends over, drinking all our beer, leaving a mess and leaving the front door open so that Maui was discovered by a neighbor at 7am the next day wandering happily in our front yard, front door wide open. Needless to say, there are mitigation efforts being put  in place the next time we go out of town and she's home alone.

All in all, a typical fun, crazy, insane, relaxed, busy and full couple of weeks.

Grateful for our lives and each other.

(In other random news, Solomon, Julies son and our nephew, was "discovered" and is now a model, he walked the Louis Vitton show in Miami. And, Cedric, other Julie son, took 5th in an international surf competition and won money!! Beyond crazy!!) 

Mecca

Do you see the resemblance?

Fish fry!

After party 

Tom's newest project 

The booster was way easier than the 1st 2 doses

Watch out for deer

Tom didn't even bother getting Tracy a glass

There you go!

Another shot of Mecca

Winter orchestra concert 

Thanksgiving!!

Tracy's favorite breakfast/lunch place in GB

Looking good

Final results

More pheasants 

YUM>>>>>

Jimmy's school photo this year

Thanksgiving furlough!

FONDUE for TWO!