Thanksgiving Weekend

We hosted our friends the Basile's for our Thanksgiving feast, as is our tradition!  Eric deep fried a turkey and I roasted a stuffed turkey.  It was a dreary day so we staying indoors visiting and watching football.  

The night before Thanksgiving we went to cheer on the Pacers! 

Sam and Nick made it on the Jumbotron!  

We always love going to the Pacers games together.  It's just a fun crowd and atmosphere to be a part of.

 

Grace!

Our cousin Grace was in Indy for a sled hockey tournament this past weekend.  Eric, Sam and I went to cheer her on!  She is fierce on the ice!  We watched her score a two goals.  Go Thunder! 

 

Happy 18th Birthday to Nick!

Nick is 18.  

Wow!

Those years sure did go by fast!

We celebrated his new status as an adult with a delicious dinner at Rick's Boathouse Cafe, a family favorite spot, and also the place for crab legs, Nick's favorite!  His girlfriend also joined us for the festivities.  

On Sunday we traveled to Chicago to cheer on the Bears!

It was a reasonably warm day and the sun was shining!  We had a great spot for tailgating along Lake Michigan.  

Nick's friend Calvin also came.  The boys tossed around a football and we all ate sandwiches, chips and cookies.

 

We had really great seats to watch our Chicago Bears!

Unfortunately, we watched them loose to the Vikings.  

Year 18 will be a big one for Nick.  He will be graduating from high school in June and moving away from home to attend college in August majoring in business.  He still loves all things soccer, really all sports.  If there's a game on television, he's watching it.   Nick knows the value of money and enjoys earning at his part time job as a bus boy.  He has a solid work ethic as well.  Nick is quite loyal to his friends and his brothers.  He's always willing to help out at home.  He makes Eric and I proud everyday!   

First snow fall

Winter is here!  Ready or not!

The first snowfall is always a pretty and exciting sight.

 

Epcot Food and Wine Festival

Eric and I enjoyed a long weekend in Orlando at Epcot's Food and Wine Festival.  We ate and sipped our way thru Epcot and had a grand time!  

It felt a little weird being in Orlando at Disney without the boys, but we got past that pretty quickly after our first taste of the delicious food!  Maybe we will visit this festival with them when they are older.

We saw Smash Mouth in concert! 

We had 2 days in the parks.  We chose to go to Hollywood Studios for the 2nd day to check out Star Wars Land.  It was all pretty cool, larger than life.  We rode on a few fun, thrilling rides as well!

 

Soccer Banquet

We celebrated the end of Nick's high school soccer era with a banquet.  The senior players all had a chance to speak and thank their coaches, parents and tell some funny stories.

It was bitter sweet.

Ruby was waiting eagerly for us when we got home.