Seafood Festival

Saturday, we spent a couple hours at the seafood festival in Port Salerno (just a few minutes up the road from Hobe Sound). The festival was held by some restaurants right near the water. We had never been before but it was free and we knew that there was going to be a "kids area" with some bounce houses "and stuff". We didn't realize what the "and stuff" included. One of the churches in the area that Kevin and Rod do insurance for was sponsoring the kid's area as an outreach. Everything that was in the area was free for kids to do. There were pony rides, sand piles and water tables to play in, 3 bounce houses, a rock wall/slide/tunnel bounce house, a bounce house where they were playing dodge ball, sand art, face painting, and an area to paint on big pieces of plywood they had set up. Kaelyn had the time of her life! She was so thrilled to get to ride a pony and she looked as cute as can be. She LOVED the rock climbing/slide bounce house as well as the regular bounce houses. She used to sit down in the bounce houses and just let everyone around her jump but she has figured out how to bounce now and she did NOT want to get out. She wasn't crazy about the sand pile but then we saw the water tables and she LOVED that! She also painted for a little bit. We walked around and looked at the booths for just a little bit and then we got sno cones (our one expense and little splurge for the afternoon). We really enjoyed just getting to walk around and hang out together and it was really cool that Kaelyn got to do so many fun things.
(Forgive my slideshow music but I just LOVE Broadway music and actually, you're likely to hear a lot more of it) :)

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Montgomery family Christmas

Here is the last slideshow of Christmas pictures. I've had the pictures chosen and sitting in a folder but I just got around to getting them into a slideshow. We had a great time in Massena as usual but it was way too short as usual. The pictures include our Pizza Hut outing, snapshots, opening presents, and playing in the snow. My parents treated ALL OF US to Pizza Hut and my Aunt Rhonda and Uncle Bill sent a gift card to help with it also. We always have such a fun time doing that. To clarify a few things from the slideshow: Leah was NOT really saying what I put in the caption under a picture of her and Net talking - I just made it up to go along with her expression :); my parents did NOT make ANY of us drink water at Pizza Hut (another caption I put) and actually they generously paid for all our individual orders and salads besides appetizers and pizza; I harrassed the "procrastinators" who were wrapping gifts right before we opened them but I was sitting there with them putting bows and nametags on my presents; and... making this slideshow really made me miss all my family!!!
And before the slideshow, this picture is just for Aunt Rhonda. We were discussing that we needed to make sure we got pictures at Pizza Hut and then posted them so that Aunt Rhonda could see them since she helped pay for it. I had been going around getting lots of pictures and since I wasn't in any of them, Kevin took a special one just of me so that Aunt Rhonda could see "me at Pizza Hut too" and believe me, it is special. I look very... special in a special needs sort of way.

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Mosenthin family Christmas 2009

Our Christmas with Kevin's family this year was quite different than normal. Because Kevin's dad was in the hospital waiting for heart bypass surgery due to a heart attack two days before Christmas, we arranged the Christmas activities around that. We took presents and even a delicious turkey dinner to the hospital one evening. It actually was cool because the floor that his dad was on had a very nice lounge area that was not like a normal waiting room area at all. There was a full size Christmas tree in the carpeted lounge along with soft chairs and plenty of space. Of course Kevin just HAD to take a picture when the nurse came in during the middle of the festivities to check his dad's vitals. :) Though it was not exactly a "traditional" Christmas so to speak, Kevin and I both felt that it was enough of a blessing just to still have his dad with us all for Christmas that the change of setting seemed unimportant. All in all, [we thought] it all worked out just fine given the circumstances. While we were in the area, we visited some spots that are special to us. The hospital was just a few blocks away from the motel I and my bridesmaids stayed in the night before my wedding. We stopped by and wandered around for a bit and got a couple pictures out front. We also went to the Desmond, a GORGEOUS motel in Albany, where Kevin and I stayed on our wedding night and then we spent our first two Christmases there. We would spend Christmas eve there and have our own Christmas Christmas morning before going to relatives. The interior is designed beautifully including a fireplace, a gazebo, and a colonial village look in the center. Kaelyn was just a baby the last time we were there so it was fun to go back and walk around. The last picture you'll see is the ski slopes on Whiteface Mountain, the largest mountain in the Adirondacks. Whiteface has the highest vertical drop for a ski slope in the eastern United States. I have never been there before and it is not very far out of the way when driving from Kevin's parents up to my parents. It looked REALLY cold and REALLY high and though we'd like to go to the top someday if we are ever there in the non-winter, I have NO desire to ski down the mountain! We really enjoyed the first "leg" of our trip. The last part of my "Christmas slideshows blogging" is the Montgomery family Christmas and I hope to have that done and posted sometime soon. Ps - You may want to flip manually through the slideshow as there are several pictures per page.

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Our Christmas and our trip to "New Ork" as K called it

This slideshow is a few pictures of our own Christmas and then pictures of our flight to New York. We opened most of our presents on Christmas eve because we had to leave mid-morning Christmas day for our flight out of Orlando. We saved a couple presents for Kaelyn to open Christmas morning. She was soooo excited when the time finally came to open presents! Our flight ended up being seriously delayed from Orlando because of bad weather in Philadelphia so we just hung out by the gate rather than sitting on the plane and waiting. Kaelyn was thrilled to be flying. She entertained herself very well and as usual was a great traveler. We were delayed again leaving Philly to fly into Syracuse so we actually ended up getting in several hours later than planned. Because the off-site rental car places are closed on Christmas, we had used points(still left over from Kevin's traveling days)for a motel for that night anyway(Christmas night)so we only had to catch a shuttle and go 5 minutes from the airport. There is a funny picture of Kaelyn up under the curtain at the motel that night looking out the window at the little bit of snow on the ground. You have to remember, she's a Florida girl so it was very exciting to her to see snow. When we were loading the car the next morning, she got to "play" in the snow for a couple minutes much to her delight. Hopefully, by the time the weekend is over, I will have 2 more slideshows from Kevin's family Christmas and my family Christmas.

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(Pre) Christmas activites

I'm so excited! I have been very intentionally waiting to post Christmas pictures because I have been waiting on my smilebox software to arrive. I got an Amazon gift certificate for Christmas and since Amazon had the smilebox software on sale right after Christmas, I was able to order it for myself. I just got it in the mail yesterday so I'm hoping to get several slideshows put together here and post them in the next few days.
This first slideshow is of several different things we like to do during the Christmas season. There are a couple pictures of the Hobe Sound Christmas parade. I only got a couple because it was pouring and I didn't want to ruin the camera. The one you will see of Kevin walking in the pouring rain was taken by John from the front door of the office. It had finally started raining and blowing hard enough that even under the "tent" set up in front of the office it wasn't very dry. You can see Kay and I huddled under the umbrella right near where Kevin is walking by. There are a few pictures of Christmas decorations around our house and there are pictures from our Christmas trip to the Garden's Mall - lots of expensive stores in that mall so we mostly go to see the Christmas decorations and just walk around. Kaelyn loves to ride the glass "alligator" (elevator) and look at all the lighted fountains. We also went into Pottery Barn for kids. Everything costs WAY more than we would ever spend but they have so many cool toy sets and "models" of bedrooms and Kaelyn loves looking and playing with the toys. Pardon the Christmas music if you are all "Christmased out" but it didn't seem right not to do Christmasy slideshows for Christmas pictures. So... here is the beginning of our Christmas season.

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