Pokagan with the Bowyers/Smiths

In lieu of a traditional Christmas this year, Josh's parents got us all a big house to stay at near Pokagan State Park for the weekend before Christmas. It was so much fun! And we all got to be together instead of having to go our separate ways each night. Bonus, it had a huge barn area with a hot tub, ping pong table, and pool table. Kids absolutely loved that!

Jenga was a hit for sure. 

On Saturday morning we woke up to open presents. Everybody had another person to buy stocking stuff for, we opened presents forever!

Then we hit the outlets, which were kinda sad but we still managed to buy a few things. After we got back we had lunch and then got around to playing the minute to win it games that Divana and I brought. They were pretty hilarious!

The elephant march one was by far the best. Here's Brooklyn doing her best to knock over solo cups with tennis balls in the ends of panty hose attached to her head. Hilarious. 

Sophie and Dave helped get dinner ready. We had brisket that Josh cooked beforehand and then a bunch of meats and cheeses.

Sunday morning we went to the state park to do the toboggan run. Whew that was a lot of work but worth it! And I didn't even carry the toboggans most of the time!

After about an hour of tobogganing we went to a buffalo preserve nearby. It was out way in the open so it was basically freezing the whole time. Very interesting but would have loved it to be a couple degrees warmer!

Came back to the house for a soup lunch before getting our things around and heading home! Such a fun weekend-the kids really loved getting so much quality time with their cousins too.

Last thing-Brit sent this huge bag of cheese home for Dave. And we are still using it today, ha!

 

Dave's 12th Birthday and Thanksgiving

We have a 12 year old! Can't believe it's even possible. For his birthday this year he wanted to do something with his friends (that wasn't a sleepover, I vetoed that one!) so we took them to Floyd's Arcade near Roanoke.  It was kind of a random spot but the kids loved it!

After gaming for a couple of hours we came back to our house to swim and then have pizza and cake. 

This year Dave asked for a Texas Sheet Cake (forgot to get a picture of course).  We didn't really celebrate Thanksgiving on the actual day this year since we were hosting Josh's family on Friday. On Friday morning (Dave's actual birthday) I took him and Ike to 50 East for a birthday breakfast.

Dave has been a joy this year! We are starting to get to the disagreements that come along with having a teenager, but he generally handles himself very well and is such a funny, smart, kind kid. He's doing great in school and has dealt with being involved in two extracurriculars (robotics and basketball) very well. His favorite book of the year is one of the Percy Jackson books and his favorite movie was Spiderman: No Way Home. Favorite musician/band would go to Glass Animals or 21 Pilots (both of which we are seeing in concert this year!). He wants to work for NASA when he grows up, particularly in the area of engineering, not to be an astronaut. 

Lots of fun was had Friday when everyone came over for Thanksgiving! Dave started the party by being at basketball but joined in about an hour later.

Once hosting was done it was time for the Christmas decorations to go up! Everyone helped out this year which was really fun!

I love my gnomes, they are so dang cute!

Picture from Thanksgiving of the whole Bowyer/Smith clan.

For my last hosting event of the year we had my friend Theresa and family over to celebrate her birthday. Her one request was a charcuterie board-it was super fun making this!

 

Halloween and the Beginning of November

We had a low-key Halloween this year. And by that I mean I bought the kids each a bag of candy and called it done. But they did dress up 

Josh made his own hot sauce from the peppers we grew this summer!

Ike's buddy Jacob came over to hang out and have dinner with us while Dave was at a friend's house. 

Gamma came to visit! She came specifically to watch Ike's Veteran's Day program but stayed several days with us to hang out.

While she was here we finally ate at Grains and Grill in Fairmount. So good!

I waited until mid-November to turn on my lights. It was so hard to wait this long!

Kids got their robotics hoodies in, they were super excited!

Speaking of robotics, here are some pictures from their recent competitions. They had one in November and one in December so far.  Dave is a builder again this year and Ike is doing coding. They both have really enjoyed it and have grown a lot this year!

 

Fall Break 2021: Rest of Dauphin Island

The rest of the week was spent relaxing on the island. Mom came over on Tuesday afternoon, bearing more groceries since we didn't have a grocery store on the island! Did I mention the 3 mile bridge we had to cross to get there??

Beach bums. Here's a video of some of the antics on the beach. The kids absolutely loved the way the sand squeaked so that's part of this one!

Ike was so pumped to finish the book he was reading! 

I took far too many sunrise/sunset pictures. Just scroll on past if you're not interested :)

Dauphin is self-appointed the Sunset Capital of Alabama and I believe it!

One morning I walked all the way out to Pelican Point (took me about an hour to get there) and holy cow so many birds were there! Here's a quick video of the kids boogey boarding followed by birds flying away from the point!

On Thursday we had some chance of rain in the morning so we went to the local estuarium.

The kids (and us!) loved the sting ray area. We were pretty much on our own throughout the entire aquarium so we hung out here for a while. 

After the estuarium we went over to Fort Gaines. This fort was super well laid out and had all kinds of information, highly recommend! However the storm had blown over and it felt like it was a million degrees out so we were sweltering!

Dave was our tour guide. 

Came back for a dip in the pool to cool off!

Mom and I went down to watch the sun set on the west end of the island that night. It took some maneuvering because there was still a lot of clean up from hurricanes earlier in the season but we made it!

Friday was mom's last day with us so we did a little shopping, walked on the beach some and hung by the pool. 

We were supposed to head home on Saturday but decided to stay one more night because why not?

Saturday we did absolutely nothing and Ike spent the day trying to catch crabs. He was very successful!

The boys took one last evening dip in the pool. That was probably Ike's favorite part of vacation. He loves swimming at night!

Last sunset!

We had such a fantastic time on the island. Not as much to do as our normal fall break beach destiny (Folly Beach), but it was a great change of pace for us! We will definitely be back!