Merry Christmas!!
A skinny dip on Christmas Eve, because we can! (that is a tradition I could get used to)

 And a quick trip to the beach on a beautiful Christmas Day to make a sandy snow man...












Merry Christmas, y'all.
We'll be back in 2014!
xoxo

 I almost stepped on this guy on one of my walks last week.  We're not in New England anymore..

I knit a sweater! Who knew? It's full of imperfections, but completely functional.  Score one for old dogs learning new tricks.

 Gus and the other youngins' at The Pine School put on a great show for us before the holiday break.  Look at that adventurous little pilgrim.  
And then we had a delicious "Feastival" cooked by Joel, which he renamed Feastivus.  






Insert Gus's birthday party - and then off onto....
Vacation!
We went to Long Key for our Thanksgiving break, and had a blast. Hopefully Yaya and Poppy left with more photos than we did - as our are mostly of sea creatures!
 

  Joel caught this guy on camera off of the dock at our resort.  Meanwhile, Gus is yelling "Mama! Ruby! Shark! Come see the shark!" I'm not sure the tourists in the water between us were thrilled. 

 Ruby got to PET A DOLPHIN!! Toby and Sherman put on a very impressive show for us - this obviously being the highlight:

  









And then we moved on to the Sea Lions.
This is Wilbur: 

Don't be frightened. He was singing to us.



Another impressive trick:

 Our favorite trick of Wilbur's was when we would smile for his trainer.  "Say cheese!" It was a pretty ferocious smile, and I didn't manage to get it on camera.  Luckily, Ruby and Gus do a spot on impression:

This was where we had our favorite dinner - outside on a stormy night.

SURPRISE!!
We had a great party for our sweet little five year old.  He was very surprised and so excited.  I didn't take one photo the whole time, so thank goodness Britt brought her camera.  This post will be mostly pictures from here:

 

A moment for this cake...

Straight from the brain of Gus:
Dolce de Leche and vanilla ice creams, chocolate crumbles, brownie chunks on top with a caramel drizzle that was supposed to spell his name, but I goofed so it just turned into a complete drizzle.  This kid can design my birthday cake anyday!

And no party is complete without a serenade from the birthday boy on his new ukelele!
xoxo We love you so much, buddy.  You get more fun with every year!