Christmas 2009 in Florida

We had a wonderful week in Florida with H&B. Perfect weather, great company, and plenty of delicious food. Spent a lot of time on the beach walking and reading. Saw 'Avatar' one night ... as Bryan says, "It was good but they ripped off 'Fern Gully'" - a popular kid's movie years ago. True!

As usual we went to The Sailfish Marina for our first breakfast. Here's 'casual Santa' with Bryan, Dad, Carolyn & Don:

And we were back to the Sailfish for a stroll on the piers on Christmas Eve, looking at boats worth more than our house. The palm trees were all lit up - very pretty.

Out to dinner on our last night in this last photo. Don showed up minus some facial hair that he'd had for years and years. Here's Don, Mom, Bryan, Carolyn, Dad and me.

Hope you all had a great holiday with family and friends too.

PSU canning weekend

This weekend 10 wonderful kids stayed with us for their PSU fundraising weekend. Most are from NJ and PA, one is from MD, and one is from Cleveland, Ohio. There were 8 guys from the same Frat as Bryan and 2 girls who are in nursing.

As canning weekends go, apparently it wasn't the most successful in terms of collecting donations. They seemed to be competing with the Salvation Army and the weather. About mid-afternoon on Saturday it started to lightly snow, then just dumped down on us for the next several hours. It was still relatively mild so the snow fell in huge fluffy flakes. Pretty to watch; not so pretty to drive in.

Chilling and napping in the family room after fundraising: Rush, Bryan, Brian, Nick, Andrew, Mike & Kyle.

Breakfast group: Brian, Mike, Julie, Nick, Rush, Nicole.

They're all back to school for the last week of classes, followed by a week of exams. Then, home to their families for the holidays.