Christmas Day #3: St. Petersburg

Smile!

What is it... What is it...

I think I know what this is....

I think he took smile to a whole new level..

So this means I have to cook now?

Day Three... the journey continues... Christmas Day. Aside from the sweltering weather that exists only in the confines of my grandmother's house, it was a typical Christmas morning. I woke up relatively early because I never tend to sleep very well in the heat. One of the things that I love about Christmas is the joke telling by my dad. As my mom and I were sitting on the couch, my dad makes the comment, "So I was hoping to wake up to the smell of cinnamon and delicious breakfast and yet there seems to be something lacking in the air." Giggling my mom says, "Mark, are you suggesting that I was going to make you something for breakfast?" Then the classic "I was hoping you were going to make cinnamon rolls" look appears. Classic..

Once everyone was up and around, we opened the first wave of gifts from the Heidt family. I finally got to open the flat gift that Ricky had purchased for me and to my surprise, it was the best gift ever... tickets to go see Robin Williams at the UCF Arena. I was extremely excited, especially since I didn't think we could afford them. It was great! Everyone's gifts were wonderful and if I had to make an assumption I would say that everyone was pleased with the thought put into all of the gifts. I know I did. 

After relaxing for the rest of the morning, my aunt and cousins came over to the house for dinner and then the second wave of presents.. this time from the Greenberg side. My aunt being the creative mind that she is devised an ingenious gift strategy that involved clues to correspond with the letters of our names. I think the most ingenious clue was for Ricky's letter "I".. on the little card she wrote "Fe" the symbol for Iron on the periodic table. His gift was of course the Iron Man DVD. I thought it was great. I actually saved all the cards for Ricky and I so that I can put them in my scrapbook. 

Overall, Christmas day was a great success and I know everyone enjoyed the time that we were able to spend together for the holidays. My mom and I of course went out shopping with my aunt the following day to get all the sales for after Christmas and I know that next year will be even better than this one as long as I have my friends and family around me. I love you all and I enjoyed every second of our 3 days of Christmas! 

Christmas Day #2: Port Orange

Yeah.. so I feel really silly because I didn't take a single picture on Day 2 of our Christmas, but we had an amazing day. 

The day over all didn't start overly well because I had to go into work at 5am. Unfortunately, the manager on duty decided not to come in until 6am, so I was left once again to sit in the parking lot for an hour, which only made me more tired. Once we got into the store we figured we had 2 hours to get everything ready and organized, but at 7am an announcement comes over the intercom saying that the store was open. To my dismay, my groove was instantly thrown off for the rest of the morning. Work in general was same old same old, but unlike other days, I had to spend more time listening to customers tell me how I was ruining their child's Christmas and that they hoped I was happy that their child was going to cry. All I could think was, first of all, I don't know your child and second I didn't promise them diddly squat. What they don't seem to realize is that they are the ones who promised their children something before they had them and on top of that Santa is most likely the one they will be disappointed in (aka Mom and Dad). Even though I know that their complaints are not valid in the slightest, being yelled at multiple times before 9am on Christmas Eve is not exactly what you would call holiday cheer. 

After the disaster at work of being yelled at, I made my way home and we headed out to Port Orange. Aside from the fact that we left one of Kristine's gifts at the house and had to turn around to get it, the trip was fairly smooth. 

When we got to Port Orange, we had a delicious dinner. I love pirogis and of course we had fish (I had chicken), broccoli and cheese, and potatoes. Delicious! For dessert we had cheesecake... and you can't really go wrong with cheesecake. 

After dinner, we exchanged gifts. One of the special gifts we made this year, were photo books for Ricky's mom, Ricky's grandma, my mom, and my aunt. Each one was personalized for the individual who was receiving it. For Ricky's mom, we made a book of photos from the cruise we went on in May of this year. It had the itinerary as well as pictures from throughout our trip. The one for Ricky's grandma contained older images from her younger years. In order to get the photos from her we had to tell a little fib. We said that we wanted to preserve the photos since they were getting older. She was totally surprised. I also had to promise that she would be buried with that book when the time came. I take that as a huge and precious compliment. All of the gifts were wonderful and as a matter of fact, Ricky and I are going to go to IKEA tomorrow to see what we can get for the wonderful gift card we received from his parents. Yay IKEA! I think everyone liked their gifts and there was so much thought and love put into everything that I know we all appreciate everything. 

After presents we all changed and headed to church. Christmas Eve is always a rough service for me because there will always be a song that will cause me to cry. Normally, its the song that occurs when the lights are turned down low and is usually one of the more somber songs (O Holy Night or Silent Night are the biggies). This year it was in fact Silent Night. I made it through the first verse and then couldn't continue from there. I think what did it this year was the fact that there was a gentleman seated a few rows in front of us that had a voice in lower register. My friend Bill who passed away many years ago, sang in the choir and had a very low register voice. Of all the people singing in the church, that one gentleman is the one I heard above the rest. That was it for me. I was done. This time of year, I really miss him and my grandfather and between the two I knew the tears were inevitably. The service was lovely though and Ricky's mom and sister did an excellent job in the choir and playing the bells.  

After the service, we left and headed to St. Pete. Normally, the trip takes about 3 hours, but we made great time and got there in 2 hours and 15 minutes. It was nice to be able to get there quickly so that we could get into bed. After all, it was a long day... and Christmas wasn't over yet.. one day left! 

Christmas Day #1: Orlando

Ricky opening a present on Christmas Eve Eve

Kenneth and Kristine enjoying some Chinese Food

Yay! Horton Hears a Who.. and the stuffed Horton Too!

Someone was excited...

Mmmmm.. Chinese food!

So we decided that one day of Christmas just wasn't enough so we decided to extend it over the course of three days. This meant that Tuesday December 23rd was the first day of our Christmas this year. 

Tuesday, Ricky, myself, Kenneth and Kristine decided to have our version of a Christmas Story Christmas. We went out to Panda Express and got our chinese takeout and sang Fa Ra Ra Ra Ra Ra Ra Ra Ra Ra.. all the way home. Then we exchanged all but one gift each since we didn't want to have to lug all of our gifts from our house, to St. Pete and then right back to our house. The gifts were plenty and quite honestly we had some of the most creative wrapping jobs I have seen in awhile. For example, Kenneth decided he was going to hide one of Kristine's DVDs in a book like they do in the movies (open the book and there is a hole cut out for a gun or something to go in). I don't think he anticipated how hard cutting that hole was going to be, but needless to say, he managed to make it work. The best part was when Kristine opened the book and was trying to figure out how she could act excited over the gardening book she thought she had received. It was classic. The other popular wrapping job this year was the gift within a gift. I think that made more than one appearance. 

Ricky did an excellent job with my gifts this year. One of the gifts I had to open at my parents house, which was the best (will discuss in a future blog). The gift I opened on Tuesday was a small statuette of Mickey Mouse that looks as though it was drenched in paint. Several years ago Disney had local artists and companies sponsor these 5 foot Mickey statues. They decorated them based on their own theme and they were on display in a traveling exhibit for quite awhile. The little statuette I got was a replica of one of those pieces. It was so great. I have it sitting next to my wedding precious moments on our bookshelf. 

Over all, our first day of Christmas was very successful. The creativity never ceases to amaze me and yet the classics never get old. Only 2 days of Christmas left. 

Free at Last.. Free at Last

Congratulations to Kenneth for proving once again that 

U Can Finish at UCF!

The irony of it all is now that my brother has graduated, I am on my way back in..

Apple Addiction

So recently our family has decided to go on an Apple binge. I think it started to occur right after Ricky found out that they were releasing an iPhone with 3G technology. With his upgrade availability approaching, he was counting down the days until he could get his new toy. Shortly after that news, I decided to start saving up to buy my MacBook since I was going to start school in the spring. So I saved my money that I received from pilot testing and managed to earn more than enough money in the process to pick of my computer. YAY!

The day I bring it home, Ricky decided that he wanted to propose the idea at work that he needed a MacBook Pro for his new position. Granted, it is going to help his job tenfold, but my moment in the spotlight was abruptly crushed (On a positive note though.. I actually get to keep mine). Ultimately, Ricky's computer was approved and he just received it a day or so ago. He was very excited.. one might say giddy... yeah I believe that is the correct term. Ricky also was able to get his iPhone on Monday of this past week. We went to Best Buy after he got home from work and got everything (with a few exceptions) that he needed to protect it for as long as possible. I never realized how hard those invisible shields are to put on, but it took like 10+ minutes for the Best Buy associate to get it on. One thing I will say though is that is was incredibly nice of him to do that since we had been reading that people have had problems getting the air bubbles out. Ricky's does not have any. 

So between Ricky's new computer, his iPhone, and my MacBook, the Currey Clan now has assisted Apple's fight for dominance over the world (Steve Jobs would be proud).  

More Pictures from ICE!

ICE! @ Gaylord Palms

Ricky in the walkway of ice.. he thinks it looks like he is being eaten

Nothing like acting like a penguin to brighten your day..

Ricky and I prior to heading into the exhibit in our parkas

Me in the Ice House

Us on Santa's giant lap

Yea... its COLD.. but oh so cool!

This is quite possibly one of the most unique exhibits I have seen in a long time. Aside from the fact that it is only 9 degrees, the sculptures and attractions are quite entertaining. I mean how can you go wrong with slides carved out of giant blocks of ice? 

Apparently, from what Ricky tells me this exhibit is done every year at the Gaylord Palms and yet this is the first year I can remember ever hearing about it. I think it may have been the fact that we actually saw pictures from friends who went prior to today and we decided it was something we had to check out ( copy cats... maybe.. but I am okay with that). 

Poor Ricky was sans gloves, so his poor fingers were frozen. I on the other hand had nice warm gloves and yet my thumbs still froze. Another member of our party that got a little chilly was my poor camera. I only brought my little camera and apparently it felt that 9 degrees wasn't an appropriate temperature. So every few pictures I shut off the camera and held it between my hands to warm it back up. We still managed to get some great photos though. 

The exhibit has everything from a giant Santa that you can sit on, an entire ice house you can walk into, giant ornaments, winter animals of all sorts, a full nativity scene and of course Santa in shorts next to a gator (it doesn't get much more Florida than that).

It was such a "cool" experience.. (pardon the pun) and although we may not go back every year, it is something everyone should experience at least once... especially Floridians.. if you have never felt 9 degrees, there's no time like the present.