Uncle Kenny (Kevin's brother) and his wife in Florida invited us to Thanksgiving this year, and despite the 12 hour drive we agreed! Kelli (Kevin's sister) and Jess took a 10 hour journey with their 4 kids so we could all meet up and have a great holiday.
Here's 8 of the 11 grandkids on this side:
Matthew holding Lexi, TJay holding Avey, Summer holding Ari, Scott and Hailey
Scott and Matthew (10 months apart)
We ate Thanksgiving dinner over at Kevin's Aunt Shari's house. Here's Summer checking out all the goods
Shari's daughter was so sweet with all of the kids. I don't know any other girl her age who would let 8 little kids into her room. She would entertain them with her recorder, saxophone and guitar
Aunt Shari has pecan trees in her yard, so after dinner the kids each got a bag and they got to go pick pecans out of her yard. They loved it
Kevin and his sister Kelli
It was so crazy to have 8 kids running around for 5 days, but they were having an absolute blast!
Ari and Lexi
Summer and Scott
Matthew and Hailey
Hailey has now decided she wants to get married and she kept asking Matthew if he would marry her and kept telling all the boys they were getting married. I heard her ask Scott "Scott will you marry me?" and he said, "Ew I don't want to marry a princess!"
I don't think Kevin's family ever has a get together that doesn't involve a bonfire!
On Friday we spent the day on all over the Naval Base in Pensacola. The first stop was the air museum
Second stop was Fort Barrancas. This was definitely my favorite. I was just amazed at this place and the kids enjoyed running through all the tunnels (it was like a maze)
The entire fort is made up of rows of all these archways. It was beautiful! I can't imagine how many soldiers could fit all along...crazy!
In each little room there was a keyhole for the soldiers to stick their guns out. This one looked out over Pensacola Beach
We also got to visit Kevin's grandmother's grave site which was neat since I never got the chance to meet her. I didn't get any pictures because it was pouring rain.
Our last stop was an old lighthouse built in the 1800s. I've never been in a lighthouse so it was pretty neat. Scott was about the youngest they let in because they have to be able to climb the stairs themselves. There were 177 cast iron steps. Scott is afraid of heights major (like even the merry go rounds because "the horses go too high and I get scared") so he didn't really know what was going on. About at step 20 he looked down and had an anxiety attack. We set him on the window-well to settle him down and let him look out at the ocean. We told him that he could see the ocean from the top and he said, "The whole ocean?" and from then on he was excited. We were so proud of him!
One of the views from the top
We had a great time! I'm upset we didn't get more pictures of the adults, but we were too busy taking care of the kids I guess!
