This year we did things a little bit differently for our Thanksgiving holiday.  We packed up the kiddos and headed south to a warmer, less dry climate; Florida.  We joined the Werschky side of the fam for some seriously much-needed vacation time.  The kids had a blast swimming with their cousins and I watched from my deck chair.  Fun was had by all 🙂  Sooooo, here are a few of the way too many pictures I took.  Again, many thanks to my parents for an awesome trip.  It was so nice to get away for a few days!

One of days in Florida we decided to surprise the kids and take them up to Orlando to Universal and check out the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  If you didn’t know, we have a few crazy Harry Potter fanatics over here.  Sam has read the entire series at least 3 times, Alice is working through book 6 right now and Paige is half way through number 2.  We didn’t tell them why we were taking them on a 2 1/2 hour drive and they didn’t suspect a thing until we were pulling into the park.  They all agreed that the mysteriously long drive was totally worth it 🙂  We got to tour Hogwart’s, go on a lot of fun rides, check out a hippogriff up close and personal, sip some butterbeer, buy wands and taste fudge flies and   Bott’s Every Flavor Jelly Beans (Sam’s tried the vomit favored bean and almost did).

So many thanks to Scott’s parents for giving the kids an early Christmas present and buying their tickets into the park.

We could not have asked for a nicer week.  We all came home, relaxed and refreshed, ready for another busy season at the Wescott house.  We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with family and friends.

Jennifer

One of my most favorite sayings….

Where ever you go, there you are.  

So, here I am.  A new start to my fun little journal.

My blog has been many things; a family journal, an avenue for my rants opinions, a picture walk through our life.

Thanks for following along with me.  If you read, you have seen us through too many moves to mention, kids, adoption, happiness, craziness and everything in between.  Please leave me a message every once in a while and say hi 🙂

Jennifer

Well, I survived moving (barely), kids fall activities, Halloween, Thanksgiving and a very fun (and relaxing) family vacation.  Whew.  Is it Christmas yet?

So many thanks to my parents for so generously granting us an early Christmas present, a week long vacation to Florida.  We spent most our vacation hanging out by the pool, walking on the beach and enjoying adult beverages (only me!).  We got to celebrate Thanksgiving with my brothers (and families) and my parents.  It was a great Thanksgiving holiday, for sure.
I am going to post some pictures just as soon as I figure out why I have reached my photo capacity on blog.  I am thinking about moving my blog to a different spot.  Any thoughts??

Sooo, I am glad to be back.  I missed you all 🙂

Jennifer

Nope, still no photos of the master bedroom.  It is still home to piles (and piles) of laundry.
Tonight I am giving you a tour of our mud room.  The mud room was numero uno on the must have list for a house and this mud room/laundry does not disappoint.  If I didn’t like my new purple accent wall in my room so much I might have to put a cot in the mudroom and sleep there.  Just kidding, sort of. Anyway, I still have some work to do (like hanging pictures and getting baskets for hats and gloves) but I am really happy with it now that all the boxes are gone and the painting is finished.  I am not sure what the last owners were thinking with the cupboard choice. My guess was that these were the sale ones.

So, the thing is…if I commit to posting pics of the new house everyday, maybe I will get the boxes unpacked more quickly?!?!? We’ll see 🙂

Please excuse the poor quality of my pictures.  I was taking them at night and couldn’t get a decent shot without the flash.
So, I went with orange.  The painter said it might be his new favorite color.  He was probably just making me feel good about my crazy choice but I still like it.  It is not quite as bright as the pictures seem and really pulls out the rust color in the tile.
 See that small room with backpacks and coats?  I. Love. It.  With four kids, a dedicated area for all the winter parts is a must.
Okay, so I hope you haven’t been bored stiff….next up, the inside of our shed.  Hahahaha!  Just kidding……

Have a great night and check back tomorrow for another riveting tour of some room that has yet to be unpacked:)

Jennifer

We have been “moved” into the new house for a week now.
I still have 1236 boxes to unpack.
The kids are loving their new spaces.  Sam and Mason scored their own rooms and the girls are sharing a larger room in the lower level.  I am slowly getting some things put away and finding places for everything.  The master bedroom was the first room to do on my list and then kitchen.  The kids unpacked their boxes and put most of their stuff away. That was hugely helpful.  The laundry/mud room is my next project.  We are in desperate need for hooks and baskets 🙂  So here goes on the the picture walk of the the new house. Well, new to us 🙂  First in line, the kitchen.  I would have posted the master bedroom but it is currently home to stacks of clean laundry.  So it goes with 4 kids. Lots of laundry.
Bless our agent, Tony; we looked at a lot of houses.  Let’s just say it was more than 10 and less than 50 🙂  At the top of my list was mudroom and pantry.  I didn’t even ask for a large kitchen and this was the only house we looked at with a decent sized one and updated too.  Super plus.

See, I told you that I would post about Sam’s birthday before the end of the year 🙂
Well, this is going to be more of a post in pictures than words.  Mainly because, well, I am really tired.  Moving is exhausting.  Really exhausting.
I pleaded and begged but he went ahead and turned eleven.  As I stand back and look at my baby boy, I am amazed at what a super cool kid he has become.  He has always been such a sweet, kind, smart child (no bias here!) but I truly love the kid that he is right now.  Of course, he will always be my baby boy.  Always.

Happy Birthday Sam Man.  You rock.
Love, Momma, Daddy, Alice, Paige and Mason

I have mentioned in previous posts that Alice has been running after school with a program called Girls on the Run.  I had the privilege of being one of the coaches at her school for the last 10 weeks.  As a conclusion to the season, all the girls are invited to a 5K run in Steamboat Springs. Yesterday we headed to SS for the run.  We had 42 girls from our school run in the race and all finished!  I was one proud mom and coach.  Alice ran really well and finished (along with another classmate) first on her team (not first in the race) with a time of 33:10.  We spent the day in Steamboat and then headed back home last night.  It was a great day!!!!!  If your daughter ever has the opportunity to run with this program, I highly encourage you to get them involved.  Here are some cute pics from the day.  Enjoy!

Once again we had a successful Halloween.  Everybody enjoyed their school parties and then we headed down to the store for Trick or Treat Street in Frisco.  It seems that every man, woman and child in Summit County came out for the annual event. While Scott’s parents took our kids around town, we hung out at the store and passed out candy, coffee and cider.  This year we passed out more than 50 pounds of candy! Oh my!!!!  It was super fun and kids came home with enough candy for the whole block.

 From left to right: Shark eating a surfer, pepperoni pizza, a banana and a very yummy cookie. We must be really hungry this year:)

Not only did we have all the Halloween festivities yesterday, but we also closed on our new house. Today the painters arrive and hopefully we can move in for real next week!  Life continues to keep moving, thank the Lord!!!!

I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween.  I am off to “hide” all the chocolate….

Jennifer

Life has been like a whirlwind. In between working and school, we have been super busy packing and getting ready to move.  Again.  Don’t worry, this time we are only moving a couple streets away.  Soooo, I am going to post some pictures of our last couple weeks and leave it at that….

Did I mention that we have company.  Oh yeah, that too.

Never a dull moment…..

We were all (mostly all) up bright and early this morning and unanimously voted to run up to Copper for some doughnuts.  After a day of snow flurries, the mountains were breathtaking.  After eating doughnuts the size of our heads, we hopped in the car and headed out for a quick drive to see the Rockies in all their splendor.  Our first stop was Mayflower Gulch.  Let me just say that my picture does not do it any justice.  The only word I can think of was majestic.