Christmas in Florida

Wow so I have been so ridiculously busy that I haven't posted anything in a month! Lame. I know. So I'm going to try to re-cap what's been happening around here...

We spent our first Christmas in our home this year along with nine other Wernli family members! It was my first warm Christmas and it ROCKED! It was strange without snow and cold weather but it actually was really fun. We had a wonderful Christmas full of sunshine, pool and beach days, shopping, grilling and baking, an airboat tour of the Everglades, zoos and parks, the boys even went deep sea fishing in the Ocean one day! On Christmas Eve, we took a leisurely walk around our neighborhood admiring all of the Christmas lights and enjoying the shorts and flip-flop weather. But the best part of the extravaganza came five days after Christmas when we blessed our sweet baby Kalle in church. She looked like an angel in her gorgeous blessing dress and bonnet, but her voice was less than heavenly as she cried during the whole blessing! It turned out to be the only five minutes of the whole day in which she made any noise other than happy coos and giggles! She is the BEST baby EVER!!!!

Here we are at Ft. Lauderdale beach - Chris buried Jada and her Aunt Lindsay from the waist down in to make them look like mermaids (Jada is currently OBSESSED with Ariel)

The girls (minus Lindsay taking the photo) at a Wildlife Sanctuary called Flamingo Gardens.

Jada and I posing :-)
Lindsay is feeding a Flamingo - both the flamingos and the egrets (the white birds on the ground) come right up and eat out of your hand.

The three grandkids - all girls and in their matching snowflake Christmas P.J.'s. Kalle, Jada and their only cousin Alexa. Sooo cute!

The Wernli Family in front of our Christmas tree - Chris, Me, Kalle, Jason, Linda, Steve, Jada, Cassie, Lindsay, Brandon and Alexa.
Chris and I on the airboat tour of the Everglades - looking happy and unassuming in the beginning...

..the deeper we got, the more worried we became...

..Yikes! Check out that Alligator next to Jason!

We saw tons of alligators and they were literally along the side of the boat, we could've reached out and touched them - but then we could've lost an arm so instead we just cowered inside the very unsafe boat.

Everyone except for Kalle that is - as she was apparently uniterested in the imminent danger lurking eerily close by.

The clan at Kalle's blessing : Jason, Chris' parents, us, Lindsay and my parents - it was a beautiful, awesome event

Isn't she lovely? Isn't she wonderful?...

By far the most fun experience of the whole Christmas extravaganza was New Year's Eve. The day started with a fabulous New Years traditional breakfast including Aebleskivers which are these amazingly tasty Danish pancakes following by a shopping spree at a high-end mall in Boca Raton where my sister-in-law Lindsay and I drained our gift cards to Sephora (compliments of my father, thanks Dad). We bought all kinds of fun make-up and glitter eye lashes to use in our celebration festivities. After a fabulous day of shopping we headed home to enjoy the fabulous dinner the boys had been cooking for us (yes, the boys did cook dinner every night!) I can't remember if the boys grilled filets and skirt steaks or king crab legs but either way it was amazing as was every dinner (thank you Chris and Steve). Afterwards, we had a pretty spectacular mini fireworks show in our backyard. I don't know who was more scared - Jada or Jason and Chris! He He. They lit everything and than ran like lunatics to safety behind our propane tank gas grill (real smart).

Then Lindsay and I dressed ourselves and Chris and Jason up for our Rock Band performance! We had been practicing the whole Christmas vacation - even making a special Wernli Christmas band...The Nut Crackers!!!

Our stage names for our band...

Chris = Naughty & Nice, Kim = Ho Ho Ho, Lindsay = Mistle Toe,

Jason =Candy Cane

To end the craziness - Lindsay and I toasted peppermint-sugar rimmed bubbly at midnight!

It was a ridiculously fun New Year's Eve.