Thanksgiving Week

James' school was closed the entire week of Thanksgiving, so we had extra time for some fun! We took advantage of the November 70% off admission deal at Kennedy Space Center and went Tuesday with Anthony's parents. James was soooooo excited. This is him finding me in the morning, excited to tell me it was finally the day for the space center.

James brought his toy space shuttle that Mimi and Papa bought him last year so that he can find one exactly like it. His wheel broke off a long time ago, so he decided once he gets a new one, the old one can be Retty boy's. At the gift shop he fell in love with this ridiculously overpriced space shuttle with boosters and fuel tank. He wanted me to take a picture for Santa.

We decided to brave the bus tour this year. Usually I avoid enclosed spaces where you can't escape with a crying kid, but I was hopeful it would be okay.

It all started out great, and 30 minutes of the 40 minute tour was wonderful. The last 10 minutes Rett decided he was done and screamed bloody murder, kept throwing himself on the ground and refused any attempts by me to calm him down (food, phone, pacifer, nothing worked). I'm pretty sure we cured everyone on that bus of wanting/wanting any more kids :)

The tour bus took us by the different launch pads and the crawler that takes the shuttle to the launch pad.

James loved the slide again this year. He wasn't afraid at all!

The next day, after Anthony come home from work, we drove to my mom's house to drop off the kids. Then Anthony and I drove into Gainesville where my brother is renting our old condo. It was in desperate need of a good scrubbing and new paint, so we spent Anthony's two days off of work spiffing it up. My mom had fun with the boys, spoiling them rotten and taking them places. They had fun at the park and James found a friend with a cool remote control truck to play with.

Daniel, Anthony, and I spent all of Thanksgiving day painting. Then we went to my mom's for dinner, drove back and spent the next morning doing cleaning and touch ups. I was very proud of our hard work. It was a little disheartening to see how run down everything looked, but I felt a lot better once we finished. It also helped that Daniel replaced the light bulbs so that it didn't have a yellow, dingy overcast.

Since we basically skipped Thanksgiving, I am even more excited for Christmas at our house. We even put our tree up early (before December) to help us get in the spirit!