The countdown begins

Today is December 1st: 25 days until Christmas, the 1st Sunday of Advent, Jacob is 28 months old today, and moving day is only 19 days away!  That's right, we're moving to Tampa, soon!  I accepted a Research Assistant Professor position at the University of South Florida.  Since I'll be done with my data collection in two weeks I'm going to start part time at USF on January 6th and then will begin full time once I defend (hopefully around the beginning of March).   We have a lot of big changes coming in the next couple of weeks.  They are both exciting and exhausting.  We are going to miss Gainesville, the many great things we've discovered in this town, our friends  who have become family and our co-workers.  Moving is bittersweet and change is hard but we're very excited for the adventures that lie ahead.  We found a townhouse we'll live in for a year until we can find a house we want to buy.  In the meantime we'll get used to new jobs, new schools and get to know Tampa.  We're excited that the beach and Disney will be end closer.  That there will be lots of professional sporting events close by and that Tampa has a great zoo, aquarium and children museum.  We are also excited that our new house has more than one bathroom, a dishwasher and a garage :-).  We're thankful for the long holiday weekend we've had to get a jump start on packing and spend some wonderful time together as a family.  We got our Christmas tree and put it up with lights.  (We'll decorate it the rest of the way when we move).  Jacob is so excited about the tree and decorations and Christmas music.  He's already been walking around the house singing Jingle Bell Rock for days! 

For now it's back to the packing. . . 19 days from now we'll be unpacking everything in our new home.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving family and friends! We are thankful for all of you, every day of the year.  Thanksgiving day is just a wonderful reminder of that.  We ran in a 2 mile "fun run" this morning.  The Turkey Trot.  We've been wanting to run in it for years and are finally now able to check it off our Gainesville bucket list.  It was a partita trail run and was cold, especially for a thin Florida blood.  It was 80 at the beginning of the week and 31 when we woke up this morning.   After we got home from the race we watched part of the Macy's parade.  Jacob enjoyed all of the music and bands.  He sat and played the drums along with them.

Mark's been cooking for two days and the Gaters are on their way over for a fabulous meal!  Happy Turkey Day!

School Pictures

We just got Jacob's school pictures.  How cute are they?!  I can't believe how quickly he's growing!!

2 months ago . . .

2 months ago we went to Portland and I still haven't posted pictures from that trip.  I think this is the last thing I need to do to catch up to the month of November.  We flew to Portland for a conference and job interview.  Since Mark was just out of surgery again Uncle Henry met us out there to help with Jacob and spend the week with us.  We had a great trip!  Portland showed us its full variety of weather.  It was beautiful the first few days, sunny and in the 70s.  The second half of the week was cooler and rainy.  I went to a great conference while the boys explored.  They went to the Oregon Zoo and lots of parks as well as big drive around Mt. Hood.  We had time over the weekend to visit Multhomah Falls and drive out to the Oregon Coast to see Haystack Rock.   See is all we did that day, and barely.  There was a big storm coming through and it was a VERY windy, rainy day on the coast.  We took a few pictures, got soaking wet and drove home.   We also had a lot of fun exploring downtown Portland and eating the yummy food truck food.  It was a lot of fun to spend a week with Uncle Henry too. 

Happy Halloween

I'm still playing catch up but am trying not to get behind too . . . so Happy Halloween.  Jacob's been sick all week so we weren't sure what we'd end up doing to celebrate but his fever broke last night so today we got to celebrate a bit.  I took him to "Boo at the Zoo" at the Santa Fe zoo and we trick-or-treated our way through the zoo.  He loved the animals but wasn't too keen on all of the people in costumes.  Then we drove over to the Gaters to show off our costumes (a Halloween tradition for the past few years) and walked around our neighborhood with Brittany, Bobby & Ellie and Aaron, Melissa and Lilla.  The kiddos didn't last long but we made it to a few houses and can say we went trick-or-treating.  We had a great time dressing up as a family (and I think it was probably the only way we got Jacob to happily wear a costume).  Jacob had 2 costumes this year, one for school which he wore at home today since he didn't go, and then one for the evening.  Enjoy!

Daniel Tiger by day

A bumble bee by night

The beekeeper and his bees

Grandma Siburt

A couple of weeks ago we took a last limit trip to Virginia to celebrate the life of Grandma Siburt.  Known as "Grandma" to everyone she was a wise and wonderful woman who lived a long life. She was a daughter, sister, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother as well as a friend and mentor to many.  We feel so fortunate that Jacob was able to spend time with her, he was a light her in life the last 2 years and we will never forget that.  We miss you Grandma!

Minus the circumstances of being in Blacksburg we had a wonderful trip.  We got to spend lots of  time with family which doesn't happen very often and the weather was beautiful.  We enjoyed a bit of chilly fall weather that we are now just starting to get in Florida.  Jacob got to play with his cousin Jason who is now 7 months old and crawling so he followed Jacob everywhere!  Here are a few pictures from our trip to VA.

The boys with Gandma and Gandad

Morning picture with the pumpkins

Making a book with Ganma

Picture with the flowers

Trucks with Uncle Michael

The morning glow of the moutains

Visiting the bunny bench in Beep's garden

Picture with JJ

Another morning pumpkin picture

Jacob and Jacob playing

Looking spiffy

Picture with Deuce

Leaves!

The MD Siburts

Swings with Gandad

Love that smile!

Picture time

Mark and Jason

The NC Siburts

Failed attempt at a family picture

Kisses for Uncle Henry

A quick visit to Green to see Henry

Picking carrots with Beep

Picking/Eating Peppers with Beep

Cheese!

Riding Tonka with the pumpkin