January

I’m not sure why I’ve lost my motivation to blog. But, I just haven’t felt like it lately. So, this will be a quick recap of the month of the January.

Jack got accepted into UF! They are ranked 7^th in the country for public universities (30^th overall), so even with his amazing stats, it didn’t feel like a given that he would be admitted. Now, he is waiting to hear if he got into FSU’s honor college. That decision will come next week. Then, he should have all the information he needs to make a choice. He only applied to Florida colleges, so we know he won’t be too far no matter which one he picks. In other news, he joined the track team, which forced him to give up tutoring. I don’t think he misses it.

 

Anna is looking forward to the end of senior year. The last day for seniors is less than a hundred days away. I still remember the project they did on the hundredth day of kindergarten. Thirteen years sure went by quickly! I don’t like it.

 

Most of us (Kara was at work) went to Animal Kingdom for one last ride on Dinosaur (well, two last rides since we rode twice). It has always been one of our favorite rides and I am sad to see it close. Unfortunately, the camera wasn’t working, so we didn’t get a last ride picture. It is too bad, because Thomas and Jack recreated the photo from our first Disney trip. It was one of Jack’s first ‘scary’ rides and going on with him as an 18-year-old and remembering him as a little 5-year-old was another reminder on the quickening passage of time.

Little scared Jack in 2013. 

And now, at Animal Kingdom on our last Dinosaur day.

Some other highlights: We went to Hollywood Studios one night. They still had the Christmas decorations up, which was fun. 

We were there on January 14th, so the lights surprised us.

We also went to the Orlando Wetlands. It hadn’t rained in a while, but we did a back trail that was super muddy. We walked about 5 miles, it was a beautiful day and we enjoyed it. From there we went to Steak-n-Shake. That was a fun day. 

walking on branches and trying to avoid mud

being silly at the bat house

Luke went to a birthday party at a trampoline place for his best elementary school friend. They are at different schools now and don’t get to see each other very often so it was nice to get them together. 

Luke, Anna, Thomas and I went to Aquatica’s Illuminate event. It was really pretty and they had cool bubble machines. When you touched one of the bubbles they turned into smoke. I felt like I was in Harry Potter! 

Anna got a third ear piercing. She is 18 so not parent permission was required. Lacrosse started up for Kara. The team practices every day after school. They have something like 16 games this season, so she is going to be very busy. 

Thomas and I celebrated our half birthdays. It started as a joke, Thomas kept talking about how his half-birthday was approaching and it was the same day as UF admissions were announced, so would be a true day of celebration. It took me far longer than I'd like to admit to realize that if his half-birthday was coming, that meant mine was as well. So, I told him that he could set the tone and however he celebrated for me would be how I celebrated for him. It was just us being silly, but the kids took it to heart. 

I came home from work to this fun surprise. Cookies, a present and balloons!

 

Other than that, it has been work, school and sports. The early part of the month was pretty quiet and it was great having everyone home for dinner every night. Now, we are back in the thick of opposing schedules.  It is nice having Jack and Kara driving—there is far less transport required of Thomas and me. Anna has her permit and hopes to get her license soon. She’s not in a hurry, but does want to have it before starting college.

2025: Year in Review

Another year has come and gone! The highlights are often the vacations, this year we had two Caribbean cruises (a 4-night for Kara’s birthday and a 4-night over Spring Break). We also spent Thanksgiving week in Tennessee. And, there was a weekend trip with just the boys to see the Tigers play the Rays. All of that was amazing, but my favorite vacation this year was the 2-weeks we spent at home around Christmas and New Years. We didn’t travel anywhere and it was low-key and relaxing. I spent a lot of time reading, puzzling, and playing games and it was incredibly hard to go back to work. I even bought a lottery ticket in the hopes of making that my everyday reality, but alas, did not strike it rich.

 

Anna got her first job as a camp counselor at Elks. She did not like it. It was hard to be away from home and she struggled with the work ethic of some of her fellow counselors. She did love the kids and many other aspects of the job.  She turned 18 in October and vacillates between wanting to be treated like an adult and reaping the benefits and low-responsibility life of childhood. Unfortunately, she doesn’t really enjoy her classes this year. She was accepted to several colleges but decided to stay home and attend the local community college. She is not sure what she wants to study and hopes to find something that strikes a passion. She did well on the SAT and has a high GPA, qualifying for Bright Futures, so by staying at home, she can get her associates degree for free.

 

Jack had a great year. He did amazing on the SAT, including a perfect score on English and an overall superscore of 1560. He only applied to the Florida state colleges (FSU, UF, UCF, and USF). He won’t hear from UF until next week but has gotten into the others with scholarship offers. I wish he had tried for some reach schools but I am also happy to have him closer to home. Right now, he is leaning toward attending FSU. He had fun being in the band and enjoyed his last marching season. He is still tutoring and is in a few clubs at school. He has lots of friends and seems to always have somewhere to be. He did not run cross-country this year but is maybe going to do track.

 

Kara also worked as a camp counselor. She loved it! She also loved making her own money, so much so that she got a job at Wawa. It has been a great first job. She only works about 8 hours a week (usually on Sunday mornings), which gives her spending money, but still allows her to keep up with her friends, schoolwork, and other activities. She enjoys playing lacrosse and is excited for the new season to start. She got her driver’s license and has been driving everywhere. She is doing great in school, despite taking 6 AP/AICE  classes.

 

Luke started middle school. His longstanding baseball team disbanded. He is playing on another team, but they are a lot less experienced as a whole.  However, the coaching is really good and we expect that Luke will grow as a player. He likes the coaches and the kids and their families all seem nice, so everyone is happy enough. He is taking piano and theater as his electives and enjoys both. He cleaned up at the 5^th grade graduation ceremony, winning many academic awards.

 

Overall, the kids are doing well. I wish that they were closer friends with each other, especially the older ones. They are all in different friend groups and never include each other in activities with their friends. And, if one of them has friends over, the others seem to actively avoid the situation (except Luke).  One of my brothers and I were a year apart in school and while we didn’t always hang out with each other, it wasn’t unusual for us to do so and many of our friends were mutual. Of course, we aren’t very close now, so maybe it doesn’t mean anything at all. But, it makes me sad to think of my kids growing up and not being close and with Jack leaving home soon, it is at the forefront of my mind right now.

 

Thomas and I are back in the office. It has been a very stressful year. I honestly believed I was going to lose my job and it was terrible to have that hanging over my head for 8ish months. As the most junior attorney in my office (even with 14.5 years of Government experience) I still don’t feel completely secure, but at least it feels less inevitable than it did last February. It was a crappy way to live, always feeling like any day could bring notice of unemployment. But, almost a year later, we both are still employed and for that I am thankful. Of course, I miss telework, but I am happy to have kept my job.

 

I think that about summarizes everyone in 2025. As always, I am most thankful that everyone is healthy and doing well. At the end of the day, that is all that really matters.

 

Favorite thing this year:

Thomas: TN trip

Kori: the two weeks of vacation around Christmas

Anna: TN trip

Jack: Spring Break (band trip and cruise)

Kara: TN trip

Luke: Spring Break cruise

 

Most looking forward to in 2026:

Thomas: seeing what happens with all the kids' big changes

Kori: hopefully 2 restful weeks of vacation in Dec/Jan

Anna: traveling

Jack: mountains

Kara: Spring Break cruise

Luke: finally trying Mardi Gras (cruise ship)

Christmas

Thomas and I love the Clint Black Christmas album. I legit love every song on the album (Looking for Christmas) and we listen to it every  year. It has a good mix of song types and I personally believe it is criminally underrated. One of the songs is called Slow as Christmas and has the lyrics: Every Christmas day makes every other day seem long; And what seemed would never get here; Has so quickly come and gone.

That is how I am feeling today, December 31st. I can't believe another Christmas has come and gone. I spend all year looking forward to December. Thomas and I take two weeks off from work, the kids are off from school and it is a quiet, reflective, fun, relaxing, time. 

So, what have we done? Of course, theme parks. But, they are usually too crowded for us to go the weeks of Christmas and New Years. Kim and her family and Kevin came over on New Years Eve. We did a white elephant exchange and had a good time. We haven't been to see my dad yet (well, I saw him, but the whole family will go down there soon to deliver his Christmas gifts). We went to see the first Harry Potter in the theaters. We've watched movies and played games. Yesterday, we went to Fort Christmas and Steak n Shake. There was last minute shopping and holiday baking. We also upgraded our phones. It's been a really nice break. I'm glad it is not quite over. 

Christmas Day was nice. I thank Alecia every year for giving us the idea of having our big meal on Christmas Eve and then taking it easy on Christmas Day. I do make a breakfast casserole, but that's it. I basically take close to a week off from cooking. 

Christmas Eve

Christmas Morning

I was happy our teens still wanted to get up early. Anna pushed for 6, everyone else was good with a later start, and we settled on 630. We are an open gifts one at a time family. I didn't realize that wasn't how everyone did it, but that's always been our method. I like to see what everyone gets and what they think. We try and make things relatively equal, both in amount and money, but we aren't crazy rigid about it. However, this year, I thought we had actually done it and gotten all the kids the exact same number of gifts. But, somehow some people still had presents when others were out. It's not a big deal to anyone, I don't think the kids care, but to me it is always funny how it works out. I think the number and what we spend is a little above average (at least according to my impromptu Google Search right now) but it's nothing crazy and we don't really do gifts otherwise. Even for birthdays, we are more of an experience family. All that to say, we enjoy buying gifts for Christmas and seeing reactions. 

Everyone was happy with what they received. I got some fun surprises this year. Thomas got us tickets to go hang out with goats, which we did on Monday. And, Kara got us tickets to see Legally Blonde in April. So, my Christmas won't be over for a few more months. 

To end, some pictures from our goat experience.

The Goat Whisperer