Christmas - Florida Style

Don't hate us because it was 70+ degrees on Christmas eve...off to the beach we went.

A Florida snowman

Life Next Door to Disney World

The first weekend in December we experienced a little perk of living next door to Disney. We were able to go (for free!) to the Magic Kingdom for some filming of the Disney Parks Christmas Day Parade. Brady and I went together one day and saw Yanni and Kris Allen. I was so excited when I found out Kris Allen was performing. He was awesome. A few kids from our ward were there and they threw him their Santa hat with a Sharpie and he signed it! Wouldn't you know it, I forgot my camera. But check out this awesome video we found on youtube.



The tall guy in the green shirt and Santa hat who is RIGHT in the way during the performance is BRADY!! (Courtney found me too! I am the one right in front of Brady with the sparkly santa hat.)

The next day we took all of the kids but Meghann. It was opening night of her play and she was stressed about missing school that day. So we took Courtney's friend Kennedy instead.

The forecast was for rain - a 100% chance. The weatherman was right. When we got there we found out that the Jonas Brothers were being taped. Everyone was all excited. About 10 minutes later we were standing in pouring rain, pulling out rain ponchos and we heard the director say, "that's a wrap." No more taping of the Jonas Brothers that day, they were rescheduling them for Sunday. Boo!!! We played around for a while in the park and then headed to the Grand Floridian hotel for the taping of Celine Dion. So did a million other people, or so it seemed. That hotel was packed! But, somehow we worked our way up tothe front and had a great spot. In fact, one of the camera guys loved Brady and Jordan and asked them to get in a certain position so he could tape them. Watch for them Christmas day!

Inside the Grand Floridian - when we were actually dry

She was stunning (but I was afraid her dress was going to fall off)

Pinnochio borrowed one of the boy's scarfs so that he matched these two girls

We got rained on, but where else can you actually have FUN in the rain? There was no wait for the big roller coaster rides - the ones people wait an hour or more to ride in the summertime. It was great. And a bonus - we were given 7 tickets to come back on Sunday but sold them on Craig's list. Cha-Ching $$. Here's to keeping the Sabbath day holy.

One more perk of being Mickey's neighbors...Meghann got to perform at Epcot Center's Candelight ceremony. It is basically the reading of Luke 2 by some (not so) famous person with local high school choirs providing music with Disney musicians. The guest narrator on Meghann's night was Kit Kitteridge (what is her real name...? Amanada something I think). The night before it was Vanessa Williams. Brady was able to chapperone her choir so they both earned two free Disney passes.

Introducing Guest Blogger Courtney

Well, I was caught up with my blog for about 10 minutes.

Now I'm behind again with no time to catch up. So, I've enlisted the help of Courtney who is going to blog all about our trip to the Florida Keys before Thanksgiving.

Take it away Courtney. . . .

We'll get the worst out of the way - the RAIN. A camping trip wouldn't be complete without rain, right? Let's just say our trip was very complete. The last night it poured so hard we thought we'd have to row home. This was the road that we normally rode scooters on, but it was flooded with water when we woke up.

This tree provided hours of fun. The ocean was practically out our front tent door, about 100 yards away (along with this tree).

A SHARK? Can you see it in the water down there? We saw it from a bridge.

We did lots of fishing. Meghann caught this beauty - they were actually very hard to reel in because they would drop off the line.

Iguana at Bahia Honda State Park

The dads fixed us delicious meals.

Courtney's catch

Key West, Florida

The Shepherds - our bestest friends

Family at Bahia Honda State Park

The old Flagler Railroad

Meghann, Natalie, Courtney - after a shower and "hair-do"

The family at "Mile Marker 0"

The family at "Mile Marker 0" - the other side of the street

Meghann and Natalie - best friends

There were so many hermit crabs we couldn't count them all. They were great pets for the weekend.

Nixon and Shepherd kids

Bahia Honda State Park - it was gorgeous. We saw a shark and sea turtle from a bridge overlooking the water, plus lots of iguanas on the ground.

This is a HUGE crab I found in the water just walking around a ways down the beach so we picked it up and brought it back to show every one! It was pretty mad! We named it Hue because it was huenourmous:)

The sunsets and sunrises were AMAZING!

When we were roasting s'mores the smoke burned this little guy's eyes and so he ran back to camp and came back with these!

Gorgeous water

The Fam (minus mom who had to take the picture)

Cute Boys!

These were all over the place in the water! pretty huh?

Messy! (But what's camping without s'mores?)

Handsome Boys!

Blue Tye Dye?!?

Key West!

DON'T FALL IN!!! (We saw the most awesome tropical fish from this bridge)

7-Mile Bridge! It's a famous part of the Florida Keys.

Isn't Jordan adorable?

These things were everywhere! It is a portuguese-man-of-war. Thank goodness we were able to steer clear of them.

Actually...Caught Up!

My flash card is officially cleaned off. After this post, there will be about four pictures on it that are the kids'. This is in preparation for our big camping trip this next week to the Florida Keys! We're going with our friends, the Shepherds, for four fun-filled nights of camping. If it were only dirt-free too...

Anyway, a few weekends ago we went with Aunt Kelly to Flagler Beach. It was a windy day, but the scenery was beautiful. The pier was built in 1926 - we know because we visited a museum while we were there that gave us all sorts of historical information about the town. We also visited a farmer's market and bought watermelon flavored licorice made by the Amish! Yummmm.

Can you guess whose shadow?

So Far Behind Part 2

And my next post will probably be called, "So Far Behind Part 3."

Anyway! Here's another attempt at updating:

Halloween '09:

Nixons with some neighbors that we always go out with

Meghann showed a little school spirit with her pumpkin, she is an Oviedo High Lion

Courtney tried her hand at pumpkin carving - Nixon style

This was one of my favorite costumes that we saw out trick-or-treating

(this next little bit of text is from my journal):

Thursday night was supposed to be a big night for Tucker. He was earning his Arrow of Light award in cub scouts and "crossing over" into boy scouts since he'd done everything for the Webloes requirements. We were getting ready to go and Courtney and he were out hitting a tennis ball back and forth to each other. He came in crying loudly and holding his eye, saying the ball had hit him in the eye. We grabbed an ice pack but it wasn't until he said he couldn't see out of it that I really looked at it. It was gross. His iris that is normally beautiful blue was a reddish purple. It had filled with blood. Yuck. A mother shouldn't have to see gross things on her kids, the images don't go out of your mind.

Anyway, we headed to the emergency room instead of pack meeting with Tucker bawling his eyes out the whole way because he was going to miss his big night at Scouts. He's worked hard for this and he was so excited. The bitter cup of disappointment. :(

The emergency room actually wasn't too bad. We were only there for about two hours. We waited for the eye drops at the pharmacy as long as we were in the ER. Seriously, I thought for sure someone was going to come out with a hidden camera and tell me I was going to be on Candid Camera next week. It was the biggest joke of a pharmacy I've EVER seen in my life. I felt like I was in a foreign country telling the pharmacist how to get me my medicine. Ugh. We got home around midnight.

Tucker had a hyphema of the eye which is a blood vessel bursting from blunt trauma and bleeding into the eye. The biggest worry is that the vessel doesn't re-bleed because the long term damage is even greater then so he's on two eye drops - one that keeps his pupil dilated so the blood can be more easily absorbed and another that paralyzes his eye (I can't remember why that's necessary). He had to sleep sitting upright that night but it really helped the blood to drain down a little. By the next morning he could see a little more out if it and by today there is just a thin line where you can see the blood has settled at the bottom of his iris. He can see pretty well but because the pupil is still dilated, it kills him to go outside without sunglasses on. He's on restricted activity for two weeks - no PE, no jumping, no bike riding, bending over at the waist or anything that would put pressure on his eye. We took him to the eye Dr on Friday, today, I have to take him in again this Friday, then a week from Friday, then in a month, three months, six months and a year. We'll just have to constantly monitor the pressure on his eye and make sure that he doesn't develop glaucoma or any other troubles that could come from it.

Before we left for the hospital Brady and a neighbor gave him a blessing that he wouldn't have any permanent damage from this so we're banking on that.

All in all, it was a rather unpleasant experience, especially as I had to put my head in between my knees at the drs office on Friday. I was thinking, "I thought Michelle was the only medical wimp in our family!" I can handle having five babies without an epidural, but I can't stand to see someone poking around my kid's owie. It just made me too lightheaded.

If you look close you can see the blood kind of puddled at the bottom of his iris, plus a spot or two up in the middle of the iris. UPDATE: last week he was given the "green light" - the blood was all absorbed, he can go back to normal activity but we have to monitor him every few months to make sure he doesn't develop any complications later. He's off the eye drops keeping his eye dilated but his pupil is still large. It should be back to normal in another week or so.

Through it all, Tucker kept his sense of humor. He actually wore this eye patch whenever he wanted to read because his bad eye was fuzzy and it bothered him to read. But give up reading for a few weeks? NEVER. He just used the eye patch.

I think I mentioned in my last post about one of Brady's old mission companions and his family coming for a visit. We spent a day at the beach with them and despite the cool weather and overcast skys, several of us came home looking like fried chicken (or fried something). I should know by now - EVEN WHEN THE SUN ISN'T BURNING HOT - we're getting burned. It's happened before. I'll learn my lesson someday.

Nixon and Reidhead Families

Nolan and Brady

looking a little pink after the beach

he was a raccoon for several days