Lets sum up the past 3 months.

So its 2015, and apparently the Back to the Future movie was right, we have large screen t.v.'s, we can talk to people through the computer and t.v. through skype, and apparently we have the technology to have flying cars, but that would be very impractical given the driving habits of many idiots on the road. Can you really imagine driving down the freeway and then just seeing a random car take off and start flying, yeah, I do not see that working either. But enough of this future talk, lets backtrack 3 months to October where I left off from my last post. 

We started October by taking Abby apple picking and through the corn maze at Pine Tree Orchard. This place was great, from the apples fresh off the trees, to the hot apple cider, and apple pie There wasn't a thing I didn't like about this place. We made our way through the corn maze finding all the letters to make the word Tractor to get our winning prize of a fresh apple. It was a fun day and I see us visiting an apple orchard yearly, no matter what state we are in.

Hiding in the corn maze.

Well, its out, yes we are looking to move in 1-2 years, out of the cold and into the boiling hot summers of Tampa, Florida. To see if this was even a place that we would want to consider moving to, we decided to take a trip with my sister and brother in law down to the warm climate of Florida. We spent a long weekend deciding on where to eat, (I do not recommend any restaurant or "bus" called the Taco Bus), areas to live in, and what house to build. Many cocktails were consumed, and one too many "selfies" were taken. We also traveled down across the Bay to visit my Brother's cute family who had decided to coincidentally spend the same weekend in Florida. It was a great long weekend and made me say for sure that Tampa is surely a place I see myself living in the not so distant future, but maybe we better take another trip in the scorching hot weather of summer to see if its something I can handle. 

Checking out one of the model homes. 

Met these crazy people on our connecting flight from Atlanta to Tampa. They had no idea we were going to be on the same plane. Good thing we had "hot lips" (she had one too many botox injections) flight attendant to start us off with some cocktails. 

The following weekend after our trip to Tampa, we headed back down to my parents house for the Herrick Harvest. We did some caber toss, ax throwing, and pumpkin rolling. We also ate a ton of delicious food. The kids enjoyed apple picking, pumpking picking, and hay rides. 

The rest of Fall we spent playing in leaves, decorating pumpkins, eat butter in our underwear, and dressing up as Elsa and Olaf for Halloween. Abby made it a whole 2 blocks further trick or treating this year. It did take her a couple house to warm up to it, but by the end she was pulling me to go to houses. We kept with our theme of dressing Abby up with Dexter, and just like prior years my mom put her awesome sewing skills to use and made Dexter into Olaf. We got many "awes" as we walked the 2 of them around. 

Decorating her Spider Pumpkin.

Helping Dad carry leaves after raking.

With October over it was time to bring on Winter and by winter I mean November. November brougt frigid temperatures in the single digits and our first snowfall. It also brought Thanksgiving, one in which we did no traveling. Both my and Andrew's family made the trip up to Minnesota for Thanksgiving which made the Holiday easier on use. We enjoyed cocktails, great food, and of course some Goldeneye on the Wii. I did not take many pictures during the month of November, mostly because we spent most of indoors due to the freezing temperatures. Tampa is making itself seem pretty nice right now. We did start the re-do of our kitchen, which is still a work in progress. We installed our granite countertops and backsplash. Last to do, of course is too install our butcher block island. 

I do make myself useful from time to time. 

Everything done, but the install of the island. It is just laying on the top of the old counter-top

. 

Abby helping to measure.

Drink some delicious Flor De Cana Rum.

Abby made her Dad pose for a picture with her.

December brought some warmer weather, swim lessons, Christmas trees, elf on the shelf, and lots of family. Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year and this year was nice as both Andrew and I took off work for a week and were able spend time with family without feeling rushed. The best part about Christmas is watching the little ones get excited to open gifts. Their expressions and enthusiasm for Christmas is what makes it special. 

Picking out a Christmas Tree.

I wonder which part of the Christmas tree she is going to put that ornament.

I might have to put this one in the category of  "blackmail," Abby was keeping warm in the shower after swimming lessons and singing.

Abby and her cousin playing and singing on the piano at the Herrick Christmas.


Keeping it classy.

Sometimes its better not to ask.

I "mustache" you a question.

Looks like the elves got held up by a gang of  Lego superheros.

Here's the pictures from my good camera. I set out a goal of taking lots of pictures of the kids opening gifts. Turns out you need to charge your camera prior to taking pictures, so I got half of the pictures at the Delvaux Family Christmas and none at the Herrick Family Christmas because I thought that I had put the battery back in the camera case after it was done charging. Turns out it wasn't in there. Thought we had left it behind, but the next day packing up the car, we found the charged battery. Ugh...fail...next year there will be more. Anyways both Christmas's were great!!! And we even got to play some real old school Goldeneye on a brand new used Nintendo 64.

Making the frosting for the gingerbread house. 

The finished product.

Commence the gift opening!

Trying on her new shoes.

Her first Barbie!

I'm pretty sure Kaiya is in there somewhere. 

Giving Uncle Tim her homemade present.

What?! Is that a bottle of  Captain and painted by A?! Best present ever!!






Annual Scotch tasting at the Herrick Christmas....if I keep drinking it I WILL like it.  If you don't know, one of my goals in life is to be a scotch connoisseur, because it doesn't get more awesome than to come home and poor myself a glass of scotch after a hards day  work, and not to mention how awesome it would be to order a scotch neat at the bar.

Abby super excited to put her Sophia castle together.

To round out the year we kept our New Years pretty low key. I was in bed by 8pm, thanks to what I now know was Influenza A, plus I had to work New Years Day. To sum up the year lets be reminded of how awesome of a husband I have.....

Our 2014 had its ups and downs, so here's to 2015 bringing good health and happiness!