Ramsdell Family Blog

 This Christmas seemed to sneak up on us. I think part of it was since we went on our trip we did not have as much time to get stuff done and it seemed like we were rushing from one thing to the next. Luckily Christmas day was very quiet and peaceful (other than Jake waking up at 3 am unable to go back to sleep). Here are some photos from our Christmas. Christmas Eve dinner One of our traditions is to let the kids open one present on Christmas Eve. George will usually wrap it in some odd way-inside these giant boxes were a Webkinz stuffed animal. Cookie plate the kids made for Santa-I thought it was pretty creative. From Santa, Jenna got an American Girl "Just like Me" doll that she named Amy. Jake got Lego's and more Lego's!!! His dream come true! Jenna got these Harumika Fashion Design toys-Ok I have to admit they are really fun! George working on making a Christmas video.

Jenna's dance teacher challenged all the girls to do the splits by Christmas. Jenna is oh so close! This week I had a meeting with our unofficial book club. It's really just me and my two good friends-we talk about books and a lot not about books. These are 2 girls who can make me laugh. Ann and Jenny read The City of Ashes (which I tried but did not like-so I read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society-that was alright) Had to get a picture with all the J's Jenna, Jennifer and Jenny We went to the Garden of Lights again this year-but for some reason it seemed more spectacular last year.Oh well then we drove around the neighborhood drinking Starbucks hot cocoa. Now we are waiting for Santa to come.

Today I stayed home, the kids had friends over and we made our favorite holiday treats.  Christmas would not be the same with out our green holiday wreaths-they were always one of my favorite things my Aunt Kandy would bring on Christmas day. Now it's a tradition in my family, Jake and Jenna would not let me forget those. Also a tradition is home made toffee-I was exposed to George's Grandma's toffee recipe when we were dating. Now we make at least a couple of batches every year. A new treat this year is White Trash-the kids love it (my co-worker brought it to work last year and I liked it-so thought I would make it this year). Not sure if I will make that every year-I guess we will have to wait and see. For  now we will just eat!

Last night we went to Jenna's  Christmas dance performance at the mall. I loved watching her dance. Hopefully we will be able to load the video onto here, but for now here are some pictures. Pictures of a dance routine don't really show much-but thought I would post a couple anyways. Our tree-it is really big. We had to go out and buy a bigger tree stand for it. Ok-one of our cat who was playing dead. Actually I think she was dreaming that she was on the beach in Hawaii or something.

At the end of our trip we stayed at the Nickelodeon Hotel. I almost think this was my favorite part of our trip and 2nd favorite hotel (right behind the Animal Kingdom). The hotel had so much for the kids to do and gave me lots of laughs!! We got selected to be part of one of the evening shows-Slime Time Live!! We competed against another family-the prize to the winner was the team captian got to get slimed. The kids had to do silly stunts-Jenna had to bob for marshmallows in a bowl of slime. Jake, along with a audience memeber, got to compete in the contest of how many pairs of underwear he could put on in 1 minute. We were behind until we won the bonus question (What is the name of i Carly's brother?) Jenna knew the answer and we won!! Jake was to be SLIMED! Team 3 J's and a G Bob for marshmallows Undie game SLIME TIME!! Can you tell he loved it? So you ask how do you get all the slime off-you get hosed down. These guys were amazing their enthusiasm was contag...

One of the days we took a break from the theme parks and went to Kennedy Space Center. George had always wanted to go there (me too). It was pretty neat seeing where they launch the space shuttle and we  met an astronaut (Mark Lee). As of next year the United Stated will no longer have its own way into space (we will have to pay the Russians to take us).  George and I found the Space Center interesting-Jake was completely bored by it. Jenna gave it a 6 on a scale of 1-10.  They did like the 2 rides that simulated being in the space shuttle and G forces. I have posted another post before this,so make sure you read the previous post. Replica of the Explorer orbitor Shuttle Launch Pad Building where they keep the shuttle Us with Astronaut Mark Lee

The next parts fo our trip were to the Hollywood Studios and the Magic Kingdom. When we were at Hollywood studios George and I got picked on to be part of a street show-where we had to act like we just met and it was love at first site and then kiss in front of every one. The kids got a big kick out of it and were laughing pretty hard. Then Jenna got pulled to dance with the employees on the Christmas tree lane. Over all I was not too impressed with the Hollywood studios-but they did have a fun show The American Idol Experience where guests go to compete and can win an audition for the real American Idol. As for the Magic Kingdom I was a little disappointed that they did not have some of our favorite rides from Disneyland. We had a great time seeing how the rides compare to Disneyland, all the rides were slightly different. One of the fun things we did is go to Tom Sawyers Island-if you get there early the staff hides paint brushes and if you find one you get a prize. We found one...