Letters to Santa. On Thursday Alyssa dictated her and Emerson's letter to me and then Aly signed her name and they both coloured their letters and envelopes to make them fancy. (Alyssa loves the stories about Fancy Nancy who is a little girl that makes everything fancy and helps her family and friends be more fancy too, really cute stories!)
With all the snow and cold weather Teagan and Alyssa have had to really bundle up to play outside. I let them go outside when the smaller kids are having nap time because a few of them are just too small to handle the weather conditions.
That Friday of the really big snowfall and insane road conditions it took Travis 7hrs to get home from work. He got stuck and had to abandon the car for several hours and hang out at his boss' house. This pic is of Emerson watching Travis dig us and the vehicles out, he literally opened the door and had to start digging we had such big snowdrifts in front of our house from the wind. The kids climber in the back was completely covered!
Our dancing penguins and snowman.
Nutcracker.
Alyssa's Christmas artwork from preschool.
Our snowman wreath on the front door speckled with blowing snow makes it really feel like winter and Christmas.
Knee deep snow.
Couldn't see out the playroom windows.
Santa on the inside of our door.
Our advent calendar that the kids take turns opening. Each box has a wooden ornament that gets hung on the trees behind. The snowglobe plays Santa Claus is coming to town and the music on the piano is We Wish You A Merry Christmas. I've been learning to play that one and Jingle bells because those are a couple of the songs Aly's singing at her Christmas concert next week.
Our plane taking us away from Antigua. We had such a fantastic vacation and it was hard to leave but we were looking forward to being home. The kids did excellent on both plane trips home and slept most of the time. Nana and Grandpa Jack picked us up and we were home just after 1am, the kids crashed just after 3am. 
Our room from the beach.
The Pinapple block of rooms.
Brown Pelican fishing in the Ocean. It was awesome to see it flying around overhead and then diving straight into the water, we could see it throw its head back to swallow the fish.
The kids burying my feet in sand.
Running on the beach.
Building sandcastles.
Cute little feet.
Jellyfish washing up on the beach.
Seaweed moustaches :)
Aly pretending to sleep at dinner.
Friday night was Travis' night to put the kids to bed so I could hangout with our friends. Carol and I have a few drinks together and had a great time :)
Some of the gang: Tyler, Carol, Joanna, Simon, Graham, Allan, Me and Leah. 
After breakfast we headed to Mamora beach and took the kids kayaking.
Thanks to Tyler who took pics of us out on the water.
We really enjoyed our time on the beaches the resort was very quiet and uncrowded it was wonderful!
Alyssa LOVED her flower girl basket. Its a hand woven basket from palm leaves.
Getting ready to walk down the aisle.
Here comes the bride.
Such a great picture of Travis and Alyssa together.
The gang at dinner. Travis, Alyssa, Simon, Graham, Tyler, Carol, Emerson and I. Missing from the photo is Allan who took our pic.
Emerson pulling the flowers off of the aisle decor being so gentle and then smashing, tearing and stomping on them. What a boy!
All the ladies.
The boys: Tyler, Simon, Allan, Stephen, Kevin, Graham and Travis.
Mr and Mrs d'Abadie.
Aly, Carol and I.
Emerson was exhausted and really grumpy so I had to take him back to our room before the dancing started. He loves balloons so we had to bring a couple back and he held onto them until he fell asleep.
It was a wonderful wedding and Travis and I feel so blessed to have such amazing friends to share these moments with.
Beautiful Sunrise on the Atlantic Ocean, I was sitting on the deck of our walkout.
The first time we saw one of these Mongoose Alyssa said "Mommy! there are otters here!"
Being silly at breakfast.
Emerson trying to copy his big sis.
The restaurants are all open so we had quite a good time bird watching. There were always a few flying around and the kids enjoyed keeping an eye out, spotting them and inviting them to come closer to have breakfast with us.
The main pool we spent our time in.
Travis the kids and I along with Allan, Simon and Stephen took a taxi down into the town of Saint John's from 9-12 to take a look around and do a little shopping.
The cruise ships in port.
Stephen, Simon and Allan.
The kids playing their steel drums.
Allan trying on Stephen's Rasta hat.
Emerson trying to give Stephen thumbs up but he still does his pointer fingers. haha.
Views from Cocoa Beach restaurant
Alyssa wrote her name in the sand but wouldn't let me take a picture of it.
It began to rain so we headed in to play in our room and then the kids had a long nap and slept through lunch. I took them to the grill on Mamora beach for some hotdogs and then we headed back to Cocoa beach to play and Travis and I did some snorkeling with Kevin. I'm not as comfortable as they are so I didn't go out as far but I still got to see lots of different fish. Cocoa beach was the best to snorkel because the water off of Mamora was too murkey.
Emerson with a mouth full of sand.
Too crabs "hugging"
The waterfall pool which the kids thought was so cool but it was too cool to swim in for them.
After the beach and checking out the pools we decided to spend time at the main pool by the Rainbow room restaurant. Alyssa and Emerson love to swim and we're really glad we put them in swim classes before we came, they were really comfortable in the Ocean and pool.
Aly trying to swim away.
Cooling off in the Pool.
Emerson spent the majority of the time kicking the beach ball into the pool.
Dinner that night was at the fancy Piccolo Mondo restaurant and I tried to get Aly's hair into ringlets. She was very patient while I put in the Spoodles but did not want her hair to be dried with the blowdrier so we couldn't get the curl. 
Emerson looking handsome in his gecko shirt.
Alyssa in her pretty yellow dress, we ended up just clipping her hair back.
Our little family at dinner.
Graham and Travis
Carol and Tyler
Travis, Stephen, Allan, Simon, Kevin, Graham, Joanna, Carol,
Tyler and Travis
Up close Travis and his rockin' Moustache- all the boys grew one till before the wedding.
Alyssa and Uncle Al. 
Emerson saying "cheese" with a mouth full of carrots :) 
We were very lucky to have been upgraded and our hotel room walked out right to Cocoa beach on the Atlantic Ocean.
Aly got her haircut on the Friday before we left. I think it looks so cute! Here she is still a bit sleepy and stunned to see the beach and ocean in front of her.
Geckos!
Emerson wasn't too sure about the waves at first.
Emerson and Alyssa's first time at the Ocean.
Cocoa Beach
Hunting for treasures. Our kids loved the cool rocks and seashells.
The beautiful flowers.
Mamora beach. The other beach on the west side of the resort had a beautiful bay of calm water and fine sand but had the tendancy to get extreamly hot because it lacked the breeze like Cocoa beach always had.
After a great day exploring the beaches and swimming in the ocean we headed to Shirley Heights. We listened to the Steel drum band play and watched the sunset, which would have been spectacular but hindered by all the clouds. The views were still beautiful and the I loved seeing the starry sky after dark.
The band was great and Aly and Emers danced along. We didn't get to stay late enough for the Reggae band which was too bad because some of the guys stayed and said it was good.
After getting back from Shirley Heights we had dinner at the Dockside restaurant and listened to Kevin's dad Paul tell stories (he's a great story teller and so adorable!) Emerson slept during dinner so didn't want to sleep when Travis and Aly called it a night so Emer and I went back the Dockside to sit around and chat with our friends some more. Once they headed to Karoke night I took Emers back to our room for the night. 
