Happy New Year from the UK!

We left on Boxing Day for our family vacation in the UK. As soon as we landed at Gail's we got straight down to business with some proper English bacon...

And a half of bitter shandy at the pub....

And a mince pie at mum's...

...and a snowball at another pub:)...

We (over)indulged in many more British pleasures during the trip and I didn't photograph them all thankfully but suffice it to say shares in Walkers prawn cocktail crisps and Bovril probably saw an uptick that week...

Since my two grandnieces both had chicken pox, we switched out the order of events a bit and headed up to the Lake District at the beginning of the visit to give them chance to recover:). We live on the border of the Orlando town of Windermere so I wanted to show Mike and Maddy the original place that it was named after. This is me and Mike at Lake Windermere on our 19th wedding anniversary...

We saw a tiny bit of snow in Kendal, and a boatload of mint cake:)

We had a lovely walk around Tarn Hows and took lots of selfies with pretty English cows:)

The next day we had breakfast on the infamous Lake Coniston where Sir Malcolm Campbell had set the water speed world record at 141.74 mph (228.108 km/h) in the Bluebird in 1939. After his son Donald Campbell had set four successive records on the same lake he decided in 1967 that he needed to exceed 300 mph to retain the record. Although he achieved a top speed of over 320 mph he then sadly lost control and was killed instantly.

Mike and Maddy loved the scenery and especially the sheep:)

The Lake District is the home of William Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter. We loved pretty Hawkshead in particular...

But it was cold...! We headed back to Gail's and enjoyed a day catching up and snuggling up watching British TV. I got my fix of British birds through the window...

Then we went over to see Sean and Tracy and Mike got to meet Skyla for the first time - she loved him!

I miss my Tracy so much....

Then we headed over to see Stephen and Kayz and meet Nancy for the first time:)

She is so adorable!

It was so strange seeing in the new year with Big Ben!

We spent our last night seeing Jan and Darren and saying goodbye to Mum and Dad...

Thank you Gail for putting us up (and putting up with us)...:)

Hope to see you all again soon and Happy New Year!

Our First Xmas with our new family!

We opened our family gifts on Christmas Eve at midnight. Bryce was fascinated with the whole thing!

This wasn't exactly what Maddy had in mind when she checked "no personalization" for Mike's shirt but he thought it was perfect:)

Maddy had a number of surprises - she loved her new polaroid camera...

For her big surprise I had found the names of the original owners of Bryce and Juneau from vet records and secretly reached out to ask them for some background information (ages, breed, birthdays etc) to help with their medical care. I also asked for some photos from their puppyhood and was able to put together a beautiful album for Maddy of over 50 photos! They were so cute as babies!

Maddy was blown away - and it solved so many mysteries as to why they are so different and helps us understand where they have come from. It got her right in "the feels":)

On Christmas Day morning it was all about the dogs getting their gifts and they were thrilled:)

In the afternoon the family arrived...

 

We had a lovely party and 4 Rivers did an awesome job as usual!

Happy Christmas to you all - now to start packing:)

The run up to Xmas...

We were all  really excited to get ready to celebrate our first Christmas with Juneau and Bryce...

Bryce was mesmerized by the lights...

About a week before Christmas we had a visitor we've never had before in our back porch :)

On Christmas Eve we went over to Epcot. The special Holiday fireworks were amazing!

Finally the big day is almost here!