Christmas 2009 Part III

With all the Boyces in the house we celebrated Christmas on Sunday morning...

Cousins

After Sean's birthday party all the Boyces spent the night. Elissa helped Sean brush his teeth. Only after these pictures were taken, and Sean said "I don't like this toothpaste," did I realize that Elissa put triple antibiotic ointment on Sean's toothbrush.

Sean's 3rd B-Day Party

Sean's 3rd birthday party was on Saturday. Loads of Sean's friends came (it looked like we were having an SUV sale in front of the house!) Sean (after debating over the last several months on spiders and cars) decided on Scooby Doo cupcakes.

Happy Birthday Sean! 3 Years Old

On January 6th we celebrated Sean's 3rd birthday at Grandma and Dziadziu's house. Pictures can be found on Joanne's blog HERE.

Thursday all the Pasta's and Nana and Grandpa were here to watch the National Championship. UT lost, but it was OK. The new quarterback shows a lot of promise.

Houston Christmas

On Monday after Christmas we traveled back to the Houston area and celebrated Christmas with Grandma, Dziadziu, Joanne and Joe. We arrived just in time to see the start of the Independence Bowl, pitting the Aggies vs. Georgia. We watched the new year arrive at the Carter's house in the old 'hood. Sean stayed up way past midnight...

Barbara counting the year left in Coach Sherman's contract

Sean and Uncle Joe read Joe's book on pre-history

Fowl Pictures

The weekend after Christmas we took a trip to the county park in Kerrville to feed the ducks and geese and then to the Beckman farm near the LBJ Ranch to see chickens and other farm animals.

Kerrville Christmas

We celebrated Christmas in Kerrville with Nana, Grandpa and Tadd. We attended the Christmas vigil at First Presbyterian. Sean went to the nursery for most of the service, but came back for lighting candles and singing Silent Night. Sean got James (from the Thomas the Train series) and Legos (strangely, also James from Thomas) and lots of other cool gifts (as did everyone else.)

Sean opening and Owl puzzle from Nana on Christmas Eve

Sean playing Gator Golf from Uncle Tadd - nothing to do with U of F!

Sean, Barbara and Nana opening gifts

Grandpa gets into the spirits (I mean spirit...)

Bahama Cave Trip

Monday morning we visited some caves on the east end of Grand Bahama Island....

Bahama Glass Bottom Boat Trip

Sunday the weather cleared up and we headed out on a trip on a glass bottom boat. The water was too cloudy from the rain to see the two wrecks of the coast, but we did see lots of fish. The captain brought along a lot of bread for everyone to feed the fish. On the way back we stopped in a channel and picked up a hitchhiker out of the water - a lobster/crab fisherman. Sean thought the lobsters were cool.

Bahama Pics

Bahama Vacation

We slipped away Thursday for a short vacation in the Bahamas on Grand Bahama Island. While lows are in the 30's in Houston and there is a blizzard on the East Coast of the U.S. there is also a severe cold front here. The high today was only 70F. Sounds nice, but a little cold for us Texans to swim. Yesterday when the front moved through it rained torrents all day. We made the best of it and went sight seeing and got drenched. Sean thinks it is great fun here because he gets to watch TV - being trapped in a hotel room a lot.

Gearing up for Christmas

Our new tree finally arrived last week (I finally talked Barbara into an artificial tree.) We spent a day last week and this evening decorating it. Barbara suggested a train to go around the tree (and had to twist my arm really hard!)

Yesterday we went to Greg's house to watch the Big XII Championship Game. We finally met Tyler (Greg's son, named after Earl Campbell - The Tyler Rose.) The 'Horns barely pulled out a win and are now 13-0 and will play for the National Championship on January 7th.

This afternoon we went to Nick and Heather's for a Christmas cookie exchange. The ladies messed with cookies and the guys and kids hung out in the newly redone playroom to watch football.

Barbara and Sean decorate the Christmas tree

Sean helps Mom put up an ornament

David with Ike and Clinton. Greg and Sean playing football. Nick supervises.

Elissa, Ike and Sean

Sean in Elissa's play house

Sean plays with the Christmas tree train

Thanksgiving

We celebrated Thanksgiving at Grandma and Dziadziu's house. They put quite a spread - they made turkeys out of cookies and candy to show where everyone should sit. After dinner we watched the UT-A&M game. Barbara won the coin toss and deferred until the second half, so Sean wore a UT shirt the first half and an A&M shirt the second half.

Sean eat cookies to power the 'Horns to a win

Sean Decorates cookies for Thanksgiving

Pumpkin shaped cranberry sauce

Snow (And Plagiarized Pictures)

Today Houston had its earliest snow fall ever recorded. Sean was staying with Grandma and Dziadziu and got out on Dziadziu's childhood sled (and Sean's great-great-aunt Izia's before that - from the 1930s.)

Sean liked the snow, but not the cold, and after a few minutes wanted to play with the snow inside. His grandparen'ts obliged. He had bowls of snow to play with off and on the rest of the day.

(Thanks to Aunt Jo Jo's Blog for these pictures.)