The Celebration continues

We had a wonderful time visiting with Laura and her family today. After spending an entire week with them, we really miss them. Laura is pregnant and due in April! We are looking forward to a new addition to the family. The boys had a great time playing with Thomas and Anna. My parents were also able to come. It was nice being all together. We had a blast talking and catching up. Laura is the person who talked us into starting a blog. You can check out her blog at www.shoreleavebermuda.blogspot.com .

Hunter, Thomas, Anna, and Jordan

Mom, Kim and Laura

Christmas Day

We woke up bright and early Christmas morning to see what Santa may have brought. The boys were very excited but I managed to get a picture of them with their stockings.

Hunter and his stocking

Jordan and his stocking

We stayed at home for the early afternoon. The boys were busy playing with their toys. They opened packages and put in lots of batteries. After lunch, we went to The Bristows for Christmas supper. We enjoyed spending time with Cole (Chris' brother) and his family. The kids had a great time playing together. I know my in-laws enjoyed having both their sons, their 4 grandchildren and their two fabulous daughters in-laws all together at their house. :)

Chris, Kim, Jane, Cole, Kate (who is a little camera shy), Julie

Jordan, Hunter and Daniel

Those crazy Bristow boys!

Christmas Eve

This year, we spent Christmas Eve with my parents. We went to the Christmas Eve Service at their church which is the church I grew up in. I enjoyed seeing my old friends. After church, we ate a wonderful meal that Mom prepared. Then we opened presents!

Jordan, Mom and Hunter

Jordan showing Dad his new Christmas present

Jordan, Chris, and Hunter

Merry Christmas

Jordan is very exited about Christmas this year. He has enjoyed all the Christmas decorations. When we were getting them out, he would say "I remember this one!" Both the boys have been playing with decorations. They move them around and I find them in the different rooms all the time. They have been listening to Christmas music and singing Christmas carols. They are looking forward to Santa's annual visit. Jordan sent his list in an email and told him in person. For the second year in a row, Hunter would not sit on Santa's lap but he did send him an e-mail.

We hope you have a very Merry Christmas!

Cub Scouts sing at local Nursing Home

Hunter's cub scout pack sang at a local nursing home. The residences seemed to enjoy the Christmas carols. Each scout brought a shoe box fulled with goodies for the residences. Hunter is in the back between the two boys wearing hats.

After the singing, light refreshments were served. Each boy got their soap box derby car kit. Hunter is very excited about making and racing his car.

Luke

Luke Bristow
October 1993- December 7, 2007

Our sweet Luke passed away last night. He had been a member of our family since December 1993. It was the first Christmas Chris and I were married and we went to the Charleston pound and picked Luke out. He was the last dog left of his litter. The name outside his cage at the pound was Tootsie. (Hopefully that was one of his sister's names.) Since he had white fur under his chin, Chris thought he was older but he was less than 3 months old. We said we saved his life since we adopted him from the pound but since it was Christmas, he was sure to be adopted. So we picked out Luke and took him to the counter to take him home. We thought that if you adopted an animal from the pound it would be free. But they told us that Luke would cost $50. We had very little money since I was in school and Chris was working to find a real job. He was working retail at the mall. But we couldn't send Lukey back now. We already loved him. So we paid for Luke with our grocery money.

One day in Spartanburg the UPS man said he was afraid of Luke when he saw him running toward him until he saw the ball in his mouth. Luke loved to play and run outside.

When we brought Hunter home from the hospital when he was a baby, he gave Luke a bone. Ever since then they have been best buddies. Luke would sleep next to his crib watching over him at night. Maybe Luke was hoping for another bone. Luke did not even mind when Hunter, at 2 years old, would try to ride him like a horse.



Jordan also brought Luke home a bone the first time he meet him. By then Luke understood that little people equaled more food for him. They were very messy and would even share!

This is the boy's favorite picture of Luke. Jordan has fur and Luke has apposing thumbs.

Hunter and Jordan both wanted to write something for Luke.

Hunter wrote "My dog died tonight on 12 7 07. I cried a lot and my mom and Jordan and dad cried too."

Jordan wrote " Luk is ded. He wet two doggy haven." (Luke is dead. He went to doggy heaven.)

We are very lucky to have had Luke in our family for 14 years. That is 98 human years!

Hunter's Cub Scout Pack is in the paper

Hunter's Cub Scout Pack visited Town Hall Sunday. They met the Mayor. He answered their questions about the town. Their picture was in the local paper. Hunter is the 4th from the left (in the middle). This is his first year in Cub Scouts and he is enjoying it.

Lights Before Christmas

On Wednesday, we went to see the light at the zoo with Mom and Dad. The entire zoo was all decorated for Christmas.


The first thing Jordan wanted to do was see Santa. He ran straight to him. Jordan said he wanted chocolate for Christmas. Santa reached in Jordan's ear and pulled out some Hersey's kisses. I'm going to have to check his ears more often.



We hope you have a wonderful Christmas season.

Christmas Lights

We did a 3K nighttime holiday walk through one of our local parks Tuesday. The park was decorated with holiday nights everywhere. It is nice to walk and see the lights slowly instead of driving through the park and we all got some exercise. I posted 2 pictures I took so everyone can enjoy all their hard work. It is hard to believe Christmas is almost here. Where did the time go?

Come to the Table

We had the best time at a letterboxing gathering at Table Rock State Park Saturday. Thanks for dtandfambly and the J Walkers for putting the gathering together. We saw some friends and met some new ones. We were able to put names with faces. Overall, we had a blast.


The leaves appeared to be at their peak. They are gorgeous! The weather was in the high 60s with no rain.

Here is a shot of one of the fabulous trees.

We found lots of letterboxes. Here Jordan and I are stamping in. There were tons of letterboxes at Table Rock. We were unable to find them all but that gives us a great excuse to visit again. We have been letterboxing for almost a year now and we found our 100th letterbox Saturday!

The trees, mountain and reflection off the water were beautiful!
Here is Jordan carrying our letterboxing supplies and Penny is peeping out of the bag. Penny is a webkinz that is traveling around the country letterboxing with different families. She is from NY and she visiting us this month.

Corn Maze

We visited a giant corn maze Sunday. Jordan had earned his ticket to get in from completing a summer reading program at the library. This corn maze had a pirate theme. It was in the shape of a pirate ship at sea. Every group had a flag. If we got lost, we were instructed to wave our flag and someone would help us. Chris asked them how they made this amazing corn maze. They said a GPS and a tractor. It took us about 1 and 1/2 hours to get through the maze. Luckily we never had to wave our flag. The stuffed pig on Chris' shoulder is Hunter's class webkinz, Spoink. He came home with Hunter this weekend. Hunter had to write in Spoink's journal about his adventures this weekend.

A view of a small portion of the maze

Happy Halloween!!

We had a great Halloween. Hunter dressed up as vampire complete with pale white face, black around his eyes, blood dripping from his mouth and black hair. It was strange seeing him with black hair. I'm sure that is how he will look as he gets older. (Just like Chris) Jordan was Ron Weasley from Harry Potter. This was a very easy costume since he already looks like Ron Weasley. All he needed was his robe, wand and a British accent. (which he is very good at doing)



We met up with some of our neighbors who had a hayride so the kids could trick or treat in style. This was great and lots of fun! In this picture is Ellery (a Hippy), Jordan (AKA Ron) and Hunter (who looks like death warmed over). Someone thought Ellery was Cher. She wanted to know who "Sheer" was. It was one of those moments that makes you feel very old.


Later on, Stone joined us which delighted Jordan. Stone was a Jedi Knight. After several houses, Jordan and Stone were happy just eating candy and talking in the back of the car while the other kids tried to hit as many houses as humanly possible. They are so much alike.


One of the houses we went to was completely decked out of Halloween. It was complete with a ghostly graveyard, walk through inflatable house and inflatable hearse with a body that would rise up out of a coffin every few minutes. They even had the inside of their house decorated from ceiling to floor.


I included this picture so you can see Hunter's full costume. He had on a cape but you can not tell from the picture. He is at the door and Jordan is on the far right hand side of the picture trying to catch up with him. (as always, you can click on the picture to make it larger.)

We hope everyone had a fun filled Halloween!

October Sunset

Jordan looked out of the window today and said "Mom, look at the sunset." It was beautiful. We hurried outside to take pictures. Jordan wanted to put the pictures on the blog.

This is the picture Jordan took of the sunset

This is my picture of the sunset

It's Pumpkin Time

Hunter and Jordan are so excited about Halloween. Who can blame them? Free candy is a child's dream come true. They love carving a pumpkin. There was much debate about what to carve. In the end, Jordan picked out one side and Hunter picked out the other. They even had to share their pumpkin.

Hunter and Jordan scooping out the pumpkin guts

Soccer Season Begins

Hunter's soccer team is Crush this year. They had their first game today. Hunter was the goalie. It was a great game and the kids had a lot of fun.


This picture was taken after the game. He was enjoying his drink. Jordan did not want to play soccer this year. He wants to take karate. We are planing on starting karate next month.

Hunter's Birthday Party

Hunter had a sleepover birthday party. 3 boys slept over last night. They played football, watched movies, ate pizza, played board games, and played playstation until about 1 am. I took this picture this morning. As you can see, they are a little tired. Hunter's real birthday is Monday so I'm sure that the party will continue.

My picture was chosen!!!!

I don't know if anyone remembers this picture from February. I took it at the battery in Charleston during the weekend of the wildlife expo. Well, I submitted this photo along with two others to be used for a calender for atlas quest (the letterboxing website). There were about 500 photos submitted and this photo was chosen!! It was chosen for March in the sunset calender edition. Click on the link to see the calender and my picture (of course). Our trail name is Box Hunters. Well, I'm very excited.

1st Day of School

Today is Hunter and Jordan's first day of school. They were both excited about a new school year. Hunter is now a third grader. He knows his teacher from last year so we all hope this will make things easier. Jordan is in 1st grade. This morning he wanted to know if first grade was hard. I told him he was going to learn fun stuff like how to read and math. The boys refer to the first day of school as rule day. I think that is so fitting.

The boys walking to get in the car.

Jordan Loses His First Tooth

Jordan lost his first tooth (one of his bottom front teeth). He started working on this tooth during our Bermuda trip. And it finally came out! The tooth fairy found her way to our house. Jordan was so excited to find his loot. The first tooth brings more money than other teeth. We are very excited for Jordan.

Sunset on the Lake

Chris took this wonderful picture on Lake Murray the other day. It turned out so well I wanted to share it. We are all trying to get ready for school to start. We had such a fun and relaxing summer; we hate to see it end.

Bermuda

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We just arrived back from our week in Bermuda. My first cousin, Laura, and her family lives there. We enjoyed spending time with them and experiencing Bermuda. We stayed very busy so I'm sure Laura and her family need a vacation after our vacation.


This was Hunter and Jordan's first trip outside the US. They were so excited about getting their first stamp in their passports. They did excellent on the 2 1/2 hour flight.


We took Laura, Thomas and Anna letterboxing. This was their first time letterboxing and they had a blast. We are at St George in the graveyard of the oldest continuously operating Anglican church in the Western hemisphere. Thomas is holding the letterbox. We found 4 letterboxes during our trip. These were our first international letterboxes.

In the pictures above, Laura, Chris, Hunter, Jordan, Thomas and Anna are sitting on the steps of St. Peter's church. The inside was beautiful. On display under glass were some signatures, I read the first as Elizabeth Phillip. I was trying to figure out who she was when Laura said was Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip. I felt so dumb. Prince Charles and Diana's signatures were also in the church. As always, you can click on the picture to made it bigger.



On Tuesday night, we went on a boat ride with some of Laura and Sean's friends. They had 3 kids so with Laura's 2 kids and ours, we had a total of 7 kids and 6 adults. They took us on a lovely tour of Bermuda. Then we anchored and ate the delicious supper Laura had prepared. Completely throwing the "no swimming until 30 minutes after you eat" rule out the window, we swam. The water was 15 feet deep and you could still see the bottom. There was even a rainbow.

After the sunset, we waited to see the glowworms. Laura had told us how amazing it was to watch to glowworms. So we planed our trip during the time the glowworms are active. The glowworm produces bioluminescent displays when they mate. During the months of June through September, between two and three nights after a full moon, 56 minutes after sunset, this illuminated mating ritual occurs. (It is true. I could not make this up) It starts with the females spiraling to the surface emitting a pulsating green luminescence as they release an egg mass. The male, glowing as well, does a zig zag dance until he encounters these eggs, darts around in the mass causing an even brighter glow. He then dies and sinks to the bottom of the sea. I guess since she is done with him there is no use keeping him around. :) So there were hundreds of poofs of glowing egg that looked like circles and then these glowing zig zaping males attach them. The "show" lasted about 10 minutes and then completely stopped.

More Highlights from Bermuda

Ok, I know no one will believe this but I really tried (and failed) to limit the number of pictures I put on the blog about Bermuda. These are a few of our favorite things we did.

The Beaches

We loved looking at the amazing beaches of Bermuda. The clear turquoise water, pink sand, and rock formations in the water are unlike anyplace place in the world.

Chaplin Bay

Laura took us to all the best beaches in Bermuda. We went to Horseshoe Bay, Jobson's Cove, Coral Beach and Chaplin Bay to name a few. She was a wonderful tour guide.

Jordan exploring the beach

Tour of the Forts of Bermuda

Laura and I joked that we toured the Forts of Bermuda while Sean and Chris toured the rums. We think they had the best tours. Chris' favorite was Black Seal made in Bermuda. Strangely enough I have no picture of Sean and Chris' tour but I have plenty of the Forts. First we toured Fort St. Catherine which is located in St George. They had mannequins displaying solders through out the fort. There was a display of soldiers playing cards and drinking rum. Apparently they also toured the rums because there was a mannequin passed out on the floor with a bottle of rum. Can you believe they made a display of that? It was very funny.

Jordan, Thomas and Hunter at Fort St Catherine

The next fort on our tour was Fort Scaur which is on the other side of the island. So we traveled the entire colony of Bermuda in one day. Fort Scaur had the most beautiful view of the island. Since the island is curved, you could see the area of the island that Laura and Sean live on from there. We had a picnic lunch here. Pasta salad, anyone?

Jordan walking in Fort Scaur

On the last day of our trip, we toured Fort Hamilton. Again there was a breathtaking view of Bermuda. We saw a cruise docking into port in Hamilton.

Kim, Chris, Hunter and Jordan at Fort Hamilton

Also at Fort Hamilton , there was a cool Moat Garden. The moat around the fort which is now dry is a beautiful path with gorgeous tropical plants on both sides. It was also cool walking down the dark halls inside the fort.

Thomas, Hunter, Anna and Jordan crossing the "moat" to enter the garden

The Spa

Laura and I spent the most wonderful day alone at the Spa. I had never spent the whole day at a Spa before and it was like a slice of heaven. I had a 60 minute massage and Laura had a facial. Then we ate lunch outside with another wonderful view of Bermuda. Then we went inside and swam. The waterfall at the pool would massage your neck and back. Laura and I were able to sit and talk for hours without any interruptions. When we were at the Spa, Sean and Chris took the kids to Crystal Caves. Since I had the camera, Chris didn't take pictures but this was Hunter's favorite part of the vacation. We were told that they cooked hotdogs and did "man things." I think they worked on their Rum Tour some more.

Laura enjoying herself at the spa

Hunter riding the scooter

Hunter loved riding on the scooter with Sean. Thomas was nice enough to let Hunter ride since he does not live in Bermuda. After the tour of Crystal Caves, this was the highlight of Hunter's vacation.

Sean and Hunter taking off for Thomas' birthday party

Shore Leave

Laura's family named their house Shore Leave. What a fitting name for the home of two Naval Officers. We enjoyed hanging around their house and spending time with them. You can read more about their adventures on their blog. The kids had the great time playing. I'm so glad they got a chance to know each other better. The weather was strange during our trip. It rained almost every night. Thankfully the rain never stopped us from doing what we had planned.

The view of Bailey's Bay from Laura's home.
It was over casted most of our vacation which
was a blessing because it was not so hot.

Thomas' Birthday Party

During our visit, Thomas had his 8th birthday party. The boys were so excited about his party. How many little boys are lucky enough to have their birthday party on a beach in Bermuda. Well, I guess it makes it easier if you live in Bermuda. A total of 10 kids were at his party. After cake and ice cream, everyone headed to the beach. Everyone, including me, enjoyed playing in the sand and surf.

Hunter and Jordan on the beach at Thomas' birthday party

After the party, we changed and ate at Coral Beach. The food was delicious and the view was amazing.

Laura and Kim at Coral Beach
This was the view from our table.

Sommerset Bridge

Sommerset Bridge is the world's smallest drawbridge. Hunter and I went on the bridge and we could stand with one leg on one side of the bridge and one on the other. I think the sign behind us is funny. What is prohibited... fishing for swimmers????

The Bristow's at Sommerset Bridge

Gibb Hill Lighthouse

The boys climbed to the top of the lighthouse. It was a very windy day. Chris even lost his hat.

Hunter at the top of the lighthouse

View from the Lighthouse

Flying

The boys loved flying! The only time they had been on an airplane before this trip was a trip to DC. They loved watching the planes take off. Hunter loved looking out of the window at the clouds. They were so good on the plane.

Bermuda from the air