Christmas Traditions

 This year was a Christmas day in Canada year, so we enjoyed having an early Christmas with Grandma Bobbi and Grandpa Lyle here in Orlando!

We enjoyed a lovely afternoon filled with food, puzzles, gifts, and a favorite - the gift of time letters!

Gift exchange time

Love Karis' goofy side - he brings a lot of fun to life!

Reading our gift of time letters - 💖

Tackling a new puzzle

One of the Z annual traditions is to get matching family pajamas for Christmas

Being quite silly trying to do the gigichad faces - some of us are quite bad at it! 😂

We enjoyed a visit with the Js that night - we were flying out the next day and they were planning to move out while we were in Canada to their lovely new home (boo, but yay for them!) so we had a little time to enjoy saying good-bye.

You will see this red hoodie in MANY pictures during the holiday season - it was a favorite of Addison - thanks to Grandma B!

Umm, is he taller than Amy now!?!

Not if she can help it!

That week we also ran over to Amy's work to hand out a few small gifts - Addison was excited to be able to see Amy's office!

And Amy had a real treat in being able to have her work holiday event for the Central Florida Division leadership team at Disney.  We had a VIP tour in which we were able to be taken to the favorite rides and get on very quickly - Amy chose to be on the roller coaster team, so they rode lots of super amazing rides such as Tron - very fun.

This finished our December flurry of fun, and we headed out to Canada for Christmas with the rest of the Z family - more on that in the following posts!

Flurry of Fun

December always ends up having a lot of fun activities in it, which makes it seem to fly by but makes so many fun memories!  There were absolutely so many things that happened within a single week that this is going to be a monster post - we'll try and keep it brief!

The week started off with a birthday party for Addison's soccer teammate Pierce - she was the only girl, the boys have all accepted her as one of team, and she enjoys the active play and comradery. 

Friday afternoon at Altitude

On Sabbath, we enjoyed the annual gingerbread nativity scene at the church for Addison and Amy as a mommy daughter outing!

Sunday the 10th was a particular busy day as Addison had her bestie Michael's birthday at the RDV skating rink and then we dashed over to do our annual family pictures.  

Captured a great smile from Zach!

Totally biased, but this is such a sweet picture!

That Tuesday I had the immense pleasure of visiting with a career-long friend Stephanie Vohwinkel - she lives in Texas but was here for a work meeting and we were able to catch up in the evening - such a joy!

Love you my friend!

On the Wednesday, our family and friends headed over to Pentatonix - our first family concert for the holiday music.  It was enjoyable, although being 100 years old Amy decided she prefers listening to their acapella music at home on her sound system better :)  But it was fun nonetheless. 

The next night, Thursday, was not to be out-done, and Amy and Addison headed over to Dr. Phillips to see the Nutcracker with Jennifer, London, Sheri.  

Excited on our way!

That same Thursday evening Kaleb enjoyed a Class Officer holiday party in the Upper Youth Center.

That weekend, we enjoyed a holiday Christmas light extravaganza put on by a local neighborhood with the Js.

Wow, what a fun week!  The Zs like to be busy with lots of fun memories - and this was for sure a packed week!

Other random pictures:

One of the Friday FLEC chapels, Amy was able to pop over and spend the hour with Addison

Serving Sabbath & Mt Dora Scavenger Hunt

Our beloved Forest Lake SDA Church and Pastor Jennifer hosts an annual Serving sabbath, in which we shut down the church for one day and head out into the community to be the Hands and Feet of Jesus.  We love it - and we try and do a different community service area each year so that we can experience the different non-profit organizations firsthand each year.

This year we headed out to Camp Thunderbird, which is a local organization that helps provide children with handicaps (physical or mental) to have a safe place to enjoy time outdoors in nature.  Our task was to rake volleyball courts free of debris, clear sidewalks, move logs etc.  The weather was fairly nice that morning so it was a great time to be outdoors!

Our hardworking family including Blake!

Addison and I were hard at work raking - and got blisters to prove it! :)

The next day, Addison and Amy had the fun outing of the church's holiday scavenger hunt in Mt Dora.  It is decorated so lovely and such a fun time with her to go out and search for the clues!  We started off the day with a birthday party for London at the Mellow Mushroom along with some "minute-to-win it" type of games.  Addison did well with transferring M&Ms using nothing but a straw!

Mt Dora is beautiful during the holiday season and puts up a large tree, lights everywhere, Christmas carols etc.  Corey G is the mastermind behind the scavenger hunt and does a fantastic job - always a great turnout of families and lots of fun!  This year we ended up getting first place, so that was unexpected but was a lovely way to end the evening!

Blake Holland and Addison showing up their party winnings

Amy, Addison and the Holland family (at least 3 of them of our their 5, and only 2 Zs!)

We enjoyed scampering over to get some ice cream with the Bergherms afterwards - yummy!

Other updates: 

Kaleb as a freshman has a bird biology project due in May, just like Zach did, and he and a friend Sam went out to the Apopka wildlife area on an organized kayak tour of birders - and got some good pictures of birds - well on his way to the required 30 birds!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving at the Grodacks is always a highlight of the season, so we were happy that we returned from our cruise early enough to still be able to partake of the golf in the morning (male Zs, while the ladies enjoyed quality time together at home) and the group meal in the afternoon.

Karis and Kaleb were paired up for their round of golf

The Zs are in the back row between the two pillars, just in case it is impossible to find us later

After the meal, football was on of course so there was lots of time to sit around talking to everyone.

Earlier that week, we had the fun of going out to a movie (Wish) with London, Erik, Elin, and of course Miss Jennifer.  Amy kinda, maybe, might have, fell asleep during part of it...

Who can help it in a comfortable chair, cool room and the lights turned off!?

We always put up our Christmas tree, which has memory ornaments given each year between Amy and Karis for some highlight of the year, over the Thanksgiving weekend.  It is a favorite thing to decorate for Christmas, and we tend to leave up the tree for a good long while because who doesn't love the white Christmas lights!?

Zachary was there, but kind of fell asleep for part of it!

A hug or a choke hold -- unclear at this moment 😂

A family friend nearby in the neighborhood has created a tradition of giving Addison and London each a Christmas calendar - Addison awaits it with much anticipation and baited breath!  Thank you Phil for this special Christmas joy!