We wish you a Merry Christmas!

Operation Christmas!

We spent the afternoon transforming our home into a winter wonderland. Thanks to previous Christmas decor gifts and ornaments, we had just enough things to give our home a little winter makeover. We found the perfect 5 foot Frazier Fur tree to decorate from Lowe's and we blasted Christmas music throughout the house. Nick even made homemade chicken noddle soup for us to enjoy after all the festive decorating!

Fishing Coming soon!

The time has come and fixing the boat is now possible! Our Texas family will be arriving soon for Christmas and Nick has been working hard to get our boat running in time to do some fishing with Dad Garza. There are still some things left to do, but so far, Nick is right on schedule and our boat now has carpet and a new propeller! :)

Black Friday Findings

The Vander Sys 2nd Annual Black Friday Shopping was a success! We brought home oodles of great gifts to give and goodies to keep for Christmas. Nick and I got each other our gifts during this festive shopping spree. Nick got me a new vacuum and I got him a Kitchen Aid mixer! We were both very excited to come home and try out our gifts. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

This Thanksgiving, Nick and I had a little different celebration than our others. Nick and I had a nice pizza and wine dinner followed by a marathon of Thanksgiving episodes from our favorite Television shows. Even though it was not your traditional Thanksgiving dinner, we enjoyed a time of thanks for all that God has blessed us with. :)

Making bread

Nick had been wanting to make bread for a while and we finally made it a point to get all of the ingredients and try it out. Nick was even able to get the Kitchen Aid mixer from work to help in our bread making. Thank you Scientific Associates! Using Cook's Illustrated 2006 as a guide we were able to successfully make 4 homemade loaves of multigrain bread! :)

Congrats Mr. & Mrs. Fryauff

Our good friends, Chris and Erin, tied the knot! It was very special to be a part of their big day. They had a lovely ceremony and fun reception. We want to send a congrats to Mr. & Mrs. Fryauff and may God use your marriage to show His love!

The first "cold front" of the season

This past weekend we woke up and realized that we were cold! Our house was around 65 degrees. We had our first cold front come to the treasure coast. All day there was no sign of the sun, just a bunch of alto stratus clouds covered the sky. It was the perfect weather for a bonfire and some smores'.
Our good friends, the Timmermans' thought this was a grand idea and invited us to join them for some dinner and some smores'. So, after church we put on our jeans and sweatshirts on and headed out for a good time. Nick became our "fire man" and did a superb job keeping the fire going through all the wind and some rain. We had a great time warming up next to the fire and eating some delicious smores'.

Veggie Tales

Our garden is doing quite well and we are loving the veggies! We have successfully pulled some carrots, zucchini, romaine lettuce, and now jalapenos from our garden to eat. The next thing to pull will be our tomatoes. :)

Halloween at the Hall's

This year we got invited to attend a Halloween costume party with some of our life group friends. Nick and I went decided we were going to dress up as a peacock and a beaver. We were able to successfully pull off both of our costumes with a budget of $25! :)

( Please notice Nick's tail, Nick worked hard on making that)

The decorations at the party we amazing! Every room (even the bathroom) was fully decorated. They even had their own haunted house that you could walk through! It was a really fun party and we had a great time mingling and seeing everyone's clever costumes.

This is our cheapest meal yet!

Total cost $0.00. The green beans were from Michigan (2008) and the Sheephead was provided by my lovely husband. We have not been fishing or crab trapping in over a year because we have been really busy and our boat is "under construction". One afternoon Nick got around to collecting our crab traps from Grandma Johnson's condo. Well, to Nick's surprise he found 2 good sized Sheephead swimming inside one of the crab traps. Nick of course, filleted them and brought them home for dinner. By the time I got home from work Nick had prepared a delicious and free meal! :)

Our easter eggs!

It is really neat to see such a variety of colors when it comes to our eggs. Even though all of our girls came from the same batch, every egg is different. Here's a little chicken FYI for you: what determines the color of the egg is the color of the chickens' ear. Crazy huh? :)

We love our Sunsets!

Look at the beautiful colors! Wow! God has impeccable artisan skills!

"Fall"-inizing our home...

We are happy to say that it is looking like fall might actually be in Florida! The weather is still very warm (mid to upper 80's), but the wind is present and the humidity is beginning to decline. In celebration of a new season, Nick and I decided it was time to "Fall"-inize our home with some fall decorations and cider scented candles. These quick little additions have really helped us get into the fall mood. Plus, our house smells really good!

One egg, two eggs... and many more!

Well, the time has come to officially announce that our chicks are now adult hens. We have found our first pullet egg (a small egg that signals the beginning of egg production in chickens). This means our chicks are now laying eggs. Here is a picture of a pullet egg beside a normal sized egg. Ready or not here comes the eggs!

Our garden is growing!

It has been 3 or 4 weeks since we've planted out garden and things are growing! Since this picture our corn is now almost a foot high and our melon has grown into a delicious afternoon snack! :)

Welcome to my new classroom!

yey! We have successfully moved into our new Boys and Girls Club. Thanks to our donors we were able to move into a brand new 1.7 million dollar building. It has been such a positive change and our new space just gives us the opportunity to really do our jobs. I decided since we were taking the kids into a new atmosphere, why not explore our atmosphere and universe by making the theme of the room based around the solar system. There are still materials that have not come in just but so far things are looking well. So, here is, my new classroom! :)

A taste for wine and murder...

We got to take part in a murder mystery dinner. We joined our Vero friends to the Sly Mondavid Winery located in Napa Valley ;) for some delicious wine tasting. I was Ms. Bonnie Lass a Scottish tourist and Nick was Papa Vito an older Italian man who worked on the Sly Mondavid winery all his life. Somebody had murdered the owner 5 years ago and his body had just been found. Along with us there were other suspects Tiny Bubbles, Merilyn Merlot, Otto Von Schnapps, Mr. Rottengrape, Hedy, and Bud Weiser. Our meal revolved around question and answers sessions, evidence revelations, and lots of laughter. We had a great time and to my surprise, Papa Vito (Nick)ended up being the murder! :)