Sophia Lola!

One of the reasons why we came to Florida for Christmas, besides braving the harsh winter was to hopefully see our new niece Sophie! Justin and Crystal Speigel were expecting their first baby anytime in early Jan 2009. We tried all Christmas long to try and get her to come out, we gave Crystal foot massages, after foot massages, massaged the belly, pushed on the belly... but Sophie just wouldn't leave her mommy...granted she wasn't due for another week and half... we worked the first week of '09 "remotely" from FL so we could hopefully see her... and she made us wait...all the way until the day before we were to leave to come out!... BUT WE WERE HAPPY SHE CAME!

On Jan 9, 2009 around 5pmish Sophie finally arrived. We got to see the proud daddy come downstairs and greet us with a HUGE smile on his face... he even brought the video camera down with some images of her so we could see her while we waited. She is adorable.(as you can see in the pics) I dont remember her weight or height, but then again.. we're just her aunt and uncle, our job is to spoil the kid and then leave for a while, come back...spoil them some more and then leave. It's Fun. Due to inclemate weather back in NY we were able to reschedule our flight and spend a couple days at the house with Sophie and the extremely happy and very sleepy mommy and daddy!

Christmas 08!

For Christmas we decided to come to Florida to see our families since one side of the family lives in Tampa and the other side lives in Orlando...and they are only about an hour away it works out great...since Mom and Dad Grames are down here(while on furlough) and little baby Sophie is due any day now... We've spent most of our days driving around, doing a little shopping, some for us... but mostly Aunt Sheila for baby Sophie...and of course at David's demands we stopped at some of our favorite fast food that we don't have in NY (Sonic & Chic-fil-a) YUM!

But lets go back about a week, when we first got here we came to TAMPA and stayed with Justin and Crystal for Christmas. We went over to Billy and Muffins(Stacey) house(& Hunter) for Christmas Eve dinner which was awesome! Billy cooked up some nice juicy fillets in the green tank while Justin and David played Nintendo Wii all night.

Once we came home it was about 10 min. till Christmas so we decided to open up all our presents then so we could sleep-in in the morning. The First present I opened up was from Sheila(which we agreed to not get each other presents this year since we bought our tv, bought furniture,....paid for a wedding) but Sheila was able, maybe even for the first time ever, to surprise me. So I opened it up and it was a Nintendo WII!!!! HOW FUN!!!! after that I dont remember much else of the night.

On Christmas day we got up and had a yummy breakfast, pancakes, fresh fruits, eggs...all home made by the ladies. It was good, opened up some stocking presents with some very cool gifts. For lunch we went to the Speigels house(Justin's Parents) about half an hour away. Had some delicious turkey and opened some more presents...

We then drove to Orlando to see David's side of the family, had a little Christmas time there, We stayed there until new years ever visiting with family and doing some shopping and celebrating David's 27th Birthday. Later in January we went to the beach! It was warm and sunny, although the water was really cold.

all in all, it was an awesome Christmas, if only Sophie would just come out and play!