Maeve's birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years

 Am behind on my posts for the holidays of 2025. It was all so busy yet so fun - from Maeve's birthday to Thanksgiving at home, to early December Christmas gatherings, to Christmas Eve Mass, and Christmas morning fun before heading out to Las Vegas, Death Valley and Palm Springs.

Highlights include:

• seeing the Northern lights from our house
• Maeve turned 12 - family time and friends at the Wild game
• Anne in town and seeing Pentatonix, White Christmas at Chanhassen dinner theater, and Maeve's middle school dance
• building the Home Alone Lego house
• Arboretum
• Eric's birthday dinner and time out with friends

• Christmas village and International Santas
• Christmas Eve Mass
• Christmas morning - Pop a shot, Drinkmate spritzer, and Airpods from Santa
• Hoover Dam
• Pink jeep tour in Red Rock National Conservation area
• Sunset (Dante's view) and sunrise (Zabriskie Point) and lowest point (Badwater Basin) and hiking (Artists Palette)  in Death Valley
• Hiking on rocks in Joshua Tree and seeing the Heart rock and Skull rock

It was a busy few months and we squeezed out all the great memories for the Christmas season

Halloween 2025

 Kids had a great time trick-or-treating around our neighborhood. It was rainy and damp but we still made it out for about 2 hours. We had a reindeer, a yeti, and a cow beanie baby. I also enjoyed volunteering in Kyle's classroom for the party. Carving pumpkins was mostly the kids this year with some help from me and Grandma Brigid.

Smoky Mountains and Asheville

For Fall break this year, we flew in and out of Charlotte with stops in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge and Asheville. We explored the Great Smoky mountains during peak fall colors. The pictures can't capture the beauty but it was the best time to be there. It was crowded driving around, especially around the Cades cove loop, but in the distance we saw a black bear and 2 cubs. Gatlinburg in the evening was a short walk from our hotel at Margaritaville. We all enjoyed Jason Aldean's bar - especially Kyle dancing for all to see - and the arcade of course. They also enjoyed swimming in the heated outdoor pool. In Pigeon Forge, the kids enjoyed an upside down museum where they also did a ropes course with Eric and laser tag. Our other exploration of the Great Smoky mountains brought us on the Newfound gap road to Clingman's dome as we drove back to Asheville. Clingman's dome had the best views but quite a steep hike to get up there. Cecilia wasn't loving the hiking part of the trip! We did see part of the Appalachian trail and drove on the Blue Ridge mountain parkway where we got out to see an elk up close. The fall colors were just stunning.

Asheville was a great stop - from spending time at Sierra Nevada on our way to Gatlinburg and being able to go through a self-guided tour to see the bottling and canning process which was really cool to also meeting up with Emily, a friend from my time in Ireland that I hadn't seen in about 20 years at Highland brewing, we had some great brewery stops. We also went to the WNC Nature center (and saw the destruction of Hurricane Helene which cancelled our last trip to Asheville) and saw some animals. Dinner out in Asheville was delicious too at the top of the mountains and at Huli Sue's. 

On our way back to the airport, we visited my cousin Carm and her fiance Meghan and son Jordan. Cora was also there - so it was so nice to catch up with family for a few hours and the kids jumped on their trampoline.

Our final animal count: 

2 turkeys 

1 bald eagle 

1 black bear and 2 cubs 

2 female elk 

2 male elk