The Brown Brick Road

Capturing our adventures one photo at a time...

Spelling Bee

Last week Samantha made it to the school spelling bee!

She came in first place in her class so got to move on to the school bee. I was so incredibly proud of her for getting up on the stage in front of a lot of people and speak confidently and clearly! She handled her practice word of “jazzy” just fine! Hooray!

But, she got a toughie for round 1. “Infinite” She was close but said i-n-f-a-n-i-t-e and got dinged so was out in round one just like Spencer last year. That’s ok, I’m still infinitely proud of her! It took courage to get up on that stage and she did great!!

My cutie smarty pants!

Birthday

Today is my dad’s birthday – he would have been 74. Here we are in New York about 40 years ago…

I think a good thing to do today to celebrate him is to go to New York and hear the Mighty Wurlitzer at Radio City! Let’s go! Happy Birthday Daddo, we miss you.

spruced up!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!

Nothing better!

More Naples

We started Friday with a trip to Skillets, of course. We then hit up the beach.

That night we headed downtown to Campiellos! Yum!

Maxwell took down this breaded and sautéed 1 lb lobster tail with no problem!

The next day we went to see Wicked (so good!) and then watched some football! Roll Tide! Right before the game started, Maxwell called us outside because we had a visitor!!

Gary the Gator was back! He’s SO big and we got a close look at him this time – he’s got a mangled right arm and a nub for his left arm! Gary’s been in some fights!

It’s always fun to see Gary and we’re very thankful he can’t climb up a ladder!!

Sunday we sadly had to head back to Birmingham but are so glad we had such a good Thanksgiving in Naples! Thanks for everything GJ!!

Thanksgiving at the beach

Thanksgiving in Naples was a beautiful and sunny day! Keath and his crew made it over around noon and we feasted on GJ’s turkey and dressing, deviled eggs, sweet potatoes, broccoli salad, apple pie, pecan pie – there is simply nothing better and I can confirm it tastes even better at the beach! I even managed to set up my phone so we could get a group selfie. The kids and I tried it out first…

giving

and then we got the whole gang! Hooray!

giving

After our food settled and some (Robert) took a quick couch nap, we made it down to the beach for sunset.

Of course the boys threw the football…

and Samantha flipped around!

It was a perfect evening.

We then went back to the house for more pie! That’s how you do Thanksgiving!