December 18th: Winter Haven Lights

It was time for our annual trip to check out the Christmas lights at Winter Haven. I believe we have gone each year for the past three years. 

Camille and Birch live less than mile away from the neighborhood so I asked for invitation to come and have pizza at their house and then go and check out the lights together. It is nice to have good enough friends that you can self-invite yourself to their house and it is not a big deal. We did take the pizza so we aren't complete moochers. 

After we ate some Costco pizza, the eating was done mostly by adults as the kids were too excited to be with their friends to worry about such a bothersome thing as eating, we headed out to check out the lights.

Camille armed us with some hot chocolate and cookies and we were ready to enjoy the lights.

I don't think the kids were that impressed by the lights but they loved running from house to another.  Eerika tripped over three times as she was running in the dark in her winter boots. After she fell the third time, she did not cry and proudly announced "I got hurt but I didn't cry". The other two times she did cry as we did a complete face plant. 

The fake snow machine was a hit by the kids. Nothing like pretending that soap is snow for the Arizona kids. We spent a good 10 minutes as the kids tried to catch "snow flakes". Eerika was especially upset when it was time to move away from the machine. 

Proof that we were there with the DeGomez family. Eerika got upset when Haley tried to have Eerika next to her and ran away crying. But we get four kids in the picture.

Saku is really enjoying this arms across his chest pose.

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It was fun to check out the lights, but it really was much more fun and important to see Camille and Birch. It really doesn't get much better than spending time with friends who have known you for six plus years.