Wherever mom and dad are, it’s called home, and it is even better when your home is in Florida while it is November.

Nov 17-18, 2023 Orlando

Erik and I arrived Friday hungry. Both of us felt Crazy Buffet sounded really good and it didn’t disappoint us. This Chinese buffet was literally called Crazy Buffet. With $19 per person, it had everything you could think of on a Chinese buffet, and everything tasted delicious.

We took our time getting up Saturday. We went to Winter Park, a popular shopping area with lots of restaurants. we walked around to find a place for lunch. Fancy places looked really good until the prices looked even better with the wrong direction I would like them to be. We settled at a Turkish restaurant because we saw lots of veggies on people’s plates and they looked colorful.

We walked around Lake Eola after lunch and had a very relaxing afternoon before picking up Valerie from the airport. She was coming from Boston to visit mom and dad with us!

We got Valerie and had Vietnamese food for dinner.

Nov 19, 2023 Lake Monroe then Home

Mom wanted to take us on this boat ride for a long time and we finally got to do it together, on a perfect sunny day.

When we got there, mom and dad were already there waiting for us. Mom, as always, couldn’t wait to do her hugs and kisses. She hasn’t seen Valerie since Covid.

This is the Barbara-Lee Rivership, which is an authentic sternwheeler that sails the St. Johns River.

Barbara-Lee was happy to take the Nelsons along the river today. Food was good and entertainment throughout the whole trip.

Here is mom who took the tour many times and now worked as an unpaid guide, telling us all about it.

Beautiful water, beautiful trees, beautiful sky that beautiful people appreciated today…

After the boat ride, we got back to mom and dad’s place. Every time we visit, mom plans many things for us ahead including food. This time is no difference.

Mom has always been learning and sharing something with others. She is very generous with her money and time.

Our first project together: pouring picture. Such a fun project and we each walked away with a special piece of art!

Mom is showing us how to start

Everyone started to pour paint on the bottom of the carefully selected bottles by mom and dad

Start to Finish

Our second project together: looming hats! Mom has been making these hats and donating them to an organization.

While the girls were busy with projects, the boys were exploring the TV controls. Dad was happy that Erik figured out how to get more channels he wanted.

Erik brought his toy electrical knife sharpener to sharpen mom’s knives.

We had seafood salad, yogurt parfait and fresh baked rolls for dinner, with Valerie special ordered blueberries cobbler with ice cream for dessert. Everything was so delicious 😍. So good to get into the dessert that I forgot to take a picture 😜

**Nov 20, 2023 Dad’s Birthday **

Our second day with mom and dad started with yummy egg hockey and some leftovers. I got to have more seafood salad and we cleaned out the blueberry cobbler 😍.

A game of shovel board in the community. Mom and Erik got the first place. Me and Valerie came in second, woohoo🎉

Time to the birthday meal at the restaurant with beach view! It is dad’s 81 birthday. We hope we can come and celebrate many more with them.

After the birthday meal, mom and Valerie wanted to get their feet wet in the water.

Wonderful smiles!

We headed home and played Shanghai Rumi, a card game. I am the one from China, but maybe because I wasn’t from Shanghai, I didn’t know this game🤔.

REAL birthday celebration began with grandma’s recipe, mom made, dad’s favorite chocolate mayonnaise cake! We sang the happy birthday song and dad was able to figure out the candle math to get to 81!

It’s….show time! Our pour paint and both Valerie and I got to finish making the baby hats! We

Time runs at its own speed and never early and never late. No matter how much we wanted to hang on to the happy moments longer, it moves on…

Dad prayed over us as always before we left. With the hugs and kisses, we said goodbye to mom and dad.

Nov 22, 2023 Home

We stopped by a triple D (a TV show) food truck on the way to the airport: Pastrami Project

The Rueben sandwich was soooo good. Good snack before the flight home.

We got home safely, so did Valerie. All of us were back to cold. DC was raining.

What a nice family time together. God blessed us so much. We are so grateful. Until next time…