3rd Annual Meahl Christmas Event

I may have mentioned on this blog that four years ago we decided to forego the annual exchange of gift cards with Greg's family and do something together instead. Even though we live in the same county, we don't work or go to church together (well, Greg and Jeff worked together for awhile), so we don't see much of each other.

The first year, we saw the Christmas program at Dixie Stampede in Orlando. It was awesome! Carys was born a month later, and this has altered what we're able to do a little bit. Last year, we went to the Melting Pot, and this year we took the Italian Star Dinner Train run by the Inland Lakes Railway out of Eustis and Mt. Dora, Florida. We left from Eustis for a 2-hour trip which included dinner.




They have a dome car where you can pay $10 extra and sit in the upper level. We didn't pay the extra, but I guess no one else did either. So, they seated us up there (maybe because we had a party of 11?).

This is the boys' table. AJ, my nephew, is on the far left, followed by Landon and Gerren across the table.


Gran (Greg and Jeff's mom) sat across from the boys with Chase, Rebekah (my niece) and her friend from college, Mary.


Jeff and Kay and Greg and I each had our own tables right behind all of them. Carys sat with us, when she was sitting. The neat thing about being in the dome area was that she could roam up and down the aisle without bothering anyone else. That made it bearable for her.


Greg was rushing me out the door and I forgot my camera. So, thanks to Kay and Rebekah, I have pictures of this event! Here are a couple of Gran with Carys and Gran with Chase.



After we departed the train, we had someone take a picture of our entire group. Once again from left to right: Greg, his brother Jeff, Jeff's wife Kay, their son A.J.,and daughter Rebekah (who is holding our Carys), her friend Mary is behind Chase and Gerren, Gran is hiding behind me and Landon is last.



Then it just got silly, or perhaps I should say Chase got silly!


A fun time was had by all!