Vacation - Day 3!

Today was the Day of Museums. We lucked out and found that two of the St. Pete attractions on our list were right next to each other. More than that, they had the same entrance! So we had one-stop shopping for experiencing Great Explorations, a cool children's museum, and the Sunken Gardens, one of Florida's oldest roadside tourist attractions.

At the children's museum, there were tons of hand-on exhibits and fun for the whole family. Annika was probably the biggest winner. Here she is, making music on a set of pipes.



Daniel in the water exploration area where he is standing all by himself. (Of course, after taking this shot, he tumbled to the side....)

Will was a champion at Dance Dance Revolution.

Amy is hanging out in the bowling place.

Next up was Sunken Gardens, with its old-time sign.

This was started in 1903 by an "avid gardener." Many of the trees are original to that time. Here is a really cool tall palm tree.

There were tons of ponds and intricate waterways throughout.

Annika's favorite event was gazing at all of the flowing water.

Will and Annika on one of the many bridges. It's hard to believe the whole place was only 7 acres, since it took a couple of hours to wind through all of the paths.

Although Daniel slept through everything, we have documented proof that he was there!

Vacation - Day 2!

Today's main event was going to Caladesi Island, home of America's #1 Beach, as recently rated by Dr. Beach. And who wouldn't trust a man named Dr. Beach? Anyway, the whole thing was very cool. The only way to get there is by boat. You can take a private boat that you own, or you can join the masses and take a ferry from Honeymoon Island to Caladesi Island. We opted for the latter. You are only permitted to be there for a four-hour period, so you have a "return time" when you have to take the ferry back. We all had a wonderful time.


Here are some pictures of our Caladesi Adventure. (See the entry below for pictures of yesterday's festivities!)



There was quite the (slow-moving) line to get on the boat.

Daniel enjoyed watching the water while on the ferry.

The island is famous for its seashells.

It was just beautiful, and very pristine. You could see very fine, white-powder sand for as far as the eye could see.

Annika ran in right away to frolic in the waves.

Daniel got to experience the water with Dad.

But...he wasn't so sure about being splashed!

annika (she just typed it!) buried her hands (among other items) in the sand.

annika running in the water!

Annika said that her favorite part of the day was playing with her new friend.

We tried to get Daniel to sleep, but didn't have luck until we switched to the stroller.

The highlight of our trip was when Will ran (literally) to the end of the island to look for cool shells. He was there 3 minutes and had a very impressive haul, including some awesome conch shells! Highly recommended for seashell enthusiasts.

Finally, Annika is chomping at the bit here to type a message for everyone:

asdfghjklmnbvcxannikaxzcvbnm

She says that says: "I don't know."

Vacation - Day 1!

Hello! We weren't able to get the Internet to work yesterday, but today we have figured out that we can steal wireless access from the Holiday Inn next door. :) Here's what we were up to on our vacation to Clearwater/St. Pete yesterday - I'll plan to update about today later night!


We arrived in our hotel yesterday afternoon. Annika is enjoying the bed and a PBS special on the history of refrigeration (oooooh....TV!).

We then ventured to the outdoor pool. The hot tub was broken (aka: not heated), but it was the right size for Annika.

Daniel and I watched instead.

We then headed out to check out the local beaches - BOTH kids fell asleep! (Daniel is to the right).

We got to the park just as the sun was starting to go down.

Will figured out how to use the camera settings so that coloring really shows up.

Here it is, visibly lower in the sky.

Annika and Mickey climbed up to get a better view.

The sun was very bright in Mickey's eyes.

More sunset pictures! Here it has become more of a line.

All set now! Okay, there are a lot of sunset pictures. :) But it was really cool to see! You could visibly see it get lower and lower in the sky, and happened very quickly.

That night, we broke out the Pack 'n' Play for the first time since Daniel was born. He was delighted to play with toys in it.

Christmas Pictures

[Annika and her Stocking]

[Daniel and his favorite present... the Aveeno lotion]

[The new griddle in action, from Grandma and Grandpa]

[Small Shark from Santa]

[BIG shark from the Thorntons]

[Horses from Nonnie and Pa!]

[Daniel... looking ready to club someone with a new spoon]

[Re-gifted Mickey from Annika's own room... the king of all presents ;-) ]

[Amy the skillet spokesmodel]

[Animals gathered in Annika's bed, all faced in adoration of Mickey]

Merry Christmas!

Fear not...we literally have 210 pictures that we took on Christmas morning, plus 5 short videos. However, I no longer have the ability to easily resize pictures since we reformatted our laptop. (Charlie - do you have that program still?) So pictures are coming.

On Christmas morning, the kids didn't wake up until around 9:15 a.m., so my Christmas present was sleeping in. :-) We wrapped up a lot of "non-presents" for them as well, like shampoo, baby food for D, etc. - evidently anything is exciting when it is wrapped. Annika's favorite "gift", though, was a stuffed Mickey Mouse that she got from Nonnie several years but forgot about. (She has become obsessed with Fantasia and loves the Mickey skit in there.) So, we wrapped it up as well for her and she was just delighted - and had no clue! Yeah, mean parents, but it was too funny. :-) The kids were completely spoiled by our extended family, too, so that made for a delightful Christmas morning for them!!

That afternoon, we all went to Downtown Disney. It was a little weird being in the house with just us. But it was so cheery at DD, and all decorated up for Christmas, that it really perked everyone up.

Today, Will and I are splitting the day - neither of us are required to go in now or next week (that we know of...), but both still have deadlines we need to meet. This morning, I took the kids to the library, and we hit Target for the post-Christmas sales to see if we can get some "year-round" Christmas wrapping paper. We also stocked up on tape, so we are ready to wrap gifts again!

Then tomorrow we are heading to Tampa/St. Pete/Clearwater for a couple of days! Will and I didn't get each other presents for Christmas, so we decided to do this instead. We found an awesome deal on a Best Western (don't laugh) and are just planning on using the outdoor hotel pool, going to the beach, and relaxing. Ha! I am horrible at relaxing, so we'll see how it goes. :-)

Happy Boxing Day!!

Christmas Eve

Here are a couple of photos from today.

Annika sang in the Family Service at church today with the Pre-K and Kindergarten Choir. She looked very pretty in her red dress that Grammy got for her last year:


Our deprived childen will awaken to this tomorrow morning:

A Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night!

Christmas Eve Eve

Merry Christmas! Daniel is now 8 months old. He loves to babble and make fun sounds like "ba! ba! ba!" that are just close enough to "mama" or "dada" that we can pretend he is trying to talk. ;-)

We hope that each of you have a wonderful Christmas! It doesn't feel like it is already so soon here.

Two in a Row

Wow, a second blog entry! I must be on top of things (or *cough*avoidingworking*cough*).

Our hot water heater is fixed! Last night, Will heated up water on the stove for everyone to take a bath. Now I realize why the pioneers only took one bath a week - holy moly, that's a long process! Mom, didn't you not have hot water for a lot of growing up? I thought I recalled simliar stories for how you had to take a bath in the kitchen. Or am I completely mixed up? *Anyway*, having fully functioning hot water from the tap is one of the great inventions of our day.

It's hard to believe that Christmas is a week away. Annika's primarily wants a "stuffed animal shark" and a "stuffed animal Donald Duck from Fantasia 2000" - thank you, Ebay! Daniel wants to pull things off the table, and oh, to be carried non-stop would be nice. And Audrey the Cat? A lifetime supply of chicken, a couple of lizards to chase down and kill, and a house with no annoying babies that pull her hair are top priority.

Three cheers for indoor plumbing and Christmas dreaming!

10 Sentences, Again...

We're alive! Sorry for the lack of posting. Everyone is healthy at the moment (now that I have written that, we are doomed!) and Will and I are trying to cram in work this week while both kids both still have school.

1. Our hot water heater is completely not working.

2. The water was too freaking cold for a real shower, but I tried.

3. At least we are renting the house and not financially responsible for broken applicances.

4. We may have no hot water, but it is hot and was in the 80s today!

5. Annika had her holiday party at her dance class last night and they did a 'mini-recital" in class.

6. We ended our parenting Bible study at church tonight - it was a great group - and will be "off" for Wednesday nights for a few weeks.

7. Daniel is 8 months old today!

8. Daniel woke up last night and was up for 1.5 hours, per Will, but I slept like a log.

9. I have done NO Christmas shopping for anyone other than the kids and don't know when I'm going to (hmmm - maybe I shall visit Amazon whenI finish typing....).

10. Annika really likes our house and wants to stay.

Sick and Tired

This has been the Semester of Sickness. On Friday, Daniel's daycare called that he was running a fever --> he is *still* sick today and we'll need to split the day again tomorrow. What do people do that don't have flexible schedules? Between the number of days we've missed with our kids' illnesses, I think we would both have been fired this semester.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope that everyone had a great time with family and friends today. We had a very low-key, low stress Thanksgiving with just our nuclear family and some good friends. We've had Thanksgiving with them the past three years and it's always a great time of good food and company. This year, we had lunch, followed by our requisite post-Turkey Day Walk.

Thanksgiving is the best holiday because it all centers around eating! We made turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole (all ingredients from cans!), Stove-Top Stuffing, and Smearcase Pie. Our friends brought over yummy homemade everything - stuffing, rolls, cranberry sauce, macaroni and cheese, pecan pie, and pumpkin pie. Our food didn't all fit on the table!

Speaking of food....while Daniel abhors all green vegetables, he loves all of the "yellows." Here is Annika feeding Daniel some squash.

Finally, this evening, we put up the Christmas tree! Here is Annika with the finished product.