Florida Adventures

A couple months ago Peter realized if he took a few days off of work around Christmas time, he would have about 17 consecutive days off. Realizing this he decided we needed to go on a vacation. He came to me with the idea of going to New York, Florida or Hawaii. I said no to New York in the winter (we don't have the gear to handle bitter cold). I was up for Florida or Hawaii but was leaning toward Florida since Peter's brother lives there. He said he was thinking the same thing...so we bought tickets and planned our adventure. This is how it all turned out:

On Wednesday the 28th we ventured to LAX to catch a 8am flight to Orlando. Connor did surprisingly well for a 5 hour flight and managed to sleep during the last hour or so. Sean and Amy and their kids Kirk-4 and Heidi-18mos picked us up at the airport. Our first stop was to a hotel in Orlando to drop off our gear (we were so glad we packed light as there wasn't much room in the van). Then we went to Downtown Disney and ate dinner at the T-Rex Cafe. It was really fun! Every 30 minutes or so there would be a meteor shower in the room we were in. Connor hated it the first two times, but the last two times he enjoyed it. While waiting 1 1/2 hours for a table we wandered around Downtown Disney. We went in the Lego store, Ghiradelli store, World of Disney and a toy shop to name a few. The place was so super crowded it was crazy. There were wall to wall people everywhere you went. Outside the T-Rex cafe was a little dino dig place with bones covered in gravel. This was the perfect place for Kirk.

Touching a wooly mammoth is so fun.

After dinner we wandered a little bit and then headed back to the hotel. We were exhausted and it was only like 10pm-though it was 7pm our time, but we went to sleep just fine. Mind you we were up at 3:30am to drive 2+ hours to LAX to catch the only direct flight we could find...so yes we were tired.

Thursday morning we left and drove to Ocala where we went to Silver Springs Park. We went on two glass bottom boats (the third was closed for repairs), watched a reptile show, waited an hour in line for pizza (the place was not terribly busy, but only two people were working), we saw several types of alligators and crocodiles, rode the carousel twice, went to the petting zoo area, amongst other things. We really enjoyed our time there, so much that the park closed before we could go see the bears (bummer). We left the park, went out to dinner and then back to the hotel in Ocala.

Watching the Albino Alligators

Alligator Dundee-this guy was in a pool with several full sized alligators and he had bare feet.

Connor loved the glass bottom boat rides and the bubble snow

Riding the carousel was pretty fun with cousins and so was petting the pigs.

Friday morning we drove to St. Augustine. On the way we stopped at Blue Springs to watch the manatee. Then we went to a fort and watched them shoot off the cannon, listened to a really good speech given by a volunteer, and explored the fort. At one point while this guy is giving his speech he said something about pirates and as if right on que Heidi says, Yay! really loudly. Everyone laughed. The guy says, no these are not the good pirates. It was still quite funny. After the fort we went to a Pirate Museum. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside so I took a picture of the outside as we left. Inside the museum was some super cool stuff. Peter says, "Best Pirate Museum Ever!" After the museum we walked around the town and all the little shops. Afterward we headed to a seafood restaurant that ended up being really busy as well. We would've had to wait 1 1/2 hours to be seated. So instead we ordered our food to go and ate it in the car. Not terribly elegant but it worked and it was really good food. I got chicken (not a seafood person) and it was absolutely wonderful! Afterward we went back to the hotel in St. Augustine for the night.

Look at all those manatees

At Castillo de San Marcos Fort

Saturday morning we drove to another fort, a much smaller one and explored it. Kirk got a splinter in his hand from the railings and then screamed/cried for a bit. A stranger came up to them and said he had a first aid kit in his car. He pulls it out and inside there was a little device used for getting splinters out. He also gave Kirk a glow stick-mostly to get his attention on the stick and not on his hand. When they finally got the splinter out (Kirk moved around quite a bit), we thanked this family for their help and then went on our way. We also saw a great horned owl at the little park that was right there.

Sleeping with daddy and then visiting a much smaller fort.

Then we headed to Sean and Amy's place in Ft. Lauderdale -about 4 hours away. It was a long drive, but luckily all kiddos did eventually fall asleep which made the drive a bit easier. We stopped at Cracker Barrel for dinner (one of Peter's favorites that he misses since there aren't any near us). They had super yummy apples that we all enjoyed with our meals. Connor enjoyed my side dish of macaroni and cheese. When we arrived at Sean and Amy's we all collapsed in the family room. The kids really enjoyed running around and stretching their legs. They did a pretty good job of sharing their toys, well given their ages. Connor really liked Heidi's dolly stroller. It was light and easy to push around. Only problem is Heidi really likes her dolly stroller too. So there were a few fights, a few shoves and pushing thrown in, a couple mouths on others-though no biting took place, and of course there was crying and screaming and tantrums being thrown. But really, it was pretty good given their ages. And it didn't happen all the time either, most of the time they happily played near each other.

Eating mac n cheese. Yes they are cousins though they look like they could be siblings.

That evening was New Year's Eve. Amy and I went out and got some fun party appetizers, which we munched on while we played The Logo Game. It was a fun game. Then at 11:30 we decided it was bedtime and went to bed. At midnight and throughout the day we could hear fireworks going off.

Sunday morning we went to Church and then headed out to the Keys. We stayed in a condo near Key Largo that was right on the water.

The view from the balcony of the condo. Glass bottom boat ride-corals

Monday morning we took another glass bottom boat ride to see some corals. It was a 45 minute boat ride out and then it slowed down and they called everyone down to the bottom part and gave a 20 minute speech on everything we could see. It was really neat. On the ride out we could see jelly fish and at one point Amy yells Shark! We all look down and see a shark swimming next to the boat. About two minutes later we see another one. After this we met up with Amy's sisters Robin and Camille for lunch. On the way there we stopped along the keys to let the kids stretch their legs. Then we went home.

Tuesday was a relaxing day. We were all exhausted and the kids were exhausted and none of them wanted to get in the car again, so we stayed at home for the most part. We did go to the grocery store, but that was it. It was nice to have a relaxing day playing at home.

Wednesday Sean skipped school and went with us to Villa Vizcaya (an old mansion turned into a museum). We toured the mansion, and the gardens. Many people were there taking wedding photos and other professional pictures. It was a really nice place. Back at home Amy made Cafe Rio Pork which was oh soo good! Peter had to take a picture of it all.

The mansion and one of the gardens

An American Crocodile we found there. Plants growing out of the wall.

Pretty fountain and our super yummy Cafe Rio Pork dinner.

Thursday we headed to Shark Valley National Park to see the everglades. We saw a ton of alligators. All the signs said to stay back 15 feet, but that was hard to do when the alligators were up next to the walkway. We had a fun walk around the park pointing out alligators, baby alligators and all the different kinds of birds we saw. We also went down the otter trail and saw otter holes and went down a bobcat trail where people were photographing spiders(eww). Thursday night Robin and Camille came to watch the kids while Sean, Amy, Peter and I went out for date night. We took a water taxi and saw mansions, yachts and plenty of things we'll never be able to afford, but were all quite cool to look at. We saw Judge Judy's yacht, the Ritz camera yacht, Shakira's yacht, the mansion that belongs to the guy who came up with Blockbuster video and then sold it for 2 billion 6 months before the invention of Netflix. It was fun and informational to ride the water taxi. Then we went to Jaxson's for ice cream. Peter and I shared something called a Jr. Sampler which was three huge scoops one of each black cherry, fresh peach and cookie dough ice cream smothered in whip cream and sprinkles and a cherry on top. We also had three toppings of chocolate, raspberry and peach sauces. It was good, but we couldn't possibly finish it all. Then we headed back home and got there around midnight and crawled into bed.

Baby alligators and a sleeping alligator

Signs said to stay back 15 feet. It was hard to do that since they were basically on the walking path. Luckily most were sleeping or sunbathing. None of them were interested in eating small children.

Friday morning we woke up at 5, got ready and headed to the Ft. Lauderdale airport to catch our 7am flight back home. It was a great trip, we had a blast.

Christmas Time Adventures

Here are some fun pictures from this past week.
We went to the little playground in our complex. It's still a little big for Connor, but he had fun playing with the wood chips, climbing the slide (with help), playing tic tac toe, and hanging on the bars.
It was a great outing, but a bit cooler than I was expecting. So yes he's wearing shorts with a jacket.
Christmas day we woke up and it was relatively a normal Sunday for us. Went to church at 10, came home at 11:30ish, changed clothes and headed to my parents' house to celebrate Christmas. While there, Connor enjoyed playing in the yard until...
His binky dropped on the ground and was all grassy and dirty, so daddy took it away to clean it. Connor was not thrilled to be losing his binky for a few seconds.
He was also in desperate need of a nap, which he took finally around 2 and slept through the opening of presents and stockings. Around 5 we woke him up and headed over to the O's to celebrate Christmas with them. Connor played with Calvin's toys while the nieces helped open Connor's presents (maybe next year he'll be into opening his own presents).

Some of the presents we gave each other were: Mandy to Peter-Thomas Brothers Maps of San Diego, My parents to me-A new GPS :) Connor to Daddy-Harry Potter Lego video game, Connor to Mommy-Same Harry Potter video game (apparently he forgot he already got one). Amongst many other things, these seemed the funniest and the most appropriate given the previous post of us getting lost on the way to a Christmas party.

After all the gifts were open, Peter says, "Wait there's one more for Mandy."
Chris says, "Oh you mean the bear?"
Peter-"Well thanks for telling her."
Mary-"Don't worry he (Chris) blew the gift that Amy got for me too."

Peter walks out with this GIANT teddy bear. We had seen these at Costco several months back. I didn't have a bear that big, but didn't think we could fit it in our place. Peter went back and bought one and it had been hiding at his parents' house in a trash bag for the past 6 months. This is how we got it home.
I love it! Connor loves it too! He hugs it frequently. It'll be the snug up to and read a book bear.
Yesterday we took family photos at Old Poway Park. While waiting for everyone to show up I snapped a couple of my boys.
After the park we took another nap and then headed back over to the O's. Connor really enjoys playing with the blocks and this shape sorter cube. He tried really hard to fit the blocks into the different shapes. When he realized they didn't fit, he walked away. Great grandma said, "Proof of great intelligence, once you've shown the blocks won't go down the hole, then you're done."

Santa Claus

Last night we went to look at the luminaries in Westwood. It was about an hour past Connor's bedtime and he was already super exhausted, but with a bottle in hand we decided he might be up for it. We drove down a couple of streets and oohed and aahed at the lights on the homes. The luminaries were out of sight to him, but Peter and I enjoyed them. We came up to one street that was totally decked out. There was Santa Claus outside handing out cookies to the cars and people walking by. He comes up to our car and Peter rolls down the windows. He says "ho ho ho, would you like a cookie?" Connor completely flips out, screaming, yelling, huge tears stream down his face. Peter says, "The only other time I've heard him scream like that was when he was getting shots at the doctor's office." Hopefully we haven't scarred our kid. We decided that our trip was done and Connor continued to scream and cry the whole way home. I guess it was a good thing we didn't decide to go see Santa at the mall this year.....the cookie was good though.

More videos

Yesterday Connor noticed the step stool that we had in the kitchen and hadn't put away. We knew it would be only a matter of time before he would try to climb on it. We hoped it would take longer than this.

Yesterday while taking the video of him and the step stool I continued videoing as he decided to unload some oven mitts from a drawer. It didn't surprise me too much when he obeyed when I told him to put the mitts back in the drawer. He likes cleaning up things. He's great at dumping out blocks and then putting them back in the box and repeating.

Then there's today

After this I put the step stool away.
As you can see he really likes the dishwasher. He loves "helping" unload the clean/dirty dishes. He pushes the drawers in so he can climb in too. Today he decided to pull the bottom drawer out while he was standing there. Well...he ended up pulling it out on top of himself and then wouldn't let go. My oops in the video is me knocking two of the wheels off (luckily they snapped right back on). Well Connor was right back in the dishwasher right after as if nothing happened.

Wow

Look what I have

Connor has recently taken to saying "wow" really quietly. I thought it was cute how cool he thought playing with my sunglasses was. This video also shows him walking more.

While at my parents' house, Connor picked up the phone and started pushing buttons. At one point the phone calls the mysterious number. "The number you are trying to call is incorrect, please hang up and dial again." We all joked around that Connor was calling India. I guess we'll all find out when the phone bill comes. At the very end of the video, the camera battery died. We all laughed about Connor changing the security code for the answering machine...good luck replicating the numbers he pushed.

What we've been up to lately/Milestones

Two weekends ago we went to Balboa Park's December Nights. We went with cousins and family visiting from Utah. It was super crowded as usual, but all the museums were free, so that made up for the crowds. Connor enjoyed piloting/eating an airplane.
Peter put together a makeshift changing station inside the stroller. He thought Connor needed the privacy while being changed. We all thought it looked like he was delivering a baby. Connor thought it was hilarious!
Sunday we got out our Christmas tree and started decorating it. Connor helped too. He would pull an ornament out of the box, turn around and give it to daddy who would put it on the tree. At one point we sat down and he went up to the box, picked out an ornament and tried to hang it on the tree himself. It was super cute.

He liked the view from the top too.

Cookies and milk anyone?

Then this weekend we went to Sea World for their Christmas Celebration. Connor was not fond of the animal show (a pig-Hammie, pushed a lever that sent water out at the crowd. It caught Connor by surprise and he cried the rest of the show. He's not fond of surprises.). Connor loved the penguins, sharks, fish, and sea turtles. We could've spent all day watching the penguins. We also visited the winter wonderland part. Connor walked on the snow a little bit, but after about five minutes he was done.
On our way home from Sea World we stopped by the Temple to see their Christmas lights. Connor is absolutely mesmerized by Christmas lights. There were giant balls of lights in the trees above us.

As for other news....Connor has hit another milestone....He's walking!

At 12 months he started taking steps. Roughly 3-5 at a time, fall down, get back up and repeat. When we went to Utah for Thanksgiving he amazed us by taking about 10 steps at a time. Now at 13 months he pretty much walks everywhere. Here's a short video that we caught this evening. It's hard for him to show off his moves in our house since it doesn't take that many steps to get from point a to point b.

Completely Lost!

Tonight was Peter's work's Christmas Party. Spouses and children are invited and it's quite a bit of fun. Peter was really looking forward to showing off his cute little kiddo. We even dressed Connor in a cute set of Christmas overalls. So anyway we head out with a map and set of directions in hand. All directions are for side streets. Peter questions it, but decides to follow it anyway. Peter is driving and I'm in the back seat giving Connor some Cheerios to munch on. At some point (after several U-turns) Peter decides he really needs me to drive so he can give me the directions. So he pulls over and then gets in the passenger seat, I get in the driver seat. We're off again-making an (I'm sure illegal) U-turn. We think we know where we're going, but are really not quite sure....at some point Peter says, "We were only supposed to drive 2 minutes down the road and then turn.
"We've been on this road for a long time, should I turn around?"
"No just follow this road and maybe something will show up on this map and we'll know where we're going."
"How about you call Greg and get directions."
"No, we don't know where we are. I'll get out the GPS to get a map of where we are."
"The GPS doesn't work."
"I just need it to turn on and give me a map."
"Ok."
He gets the GPS out, turns it on and it searches for a signal. Then it starts talking, "Turn left in 2 miles, turn left in 2 miles, turn left in 2 miles (repeat at least 10 times). Off route, recalculating...turn left, turn left, turn, turn, turn left in 200 feet."
"I think the GPS is possessed."
Peter tries to turn the volume down..."5, 5, 5, 5, 5....lost signal."
"Ugh!"
"Hey this street sounds familiar, should I turn on it?"
"Let me check."
"I'm turning on it." (Mind you I had a big truck on my tail.) "Okay, now where?"
The conversation went on while we made a few more twists and turns and passed a lot of signs that we couldn't read because it was too dark. By now it is 6:45. The party started at 5:30 and we had been driving for over 45 minutes. It should've taken us about 20 minutes to get there. Connor was starting to get a bit tired/hungry/annoyed that he was still in his car seat, etc. And we were beyond frustrated that we couldn't tell where we were.
"How about you call Greg and tell him we're completely lost and if we ever find civilization, we're heading home." So he does. We can't tell Greg where we are, because we don't know. Then the phone cut out. At this point there's a green lit tree ahead..."Um, Peter, I think we made a full circle, cause I recognize that tree up there."
"You've got to be kidding me."
Well sure enough 20 minutes later we were back in a place we recognized-only because we had been there before, but we don't know where we were.
"I saw a sign that said Escondido 11 miles that way, I'm heading there." Well loooooong story shorter, we eventually found out where we were (on the other side of lake hodges). When we stopped being totally lost, we were near the mall. We hopped on the freeway and headed home. 1 1/2 hours later we were at home. We will print our own directions next time.

In the dark...for a week!

Shortly before leaving for Thanksgiving I noticed that the light switch in our room wasn't working. Not only that, but the light switch next to the closet didn't work and neither did the light switch in Connor's room. Coincidental-I think not, but I didn't understand why they weren't turning on. Anyway we left, we came back and lived about a week in the dark at night because well we didn't have much of a light source. We kept the hall light on or the bathroom light on so we could get ready for bed. Changing a diaper in the dark was also a bit challenging, but we managed. So what could possibly be the source of the problem? Would you believe me if I said this was the culprit:
Yes the nightlight was the source of our problems. Connor really likes pulling the nightlight out, so I went ahead and pulled it out and placed a plug cover in it's place. From that point on we had no lights...though I didn't realize that at the time. A couple nights ago as we were getting ready for bed we decided re really needed the light from the night light, so Peter plugged it in. Instantly Connor's light turns on! We quickly turn it off as we didn't want him to wake up at 10pm. Then we try the light in our room and it works! Apparently in order to have our lights in working order the night light must be plugged into the top socket.

We just love the little quirky things about our house.