Florida

As a family we have done: 

Family reunions

Trips to see family

Holidays to see family

A few weekend and day trips

Never a vacation all on our own...

This was our year...

DAY ONE -- a very long drive, even for us.  We drove all 15 hours in one day. 

 we bring along the "earmuffs" and people take turns using them to have a little silence now and then. 

 Parker didn't bring enough graphic novels and ran out in the first few hours...

Greg drove most of the way, very serious...

 DVD player with 80's Saturday morning cartoons, a must!

DAY TWO

 We started at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure, and headed straight to 

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

 Most of the rides Yoda could go on, but a few he couldn't, so he tried out the seats just to be sure he was too small. 

 Yikes!

 Basically it was HOT!  But most of the rides were in shade with fans or with water misting, or even inside with A/C. 

 Off of the hippogriff ride, one of Maureen's favorites. 

 Hogwarts and another of their favorite rides, Forbidden Journey. 

 Hogsmeade

 Parker was pretty excited for Poseidon's Fury.  He says Poseidon is the best Greek god. 

 One of the best parts of going when we did was there were very few lines.  We rode the carousel and many other Dr. Suess rides over and over without any waiting. 

 Our first of many overpriced meals. 

 We got most of the way through our to-do list for one Universal park and decided to head to the other one.  There is a replica of the train Harry Potter takes to school that goes between the parks.  Very cool. 

 Now we are in London at the other Universal park.  There's a giant dragon in the top of the picture above--you can barely make it out.  It would breath fire every few minutes.  People stood there with cameras waiting for the fire to come, not realizing it was on a timer.  We started telling people to look up every 10 minutes, they looked relieved to not have to wait with their arms in the air.  You could actually feel the heat standing under it!  

 Butter-beer ice cream. 

I got a Pumpkin juice. 

 Opening the walls in London to Diagonally

 it was so hot.

We walked into the Simpsons World, we didn't take many photos, oops. 

Next few days coming up!  

What Mimi wore

While she is still a brownie I wanted to get a photo of her in one of her brownie shirts, she's quickly outgrowing it! 

And here she was getting ready for the 3rd grade field trip to the old village in town (you would love it, Chris) she's wearing the bonnet that Grandma Shauna made for her. 

 My mom made me a bonnet, too!  

She was pretty darn excited for that Dilly bar when the whole thing was over! 

A moment in the park with Yoda on the monkey bars

video

hugs

Me to Yoda one day when he looked like he had grown a few inches overnight, "What if you get so big I won't be able to hug you any more?"
Yoda, very concerned and re-assuredly, "I'll just have longer arms to hug you!"
Me *aw!*

*****

Greg took an exam this month-- keep your fingers crossed until we get the results in a couple months!

When he got home everyone was SO happy to see him!  It's like we don't see him at all while he's studying. 
 

Mimi goes horseback riding

I might have a photo of her actually ON a horse, but it's on someone's camera...

And the project for right now is the stairs...

Before

 One day Yoda stayed home from school sick, then Mimi called from school also sick.  I saw myself being trapped in the house with sick kiddos, so I panicked and started pulling up carpet! 

I stained and polyurethane-d every other step.  Then once that set was dry I repeated the process on the opposite stairs.  That whole process took 2 weeks just for proper dry-time.  And this way the stairs were always operational.  I'm hoping to finish them up this week--but don't hold your breath! 

Movies

 Yoda asked if he could sort things.  I found the box I call the collection.  We've done this before...

Spiderman off to school...

Mimi wearing her NYC shirt (thanks, Sonya)

I got it in my head to make a pretty cake for the cake auction.  This is full of minty goodness.  I kept this one for us to eat and made a prettier cake for the auction. Turns out the person who won the auction liked the idea of it being minty and would have bought it pretty or not. (Yoda was pretty excited to put the cake on the blog, he took this picture)

 

 

While watching Pinocchio, Yoda said, "are they putting fire in their mouths?"

While watching the "We built this city on Rock & Roll" video on youtube, Yoda said, "Is that the city they built?"

Ears

Yoda pinched my ear...
Me, "don't pinch my ear, it hurts.".
So he pinched his own ear to see how it felt...
Yoda, "Ow! You're right!"

++++++++++

Also, Mimi learned how to twirl a towel on her head, she's pretty proud!

Yoda started soccer

And a few mornings ago I asked him how he slept and this was what he said:
"My dream was a long story so I don't have to tell you it."

Camping Before and After

Before

After
(he isn't posing, he just couldn't keep his eyes open) 

and a photo-bomb

Our Mini Bathroom

As much as I would like to do more, I just have to call this bathroom finished.  

Behold, our little bathroom...

This is the view to the left as you walk into our bedroom.
I thought of many solutions to the sink-in-the-bedroom problem:
build a wall, room divider or screen, a curtain?

I thought about ripping out the vanity and finding a pretty dresser that we would plop a sink into, so it just looks like a dresser in the corner, and less of a-sink-in-the-bedroom, kinda like this:

source

But when I finally found the dresser that would be perfect, I chickened out and decided I wanted to keep it as my dresser.  So I was looking for another solution and found this idea:

source

It kind of has a spa-feel and it seemed like the right mix of a doable project and 

pretty enough to sit in the room.  Obviously I didn't do exactly what she did here, it was just my inspiration. 

Here's the complete list of what happened in our bathroom reno: 

~Floating shelves above the toilet

~Sonya painted this bathroom like 5 years ago, but with all the changes it needed a new coat of paint, so I did that again.  I also painted the wood trim white in the bathroom. 

~Greg installed a new toilet

~Our interesting plumber installed a new shower valve.  The older one was super weird and ugly.  Now we have the same shower valves in both bathrooms, they look nice and work really well.

~Our friend who did the tile in the other bathroom did the tile floor in this little bathroom, too.

~Our tile-fitting friend also re-did the caulking all around the shower, I had been meaning to do it for YEARS!  The shower tile was new and nice enough to leave it as is. 

~I built drawers and drawer fronts into what would otherwise be unused space in the vanity.

~Built the slatted shelf in the vanity, it's surprising how much storage we gained with this whole transition.

~I used a mix of baskets from around the house, goodwill, and stores to get the right amount of storage.  The one I LOVE is the little wooden box that I built in high school wood-shop class.  I had totally forgotten about it, but the family that I gave it to 20 years ago decided that Mimi should have it.  She can have it, just not right now!

~I painted the vanity (inside and out) with chalk paint (I'm now a believer)

~The butcher block counter-top lends a bit of warmth to the room.  I sealed it with waterlox. I also tore out the backslash and repaired the wall around the sink.  My hope is that it feels less and less like a sink that way.  I wouldn't do this in the kid's bathroom or in a kitchen, but this bathroom gets very little use and it's mostly Greg and I, so I think the walls are safe.

~Greg's friend came over one night to help install the sink and butcher block--we have great friends! 

~I wanted a different mirror for the kid's bathroom, so I pulled this one from there and into our bathroom

~I painted the toe kick/molding under the sink brown to make it blend into the carpet (hopefully) and then added feet to the vanity.  (you guessed it, more of a furniture feel, less of a sink vanity feel)

~I'm pretty proud of my work, but one thing that isn't so easily noticeable is the door.  It used to swing INTO the tiny bathroom.  So one day I spent the whole day tearing out the door and frame and flipping it.  My hands were very sore and cut up.  I had no idea what I was doing.  But it makes a HUGE difference having the door swing into our big bedroom instead.

~I took the hooks from the kid's bathroom and put them in here.  Before we had, like, 1 hook!

~We kept the old faucet to save money, I wanted this bathroom to cost very little, and it did.  The one splurge was the sink.  I went with that pretty rectangle one.

~Oh! I almost forgot!  while we were taking everything apart, I found that there had been a very small leak and there was mold.  ugh.  So I ripped out the bottom of the vanity and rebuilt all that too.  (at that point I was wishing I had torn out the whole vanity and installed the dresser after all!)  I also repaired the leak in the faucet.  That made the whole process much longer.  But I learned a lot! 

Someday we will:

~tear out the carpet and install hardwood floor!

~get a prettier shower door!

~different light fixture?

~perhaps a different mirror?  

We are happy for now, because we've come pretty far:

 Fall 2014

  and this is Fall 2012

 silly shelves for sure! 

Now on to a new project!

Meet Jane

In the 3rd grade, the students have a Wax Museum.  The kiddos learn about an important person and then dress up and pretend to be a wax figure of that person. Mimi's choice was Jane Goodall.  She had a lot of fun learning about her and even more fun dressing up like her.  Out of nowhere if she heard the number 80, Mimi would suddenly say, "Jane Goodall is 80 years old" or if someone mentioned Africa or anything about chimps Mimi would say, "Jane Goodall knows all about that." 

Here is Mimi doing her thing while Nana and Grandpa listen in...

 Here she is enthusiastically telling us all about her life and contribution to society. 

 When they were finished talking, they were supposed to return to their pose.  

For reference, here is the real Jane...

 And when someone pressed their 'start' button, they would start talking again.  It was pretty amusing. 

 *photobomb*

Just for kicks, here is Parker when he dressed up as Benjamin Franklin back in 2012.