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Florida, Part 4 (The ZOOOOOOOOO)

On Saturday after the wedding, we decided to spend the day at the Naples Zoo. What a fun place!!  Frances and Henry just loved all the animals and Benjamin screamed and cried every time we had to leave an exhibit to go to another one.  Chuck said he thought Benjamin was going to climb over the fence to go live with the zebras!! He meowed at the lions and loved looking for moneys in the trees.  I only took 237 pictures that day, so I will share a few of the best here.

Lions

 

Benjamin trying to move in with the lions.

Zebra

Benjamin trying to move in with the zebra

Monkey on island

Monkey on boat (and Benjamin...hahaha, I crack myself up!!)

 

Adorable sloth picture for Jessica

Alligator feeding time (Yes, that is the same guy who was just holding the sloth; No he did not feed a sloth to the alligator)

"He's not heavy; he's my brother."

They had young giraffes at this zoo. One of the keepers told me that they procure baby giraffes because they are much easier to transport that older (i.e. taller) giraffes.  The zoo is raising money to help build a bigger, more permanent enclosure for their giraffes. For $5 you could purchase three lettuce leaves (!!!!!!) to feed to the giraffes.  I went to the kiosk to buy some lettuce and took Frances and Henry with me.  Since she was just getting ready to take a break so they could do a "creature feature" on the giraffes, she said, "Since you've got two kids I'll give you four pieces."  She was trying to help me avoid an argument, so I didn't say anything.  Thankfully Frances let Henry have the extra piece and everyone was happy!

Look at that tongue!!

They had a little playground near the entrance/exit with big concrete animals the kids could climb on. Benjamin was sleeping in the stroller at this point, though, so I only have the bigs.

Then we went home and played under the sink!

Florida, Part 3

Hmmm?  Where was I?  That's right!  After the day of splashing in the water with their clothes on, we decided it was best to take it easy the morning on the wedding.  I didn't actually get any {good} pictures of the wedding because it was indoors and I wasn't supposed to use a flash.  You will just have to take my word for it when I tell you that Christie was beautiful!  And Brian looked pretty good, too.
I did manage to get some fun pictures of the kids' feet afterwards! {Hey, you do what you gotta do to entertain cranky kids in the car!!}

 

 

So then we drove to the reception.  It was at a nice country club {You know, compared to all the country clubs I have ever been too!}  We had a lovely meal and then ate wore some cake.  

Well, that was Benjamin.  That boy has never met a "num num" he didn't like!

I did finally manage to get a picture of Christie and all the kids.  

{I didn't actually say you would get to see all the kids!}

Then we went back to the house to chill for the rest of the day!

Florida, Part 2

We survived both flights and made it to Tampa.  We collected our bags and met Christie and Brian near the bathrooms, which was a good place to be at that point in time since everyone needed a bathroom break.  Carting luggage around was much easier with two extra sets of hands as well.  We went over to the car rental kiosk and picked up our brand, spankin' new car that had about 12 miles on it! Then we drove out to Naples to the house that Chuck had rented for everyone.  We had a nice master suite with a King sized bed for us and a crib for Benjamin.  There was another room across the hall with a double and a twin that Frances and Henry shared and then another room with a double and twin that Dan and Nikki shared with Abby.  Chuck had a master suite downstairs.  There was a nice patio (technically a lanai in Florida-speak) and swimming pool out back.  We asked the kids to take a nap and then afterwards we went swimming. Outside. In November!
Thursday morning we set out for a walk and ended up at the beach.

We were going to just walk on the beach and look at the water, but the kids had other plans!
At first the rule was to just get their feet wet. (Benjamin wanted absolutely nothing to do with the water OR sand at this point!)

The kids were being chased by the big scary "Papa-gator!"

Then the rule became something about trying to keep their clothes dry...

And then you really just have to ask yourself: "How many times are these kids going to get to go to Florida and play in the Gulf of Mexico??"

Benjamin finally consented to getting out of the stroller, as long as he didn't have to be anywhere near the water or sand!

The big boys enjoyed themselves too.

Ultimately, the questions of the day were: How long will soaking wet, too big shorts stay on?  and How dirty/wet can we possibly get?

And Benjamin finally got into the sand!

In fact, he decided he loved sand so much he wanted to shampoo his hair...

...and eat SEVERAL handfuls!

Aunt Christie came down to meet us and run around for a bit.  

Meanwhile, the boys had walked back to the house and picked up the cars, so when they arrived back at the beach, we attempted to remove as much sand as possible and head back to the house for food and naps.  And don't worry, when I asked the rental car guys at the end of our trip whether they charged per grain or per pound for the sand, they told me it was complimentary!

Florida, Part 1

All the bags are packed and we're ready to go!  We drove down to Roanoke late Tuesday evening and met my parents at a hotel near the airport. We attempted to get everyone to bed by 8, but it didn't really work out because everyone was so excited!  And then Ken and I were not really able to go to sleep at 8:00 but couldn't do anything else or we would wake up the kids!
Our flight left at 6:20 am, so we woke up around 4:00 and got ready.  We piled some very sleepy (and slightly confused) kids into the van and headed off to the airport.

 When we got to the airport, we unpacked the luggage and I went to check in while Ken went to park.  We had quite a system for getting sleepy kids through the airport. It involved them each pulling their own suitcase.  It was a good thing that there were so excited at this point!  We got checked in and went through security and then we went to the gate to wait.  My mom had packed us some breakfast that managed to make it through security despite that fact that, in a moment of utter stupidity, I told the security agent that I had "no idea what was in that bag, my mom packed it!"  Luckily, it survived security and she had packed us apple juice and hard boiled eggs.

The kids looked out the windows and the planes on the tarmac and were very excited to see all the trucks that we had read about out there doing their jobs in the dark.

 And of course, anything that got Henry excited made Benjamin excited too!

We finally boarded our flight and got to our seats in the back of the plane. Because of the size of this plane we were seated with Benjamin and me in front of Frances and Henry who were in front of Ken.  Benjamin was nice and calm sitting in his carseat, so I am really glad we brought that instead of holding him in one of our laps.

 I peeked through the seats quite a bit to check on Frances and Henry and tried explaining the take off procedure to them. Thankfully that was another topic that had been covered by one of our books (Here's to working in a library!!)  All of us were rather excited for the takeoff and watching the lights out the windows.  We got to watch the sun rise shortly after we took off.  We also had fun playing with some stickers I had gotten from the clearance rack at Target.

Just as aside, Frances wore that mustache all the way across the Atlanta airport on our way to our connecting flight.  She got quite a few strange looks, but I don't think she really noticed!
A nice man on our flight offered to take a family picture for us.  Henry refused to cooperate and Benjamin was still buckled in, but it was a nice offer, anyway.

Stay tuned for part 2...

Bugs, Buses, and Buildings

Henry is such a great car rider lately!  I take the boys to preschool every morning on my way to work and we have some great conversations.  Lately he is obsessed with the vehicles and buildings around us.  Frances got him into looking for Bugs (as in Volkswagen Beetles) and most mornings on the way to school he says, "Let's look for Bugs, Momma."  Thankfully there is usually one parked at the apartments we pass right before school, so he almost always gets to see at least one. Last night on the way to soccer practice we saw six!  He was SOOO excited!

He also likes to point out the buses we pass. Since we drive right by part of campus there are at least three or four buses on our morning commute.  He likes to ask about the different kinds of buses. He wants to know if the big yellow school buses are Sissy's and I have to read the numbers for him so he will know. He knows the big blue buses are for Mommy's work. He seems very disappointed every time I tell him that I don't ride those buses every day.  I don't think he can comprehend why someone would have access to all those buses and just not ride them all day long!

Whenever we see any kind of work truck he wants to know what it is. When he was younger, I could answer "tractor" to every one of his questions. Not so anymore.  Now he wants to know what kind of tractor.  I have gotten pretty good and recognizing the difference between lots of construction vehicles.  The things a Mom has to do!!

One other thing that Henry likes to point out every morning is the building where I work.  We pass it on the way to school, and he always yells out, "Look, Mommy! It's your work!!"

What a fun (and educational) way to start the day!