Aruba, Jamaica, oooo I Wanna Take ya

Merry Christmas to us! Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa, the ten of us enjoyed an early Christmas present and took a family cruise. We headed south to Florida, jumped on a boat, and then just kept going; we went so far south we almost hit Venezuela! We stopped at three islands, Aruba, Curasao, and Princess Kays.

It was a week of non-stop fun - having three awesome cousins to play with was THE BEST! We played mini golf, ping pong, shuffle board, basketball, ate, swam, went to the water slides, snorkeled, dug giant holes in the sand, ate, rode water bikes, fed ostriches, ate, and ate.

My dad won the ship's basketball tournament and my mom won the ship's longest drive golf challenge. And me, I ate a lot of ice cream. 

I practiced a lot of ping pong during the week and what I learned is the ball is very tiny and hard to hit. For a while I used two paddles and just spun around like a tornado. After smashing into the table and hitting myself in the head with a paddle, I decided that wasn't my smartest idea. Maybe if the table were just a little bit shorter.... 

The ostrich farm was awesome. We got to feed them, stand on an egg (did you know the egg won't break even with 300 pounds on top of it - geez!, and get close to a crocodile. We even celebrated my birthday again (and again, and again!)

There is no way to sum up all of the fun we had but my Uncle Rick put this awesome video together with highlights from the trip, check it out: http://vimeo.com/54267549 - Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for the awesome Christmas present and the endless memories!

The Beginning of Three

Three has begun, or at least the celebration of me turning three. Having a birthday on November 30th means the party begins early and doesn't stop until December 1st. Both of my parents have birthdays near Christmas (Jan 4 and 16th), so they are highly sensitive to having your birthday smashed with Christmas. They are very kind in this area and make sure I get a "Happy Birthday" party and not a "Happy Thanksbirthday" party.

For this reason, we had my official birthday party yesterday, even though by actual birth date isn't for another two weeks. So you may see another post with birthday pictures near the real thing, but for now, here are some from the celebration. Oh, and as you might have been able to guess, it was a car party....

 

 We painted cars

 We raced cars

 The winner won a Piston Cup

 We ate "spare tires"

 We threw balls into the tire

 And we had a car parade 

So far, three is looking pretty good!

Happy Halloween!

The Halloween festivities began with our family hosting the church Halloween party on Friday night. We had a lot of fun and people's costumes were awesome! Some worth noting included my buddy Hazel dressed as a fairy with toothbrushes sew to her dress...the Tooth Fairy! and the Zobrists came as chefs and put their one year old son in a giant stove pot dressed as a lobster - hilarious! And a couple that is expecting a baby came as a 70's guy and she was a disco ball, with the ball on her belly. So clever. I, as you can see, was a football player. The "clever" part of my costume was my parents - they dressed as NFL replacement referees.

Then Hurricane Sandy hit the area and we were very lucky. We lost power for three days, but our house wasn't impacted and all of us were safe. The tricky part was not having power for Halloween. So we lit our yard with our car headlights and lots of jack-o-lanterns and wa-la - trick-or-treaters appeared! We had just over 300 kids this year, (less than our usual 450-500 trick-or-treaters, but respectable for a house without power).

The Keenans hooked us up with a new addition to our yard - this skeleton, and he has a light up head. The best part about his head, it's battery operated, so it worked without electricity! Very cool. I figured out Halloween this year. Knock on a door, say, "Trick-or-treat," get a candy, say, "thank you," and repeat. I am definitely a fan of this holiday...and repeat.

Recap

Tis (already) the season.... Our schedule gets a bit nuts from October through January, so I'm lagging in my posts. Here's a brief recap of the past two weeks.

My Pee Wee school is going awesome. I've learned all of my letters, can correctly count to fourteen (when I get to fifteen I call it "five-teen"), and can do some serious finger painting. We've gone on two field trips - one to an apple picking farm and one to a pumpkin patch at Cox Farm. We've made kites, painted rocks, cooked muffins, and walked a pretend tight rope. If this is what all school is like, the next 18 years are going to be fun! (Do med students get to paint rocks?)

We also scored a visit from our fun friends from Bosnia - Liam and Mary (Todd had to stay home and work this trip). While brief, we packed it full of bike rides, tackling each other, and train-playing.

Christine made us dinner one night and came to hang out with me. She's the best - really, who just makes you dinner and comes to play? So cool.

Most of our Halloween decorations are up. We have a big, furry spider that drops down from the front door when you make loud noises so I like to stand near it and jump and yell - my mom said the spider may not survive until Halloween, I wonder if he's sick?

We attended the annual "heart picnic" hosted by the hospital. I got to hang out with Dr. Shen, the awesome doctor that repaired my heart and gave me my power line. He's so incredibly cool, WAY cooler than any superhero. (Geez I was tiny!)

 

And then we scored a bonus visit from my Grandpa! He had a last-minute work meeting in DC, so I filled the gaps between his meetings - bike riding, soccer, cars, and time in the hammock. He's the best.

Cruising

What's not to love about cruising? The open sea, tons of activities, endless food, exciting destinations. My parents weren't sure how I'd like cruising, so we took a "test run" to Bermuda last week and my grandparents joined us. Maybe my folks are also wondering if I'd like a puppy or a giant chocolate cake or a trampoline? Good grief mom and dad, who wouldn't like cruising!?!?!

So I guess they had a concern about the sleeping arrangements on a cruise - small, cramped quarters. Here's what we found out - stick me on a bunk bed in the pitch black and I sleep eleven consecutive hours...and so does my dad. We slept well.

Things I quickly learned. If you're my height and you zip around a cruise (and people think you might fall off the boat), EVERY staff and guest quickly gets to know you. When you yell "BINGO!" someone gives you money. There is no bacon limit at breakfast or shrimp limit at dinner (and if you're with my grandpa, there is no ice cream cone limit any time of day!)

"Cruise wear" comes in all shapes and sizes and looks ridiculous on everyone...even me. They clean the glass doors on the ship so well they are hard to see (I ran full speed into one - funny for everyone but me). Shuffle board is harder than it looks. The pools are fun any time of day. The tall, colorful drinks with umbrellas are better than a homemade smoothie. My parents can turn anything into a competition - ping pong, the rock climbing wall, the foos ball game in the teen lounge - but I guess I already knew this. The destination is just as much fun as the boat itself.

We decided driving around the island of Bermuda was too boring and that we'd miss too much if we took the ferry from one side to the other. So in a moment of brilliance, we decided to bike the island. Yes, me, my parents, and my grandparents rented four very rusty bikes, found THE ONLY kid bike seat on the island (literally), put our trust in the cartoon-like tourist map, and started riding. It was beautiful - really beautiful.

The only real challenge was the map...and the trail...or lack of trail...and the cars whizzing by...and the enormous hills no one mentioned....and the stairs on the trail....and the foot-deep mud....and that the bike shop was closed when we got there to return the bikes...did I mention the scenery was simply breathe-taking? Yes, the whole day was a comedy of errors BUT we would do it again in a second (hmm, maybe don't ask my grandma this question). We definitely got to see the island in a way no one else did. (We were the only bikers!)

We made stops throughout the day, including at Horseshoe Bay Beach. Wow.

Other time during the cruise was spent snorkeling, paddle boating, and adventuring. A great trip.