Papa & Gigi Visit and Other Happenings

It has been a bit of a long absence from blog writing as my parents were here for and I thought it would be rude to be typing on my computer rather than having family bonding time.  But, they have left and now I am back.

I don't remember all that has gone on over the last two and half weeks so I'll just focus on the highlights. My parents arrived on Tuesday evening, February 11 and left this past Tuesday evening.  Yes, my dad was in Florida for eight whole days.  That does not happen all that often!  In fact, has it ever happened now that I think about it?  It was a blast having them here, of course, and I was able to get a few mundane things out of the way due to their presence including a dentist visit (nine months since the last one which is six months longer than usual for me), a doctor's appointment (my OB), and even a haircut (also been like nine months.  When I left the hair cut place, the lady said "Make sure to come back in about four to six weeks for another deep cleaning treatment."  Yeah, right!).

First thing we did upon my parent's arrival was celebrate Ana's birthday who had turned 30 on the 10th (day before).

A walk to the playground with Papa & Gigi while I was at the dentist.

We also had Evan Bergherm with us that first day because Jennifer was getting some of her kidney stones removed.

Picnic at Winter Garden Station with Gigi.  She was really into it, I swear.

A stop for frozen yogurt after our picnic at JoJo's in Winter Garden.  Now we have her attention!

Working on the human body that they got for Christmas.  This thing is really cool with organs made out of rubber and can be removed.  It's a little disconcerting though when you hear Aubree yell to Calleigh "Come on Calleigh.  We need to do surgery."

Game time.

Papa with two of his three grandsons.

Can you see the attitude?

My dad and his three sisters in St. Augustine...Wanda, Mary, and Shirley.

Out to eat at Crispers with Perky, Aunt Wanda, Aunt Shirley, and Uncle Dick (in orange).  The neat thing is that Uncle Dick is two years and two days older than my dad just like Calleigh is two years and two days older than Aubree.

We did have some fun activities though too.  The highlight was a big trip to Sea World on the Thursday. I say "big" because there were 25 of us that went.  The whole Terry and Toni Copsey clan came down for the week due to the memorial service in Avon Park for Uncle Terry's dad who passed away in November. Obviously the reason for their visit was quite sad but we were nonetheless happy to spend time with all of them.  They rented a house in Davenport for the whole lot of them (eight adults and seven kids) so they didn't stay with us but we got to see them a couple of times.  Anyway, since we have annual passes the neat thing was that we were able to get everyone tickets for half off so that worked out very nicely.  What isn't nice is that doggone Sea World website...I had to go on it to purchase everyone's tickets.  Seriously, if there is ever a time when you wished you could let some salty language fly out of your mouth, it's dealing with that website.  Worst. Ever.

The day was a little on the chilly side but better that than it being too hot so I didn't have to hear my dad complain about the Florida heat!  When we go we usually only stay for a few hours and mostly do the rides but since we were with people who had to pay to get in we made a day of it and hit a lot of the shows...it was kind of nice we hadn't been to them in a while because it was a whole new experience for the kids who barely remembered them.  Also, whether it was the weather or just the time of year, there were hardly any lines and we only waited about five minutes to get in the penguin attraction (it's new so the wait is usually like an hour).  As a testament to the coldness, though, at the sea lion and otter show, I had to sit in a different section than everyone else because Colby was asleep in his stroller.  It was at the very top and there was some wind whipping through and I could barely feel my fingers as I was typing on my phone.  How often do you get to say that down here?

The crew heading in to Sea World.  We met the Copseys in the Wawa parking lot and had the girls go into their cars with their annual passes so they could park for free.  As we drove in, I commented to my parents "Look at these idiots walking in with their t-shirts and shorts.  Hel-looo!" And then, we parked and out of the cars hop Heath and Sean...in their t-shirts and shorts (at least Sean had a jacket with him which he is wearing for the picture just behind me.) 

The Brace contingent.  We missed Duncan who was the only one among us that had to actually work.

Brady fell asleep at the 4:30 Dolphin show.  He sure loves his Uncle Ricky!

This one fell asleep intermittently throughout the day.

Shannon feeding Griffin.

Thought I would throw this one in.  This was 11 months ago at Sea World with some of the Copseys.  That is Don Copsey, aka Papa, on the far left who passed away.

Griffin and Colby hang out in the Frost's double stroller.  Griffin is eight weeks older but they are almost identical in size.

Shamu Stadium is closed so no whale show but you can go out back and see them swimming in their tanks.

Brady hadn't been on this ride in a really long time.  He just laughed and laughed through the whole thing.  

Riding the teacups with Mia.

A good time was had by all...at least until the sickness struck.  Unfortunately Westin Edwards (my cousin Alison's 15-month old), had started throwing up when they were boarding the plane to fly down here.  From there, it started spreading through the camp and as luck would have it, his 3-year old brother, Tyson, got it mid-afternoon at Sea World and threw up in the middle of the kid's section.  Poor thing.  They ended up leaving early. Over the next few days, more and more of the family succumbed so we made sure not to get too close to any of them and we cancelled a trip to their pool at their Davenport rental.  Fortunately we didn't get anything.  The sad thing was that Tyson had been sick at Busch Gardens last year too.  I want to point out that it is NOT Florida's fault since Westin was sick BEFORE they boarded the plane to come here.

A sick Tyson and his, uh, mess.

Sabbath we went to church as usual while the rest of them went to Avon Park (we didn't want to spend any more time down there than necessary).  The memorial service was at three so we headed down after a quick stop at home for lunch.  It was a beautiful service and I have to say that it is so uplifting that, despite the sadness, we have such hope that this isn't the end.  It's always so nice to be reminded of that.  Afterwards, they had on the program that there would be refreshments.  I was thinking there would be a few cookies and punch but when we got into the fellowship hall, there was a giant potluck of food.  A very nice surprise. What was also a surprise was when someone whispered to me "That's Uncle Dan over there."  Anyone who has grown up an Adventist surely knows who Uncle Dan and Aunt Sue are from Your Story Hour.  I grew up listening to it and we have the CD's for the kids. So this was like meeting a famous person for me.  Oddly enough, his name isn't even Dan.  Who knew?  Also, oddly, he is an Abraham Lincoln impersonator.  I went and talked to him and Calleigh was a little awestruck to meet him.  He was really, really nice.  It turns out that he lives in North Carolina half the year and then the other half of the year they live in Avon Park, which is where is wife is from.  So there you go.

Uncle Dan.

Megan, Tiffany, and Shannon together again.  Miss having you here, Shan!  I call Tiffany my cousin but in reality, she is Shannon's cousin on her father's side while I'm Shannon's cousin on her mother's side.  But I figure it's close enough!

Another picture with their favorite cousin.

The Copsey family after the service.

 Since my parents left, we haven't been up to a whole lot as far as leaving the house.  We did go to some yard sales today which turned out to be interesting.  At one particular house in Apopka, I was rifling through some books and came across a Ben Carson one.  Hmm, I thought, I wonder if these people are SDA's?  A quick glance at them did not dissuade me from that notion.  Then I was a book called "52 Things To Do With Your Teens on Sabbath" and I was just about positive.  Then I opened it and saw a stamp on the inside that said "Seventh Day Adventist Church, Framingham, MA."  I asked if they were from there and they said yes and I said, "Oh, my dad is the pastor of the Braintree church."  And she said "Bill Brace?" Sure enough, they knew him quite well.  Her name is Lisa Simons and they moved here three years ago.  What a small world.  The other thing was that I was able to buy from them some kid's books originally from the ABC (for when Calleigh is at the next stage of reading) for only $0.10 a piece.  Very happy about that.  

In Colby news, he had a few firsts this week.  No, he didn't go a whole day or night without crying because that would be absurd.  But he did ride in the front seat of the shopping cart at CVS.  He also tasted his first bit of fruit or should I say the juice from fruit.  We are still almost a week away from him turning six months and I have waited until that milestone before starting the other three on solids.  If, for no other reason, than it becomes more work to have to feed them rather than just nurse them.  But, on Wednesday he was doing his usual fussiness while I was preparing food in the kitchen and I was like "I've had it!  We need a distraction." So out came the little contraption netty thing that you stick fruit in and they suck out the juice.  I have no idea if it's bad to start a kid on strawberries before anything else but that's exactly what we did and he loved it. We've also done watermelon and darn it, if all that juice going all over the baby and the highchair isn't a major cleaning endeavor but it is totally worth the 5-10 minutes of virtual silence.  Tomorrow I'll probably start him on rice cereal.  The sooner we can get rolling with all of this, the sooner he can start snacking on Mum Mums and other baby snacks so we can get a little peace around here.

The sleeping has improved a little since my last posting.  A few nights here and there he will go all the way until six before awaking.  Occasionally, he will wake up and cry for two hours which was two Friday nights ago.  Mostly, he will wake up at say, four and five and I go put the binky in and he goes back to sleep. Man, these six a.m. morning are a real pain.  Maybe it was the same with the other kids and I just don't remember. But goodness, I'm looking forward to it expanding until at least seven.  He goes to bed about 7:45 so it doesn't seem too greedy to ask for eleven hours but maybe it is.  Anywho, one of the nights my parents were here I felt really, really bad.  Since they are in the guest room, which is right across from Colby's room, I was back sleeping in my own room which is downstairs on the opposite side of the house (I've remained there since my parents left).  I definitely need the baby monitor because we can't hear anything upstairs since we use a noise maker.  We have music playing in both Colby and Brady's room (the monitor rotates through each of the three kid rooms) and I always listen for that music in the monitor to know it's on, it's working, etc.  The battery doesn't last all night so I'm always diligent in making sure I plug it in when I go to bed.  One morning I wake up and I think to myself "Wow, I'm so attuned to waking up this early that I'm waking up before Colby even wakes up in the anticipation."  I look at the clock it says 6:30 and as I listen for the music coming from the monitor, I notice that there is dead silence.  I look at the monitor and I see it's dead. Aghhh!  I had forgotten to plug it in. I ran up the stairs as fast as I could and as expected, Colby was awake and screaming. He usually wakes up just shortly after six so most likely he had been screaming for 25 or 30 minutes.  And then if that wasn't bad enough, when I reported this to my mother she tells me "When I woke up at 2:00 to go to the bathroom, I heard him crying."  I had my parents put on the box fan in their room so they wouldn't hear him crying since I let him cry it out for short periods of time.  Of course, she thought it was one of those times and didn't give it a second thought when she heard him at 2:00.  That made me feel a hundred times worse.  Who knows how many times he woke up and how long he cried.  Bad Mommy. Bad. But he survived so I guess it ended okay.

A few weeks ago I got an invitation to a lady's book club in my neighborhood that a neighbor was starting. My first thought was that I didn't have time but on more reflection, I decided it would be a nice way to get to know my neighbors and of course, I do love to read (although it has been pretty limited of late). We met last night and it was really great.  There were probably 15 ladies there ranging from 25 to 85. I met all kinds of interesting people including a teacher (who I already told I would be looking up at the end of the school year to review my homeschool portfolio), the woman who moved in a few months ago who told us her husband bought the house without even telling her (they are newly married.  Not sure if that's a good sign), and also a lady, Rebecca, who has a son three days younger than Brady.  Her house is a few doors down from us but is still under construction.  I talked to her some more after it was over and discovered that her son, Dylan, had been diagnosed with cancer at fifteen months.  Boy, if that doesn't put your baby/toddler problems in perspective, I don't know what will.  Fortunately he's in remission although he's lost a kidney and his spleen from the process.  I'm sure we will get to know them better once their house is done.  Anyway, as for the actual reading part, my greatest fear was that we would have to read Harry Potter or something similar.  I have ZERO interest in those sort of books.  And Harry Potter was briefly discussed and raved over but thankfully we settled on the book "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" which is set in China.  We will meet next month to discuss.  Should be fun!

Some other pictures of things we've been up to...

Two weeks ago we had Family Movie Night at the church.  It was supposed to be outdoors but weather was not permitting.

Calleigh rough housing with Blake.  What's new?

Brady coming to the realization what hot chocolate really is.  He though it was whip cream because that's what he gets at home but there was no whip cream at the church just...hot chocolate.

Aubree organizing toys by groups.  All smiles until she had to clean it up.  Does that seriously not occur to them when they take it all out?  

Practicing his swing. Notice he's a lefty batter.  I'm so excited that he is a true lefty.  He doesn't just eat and write lefty.  He throws, bats, and does everything with his left hand.  Just like his mom!

Colby enjoying a beautiful day outside. 

Ana has been consistently coming each Thursday afternoon to teach the girls Spanish.  How great is it to have someone in the family that speaks another language?

All smiles as she finished lesson 100 in the "Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons book."  Success!

This is what she's reading now.

Her first sentence that she made up all on her own.  Each day we read a Bible story and each day, she begs me to keep reading when the story is over.