As mentioned in the previous post, we arrived at Larry's house in Rotonda West late Sunday night. On Monday morning, we went out for breakfast and then grocery shopping to stock up for our stay. The rest of the day was spent swimming in the pool and hanging out at the house. Parker did not nap that day. This has been happening lately, she just won't go to sleep in the middle of the day. Sometimes the evenings go OK, sometimes not so much. Our plan for Monday night was to drive out to Boca Grande to have dinner at Miller's Dockside. The drive is about 20 minutes and of course Parker fell sleep in the car. We stopped at a beach, wrapped her up in a blanket (still asleep) and walked out to watch the sunset. Then we headed over for dinner. Unfortunately, the restaurant was closed for a private event so we had to get Parker back into the car again and that did not go over well. A visit to a second restaurant ended before we even got inside, the Little Miss was not having it. So we drove home, put her to bed and had ice cream for dinner. The rest of the week had fruitful naps and no meltdowns, so we were happy about that. We went to the beach both Tue and Wed and Parker absolutely loved it....playing in the sand, looking for shells, jumping in the waves.
On Tuesday afternoon, we drove up to Sarasota and walked through a mangrove and let Parker play on a playground before having dinner (followed by yet more ice cream)
Wednesday evening we had dinner at Leverock's. Parker was a little wound up but behaved very well. She won the hearts of many of the people working there and we had a delicious meal. Here are some other random photos/video from the trip:
Our flight on Thursday left at 3:00 so we drove up through Sarasota and stopped at the Mote Aquarium. We saw lots of fish, sting rays you could touch, sharks in a big tank, and sea turtles up close & personal. Our favorite exhibit was the manatees. There were two swimming in a tank and one of them kept swimming up to us and smushing his face against the glass. I wish I would have taken video of it, so cute.
By the jelly fish
We are so lucky to have a house to stay at in Florida like this, it was so nice to get away from the Rochester winter for a few days. And even though Parker won't remember it, her first trip to Disney World was amazing.
This past week we took Parker to Florida for a little winter getaway. It turned out to be a good time to be away from Rochester as it had single digit temps & a foot of snow last weekend. We enjoyed pretty good weather down south: not much rain, low 70's. Here are videos of us packing the night before and waiting for rental car:
We flew in and out of Tampa and stayed most nights at Papa G's house in Rotonda West, which is about two hours south. Upon arrival on Saturday, we had a different destination planned and after lunch with our friends Nate & Angela in Tampa, we headed over to Orlando and checked in to the Hilton Orlando Bonnet Creek. We didn't make it down to the pool until 6:00 pm, so it was dark, but we had so much fun anyway. The pool had a lazy river and was nice and warm. We even experienced some swimming in the rain! We went up to the room to change and back down to have dinner at the poolside restaurant.
Greg & Parker to the left, it was raining
The next morning we had breakfast and then headed over the to the Magic Kingdom! It all went very smoothly and Greg and I were pretty pleased with ourselves by the end of the day. The Fast Pass is a wonderful thing that allows you to get a pre-determined time for a ride where your wait time is very short. We used this for any ride with a line longer than 10 minutes. I even had an app on my phone that listed current wait times for rides, awesome! I feel like Parker was in awe most of the day, with an open-mouthed expression for everything. She did love the Tea Cup ride and the Dumbo ride. We finally got her to nap by taking her on the Carousel of Progress, a rotating theater with a VERY dated show on the evolution of household conveniences. After the show was over, we put in her the stroller and had ourselves a bit of people watching. That nap time enabled us to stay for the lighting of Cinderella's Castle Christmas Lights, it was pretty cool.
Mesmerized by the Mickey Show
Waiting in line for It's a Small World
Waiting for food at Columbia Harbor House (she actually asked me to take her picture here, funny)
Riding Prince Charming's Carousel
Riding Dumbo
Riding the train
Napping
First ever ice cream cone (she's had lots of ice cream, just not in a cone, it took some coaching)
Dinner at Gaston's
Main Street on the way out
View from ferry ride back to parking lot
We drove down to Larry's house that night and of course Parker slept most of the way. She kept saying, "Mommy, I'm tired" and she finally zonked out.
We got about 6 inches of snow Tue-Wed of last week and so we took a walk on Thanksgiving morning. It was a battle (to put it mildly) to get Parker in the snow pants, but eventually she enjoyed being outside.
We spent Thanksgiving at Papa G & Sandy's house. Delicious food, great company, and a relaxing atmosphere made for a wonderful evening.
On Friday, we took Parker to her first movie theater show to see the animated movie, Free Birds. She sat on my lap the whole time and dozed off for a bit in the middle, but made it through the whole thing. Afterwards, we sat her in her own chair, bad angles here....
After the movie, we grabbed lunch and then got a snippet of Parker singing on the way home.
We had every intention of going to a farm to cut down a tree this year, but between the cold temperatures all weekend (below 20 degrees much of the time) and lots of projects to work on at home, we decided to wimp out and go to a lot. It was still a fun outing because we experienced our first Pittsford-style Christmas tree lot. It was set up on property of Pittsford Dairy which is just off the main street of the village. They had calves in a little manger, fire pits, and a resident dog named Tommy. Parker loved walking around among the trees and saying "It tickles" every time a branch rubbed her. She also loved the calves, of course.
We had our first little snowfall of the winter and both Parker and Otis were very happy about it. I took them for a walk on Sunday. In preparation, I got out Parker's new snow bibs, boots, & mittens. She was excited to put the bibs on at first but freaked out when she tried to walk around in them. After a lot of attempted convincing, I finally just layered on the "regular" pants and took her out anyway. I just made sure to pick her up off the ground quickly when she fell. Here is the first video of us in the backyard, she wasn't so sure:
Then we started wandering around in the trees at the back of the yard and Parker was excited to explore a little bit, so we took off for the trails right behind our house. She looks like such an older kid in this video, totally comfortable hiking right along!
I finally got her back inside so we could have lunch, but it was not easy. I am so happy our girl loves the great outdoors as much as we do!
We traveled to Pittsburgh for a visit with the Johnsons last weekend. The visit had multiple purposes: 1) go to the Bills/Steelers game on Sunday with Gennie & Eric 2) pick up bathroom fixtures (tub, toilet, all plumping stuff) from our personal shopper, Gennie 3) visit Ikea for some much needed bedroom furniture 4) most importantly, visit with our sweet nieces, Clare & Cate!! We arrived Friday in time for dinner. Gennie is a wonderful cook, so it is always nice to arrive to a yummy home-cooked meal. On Saturday we took the girls to a park (even though pretty breezy and chilly) and then had lunch afterwards.
Saturday night we were invited to the neighbors for a very nice dinner party. The neighbor girls are about 13 and 9 and watched our little girls so we could enjoy some grown-up time. Gennie made a salted-caramel cheesecake for dessert and let Clare and Parker help make the whipped cream.
Sunday was the 1:00 football game, so the girls hung out with a babysitter while we braved the cold to cheer on two different teams. Two teams that are both having horrible seasons, so the first part of the game was very unimpressive.
You may notice a strange addition to Greg's face. In honor of Movember, he is growing a temporary mustache. This is one week in. We are assuming Greg will shave at the end of the month, but he has pointed out that he could pull a Tom Lang and decide to keep the mustache for the next 40 years.
On Monday it was time to head back to Rochester, so we picked up our u-haul and headed to Ikea. This was my first time inside an Ikea and while tainted slightly by a slightly crazed two-year-old running around, I was still impressed. Some pictures of Parker climbing all around, using up her energy before the 4.5 hour drive.
Parker slept for three hours on the way home; a testament to how much fun she had with her cousins. We can't wait to see the Johnson crew again just after Christmas!!
