Julia has the same kindergarten teacher that Kayla did, and he continues to take the kids to the Hearthstone retirement center every other week. This time is was paint the nails and hand lotion week. The kids had practiced painting nails in class all week and really were getting into it. Julia’s grandpal was having a bit of a nap so she decided to partner with another grandpal who very sportingly had one kid painting each hand. It is a very sweet event.
Well Miss Kayla has turned 8. She was very excited about it and had her party planned out way in advance.
For her party she had a sleep-over. The girls came over after school on Friday and all but one spent the night. Kayla had a sort of camping theme, so each girl painted a pillowcase to take home as one of the activities. There was playing, painting, pizza, smores (instead of cake) roasted over a fire pit and sleeping in tents in the back yard. I think they all had a great time.
We traveled to Florida at the same time Owen and Ryan were there from England. It was great to see them again and my girls of course were super excited to see their cousins again, as well as their Oma and Opa.
As it was super hot during the day, we spent much of the time in the pool. Swimming, diving for coins, playing catch as well. Kayla and Ryan were working on perfecting their underwater handstands. I tried one too and must say it is way easier in the water than on land.
No visit to Punta Gorda would be complete without a visit to the Tiki Hut restaurant and bar. The day we went was after a very hot miny golf game, and we were all melting a bit I think.
As the evening outdoor weather was perfect, we took the kids out once and a while to enjoy the weather and this night some music.
As Owen was not sporting his sunglasses, he sportingly got on the dance floor with Oma. Both of them danced the night away and had to be dragged off the floor to go home.
On the way to Orlando, we stopped off for a bit to take an air boat ride. These boats can go quite fast but we spent most of the time going slow looking for alligators. There were lots of baby ones we got to see, all newly hatched. Also one or two very big ones.
The lake we were on was covered with plants. It almost appeared that we were on land and not on water. It was quite pretty in it’s own unique way.
While the boys went off to Universal Studios, Oma joined the girls and I at Magic Kingdom. The lines weren’t bad early in the day and the girls are now in love with roller coasters. They wanted to ride them over and over again. Julia still has a bit of magic left in her and waved to all the Disney characters during the parade. She had a super sweet grin on her face.
Other than getting stuck on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride for an hour, the day went rather well. It’s quite a well set up park and worth seeing once.
The second day in Orlando (after the boys had flown home) we went to Sea World. I enjoyed that very much. They really do know how to put on a show there. We saw both the dolphin one (complete with high divers and acrobatics) and the Orca Whale show. Lots of animals and rides there too of course.
It seemed like a good idea at the time to try one of the big roller coasters at Sea World. It was quite exciting and fun, but way more than the rides at Disney. I sadly did not feel well for the rest of the morning after that ride, but I “might” consider it again. If you zoom in on the picture, we are in the 4th row. All in all a great trip and perfect weather.
We decided to head to the cabin for one last day of skiing this season. Rain was expected changing to snow later in the day, so we weren’t expecting much. We slept in, got a late start and headed there. It snowed all day and hard. I think about 5-6 inches fell. It was so much fun and soft (though heavy) powder was found all along the sides of the trail. I had a smile on my face all day.
I went up to the cabin by myself on Friday as we were having a refrigerator delivered. After that came I decided to talk a walk along a road across the highway. There I found ponds with hundreds of skunk cabbages in bloom. It was really pretty.
Julia’s kindergarten class started their swimming. They were pretty cute and got a real kick out of their teacher doing a cannonball into the water. Giggles galore. Julia is about the 6th one in from the right in the polka dot swimsuit.