Florida Trip - Day 3

Big rain moving through the whole southern part of the nation tried to slow us down, but we scoffed at the weather and pressed forward. It was sloppy going for sure, but being Sunday morning there wasn't as much traffic as there could have been and that helped move us along.

Of course, when we finally arrived, the first thing we had to do was get into the pool. Your own personal heated pool is a wonderful thing. It was very relaxing after a long day of driving.

After the pool the kids got in their Jammie's and posed, I know...impossible, right?, for a picture. I think Brianna likes her cousins. She also likes me! Can you believe it, she actually gave me a hug.

 

Florida Trip - Day 2

What would a road trip be without McDonald's breakfast?

Well, we got on the road around 6:30am, sort of. We promptly annoyed the GPS lady by ignoring her constant promptings to follow her chosen route. Instead we chose our own route. After a hundred miles or so she got with the program.

We made it to Atlanta around 10:30 our time, just in front of the major rain storms that are coming through. As I write this I'm watching the Weather Channel, and just as the guy mentioned that folks in Atlanta should begin to hear thunder, by golly I did! At that exact moment! How did he know?

There are two, perhaps three, hundred thousand Waffle Houses between Chicago and Florida, but we have never been to one...until today. I found it expensive for what we got. $35 for cheap breakfast items, go figure. But the food wasn't so bad. But I don't have a great hankering to go back. Waffle House is now officially off my bucket list.

We're glad that we made it to the hotel in one piece. We're all exhausted. We can't wait for another 10 hour drive tomorrow!

 

Florida Trip - Day 1

The first day of our trip landed us only as far as Aurora, IL, or more precisely...Nanna's house. She and Auntie are going down to Florida with us. It's going to be pretty dang crowded in our van.

Sitting here contemplating how crowded it will be I just realized that we forgot to bring Flat Ginny along. Now I'm irritated with myself. Well, I can't do anything about it now.

Mommy thinks we're all getting up at 5:00am. Ha! That's only four short hours away and she just fell asleep five minutes ago. I had better go to sleep myself, but to be honest I don't think I'm going to be able to.

 

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The Storm Before the Storm

The problem with vacations is the tremendous effort to clean the house (and the car) and to pack everything up. Stuffing the luggage and the family into the car isn't easy either. But, we do it for the opportunity to make some (hopefully) fond memories, and to do some bird watching!

For Spring break we're heading to Florida (not Disney World) to visit family and to hit the beaches. Maybe we'll have some Cuban food while we're there. I hope this new iPad Mini will help me post a lot more blog posts. Time will tell...

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To The Beach on Labor Day - 2012

Most people who have had their heads chopped off typically are unhappy about it, but Cami seems quite pleased.

Yesterday was a fun day. In the afternoon we went to our ward's Labor Day picnic, which was great. We ate mucho food, caught up with other church members, and played some games. I especially enjoyed playing horseshoes. It's just the kind of low-impact game an older man can enjoy. I contemplated playing ulitimate frisbee, but the game was in the sun and it was over 90 degrees. This and a belly full of food spelled disaster, so horseshoes it was.

After the picnic we went to Gilson Beach in Wilmette, IL. It was very fun and a good replacement for our annual trip up to St. Joseph, MI. We were sad that we weren't going up to Michigan but for one reason or another we didn't make it up there.

Suprisingly, the beach was not crowded. We expected a writhing mass of humanity, not always a bad thing, but there was plenty of room for us to spread out.

 

One thing that I did not expect was how much the kids took to the sand. I expected them to be in the water the whole time, but they spent a lot of their time digging in the sand.

 

Speaking of the water, it was really warm this year. An entire summer of 90-degree heat has really warmed up Lake Michigan. As the evening wore on the waves began to pick up force. This was a boon to the kids. They spent about an hour letting the waves wash over them and generally having a great time.

 

 



Cami's Bum Arm (and Mommy's Birthday)

The other night Mommy's folks took us all out to dinner for her birthday. Can you believe it!? She is finally 21 years old! We went to Fuddrucker's, which is one of our favorite places. It is very yummy but this time around the service was really slow. A family that ordered the same time we did ate their food and were ready to leave by the time our food arrived. I don't know what we ordered that caused such a long wait, but we didn't complain. We were having too much fun watching Cami be creative.

While there Cami cracked herself up by taking a photo of her elbow but made it look like a picture of a butt. She thought it was hysterical. I laughed more at her laughing than the picture itself.

Sorry the video is so dark, but the restaurant was dark. I think restaurants keep their places dark so you can't see the food. Hmm, food for thought...

Cami's Bridging Ceremony - 2012

 

 

Cami had her "bridging" ceremony tonight. This involved getting some recognition patches and then walking over a bridge as a symbol for graduating up to the next level of Girl Scouts. The ceremony took place at a local park that had a nice bridge that could be used. Alas, it rained all day and all night, so the girls got very wet. But they didn't care. They all had a great time.

 





 

 

After the ceremony Cami decided to play on the playground and generally roll around in the puddles. She got really wet and enjoyed every second of it.

 

 

 



The First Day of School - 2012

It's that time again, the dreaded first day of school. The kids were excited to start school, or more accurately to see their friends again. Cami is in 4th grade now and has a new teacher this year. Ian is in 5th grade, the last grade before he moves on to middle school, and he has the same teacher he had last year.

It is so hard for me to see Ian in the oldest grade. He and Cami both are growing up so quickly. In the mornings the kids line up in rows according to grade. I have watched my kids over the years go from the youngest rows all the way over to the oldest rows. Next year he'll go back to being in the youngest grade in middle school and Cami will be in the oldest grade in grade school.

I remember Cami's first day of school 3 years ago now. The teacher grabbed Cami and took her, kicking and screaming, into the classroom and closed the door. It made me sick to watch.

I hate school. It is a fulltime job keeping up with all of the homework and the other paperwork the teachers send home. They send so many pieces of paper home that important ones get tossed out among all the umimportant ones. Then we miss events and sign up sheets for science fairs, etc. And then there are the lunches to keep up with. Ughh. I don't like it at all.

Flat Ginny Goes to Springfield, IL - August, 2012

 

The end of summer is upon us and Flat Ginny wanted to take one last little trip before the kids went back to school. She wanted it to be close to home so we didn't spend all of our time travelling, so she decided on Springfield, IL. The KOA there had a large "Kamping Kabin" available so we decided to rent it for three nights. We have been in typical KOA cabins on prior trips and they are very rustic, but this cabin was really deluxe.

 

 

The cabin was nicer than a hotel room! It had air conditioning, satellite TV, a kitchentte, a refrigerator, a bathroom with shower, a little bedroom with a set of bunkbeds, and a separate bedroom with a queen size bed. It was so nice! It also had a deck and a fire pit and BBQ, and several outside tables.

 

You can see that Flat Ginny settled in very quickly. Here she is eyeing the bananas for a snack. She had already polished off the two McDonald's pops, a root beer, and a diet coke. She ate so much that she didn't feel good enough to go along with us to Lincoln's home.

Here are our three kids at Lincoln's home. It was a glorious day, weather-wise, which made the excursion much more pleasant. We and hot weather do not mix well, though Mommy does like a really hot day at the beach. We went through the visitor's center and saw the interesting items on display. Ian really enjoyed the large replica of the town of Springfield and Cami enjoyed the military weapons (like swords, etc) from the Civil War.

Here is a picture of Lincoln's home from the outside. It is quite nice and would have been really nice by the standards of 150 years ago. I thought it was interesting that Mrs. Lincoln had her own potty chair in her bedroom (she and Abe had their own bedrooms).

The next day we woke up with quite an appetite, so we headed out to find some much needed food. Woohoo, we found a Golden Corral! We like buffets because everyone can find something they'll eat and we don't have to wait 30 minutes for the food to arrive at our table. This really helps when you have fidgety children.

Daddy ate himself silly and later had a hard time back at the campsite trying to enjoy bouncing on the giant bouncy pillow thingy. Speaking of the campsite, the pool was nice but a little chilly. I found this interesting as the Midwest has just experienced one of the hottest summers in a while and the water was still cold. I'm not sure how this is possible.

Later this same night we cooked a wonderful meal at the campsite. We cooked corn-on-the-cob on the grill and we made good use of our Coleman stove. Speaking of this stove, Daddy used it most mornings to cook very tasty breakfasts. Here Flat Ginny is seen helping remove the silk from the cobs.

By the time we finished dinner Mommy had time to create a makeshift cake out of marshmallows and candles for Cami's birthday. See the video below of the birthday "cake"...

 

Cami said later that it was the best birthday cake she's ever had. Kudos to Mommy for thinking of it.

You can't really see it in the video because the blog shrinks the window size down so much, but the expression on Cami's face is priceless as she looks at the candles. She is so excited that we remembered her birthday!

After lunch we went to Lincoln's tomb. There were very few people there so we were able to take our time and see what there was to see. The kids were impressed with the building and all of the statues inside. Our kids are great. They actually like museums and places such as this. Other kids would probably find it very boring. Flat Ginny found it impressive as well. She had never been to Lincoln's tomb before.

 

 

We all took a turn rubbing the nose of Lincoln's bust that is outside the monument. Below see a compilation of our lovely little family.

 



After the tomb we went to the Illinois State Museum, which is a small museum next to the capitol (capital?) building. There were several sections on evolution (an old stand-by that all museums have) and a lot about the geology of Illinois. There was also a section on the Native Americans that lived in the area hundreds (thousands?) of years ago. There was a large diarama constructed that showed various aspects of their lives.

Flat Ginny, and Daddy, were very impressed with how detailed the displays were.

 

Yep, Daddy was very impressed with the level of detail.

 



An awesome find in the "Americana" section of the museum. A plate dedicated to the Nauvoo temple construction.

Later on Flat Ginny and Mommy hit the gift shop. So many things to buy and so little money.

Ian and Flat Ginny both had to take the occassional bathroom breaks. Here we see her helping Ian wash his hands.

If you get a chance to visit the Illinois State Museum it's worth the price of admission, which is free! Well, it's free at the door. Don't get me started about the high taxes in Illinois. Don't bother with the "art" gallery part of the museum unless you enjoy talentless "artists".

Well, it's time to leave, at least for a while. Of course, the kids are horsing around while the rest of us pack and clean up.

Everyone had a great time and we can't wait to go back to the Springfield KOA again. There was so much to do that we barely had time to go swimming and we never did go fishing. The kids had a great time and we made a lot of memories, plus it felt good to get out of town for a few days.

Our Spoiled Fairies - 2012

The other day Cami made our fairies a nice dinner and a new house for them to live in. Before they ate the dinner I made sure I got a nice photo. She used the furniture from her Polly Pocket toy set, which is probably the perfect size for a fairy.

She made the house from cutoffs from a Cub Scout project. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but the inside is quite cozy. She made them a bed, and a little chair, and added some artwork to the walls.

Here is a view into the interior of the house. It shows a great attention to detail.

A nice touch was the umbrella that Cami put up above the house while it sat in the tree. For her efforts the fairies left her a nice note thanking her for the treats.

Daddy Is Proud of His Little Girl

What has Daddy been teaching his little girl!? Well, armpit farting of course! And she is catching on very quickly.

Flat Ginny Goes to Florida

This year one of the Neumann family vacations was to Lutz, Florida to visit some family members who live there. And Flat Ginny went along of course. The drive down to Florida was a long one and Flat Ginny seemed to do the best of all of us. She never got hungry and never needed a bathroom break.

On the way down to Florida we passed a place called Dinosaur World. It looked like a really cool place, but we were in a hurry so we didn't go in. We did get a picture of the kids outside the place with a promise that we would try to stop on our way back to Chicago.

We made it to safely to Florida! One of the first days we were there we went to the beach. The one we picked was on Caladesi Island. Here is a picture of the kids posing with Flat Ginny near where we boarded the ferry. On the ferry ride over to the island we saw some dolphins enjoying themselves. This is the first time any of us have seen dolphins in the wild. We were all very excited.

Here is Mommy posing with Flat Ginny with, I think, St. Petersburg in the distance. Flat Ginny really seemed to enjoy the beach. Speaking of the beach, it was much sunnier there than we Northerners are used to. The kids got slight sunburns right through their "swimmy" shirts. It's a good thing that Mommy lathered them up with SPF 50 sunblock.

The day after the beach Daddy and Flat Ginny went bird watching. Here they are posing in front of the Weekiwachee Preserve sign. The Weekiwachee Preserve is a very large nature area that I'm told used to be a strip mining operation that was left to go natural when it was shut down.

We walked a LONG way around this preserve but we saw quite a few birds, with the highlight being an Osprey nest. Below is a photo I took of an Eastern Bluebird that was nesting in the preserve.

The last day we were in Florida we went to the Tampa Zoo. It's is a nice little zoo that has some animals that zoos in Chicago do not have, specifically Manatees. The kids thought they were cool, but I think they liked feeding the birds the most.

At one point we rode the roller coaster there and the kids got a little freaked out. The roller coaster was not especially scarey but neither of them have ever been on a roller coaster before. But, it was great fun.

Flat Ginny had a great time, too. But she didn't want to feed the birds. She was worried that she would wind up being part of a nest somewhere. We didn't blame her.

It was a very hot day so we all sort of pooped out before we saw the whole zoo. Oh well, we saw those things we decided we wanted to see there.

The next day we left Florida, even though we got a late start. I think we left something like 3:00 in the afternoon. We drove all day and eventually stopped somewhere near Chattanooga. We slept like big dogs, got back in the car the next morning and headed toward Dinosaur World.

Dinosaur World is a really cool place. They have scattered throughout the surrounding woods life-sized replicas of various dinosaurs. There is a self-guided tour that is very fun because around each corner is a new and sometimes even larger set of animals to gauk at.

Some of the replicas are struly huge, as can be seen in the picture above.

And some of the replicas are not limited to the dinosaur ear of history. There was a wooly mammoth "garden" with about 10 or so very large replicas and one smaller one that the kids could climb on.

Unfortunately, the trip ended tragically with Flat Ginny being eaten by a dinosaur. Just kidding!

She, and the rest of us, had a great time on our journey. We're looking forward to some more trips this summer. Mt. Rushmore anyone?

Father / Son - Daughter Cake Baking Contest - 2012

Wow, has it been a year already since the last Blue and Gold dinner? Well, it’s that time again.

The Blue and Gold dinner in our ward is always fun and this year was no exception, but someone forgot to bring ketchup for the hotdogs! Oh well, it was fun anyway. Ian got several awards (including his basketball belt loop and some silver arrows he didn’t get several months ago) and basically had a good time.

Of course, we can’t forget the annual “Father / Son Cake Baking Contest”. Below are some photos of the kids making their cakes. To be fair the kids did most everything themselves, at least the decorating anyway. Their Nanna baked the cakes.

Ian’s was a chocolate cake decorated with a fishing rod and fish, and Cami’s was a yellow cake decorated with a husky in the mountains.

Just to make you hungry we made our own butter crème icing. No store bought junk for us.

On a sad note no one but ourselves took a single piece of either cake while other kids’ cakes were devoured. Hmm…They really were yummy so I don’t know why people gave our cakes a pass.

On an even sadder note this will be Ian’s last Blue and Gold dinner because he will be 11 years old before next February and will be in Boy Scouts.

Oh, before I forget Ian won the “Best Sports Themed” award and Cami won the “Most Peaceful Husky” award.