Monti, Dahlia, and their cousins started digging a huge hole as soon as we arrived at the Ft Lauderdale beach. The hole was quite large and it gathered a lot of attention from passers-by. Dahlia was very protective of the hole especially regarding a 3 year old boy who just kept coming over to help. The next couple hours were spent converting that large hole into a home. The weather was great and none of us ended up getting sunburned.
Everyone headed off to Ft Lauderdale while we waited for our box of
clothes and shoes to arrive from Seattle. We had shipped them 13 days
prior but due to weather and the holidays they hadn’t arrived. The
girls and Eliza used the extra time to skinny dip in the hot tub while
the boys were gone. After the hot tub they headed to the garage where
they created mock packages to put at the front door after ringing the
doorbell. We were so anxious to get the package that we fell for it.
The real package did not arrive until 6:15 PM. We still had a 4 hour
drive ahead of us.
Synchronized cannonballs should be an Olympic sport. They would score
a perfect 10 !
Aunt Kim gave the girls cookbooks for Christmas so we decided to attempt one of the recipes. We made “Fairy Tale Brownies”. As chefs we had complete success. They were devoured in under 3 hours and only with a little help from the 3 hungry girls.
We enjoyed a day out in The Villages. We shopped, had pizza for lunch
and saw Bedtime Stories. Each girl went home with a mood necklace.
After picking out hers Monti said to me, “Mine will always be colored
grey because that means nervous and I am always nervous.” I have 2
nervous children. Monti bites her nails and Dahlia has started to
twirl her hair till it knots and then she pulls it out. Her hair is
completely shorter on her left side because of this bad habit.
Sunday morning is a great time for a wedding and the girl’s were busy planning one. They had found 2 little frogs just waiting to find someone to perform the “froggy” nuptials.
We had crazy Chicago weather while we were in town. We arrived to
nearly 0 degree weather and left for FL in 60 degree temperatures. My
parents were getting water in their basement due to the rapid melting
snow. Monti simply disappeared from the house and I found her outside
shoveling her heart out. She was just trying to do her part in
relieving the flooding. The water in the basement made both the girls very nervous.
Our friend Ryan met us at the zoo. He lived with us for 2 years when we were first married so he knows all our dirty secrets. Monti and Ryan spent some time discussing guitar playing. He explained to her that he started playing at age 11. If he lived with us now we would all be jamming together and laughing a lot more.
Brookfield Zoo had a holiday lights program that kept the zoo opened late into the evening. Gabe was working at the zoo but he was dressed in a costume. At the entrance of the zoo I kept noticing this bear waving our direction. We shouted out Gabe but the bear only shrugged his shoulders. It was Gabe but he was not allowed to talk while in costume. The only way you could identify the characters was by looking at their shoes. When we took this shot Monti didn’t know that was her cousin behind the mask.
