Florida trip report, part 1

I suspect this is going to be a long report, so I'm going to break it up to make it easier to type. lol

We arrived in Florida on wednesday night at 11:30pm. It was 65 degrees. My mom was wearing a jacket and complained she was freezing. I thought it was balmy! I know it's all about perspective... but damn it felt good to be warm. I deliberately did not bring a sweater or jacket, I had faith I wouldn't need it. LOL Anyway, I had hoped (from the previous trip) that Kevin would sleep on the plane. Not so much... in fact he was incredibly active and did not want to sit on my lap. Not that I really blame him. So, when we got there, I was exhausted. Kevin was AWAKE. It was after midnight and Kevin was still awake in the pack-n-play when I passed out.

thursday 3/13 - except perhaps for Kevin, we were all kind of tired that morning, so we took it easy. Kevin met my mom's dog, a small poodle-ish dog named Nicholas (Nickie). We went for walks every morning to walk the dog, so we did that, then relaxed around the house till after Kevin's nap. After lunch, mom took me to the Whole Foods store, I had never been to one before and I wanted to get a few things for Kevin. It was awesome. I wish we had one! It was huge, more like a grocery store than the health food stores here where I live. Their deli ROCKED. We also stopped at a strip mall that was having a sidewalk craft show and I bought a couple things, one of which I forgot at mom's house! :(

On friday 3/14 we were feeling a lot more energetic, so we went down to St Armand's Circle on Lido Key. Mom says the key was originally bought and used by the Ringling circus as their winter site. Now there is an upscale pedestrian shopping mall in a large circle, where you can buy fine art, expensive jewelry, classy clothes and nice imports. My favorite store was Binjara Imports. Mom and I (and Kevin) window shopped. Most of the stores were above our price range, it was just a nice place to go and have a pleasant afternoon. We came to an ice cream parlor called "Scoop Daddy's". Mom said it was the best ice cream, so we stopped to have some. Kevin had the "Superman" flavor... the ice cream was bright blue, yellow, red and green. Yum!!! haha... I had ice cream called Hazelnut chocolate chip latte. It was good stuff. Naturally we had dessert before the meal... so we kept going around the circle till we came to a cafe called Crab & Fin. We had expensive crab salad sandwiches... but they were GOOD crab salad sandwiches. It was sprinkling rain off and on all afternoon. Not enough to get us wet, but just enough to keep us from considering swimming at the beach. The clouds and sprinkles made it just cool enough (even for me) to skip swimming. But we drove down to Lido beach to see it and let Kevin get his toes wet. He is crazy about beaches. Of course they are one huge sandbox, but he loves the water like mad. I have to keep a sharp eye on him as soon as his feet hit the sand, he takes off for the water's edge on his own. There was a small boat bay between St. Armands and the beach, and mom said it's popular with the local manatees for a breeding ground. Since it was manatee breeding season, we checked the bay on the way off the key, to see if any were there, but didn't see any. Mom thinks it's because of the rain and clouds... they apparently prefer sunny warm days to come up to that bay.

Saturday 3/15 we went to the beach! Siesta beach of course. Siesta has the finest, softest white sand of all the beaches there. It's my favorite. During the drive (which was a little long due to the extra traffic from spring break) I looked at big houses on the bay side for examples of what our Winter Home will look like after I win the lottery. ha ha! I forgot to take pictures, as Kevin was quite the handful if I let go of him, and I was freaking out about the idea of him getting washed away by the waves, which were high enough to push me around. So, the camera never entered my mind. We did try to get him to play in the sand, but he wasn't interested after he caught sight of the water. So, we took him down and carried him far enough for us to get our butts wet and his feet wet. Then I took him to the edge where the highest waves came to, and we sat and played in the sand and let the higher waves get us wet. Kevin loved that. I kept showing him how to dig a big hole to let water fill it. He liked that. In spite of the huge SPF lotion I put on him, he got a little pink over his nose and cheeks. I had lotion on too, but the side of my chest facing the sun I got a little burned. Not bad though. We had a blast, and wore ourselves out. Kevin and I went up to the refreshment stand and had some cheese fries (he was STARVING apparently) while mom brought our stuff up. The beach is really wide and a long walk. Mom had to walk a half mile to where she parked the car so we could go home. The crowds were crazy for parking but the beach was so big that it didn't seem so bad... it was crowded, but not packed. I wonder what parking is like on a packed day.

ok, that's enough for this post. Kevin needs a little lovin'.

stuff

ugh! I am wiped out tired. I only worked two days this week and they were busy, trying to catch up from vacation. I was going to post a long trip report, but it will have to wait till tomorrow.

I applied for the job that I've been waiting for it to be posted. It's open to the public as an "entry level" position though, even though it would be a promotion for me. So I won't know what my chances are for a while. I do know the supervisor wants to hire internally instead of outside the organization. That may help... if I pass the test.

Happy Ostara or Spring Equinox, however you call it. Did you balance an egg? I did not. I think ours aren't quite fresh enough. Can't wait to see what Kevin does with his basket!

Back from heaven...

yeah... I was in heaven. Or was it florida? doesn't matter, wish I was still there. I plan to write a good post about it tomorrow. Too late now, I must get to bed!

I just finished putting together Kevin's Ostara basket. Spent too much, I'm sure. I'm considering waiting till friday morning to give it to him though, so daddy can be there for it.

More to come!

basket ideas

When I was at Walmart a couple days ago, J and I went down some aisles so I could get some Ostara basket filler ideas. In the crayola aisle (have you noticed that it's not just crayola crayons anymore? crayola gets a whole fricken AISLE for markers, crayons, coloring books, etc etc) I found toddler crayons. They are egg shaped (nothing to do with easter) to be easier to hold in toddler hands. Also, they aren't a crayon that can be broken into bite-sized pieces and eaten! So, I will be picking up some toddler crayons for Kevin to color with. I think that we will color some eggs and tape them to the windows next week!

I discovered that Kevin likes things with lights, especially if they blink. heaven forbid that he get ahold of one of J's flashlights (J has a zillion flashlights... in my perception lol) because I can never get him to give it up. I saw some easter blinky light things... I might get one of those to put in the basket. I think I might also look for some more large plastic non-moving-parts dinosaurs to go with his T-rex that he got at the Walking with Dinosaurs show last weekend. He loves his Rrrarrrr and plays with it all the time. I think T-Rex Rrrarrrr needs a stegosaurus or tricerotops to eat.

I am going to skip that grass shit that is usually sold to put in those baskets. I'll get it when he's older. But I'll never forget my stepsisters daughter, at the easter when she was a year old, she somehow managed to eat some of that grass, and when it came out the other end later, one end of that grass was stuck in a turd in her diaper, and the other end was stuck in a turd still inside her. I will never forget watching my mom pull that piece of grass out gently while my stepsister (who was f-n 16 at the time) hold her daughter while the poor kid screamed. No thanks. Keep your plastic grass, Walmart.

new family traditions...

So, Kevin's first year I was too wrapped up in being a new mom to consider what we would do for the holidays as a family. For those who don't really know, I am wiccan, been so for oh... 15ish years. Was practicing solitary, then part of a small group since 94. But I still practice solitary at home. My husband J is not wiccan, though he's cool with it and sometimes does go to my group's family celebrations. And he has participated in some of the things I've done at home, like wardings. Anyway... the equinox is coming. Ostara. It is thursday the 20th. I have to work that day. That's okay... maybe in the future I will take off work on holidays so that we can celebrate the holidays better.

But this comes to the major question... what traditions do we want to do to celebrate Ostara? Kevin is too young for teaching anything, and thats good because I'm not quite prepared yet, since I'm only just now figuring this stuff out. But I need to figure out what I want to do this year. In the future, I'll tell Kevin the story of how the Eostre bunny and the eggs came about. This year, for Kevin I will make him a basket of toys and a couple of plastic eggs with treasures in them that I will "hide" in the living room. I will probably make some hard boiled eggs for decorating and later eating. Since I'm going to try and garden again this year, I will be making my garden egg for burying. That will probably be a tradition I can include Kevin in, in the future. Unfortunately, I don't have time to do any psanky eggs this year, since I'll be in florida soon. I really enjoy doing psanky, but damn, it's time consuming. I'd consider doing some later, but with the cleaning I need to do, I'll wait till next year.

One good thing is that Ostara and Easter are around the same time. So saturday the 22nd, there's all kinds of egg hunts going on around town. I think I'll take Kevin to the one at the petting zoo for sure. We'll see about going to another one not far from our house. Depends on Kevin. I don't really want him to eat candy anyway so if that's all the egg hunts are, I can do without going to several.

Meme

jennyquarx tagged me to particpate in a meme. This is a rather interesting one, and I'm required to tag 5 of you in turn.

The meme is that you need to turn to page 123 of any book, and then quote the 5th sentence on the page either in a post of your own or in my comments. Then you get to tag 5 people as well.

Here's mine:

I can't speak for anybody else, but maybe it's because so many of us are outsiders.

I don't think anyone reads my blog besides most of the people that Julie and Jennyquarx already tagged. But Melanie, if you happen to read this, you are tagged. anyone else not tagged yet, consider yourself tagged. haha

gonna dance like no one is watching...

I've decided to take a sabbatical from teaching dance. My students already know. I probably wouldn't have decided this if I didn't have a senior student who'd decided to teach and another good friend teaching not too far away. This gives my ladies some choices to continue their dance learning.

For me, I'm going back to class to learn again myself. I'm going to get my groove back. I love to dance but lately... that love was stale. So I'm going to work on that. Then, instead of teaching weekly classes, I will probably do workshops now and then, when I create dances that I really like.

Not sure what's going on with the job opening I'm waiting for. I heard some talk that it's supposed to be posted this week. I'm waiting for that. Part of the talk included that it might be open to the public, rather than internal only. That would suck for me. I don't know if that's true or not, but if it is open to the public, my seniority and stuff may mean nothing. I don't know how they can justify not going internal first. I guess it's just something I have to wait and see.

I have nothing witty to write about. Sorry! I've been so busy at work and after work, that when I finally get home, I just want to go to bed.

ok, I'm going to watch an episode of Lost before I crash. Peace out! (miss you Doobie!)