Snow Day

This morning, after wind gusts overnight up to 60 mph, Derek took the kids to daycare only to find they didn't have power when he got there. So he brought them home. Charlotte was so excited about her first snow day. As it turned out, Doodlebugs called about 45 minutes later and had reopened, but I didn't have the heart to make Charlotte go back in. Grace was happy to go, so it is just me and Charlotte hanging out today.

She consented to a few pictures, many of which I got out of focus. I liked these, though. Her hair looks curly here but it is really mostly straight these days. We washed it last night and she went to bed with it a little wet. She wants to grow it longer, so right now it is kind of a floppy mess.

some from Naples

Grace playing with the water out of Grandma's pool. Both girls liked scooping out the water and dumping it all over. Neither are that keen on swimming (although to be fair it was really too cold those days to try to convince them). No face shots because Grace really, really does not like to be photographed. Sigh.







Charlotte practicing writing. She wrote "Charlotte" across the top and is writing "Grace" underneath it.




One of my favorites. Gracie brushing her teeth before bed.



A nice shot of Charlotte and Uncle Pat.



Everybody on the morning we left.

Sea World

We went to Sea World Tuesday and Wednesday with Ron and Laura. We all really enjoyed it. It is a great place to visit with kids of any age. Here are a few pictures, all taken with Derek's new camera.

The underwater dolphin viewing was really cool.






Derek took this and I really like it. I don't have many pictures of me with the kids, and this one really struck me. Plus, I love his lens flare.



That string she is holding is the neck strap from Derek's camera. She calls it her elephant and it has a truck and a tail (and I got hollered at once for talking to the wrong end). He talks (constantly) by making elephant noises and then Charlotte tells us all what he said. She carried him around for most of the week and they talked and played all through all the parks. You sort of sometimes got the sense that we could have saved two grand and just let her stay home with a piece of string and she would have been just as happy.

Grace saying hi to the Penguin at Sea World. As she would say "I hi him!"

The first of many Disney posts

Just cherry-picking my favorites from last week. The first three are probably the best that I have photographically speaking (which may not be saying all that much) This is the Indy Adventure ride, or something like that, in Tomorrowland. Charlotte loved driving the car. I don't think Grace was that thrilled. The rides in general were not really her thing.

She was so cute peering over the steering wheel.



Probably the best smiley Charlotte picture that I have taken in 6 months. I love it!



Grace and Derek in the car behind us.



Grace went nuts over meeting the characters. She just loved it. It was by far her favorite part of the whole Disney thing. The first time we saw Minnie from afar, I held her up so she could see and she said "I want hi her!" She was ticked that we didn't wait in the 45 minute line to get to go up and meet her. That was the first day. Once we embraced the Disney Zen-like state in which you get used to waiting 30 minutes in line to do anything, we waited and met many of the characters in all the parks. Grace enthusiastically hi-ed them all.

Just two of my favorite shots.

Minnie at Animal Kingdom.



Here, she is posing with Pluto for the Disney photographer, who had a much better position. I kind of like the side view, though.