Florida Day Cinco

Today we went to the Homosassa Wildlife park. As soon as we walked through the door, an alligator bit Madelynn's toes.

Traipsing through a mock rain forest in 100 degree weather is never a good idea. I was too hot, Mads was too hot, the boat driver drove too slow and the underwater viewing room wasn't air conditioned. Yuck.

Jeffrey and I met Jovan at Hurricanes, there was a keg that needed to be kicked and I'm pretty sure I did it all by myself. Tome mucho cervesa. I don't know how to say "yuck" in Spanish so... yuck.

Florida Day Cuatro

Today was a sleepy day. We hung out in the pool:

and then on the pool:

(table, that is).

Madelynn played with her new best friend, Flash:

I think we ate pizza. The end.

Florida Day Tres

Today Madelynn went to breakfast with her grandparents, her great-grandparents, and her great aunt while Jeffrey and I played Wii with Josh and Jennifer. The rest of this 103 degree day (I'm not kidding, 103 was the high for today) was spent at the most fabulous pool I have ever been to. This pool had a separate pool for Madelynn's age group, water slides, diving boards and a ton of other things that I can't remember now that I'm suffering from heat stroke.

The water was like, three inches in places. It was the coolest pool ever.

Even though Mads was slathered in 60+ SPF, she still received a little baby tan line on her butt cheek. Unfortunately I had forgotten to SPF myself, so I walked out with a Rudolph red nose and crispy shoulders. Grandpa set up a huge pool for Madelynn and made us ice cream cones.

Jeffrey and I hunted for Jovan again and found him exactly where we knew we would. (?)

And now I'm going to roll the whole way to bed. I'm too exhausted to move. It's so damn hot here, 103 degrees takes a toll on your body after twelve hours. This is why I live in Pennsylvania, I just can't take the heat. I miss the north (and my friends, my apartment and maybe even the cat [I miss you, too, Mum and Daddy!!]). I plan to invent the "punctuation check" button. Don't steal my idea!

Peace.

Florida Day Dos

Jeffrey's little brother, Joshua, graduated from college today. Now I know you're supposed to get to graduations early, you want a good seat of course. Graduation was at 1:30, Jimmy hustled us out of the house well before 11. Unnecessary, Jim. We were a little more than slightly early:

Of course the members of my tiny family were still feeling the lag from the ridiculous day before, so it was pretty hard to get them in the Kodak-moment-spirit:

After graduation (longest twenty-seven years of my life) we came back to the G-Parents for a wonderful little party. We drank beer, we played pool, and Babe went to bed right on time.

ETA:

Florida Day Uno

At 4:15am I woke Babe up and dressed her. She was falling over tired, as in standing and then falling over... a lot. At 6am, we flew out of PA in the smallest, loudest, death-trap of an airplane that anyone could find. I saw my life flash before me while I rattled in my seat for 45 excruciating minutes. I think Babe did OK, not that I would know for sure, I couldn't even hear myself think. She may have screamed the whole way... who knows? After an hour layover, we hopped on a wonderful plane, a quiet, roomy, leather seated bird with a Sky Mall catalog at every seat (that's my most fave catalog EVER). Mads slept peacefully, and so did Jeffrey and I.

On the ground in Tampa, we were greeted by the two most excited Grandparents in the universe, along with sweltering heat that made my stomach turn. Get my ass to the beach, I'm dying here:

We went to the tiny children's beach that is about five minutes from the G-Parents house (if Clearwater Beach were the Ritz-Carlton, this beach would be the Colony Lodge). Babe swam hard and crashed even harder as soon as her head hit the pillow.

Jeffrey and I drove around until midnight, hitting up all of our favorite bars from back in the day, searching for a close friend, Jovan. We didn't find him.

A Very Talented Diaper

Jeffrey and I were both up super early this morning, so early in fact that Mads was still sleeping. When I went to check on her at around 7am, I was quite shocked to see this staring up at me from the crib:

That's a naked baby butt. I assure you, that butt was not nakey when it was deposited in the crib last night. Apparently, Madelynn's diaper had grown not only arms, but legs also, and had climbed the whole way up the crib. It then shimmied down the bars, landing pee side up on the carpet. I'm not sure when exactly that diaper made it's grand escape, but the status of the sheets tells me that it wasn't away from her baby butt for very long.

Dry sheets = a good day.

Smooth Talker

As you can tell by my almost daily "life wall" updates, Mads has obtained quite an extensive vocabulary in the past couple weeks. We're at the point now where she learns at least one new word a day, and I'm telling you, it's hard to keep up. Today she pointed at a duck and said "duck." Crazy, I know. I think she has known all these words for some time now, but her mouth is finally catching up to her brain and BAM, we have a talker.

And a nose-picker, but that's not nearly as exciting. Alright, I lie... that's pretty darn exciting too.