Florida Trip, part 2--Ringling Museum, Sarasota

Hoping for better luck with the pictures this time!

We really only had one rainy day while we were there, so on that day we went to the Ringling Museum in Sarasota.  It was a very interesting place! We started out by touring the home that had been built by one of the Ringling brothers, John. It is right on the water, and I got as close to the water as I could to take this picture (without falling in). According to what I read, people would dock their yachts right there when they came to parties at the mansion.

The Cad Zan Mansion, which means "House of John"

A couple of the ornate circus wagons that were used when the circus moved from town to town. 

In keeping with the Circus theme, Lynda had a foot-long corn dog for lunch. 

In one of the buildings there was an awesome miniature circus display.  It was a HUGE display, and the amount of detail was just amazing. 

This picture was taken from an upstairs viewing area. It gives an idea of how big the display was, but this probably only shows less than half of it. 

These two pictures were taken at the art museum that is also on the grounds. It was very nice, too, but I really enjoyed the circus displays more than the art.

Kind of an unusual tree---I think it's a banyan, but I may be wrong about that.

Pat and Jeane enjoying the greenery.

I kind of wondered why this Ringling Museum is in Sarasota, but apparently the circus didn't travel around during the winter---they spent the winter in Sarasota. 

After our day at the Museum, we went to an Amish restaurant for a delicious dinner. The restaurant was very much like the Essenhaus Restaurant in Indiana.  We also saw a lot of Amish people, including some very cute little children.  Who knew that there were Amish people in Sarasota?  Not me!

End of Part 2. I've decided to do this in smaller bits so that if I lose my pictures I don't lose so many.  So stay tuned!

Florida Trip, part 1

Well, this is a long overdue post!!  Let's see....we went to Florida in March, and now it is May.  That is inexcusable, so I won't even try to make excuses.

We had a great trip and a wonderful time with the Waanders siblings (and younger relatives) in Florida.  Our drive down went well.  We did it in two days, with an overnight stop in Dalton, Georgia.  We arrived at Diekemas in Sarasota in time for dinner on the second day.  We spent the first few days at Diekemas, then moved over to Bill and Pat's in Venice for a few days, and then back to Diekemas for the last couple days.  In addition to the Diekemas and the Waanders, the Brassers were also in Florida for the whole month of March.  They were in a condo in Englewood.  These three cities are all within about an hour or less of each other, so there was a fair amount of "gathering together" for meals and other activities. There also were some visits from the younger generation:  Jane was there when we got there, but left a couple days later.  Lynda came the day after we did, and she went home the same day we did.  Dan and Scott came the second week-end that we were there and so did Karen.

I'm just going to post a bunch of pictures to show some of the things we saw and did.

This was taken during the short time that both Jane and Lynda were there. We met for breakfast on Saturday morning and then all came over to Tony and Jeane's place, except for Bill and Dad who went to a baseball game. Jane left for home that afternoon.

On Sunday Betsy drove up from Fort Myers and we all had pizza at Bill and Pat's. The ladies were sitting out in the lanai. That would be Lynda, Jeane, JoAnne, Betsy and Pat. (Sorry---kind of dark, so you can hardly see Lynda.)

And the men were inside watching basketball.  It was March, after all. 

Well, I just lost all the pictures I was trying to put on here, and I'm having trouble getting them back.  So I am going to post just this part for now so that I don't lose this, too.  Hopefully there will be more to follow. 

Happy Birthday, Jeremiah!

After our California trip we were home a total of 2 days, and then we headed to Iowa to help Jeremiah celebrate his 3rd birthday. Wow, this retirement stuff is rough!

We arrived Saturday afternoon during Jeremiah's nap, so we had to be satisfied with an enthusiastic greeting from Molly. (sorry, no picture)  We had to wait a bit to get our hugs from Jeremiah, but well worth the wait. We had dinner at a favorite spot in Ankeny---Pizza Ranch.  Yummy!  And we were glad that we had gone early when we saw the line out the door when we were leaving! 

When we got home Jeremiah opened the presents from us as, well as the ones we had brought back from California for him.  He was VERY excited!!

Building blocks from Uncle Matt and Aunt Cheryl

Opening his card so carefully

A set of "Cars" themed Duplo blocks

And a set of small construction vehicles

 

Can you tell---Jeremiah LOVES construction vehicles!!

And after the presents were opened, it was time for birthday cake! 

What a cool Mickey Mouse cake!

Time for the Happy Birthday song!

Monday, February 18, was the actual birthday.  Jeremiah was very excited to see the balloons and birthday banner that Rachel had put up after he went to bed the night before.

The Birthday Boy!

Another card to open.....

....and read.

 

And more presents---a garbage truck that really works!

 

Grandpa made Jeremiah a special green chocolate chip pancake! 

What could be better than a book about vehicles?

 

Maybe a vehicle-themed Memory Game? (Jeremiah won!)

We went along for Jeremiah's 3-year photo shoot at Target that morning. He was a real star!!! He did absolutely everything that the photographer asked him to do, and she got some great shots of him!  I'm not sure what her secret is---I have trouble getting him to stand still and look at the camera long enough to get a decent shot. 

After lunch and some play time at McDonalds, it was time for us to head back to Wisconsin.  But not before we posed for a picture with the Birthday Boy!

An Experiment

I am being very brave here---I'm going to see if I can upload a couple of videos that I took while we were in CA.  Usually the videos I get are done by mistake, because my camera has somehow gotten into the video mode by mistake.  Those result in videos of the floor, ceiling, people's feet, and lots of movement that would result in motion sickness. These two were actually intentional videos.  There may still be a bit of the motion sickness factor, though, and I apologize for that. We'll see how this goes.

The first video is of the kids playing in the snow at Oak Glen.

And then here's one of the kids enjoying their Valentine lollipops right after breakfast. (With some silly noises provided by Grandpa)

 

So....I just published my post, and did a test to see if I could get the videos to work.  Surprise, surprise!! It worked!!! I continue to amaze myself. :)

Now, really, the next post will be of Jeremiah's birthday.  I decided to try this one first, to stay in chronological order.

February in California

Yes, I have gotten behind in posting once again. So it's time to play catch-up---starting with our trip to California from Feb. 5-13. We had a great time, as we always do when we go there. And we got lots of time with Josie and Evan, which is, of course, the main reason for our visits.

We got a really great air fare this time from Milwaukee to Ontario, and our flights went well. We did have to hustle to catch our connecting flight in Denver, because we left Milwaukee a bit late. But we made it, which is all that matters.  We decided to rent a car this time, so we drove ourselves from Ontario to Redlands. When we got to the house, Josie came running down the sidewalk to greet us and to tell us that she and Mommy were making cupcakes for us. :)

We arrived on a Tuesday, which is normally a work day for Cheryl, but Josie had been sick and so she had switched her days around that week. So she worked Wednesday instead, which gave us an extra day of babysitting---that was fine with us! I had wondered if Evan might be a little shy with us, since he hadn't seen us for a few months.  He was shy......for maybe 5 or 10 minutes. He very quickly bonded with both of us. :) 

Such sweet faces!

Evan really loves Josie's slide. He loves to climb up and then just stand at the top, giving his grandparents great anxiety.  Grandpa tried to stay close by when Evan headed for the slide. He needed a little help to get into a sitting position, and then he'd be off down the slide. He loved it! By the time we left, he was learning to get himself seated at the top (sometimes) and he'll probably soon be going down headfirst on his tummy.  He really does not have much sense of fear! 

On Friday Josie goes to Tumble Tots, her gymnastics class. We took her to her class this time, and Cheryl stayed home with Evan. Unfortunately all the pictures I took there are on the i-pad, and I don't know if I can get them onto this blog.  If I figure out how to do that, I'll add them. It's fun to watch Josie doing all her activities---each one ends with a "Ta-daa!!"

Well, I totally amazed myself and figured out how to send a picture from the ipad to the computer, and then figured out how to get it onto this blog. Will wonders never cease!?!?!  So here is Josie doing her balance beam routine at Tumble Tots. Didn't catch the "Ta-daa!" when she was done, though.

On Saturday was the Calvin-Hope basketball game and we all went to watch that at a local restaurant. 

We were decked out in our Calvin shirts, Josie had a pom pom, there were balloons, and lots of cheering for the Knights.  But in the end we went home disappointed---Hope won the game.

On Sunday afternoon we took a little drive up into the mountains so that the kids could play in the snow. The snow was not that much of a novelty for us, but it sure was fun to watch Josie and Evan having fun.

Evan in his froggy hat and mittens--just about the cutest thing ever!

One of the many times Josie had to have her mittens put on.

Checking out someone else's snowman.

Putting the mittens on again.

Oops, she's missing a mitten again.

And so is Evan.

Here are a few random pictures of our last couple of days there.

Evan definitely approves of Grandpa's pancakes!

Josie is off to the park with Grandpa, riding in style!

A little ball game in the front yard. 

A visit to Redlands is not complete without a meal at Chick-fil-A! I love that place! And so do the kids. 

I know they are barely visible, but both Evan and Josie are up in the play structure. We were a little worried about how Evan was going to get down, since he didn't seem to want to try the slide. Fortunately he did come back down the same way he had gone up----very carefully on the steps.

On our last morning there, I invoked "Grandma privileges" and gave the kids their Valentines a day early.

This meant lollipops right after breakfast, followed by baths.

It's a bit of a challenge to get Evan to sit still for a picture!

Such a pretty girl!

And one last group shot before we had to leave. So hard to say good-bye!

Next post, coming soon (hopefully) will feature Jeremiah's 3rd birthday! Stay tuned!