Florida Vacation

We spent December 12-19 down in Florida visiting Greg's parents Rich and Mary. I was so worried about taking Meredith on the plane considering the awful time we had last year with her on the plane but I will eat my words because she did an AWESOME job both on the outbound and return flights! She even got complimented by a stranger on her good behavior. The only outburst we had was when daddy tried to eat one of her cookies that the flight attendant gave us (we had to ask for another pack to quiet her down). We spent the first night in The Villages and then we all headed down to Siesta Key just outside of Sarasota for three days. We couldn't have asked for better beach weather. It's was in the upper 80's and sunny the whole time! Meredith loved the beach. These pictures are from the first evening we were there. We headed down to the beach before the sun set to take a look.

The next two following days, we headed to the beach each morning. Meredith LOVED playing in the sand and the water and she collected a bunch of seashells. The beach here was like white powder. The sand was so soft and white and there were TONS of shells along the shore. The second day at the beach we had Meredith out playing in the water when all of the sudden I saw a dorsal fin pop out of the water not even 50 yards off shore. I went running down to the shore screaming "there's something out there" thinking it was a shark. But the 20 people lurking in the water trying to get a better look should have alerted me to the fact that it probably wasn't a shark. Then a nice man on shore told mere they were dolphins swimming out there close to shore

We spent one afternoon at the Sarasota Jungle Gardens. Meredith got to see all sorts of birds, monkeys, alligators, crocodiles, etc.

These flamingos just walk up to you on the path and don't let you move. I don't think I've ever been this close to a flamingo. I thought Meredith was going to be terrified but she just walked slow and seemed to like it.

After a few days at the beach, we headed back up to The Villages and spent a few days there. The weather cooled down a bit to the 70's and we had a little rain. It wasn't bad though. We opened up Christmas gifts before we left.

I love this picture - she wanted to read books with Grandpa. And she is wearing her puppy coat that she ALWAYS insists on wearing. She doesn't care if it's 10 or 80. She wants to wear her puppy coat.

Vacation!

This will be my last post until after Christmas. We're heading out of town on vacation tomorrow and spending the week down in Florida with Greg's parents. The plane ride will be interesting...last year we had a great trip down but the return flight was awful. She cried the whole way home. I'm loading up on snacks and Elmo DVds in hopes that that will be enough to keep her quiet for three hours on a plane. I'm looking forward to some warmer weather. This snow and cold couldn't have come at a better time.

My office laid off about 25% of the staff this week. Earlier in the year, we lost about 18% of our staff. So our office has about 55% of the staff we had a year ago. We're both lucky and thankful that we are still employed. Greg's office has lost a significant number of staff too - I think in the 25% range.

I'll leave you all with a holiday photo. A few of you might have received a Christmas card with this picture (we mixed it up this year and used a couple photos). We hyped us Santa like he was the greatest thing ever and she was excited about it. Then when it came time to actually sit on his lap...well, that was a completely different story.

Macy's Holiday Display & Hollidazzle!

Last weekend we made a spur of the moment decision to head downtown to visit the Macy's holiday display - A Day in the Life of an Elf - and go see the Hollidazzle parade. It was adorable BTW - go see it! It was so nice out and we really wouldn't have a chance to do it before Christmas anyway because of my travels to Las Vegas (I'm home now obviously) and we are headed to Florida on Saturday to visit Greg's parents. For the first time in many years, I am finding this stuff kind of fun now. Of course it's because I have a child now and I see all the fun she's having and the amazement in her eyes. All this new stuff she is learning every day excites me. Today she learned what snow is.

She loves these escalator things.

As you wait in line at Macy's, you get a nice tour of their furniture department. I think I have the craziest child ever. She never sits still. While all the other kids are waiting in line, she is the one running everywhere bonking her head on tables.

She was amazed at all the lights and moving figurines. She loves Christmas lights.

We can never get a good family shot.

These are just a few shots of the scenery.

We ate at McDonald's before the Holidazzle. She ate all the chicken nuggets in her happy meal. That's right, ALL of them. For those that don't know, my kid doesn't eat. Look how happy she is!

She loved the lights of the parade.


Look how excited she is in the above picture!

Thanksgiving 2009

Some of you might know this and some might not. Meredith was sent home from daycare on the Monday before Thanksgiving with what they thought was Chicken Pox. Meredith has had the vaccine so chances of getting it are pretty low, but I brought her to the doctor and the doctor said that she couldn't give me a note saying they weren't Chicken Pox because that is what it appeared to be. They cut one open and sent it off for testing. She also had an ear infection and they are starting to suggest we might want to think about getting her tubes but that's a story for a later time. Other than a few bumps and a low fever, she wasn't really sick at all. Meanwhile, we had to miss a whole week of daycare. I was hoping that the results would be back before Thanksgiving, but no such luck.

Greg graciously volunteered to stay home with Meredith while I spent Thanksgiving with my mom's family (my aunts, uncles, cousins) as I had cousins from out of town visiting and there was a big Turkey Day celebration planned.

I had a fabulous time, but I was sad to leave Meredith at home. I know a lot of people wanted to see her. But I wouldn't want to infect anyone with Chicken Pox if that is what she had.

I spent Friday morning shopping with a friend of mine. I'm not the type of shopper that has to get up at 4:00 a.m. to find deals. I don't want to fight people over things. I prefer to hit the stores nice and early (more like 8:00 a.m.). I did manage to find a few Black Friday deals though which I am happy with. I also got most of my Christmas shopping done now! YAY!!! Because I hate going into stores in the month of December...I just hate it. I don't do well bumping elbows with people, fighting for parking spaces, being caught up in traffic...I end up running to CVS a lot because I can get in and out quite easily.

We heard back about the Chicken Pox test results on Friday. It was negative. So, we missed out on a whole week of daycare and Thanksgiving for nothing. At that point I was just kind of hoping it was Chicken Pox so she could be done and over with it. Oh well. You win some, you lose some.

Here are a few pictures from Thanksgiving.

Uncle Robin.

Sitting at the table and gabbing - what we do best.

Nate and Jen's little cutie - Sam.

The boys talking.

What my dad does best on holidays.

Go Vikes!

I thought a picture of my Vikings fans would be appropriate for this very fine November Sunday. I can't believe how well they are doing this year. Who would have thought we'd be in this position this year with Brett Favre being one of the main attractions? Is Greg going to get to go to Miami in January?!? We'll see!!!

I've been gone for a while so I have nothing huge to write about. I spent the last nine days out in San Jose, CA (actually Santa Clara). It was quite the long trip but I managed to meet up with a couple friends, go to Santana Row a couple times, and I spent one afternoon up in San Francisco and one afternoon up in Sausalito. And the weather was great! This is my second trip out there in the last six weeks so I feel like I live there almost. Last time I got to spend a day up in the Napa Valley region. It will be a while before I make it back there but I feel lucky that I got to see some good sights on a couple of business trips.

halloween

This year marked Meredith's 3rd Halloween. I really made an effort to get into it and it really rubbed off on her. She is at an age now where she 'gets' things. I had her halloween costume picked out and completed back in August - how's that for being in the spirit? I might be biased, but I think she was the cutest little bee I ever did see. And oh my, did she LOVE being a bee.

Last year we went to Mall of America because she was so little still and almost too young to go door to door. It wasn't too bad from what I remember so we decided to go again this year. BIG MISTAKE. Maybe it was because halloween fell on a Saturday this year, but that place was packed. Ridiculously packed. It was not fun. And because there are like 5000 kids there, the stores all hand out crappy candy like suckers and jawbreakers. I'm not going to let my child eat jawbreakers. Meredith got better loot trick-or-treating at my office the day before. At any rate, Meredith had a good time and that's all that matters. I think next year we're just going to do some good old fashioned door-to-door trick-or-treating in our neighborhood.

We made it home by 7:30 or so and we lit up our jack-o-lanterns and turned on the light so we could hand out candy. Meredith loved that too. She kept saying "more people".

Here she is all smiles on the way to the mall.

Getting some tricks-or-treats!

Hanging out with Grandma Schwake (Juana as Meredith says)

Here we are going up to the second level to try to escape the first level crowds.

Lovin' those Old Dutch dill pickle chips. My child for sure.

carving pumpkins

We carved pumpkins for the first time this week and Meredith loved it! She didn't accomplish much but she enjoyed it nonetheless. I bought one of those pumpkin masters carving sets and asked her which one she wanted me to carve. Of course she picked the HARDEST one to do. It was a scary pumpkin scarecrow. Greg carved her pumpkin into a kitty.

Once they were done, we put them out on the front steps and lit candles in them. Meredith was scared to go outside in the dark so we had to strap her into her carseat and drive the car around the front of the house. Once we got back to the house, she got kind of used to the dark and ventured outside for a closer look. She was so cute.