Florida

Well, we've returned from the land of sun and pink flamingos. The kids are asleep, so of course David and I are both madly typing away - we had no Internet access for 5 whole days!

We fared well, although Micah has to go to the allergist tomorrow due to a horrible skin reaction (from the sun? from the sunscreen? from what?). He's feeling ok, but it looks awful around his neck, and it hurts when I put cream on it.

Anyway, highlights of our trip:

1. We visited Mike and Tracy Keirnan and their 3 beautiful daughters on Sunday. What a wonderful day we had. They have a lovely house, with a pool (of course, since this is Florida). We spent a few hours at the house (and even Micah got into the pool, eventually), then had lunch and then went to the beach for a while. The kids got along just great (see photos on the new page on our Photo Site). It was fun to see all of them together. Tracy and I had lots of great talks about the issues we face with Sofia and Rachel. David and Mike got into lots of geeky aerospace engineering conversations. It was so much fun!

2. We went to Magic Kingdom at DisneyWorld on Sunday. We survived, although I must say I enjoy StoryLand and Dutch WonderLand more, with their much smaller crowds and more rides with less waiting times. But we had fun, in the blazing heat. Sam got frightened in the Haunted House, Micah got scared just waiting in the line for it. Sofia lost it on the carousel and in "It's a Small World". We waited to go on the TomorrowLand ride but it broke. We did manage to get on Pirates later in the evening, when the line wasn't too bad. The kids and I got soaked in the splash park area, which was nice. We even had a "Magical Moment" (damn it!): we stayed through the 10pm fireworks, and both boys fell asleep. Sofia had been sleeping for a while, so she woke up when we took her out of the stroller to put Sam in. We borrowed an abandoned Rental stroller to get Micah out to the gate, but then David had to carry Micah while I carried Sofia and pushed the stroller...until Cast Member Jerry came up and offered to carry her for a while through the parking lot.

3. We have a WALKER!!!! Mid-afternoon at Disney, we took Sofia to the toddler spot, and she promptly picked herself up and walked many steps across the fake pond. (See video).

4. Micah actually spent almost as much time in the pool on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday as Sam; he really enjoyed himself.

5. I invited some woman who was attending David's conference to sit with me and the kids at dinner on Monday (David had to go to an awards presentation), because I was starving for adult conversation. It was nice.

6. I read almost all of "The Memory Keeper's Daughter"; I still have 2 chapters. More thoughts on that later, but right now I can't believe I got enough time to read almost a whole book!

Best quote of the weekend: On the way to Disney, Micah turned to Sam in the car and said "I'm going to be Jack Sparrow. Do you want to be the dog?"