Florida Vacation Reflections 2013

The Rose side of the family just got back from a fun & relaxing week in Florida. Our destination was Treasure Island -- a beachfront community just west of St. Petersburg. Yes, technically, it's an island because it's separated from the main land by an inner-coastal waterway, but a series of very short causeways and drawbridges makes it so it doesn't "feel" like an island. According to Wikipedia, "Treasure Island got its name after several property owners attempted to boost sales of the properties being developed on the island by first burying and then pretending to discover a couple of wooden chests on the beach around 1915. After claiming the chests were filled with treasure, the news of the 'discovery' quickly spread and people began calling the island Treasure Island."

We left the DSM airport on the morning of Monday, August 5th along with my Mom & Dad. (We would meet my sister and her family there). I would like to pause for just a moment to say that I'm very thankful that Allegiant Airlines decided to come to Des Moines a few years ago. Sure, they are a low- budget, no frills airline, and you have to pay for even the smallest niceties (carry on luggage, snacks, etc.) but the important thing is that they offer direct flights to a couple cities in Florida. When traveling with kids, a non-stop flight is 5 times better than something with a layover (maybe more than 5 times)! You don't have to spend a "whole day" traveling.

Even though Allegiant does fly into St. Petersburg, they didn't have a flight that day that worked for all of us, so we flew into Sanford... a nice, small airport (similar to DSM) on the north edge of the Orlando area. We got a rental van and drove about 2 hrs. and 20 minutes to our destination. (I would still rather fly once and drive 2-3 hours than have a layover.) Although we didn't stop there, we drove right through the town of "Land O' Lakes" -- I think the town is missing out on some great name-related advertising tie ins.

Our hotel was "Sunset Vistas Beachfront Suites" -- as the name says, right on the beach (see reviews here). Every room is a 2-bedroom suite. Even though we were on the north side (ocean is on the west, of course), the rooms are angled so that you still get a fairly good view of the ocean. The hotel staff was very nice, and arranged to have our rooms fairly close together. It wasn't luxurious, but was clean, accommodating, and had everything we needed. We had a small leak in one of the bathroom pipes, so a maintenance guy came to fix it part way through the week. He told me that the building was only 7 or 8 years old, and it did in fact seem rather modern. The pool wasn't fancy, but big enough to have fun, and there was a small kiddie pool. I would give it 3 1/2 stars and cheerfully recommend it. The whole town seemed more family oriented that the Daytona Beach area (where we were at 2 years ago), and less of a "party atmosphere."

Some general recollections:

- At the beginning of the week, I told Ben & Joe that when digging a hole in the sand, it's a good idea to dig down deep enough to get to standing water. For the rest of the week, they called it "standard water."

- Both boys were hesitant of going in the ocean at the beginning of our week, but had warmed up by the end, especially Ben. On our last day, he and I spent about 40 minutes bobbing in the sea right at sunset. They still liked the pool better.

- Florida seems to have a much higher proportion of rude/selfish drivers than Iowa! Not necessarily bad drivers, so much, but just a "I'm in a hurry so I'm going to merge 1/4 inch in front of you" attitude.

- Customer service in the south is different that what I perceive it "should be." Servers, cashiers, etc. seem to think that being friendly and chatting is more important than either speed or accuracy.

- Combining our prior Florida vacation and this one (the last was 2011, we weren't able to go in 2012), I finished one of my Star Wars books, "Planet of Twilight." (Yes, It took me two vacations to finish one book. I'm a slow reader, plus it was usually only a few minutes each day of actual reading.) I was pleasantly surprised; it was a decent book after a below average previous book by the same author ("Children of the Jedi").

- Whenever Ben or Joe would do something really fun in the pool (like jump in, or be thrown up in the air by dad or mom), they would often proclaim, "That was off the huzzah!" (meaning something is exciting.... Not sure where this came from, but we think it is a mispronunciation of "off the hizzook.")

- When we flew on the airplane for the first flight, Joe wanted the window shade down at takeoff, so he wouldn't see the "fire that would blast out of the engine." (I think he envisioned takeoff more like a space shuttle) Before the flight home, we explained that there is no fire involved (ideally), and then he really enjoyed watching the takeoff! It was also kind of cute that they both said, "touchdown!" when we landed both times, unprompted.

- Our flight home was very early, so factoring in driving and enough time to arrive in advance, we had to wake up about 3:00 AM. We were back in DSM before 11, ate, and took naps - all 4 of us! It was very little sleep, but one nice aspect was that we had the whole rest of the day to recover & allow Debbi to prepare for childcare kids coming the following day. Also, my current work schedule has me coming in to work a late half day on Tuesdays, so I was able to use Tuesday AM to catch up on some work around the house.

- I got to watch several episodes of "Pawn Stars" and "American Pickers" -- two shows I rather enjoy but don't get to watch much (we don't have cable or satellite at home).

The weather was mostly cooperative all week, save for a couple typical 1-2 hour Florida rainstorms -- come in as a massive downpour very suddenly, then once over it's back to beautiful & sunny within 10 minutes. One came on the only evening we went out to eat -- at "Bubba Gump's." We spent a few minutes trying to skilfully walk around St. John's Pass without not having a covered walkway over our heads! We also did some souvenier shopping that evening (without actually buying anything!), and I played two brief games of skee-ball at a rinky-dink arcade. The sunsets were beautiful. I never pulled myself out of bed early enough to see a sunrise. (We tried to keep sleep schedules to central time to not mess up the boys' internal clocks, so that would have been like voluntarily waking up at 5:30 central time - no thanks!)

It was also a good time with the family all around, just a time to relax and fellowship.

Thanks, Mom & Dad!!!

I think this picture should be on a postcard!

This looks like a Polaroid from the 80's
because the lens was foggy from the humidity.

Two 4-Year-Olds Discuss Batman and Robin

Ben and Joe have taken a liking to Batman and all things Batman related.

This fascination came about in the last 4 months or so after they watched the Batman movie.

In their mind, this is the (only) Batman movie:

Batman: The Movie; copyright 1966.








Reminds me of my youthful days enjoying Batman. Reruns used to show on "The Family Channel" growing up. Somewhere in the 4th-6th grade range, my good friend John Juvan and I used to play Batman & Robin. We would hide in a small room or closet (some "secret" place) and pretend it was the Batcave. I made a Batcomputer out of cardboard.

I was usually Robin.

Fun to see the enjoyment being passed down to the next generation.







See how much you can interpret!

The Walkerdale Tree

I'm not home every evening when the boys go to bed, but when I am, we have a little bit of a routine. After jammies and brushing teeth, Mommy steps out for a few minutes while I read a story to the boys. As soon as the story ends, we take just a couple minutes to have "Talk about one naughty or good thing" before Debbi comes back to sing their nighttime song.

This has been going for about a year now. It started really simple, like, I would ask them to say one thing that would be naughty, or one thing that would be good. An example early on may be, "If we don't push our brother, that would be a good thing!" Or, "If we dump out all the Legos, that would be naughty!"

Over the last 12 months, the stories they come up with for this time have become more and more complex. Usually they start with, "Talk about, if mommy says...." and then some story about mommy telling Ben and Joe (and often Titus and Joshua) that they need to go somewhere, and do something, and usually someone disobeys (the "naughty" part) or, occasionally, everyone obeys (a "good" thing). Then my job is to try my best to figure out what they just said and repeat it. Often, it's kind of convoluted and hard to understand. Then they say, "now YOU make one up, Daddy!" -- Mine are usually of the more simple variety.

So with that background, here is what came up tonight. It was Joe's turn to go first. This is my best effort transcription of what was said:

Joe:

"Talk about if mommy said, "we need to go pick walkerdales." A walkerdale is a type of food that grows on trees. So mommy says, "we have to go in the big pit. And in the big pit is a tube that leads to The Famous Garden of Trees." When we get to The Famous Garden of Trees, we have to look for the Walkerdale tree - there is only one. And then Ben and me and Mommy go pick the Walkerdales off it. Then we put them in a bowl, and take them home and mash them up and eat them. That would be good, because everyone obeyed."

Ben:

"Talk about if mommy said, "we all have to go to the big pit. And in the pit there are three tubes. And we're supposed to go in the second tube, which goes to a good place." And Ben and Joe obey, but Titus goes to the THIRD tube, and jumps in - that would be NAUGHTY. This is before Joshua was born. Talk about that, Daddy."

Joe: (follow-up question) "Is that tube the one that has fire?"
Ben - "Yep, it is."

By far the most elaborate "Talk about one naughty or good thing" yet.

My Buddy

Sometimes (often right before I go to work, as I put my shoes on) I will sit at the bottom of the stairs, and I'll say, "do I have any buddies?" Joe & Ben know that's my cue that I'd like them to come sit with me for just a few brief moments before I head out. This has been a little tradition for about a year now.

Then I'll say in a silly voice (envision "Mater") - "You're my buddy!"

I did that today and had an epifany/flashback:


This was probably my subconscious inspiration all along. Note that although I never owned a "My Buddy," songs & jingles do stick with me for a very long time. It was probably lodged in the back of my brain for about 26 years. It's also weird to think that the kids in this commercial are probably about the same age as me.

Ben & Joe watched it and found it pretty entertaining.

(I also thought it would be funny to do a parody of "Kid Sister" with "Kit Fisto.")

"The Talk"

A few weeks ago, I decided that it was time to have "the talk" with my boys. They were starting to ask a lot of questions, and I felt like I was just trying to beat around the bush when answering them. After all, who wants to be dishonest with their children? I know, you're probably thinking, "aren't your kids a little young for that?" But even their church friends were starting to talk about it -- and I'd rather have them hear it from their own dad than from someone else.

I even bought a special book to make it easier to explain. So, Saturday before last, I sat them down and decided to tell them.


Yes, I decided to tell them that Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader are the same person.

Ben & Joe took it very well. We read through the book "The Story of Darth Vader." It's written on a very young level, and doesn't have any of the really scary pictures. They were very excited to learn what really happened to Anakin on the "volcano island" (this is what they call the planet Mustafar; not sure why).

I offered to let them watch the part of Episode III where Padme delivers the twins and the subsequent part where Luke & Leia are sent off to their new homes (By the way -- is it just me, or do Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru age horribly between the trilogies? I mean, they are probably mid-twenties at this point, and when we next see them 18 or so years later, they look in the late 60's to early 70's? I guess raising Luke was an ordeal). Don't worry, Grandmas, there is nothing graphic in there. Obviously, I skipped the part where he falls on a bed of hot lava rocks and ... you know.

Ben was really excited, but Joe had one of those moments where he thought something would be scary, even though it wasn't. So he hid upstairs and asked me to call him when the credits came on -- he really likes credits!

Ben: "Daddy, why does Padme die?"
Dad: "Um . . . because she's sad???"

Joe's Tongue Whistle Video

Here is another video of the boys from 11 months ago (Feb. 2011) that didn't make the cut for Debbi's blog. Enjoy.

Ben & Joe Picture Commentary - Summer

At the end of July, Ben, Joe and I put together a brief commentary on random pictures while testing the abilities of Power Point 2011.

It sat in queue for a few months. Debbi said it was "too old" to earn a spot on her blog, so I'll gladly take the 2nd rate videos.

Here it be:

What Happened to Bert?

I'm talking about "Bert" from Mary Poppins . . .

Well, we know that he lived in London in the year 1910, and worked as a Chimney sweep, Screever (chalk artist), and part-time kite salesman.

We know he had a friend named "Mary Poppins" who was a nanny. Along with Bert, and the two children in her care, Jane and Michael Banks, they had a very well-documented adventure.

But after Mary Poppins floated away on her magical umbrella, what ever happened to Bert?

Well, Ben and Joe have helped me figure it out.

Apparently he moved to the English countryside.

We lost track of him for quite a while, but it

does seem like at some point he got married and had two children of his own, Jemima and Jeremy. Unfortunately, he also became a widower at some point.

Things began to turn around when he decided to invent a flying car named "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and fell in love with wealthy candy heiress "Truly Scrumptious."

The only part we can't figure out is why he started going by the name "Caractacus" after he left London. Our best guess is that his full name is "Caractacus Bert Potts."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I'm 99% sure that this is what Ben & Joe actually think. Dick Van Dyke is always referred to as "Bert" regardless of which movie we're watching.

Cheers!