Florida Days

Life is pretty sweet here in Florida. Jeff has been taking some much-deserved time off for the last few weeks and we've been settling in to our new community. We live in a rented condo for the moment, while we wait for word on our new house. I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that I don't think we'll be in our new home before the new baby arrives. Luckily, the interim place Jeff found is beautiful, fully-furnished, and only two blocks from the house so the transition shouldn't be too hard when it's time.We live about two blocks from some of the prettiest water in Florida. We're on the bay side of the peninsula, so there are lots of breathtakingly beautiful birds. Matthew can already identify by name an ibis, a seagull, a pelican, and a duck. One of our favorite things to do is to walk over to the water and watch the pelicans dive-bombing for fish. It's really quite impressive and I would not want to be an unlucky fish.Of course, the best thing about the water near our house is that there are manatees who regularly show up. When Matthew first saw these big, beautiful creatures, he was with his Nana, so now he calls them nanatees. I'm not sure how much he understands about their name, but he definitely knows that he likes them. We see these guys at least once a week on our walks along the water, and I hope I never get so used to seeing them that it doesn't fill me with gratitude for our new life.

When we get too hot, we usually head over to the children's museum around the corner. It's one of the best I've ever seen and I think Matthew's parents have as much fun as he does. It's run by Americorps volunteers and the people are so good with kids. Each day, they have a show-and-tell presentation where the kids can hold a spider or draw a picture of a fish. The even have parenting classes, which Jeff and I love because it's oh-so-challenging to have a toddler on your hands 24-7.

But what a toddler! This little man is smart. Every day, he amazes us with his infinitely expanding vocabulary. To see and hear for yourself, check out the "Recent Videos" list.

Lady Bugs

Here's some shots from our layover in LA when we ran into a herd of ladybugs. Matthew was fascinated. He continues to point to his knuckle (where the Jeff and I were placing the ladybugs for him) in a request for more of those fun little creatures. When we tell him that they're all gone, he makes a buzzing sound and writes on the air with his pointer finger to imitate them flying away. So sweet.We have gotten lots of inquiries as to our whereabouts, well being, and future plans in the last few weeks. The truth is that we are fine and enjoying our new life in Florida. I wish I could say that we have all been well during the past weeks, but Matthew and I both fought through colds following our multi-flight journey, and now he is battling an unknown illness that has caused him to have alarmingly high fever for the last four days without other symptoms. Luckily, we have Jeff to help nurse us both to health, and I'm hopeful that we'll be back on our healthy feet again soon.

After our car was stolen a few weeks before our move from Hawaii (did I mention that already?), we were not looking forward to purchasing a new one. But car negotiations in Florida - and in this "new" economy - just aren't what we went through in Hawaii, and we now have a beautiful new car, car seat, and car toys to carry us around town. Jeff's car has arrived in Orlando and we're trying to figure out the best way to retrieve it that doesn't involve listening to car-seat-whining for the 2 hour drive there and back. We're putting that off until next week.

After 10 days in a hotel when we first arrived, we moved into a beautiful, furnished condo that Jeff found. He's truly the best at researching options and I'm thankful each day that he's on my team. Having a washer, dryer, dishwasher, couch, and no one knocking on the door to ask if we want housekeeping is priceless, not to mention the fact that this place is cheaper than the hotel and in the neighborhood where we're trying to find a house.

Finally, our big little boy continues to amaze and entertain us. He's all words now. We taught him his colors and now he's able to make compound phrases like "white airplane" and "Blue Thomas [the train]". What's more, he says, "I see" in front of things he sees, making him the youngest child ever to form a sentence (or something like that). My favorite phrase of his is "swim soup" as in, "Let's put on our swim soup and go to the pool." In the last two days, he's started saying what things are NOT. For instance, we've been teaching him his letters and he's been saying that A is "sailboat" because of its shape, I suppose. This morning, he walked in and pointed to the A and said, "not sailboat". When I praised him and asked him what it was, he said, "A". So smart.

Two Shoes

A few days before we moved out of our house in Hawaii, Buster Brown put his shoes on all by himself and set off on a walk before I had even stepped out of the house. I guess the days of dependence on mommy are not long for this world. Of course, his shoes are on the wrong feet, so maybe I've got a few more years things to teach after all.