.... and glad to be here. We had a great time in Florida, but it's nice to sleep in our own bed and be in our own space again.
I don't even know where to begin really, so I guess I'll start at the beginning. We left last Wednesday, and everyone was up early, which turned out to be nice because Taisim slept through almost the entire flight down to Florida. Taipan loved pulling his suitcase through the airport, and he and I chatted and played during the flight while Yuta enjoyed some alone time across the aisle with his iPod. We had a minor drama/delay with the rental car, but got it sorted out pretty painlessly. (Y: The rental car Budget had for us was a Mustang hardtop coupe. I looked at our cart with 2 suitcases, 2 car seats, 2 strollers, & 2 backpacks, looked back at the counter agent, and laughed. Luckily, we were able to get a 4-door after waiting for 20 minutes.)
We spent our first four nights at the Oceanwalk condos in Daytona Beach. We'd stayed there twice before, and knew that the kids would love it - it's right on the ocean and has a terrific kids' water play/pool area. We checked in around four or five, got to our room to get our swimsuits on, and headed right out to the pool for a couple of hours.
On Thursday a friend of mine came to hang out for a bit with her two daughters, and we tried to do the beach/ocean thing, but my kids weren't digging it (literally or figuratively). We hung out at the kids' pool and the lazy river (oooh - that was so relaxing - the only time Yuta or I got to really sit still during the entire trip) and headed back to the room around midday. We also went camera shopping that afternoon. Why? Because on our first night our camera was plunged into the water when Yuta had to do a quick rescue of Taisim coming down the water slide. My mom came out for dinner, and after dinner we headed back to the pool! Grammy even put her suit on and had fun splashing with Taisim.
Friday was our day to socialize a bit. We were invited to a friends' house for lunch and playing, which was followed by a visit to my hair dresser, and dinner and more swimming at my dad's house.
You'll notice in some pictures from the last half of our trip that you can see Taipan's eyes again, and that's because he asked me to cut his hair while we were at the salon. He didn't want all of it cut - just the front. So I had my stylist show me the best way to do it (i.e. how to not do it all straight across), and cut a bit off. Apparently he wanted the hair out of his eyes.
Pizza night at my dad's was fun - got to see my brother and sister, and Taipan really enjoyed playing on a huge air mattress-like raft my dad has for his pool.
Saturday was another day hanging in the sun. We had a lazy morning, and my sister, niece, nephew and mom came to hang out with us in the afternoon. The cousins had a great time playing together, and Taisim took her nap floating around the lazy river with me.
Sunday was check-out, followed by family pictures, which we were an hour late for (sorry, everyone... really, we didn't plan to be late). So when we got to the pictures, things were hectic - folks were understandably kind of peeved about how late we were. But I think we still got some great pictures. We have a really nice on with my mom, my dad, my stepmom, and all the kids and grandkids, and I'm happy to have it. Gotta find a frame for it now. Maybe we'll take a picture of the picture and post it :-)
So, after pictures I took the kids to my mom's house for a visit, and for some Grammy's noodles (one of Taipan's favorite meals), while Yuta got to spend some time with one of his Florida buddies.
We then went to stay at my sister's house for a couple of nights. Oh, how Taipan loves her house. He really enjoys spending time with his cousins, but he is truly in love with her ceiling fans. So much so that he asked us to take video of them to bring home with us. We had made plans to do bumper bowling with all of the kids, but Taipan didn't want to go, so my sister and her kids went without us. And my sister hosted everyone at her house on Monday night so we could see everyone before heading home, which was nice.
The flight home on Tuesday was pretty good - Taisim slept for a good portion of it, but when she woke up, she did not want to be in her seat for landing, so there was some screaming there. I ended up holding her in my lap, but she squirmed quite a bit. Yuta's mom was at the airport waiting for us by the time we collected our luggage. It's amazing how much stuff you can pile onto a SmarteCarte. My MIL always vacuums our van while we're away - isn't that incredibly nice? We leave our van at her house, and she cleans it for us. Those kinds of things are so helpful and thoughtful.
So I think I've covered the major bits of our vacation - since we've been home we've been doing a lot of dancing. Oh, one thing I forgot to mention is that we were introduced to High School Musical while staying at my sister's house, so we have more dances & songs in our repertoire!
We're leaving for Florida tomorrow - we're all pretty excited. It'll be an early morning, but worth it once we're sitting on the beach tomorrow afternoon.
I'm taking my computer to check in on work stuff, and I may blog a big, we'll have to see. If not, I'll post full updates when we get back home!
For those of you who don't know, Taipan is very fond of dancing lately - and not just randomly grooving to music (though we still enjoy that); he likes to do choreographed dance moves. It started with a video called "I Gotta Go", which is all songs, and all about going to the potty. And about half of the songs have dance moves that go with them. He watched that video over and over and over, and does The Potty Dance, the I Gotta Go dance and the Pull Down, Pull On dance all the time - at home, at the park, at the store, etc. (Y: It's fun seeing the looks we get as our son is singing "Doing the Potty Dance" and dancing in public... I think people really think he needs to go!)
One day he asked me if we had any more videos with dancing. So we pulled out an old Wiggles DVD and did those dances. And a week or two later I went to the library on a hunt for videos with dances. One of those was a Sesame Street video - some sort of dance party hosted by Big Bird. And on that video were a ton of previews for other Sesame Street videos, one of which is Zoe's Dance Moves ... and he watched that preview over and over and over and then asked me if we could get that video. So we requested it from the library and picked it up about a week ago.
He loves this video - it's hosted by Paula Abdul (she actually does a great job), and she and Zoe choreograph a routine and put it together into the "Everything Dance", which consists of ballet, African dance, Asian dance, the Silly Willy Nilly dance (by far Taipan's favorite dance), tap and hip hop.
The time Zoe and Paula spend in the dance studio in interspersed with footage of all kinds of people dancing. And there are costumes. Last night he said that he needed a costume, and that we could buy one. Of course buying things is often my solution, but this time I said, "or we could make one!". So he said ok - we can make one. And he told me he wanted a cat costume. Ok, now time for me to think. Um, cat costumes need ears and tails. I can do that! So I got a headband, put some construction paper ears on it, got one of Yuta's old ties to use as a tail, and voila - our cat! And he wanted whiskers, so we painted those on too.
Taisim also wanted part in the fun, so we gave her a plain headband - she was not dressed, so I couldn't stick a tail on her. Though when she got dressed a bit later I went to find her another tie and learned that Yuta has not one, not two, but THREE bolo ties in his closet. Flashbacks, anyone?
Taipan kept asking what my costume was going to be, and he repeatedly suggested that I be a dog, but I didn't know how to do dog ears. Let's face it, Yuta's the creative one in this family. I'm sure he would've come up with something had he been here. So instead of making a costume, I told him I could be a Starbucks worker! I was already wearing black pajama pants and a black tank, so I added one of Yuta's aprons and I became a barista.... exactly what Yuta wanted to see when he got home from work.
A bit later we went downstairs, and a catalog with some Halloween costumes happened to be sitting on the counter from the mail Yuta brought in, so I showed it to Taipan. And we remembered about the Spider-Man costume Grandpa gave him last Christmas. Taipan wanted to put it on (this is the first time he wore it), and I put it on so it zipped up in the front like a jacket (OOPS!).
And then Yuta fixed it:
Dancing and costumes are fun. He also wants dance shoes, so we've talked about how you can use sneakers for dance shoes or dance barefoot.
Taipan's cousin loves costumes, and when we go visit him in Florida next week maybe he can play with Jason and try some of those costumes out too.
A friend of mine posted this quiz on her blog. Mine's a phoenix.
I finished the new Harry Potter book last week. Yuta's more than halfway through. I loved it.
(Y: My Patronus is a Wolf, and I'm on chapter 27 of 36... quite a good book so far)
Yesterday we came across a wooden train that my Nonna passed onto us a while ago. It's the only wooden train we have at our house - the rest are at Ama's. Tonight while lying in bed Taipan told me he wanted to get a wooden train at the toy store and another wooden train at the bookstore so we would have three at our house.I told him that we have three wooden trains at Ama's house. So then he said, I want the trains from Ama's house, and one from the bookstore, and one from the toy store so we can have six at our house. More math!
To ease the transition from leaving one place and going to another, we use countdowns so Taipan can mentally prepare himself. Just last week Karen's noticed that as we count down and tell him how many minutes are left, Taipan sometimes tells us when the countdown will be over... in other words, he's doing math!
Just tonight we told him "2 minutes left," and he asked what time it was. "It's 10:08." we told him. He then replied "Bedtime is at 10:10 then."
How about that... our boy's doing math on his own!
Last time we were at Target, we found these cardboard U.S. map puzzles for $1. For $1, why not? Well, Taipan seems to actually enjoy these puzzles, and has even learned some of the states and where they go.
"You guys were married in here.", "Yup, that's Nevada.", "It goes next to California."
"My cousins are here in Florida.", "Florida, that's right."
"And here's your state Papa!", "Yup, that's Utah."
Cute kid :)
Here's what Taipan did all by himself.
This weekend was fun-filled for everyone! On Friday night Yuta and I went out for drink and a movie while the kids stayed with my in-laws. It was the second time in less than two weeks that we'd be out on a date. Incredible, huh? We went to see The Simpsons movie, which was disappointing. Yuta liked it, but I was expecting something funnier and more clever. It was pretty much a super-long television episode. But it was nice to go out - we met some friends for drinks beforehand (they ended up seeing Live Hard or Die Free, and I'm not sure I would have enjoyed that any more).On Saturday we went to a birthday party at The Little Gym. Yuta's best friend from middle school and high school, who was the best man at our wedding, has a daughter that is turning six, and they invited the kids to come to the party. Taisim and Taipan had a blast. So much so that I might look into a birthday party for Taipan there, and trying to find an open gym time they can go to. I've done some calling around, and the places I've talked to start open gym in the fall, which I suppose isn't too far away.On Sunday the kids and I met up with some friends at the park. We all had a good time, espcially me, who could use more time hanging with other moms. After we got rained out at the park we went to our friends' house for a couple of hours, and when we left Taipan said he was hungry. I told him what we had to eat in the car, and none of it really sounded good to him, so I told him I'd look for restaurants on the way home. We saw a Panera and I thought "Perfect!", but the kids said they didn't want to go there. Right next to the Panera was a Golden Corral buffet, to which Taipan said, "Yes!". Well, I'm not sure what I was thinking because I was in way over my head. The place was packed, and it's not one long buffet like I was expecting, but a bazillion buffets all over the place, which is hard to do with two kids. I couldn't leave them at the table alone while I got food, and it was hard to drag them back and forth to the buffet. So, Taipan had one bit of awful mac & cheese... Taisim and I split a piece of chicken .... then we left. After stopping to say hi to Yuta at work we came home and the kids had a super long bath. Some of you know that Taipan has had a bath aversion for most of the past year, so we've been doing sponge baths. Last week he wanted to get in the bath to play with the bath crayons (to which I said, "with water?"), and he's wanted to go in there twice since. With cold water. He doesn't like warm or hot water - it's gotta be cold. So Taipan draws race tracks on the side of the tub while Taisim plays with water and cups.Then we had a nice bed time - Taipan asleep pretty early; Taisim not so much. And I started reading Harry Potter. I didn't get too far, but am hoping for the kids to be in bed early tonight so I can read some more.
In celebration of the longevity (over 400 episodes and 19 years!) & quality (still one of the best written sitcoms on television) of the Simpsons, The Simpsons Movie has finally arrived! Burger King has opened up the Simpsonizer for all to enjoy. Being the Simpsons fan that I am, I had to Simpsonize our family... and here are the 2D results... mmmmmmm... Simpsons.
This morning Taipan was talking about what Taisim was wearing - he thought her outfit was pajamas, when in fact it's a matching shirt/pants set, not pajamas. So I said that those are her clothes today. And he said, "Not pajamas?" And I explained that it's a pair of pants and a shirt with no sleeves. And he told me, "I have a shirt with YES sleeves!"... meaning of course that his shirt has sleeves. So cute that I had to share.
In fact, here's a picture of her in the outfit:
Around here almost every town has an annual summer fest, and we missed our town's celebration last weekend, so we went to the one in Strongsville (Y: The Crossroads of the Nation... Go Mustangs!) this afternoon.
We got there around noon, bought tickets and starting riding the rides. Taipan wanted to do the Dizzy Dragons first, so he and I rode that... based on our experience at the Brecksville Home Days last month we didn't think Taisim would enjoy it, so she and Yuta sat it out.
After the Dragons both of the kids rode the Super Trucks and another Jeep/motorcycle ride.
And then Taipan said he wanted to ride The Hurricane! At first it looks like no big deal, but while I was watching Yuta and Taipan ride it I realized how fast and high it goes (Y: It really does sneak up on ya). Taipan was up against Yuta the entire time (Y: The centripetal force helped with that too), but afterwards I asked him what he thought and he said, "It was good". So there you have it.
Then we went to eat and discovered Cheese-on-a-Stick - mozzarella cheese fried in the same batter that is used for corn dogs. Yummy. (We had other food too, but the cheese on a stick was really the best thing.)
We couldn't leave without playing games, so the kids fished and got horns to bring home, and we played a "shoot the water in the mouth of a clown" game...
and Yuta won a funky stuffed baby dragon for each of the kids. (Y: We also won some plastic toy horns!) And we ran into friends, so hung out for another hour or so visiting with them.
Home Days are a good thing. Taipan asked us to capture video of all of the rides so he can watch them at home, so now he can relive it all in the comfort of our loft.
Hiya.... Yuta added some pictures from Chicago and the 4th of July, so scroll down to see some pics.
At the suggestion of a friend, we recently bought Max, a cooperative board game. We opened it up on Sunday and Taipan loves it. He's asked to play it the past two mornings before I go to my office to work.
We don't play all of the rules exactly as they're written, but we abide by the general spirit of the game. I highly recommend it.
I need some ideas though of how to include the baby, but not let her destroy the game. It's hard if only one parent is around and Taipan wants to do a board game because Taisim wants to be up there too of course, and she has a very different idea of how to play than Taipan does.
Last week while I was sitting in an all-day meeting in Chicago an email came through my work account from a guy that works in the Cleveland office saying that he had tickets to see The Police in Cleveland on July 16 and that he couldn't go and he'd sell them at face value. First come, first served.So I immediately emailed him and said I was interested. And then during the first break we had at the meeting I left him a voice message. He called me back and said to say that the tix were mine and to let him know if we wanted two or four.
We made some calls to some friends, and took four tickets. The show last night was amazing. They opened with Message in a Bottle. It was just the three guys (Y: Andy Summers, Stewart Copeland, and of course, Sting), no huge sets or bands or back-up singers, and it was great. They played for about two hours and almost every song kicked ass.
(Y: To be able to rock so well as just a bass/guitar/drums trio is amazing... to be 55, 64, and 55 years-old is astounding. Hearing my favorite Police songs performed live was almost spiritual for me. I couldn't see the Synchronicity tour back in 1983/84, and The Police broke-up after that, so I thought my chance had gone... huzzah for second chances! To be able to share this with Karen made it all the more special... Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic.)
We have a sitter that helps us out on Thursdays, but one or both of us is usually home too in case anything goes wrong. This was the first time she was with the kids alone for an extended period of time. I knew everything would be okay, but was a bit worried because I knew we'd be out late and that the kids would not go to sleep until we were home, and I didn't want Taisim to get too tired and cranky.
Well, we got home just after 11:30pm and everyone was tired, but in great moods. Yuta drove our sitter home, and the kids were asleep by midnight.
It's such a joy to know that we've found someone that can do the late nights for us - any time we'd one out in the past we felt like we had to rush home. I'm scanning upcoming shows/events in our area so that we can do more nighttime things!
And I should mention that Ama and Akon are *fabulous* sitters too, it's just not as easy for them to do the late nights.
