Croaky.

[kv0925]

Amy came down with a cold late last week--mostly just a runny nose and cough, but enough to make her a bit miserable. So far no one else seems to have caught it--except for me, that is. Not too bad, just a runny/gummy nose and enough gook settling in my throat to make me all croaky when I speak. I don't feel as bad as I sound, but I'll certainly feel better once this clears out. I hope it's not one of those week-long affairs. Amy seems to have gotten over it pretty quickly, so that's good.

Not a terribly eventful weekend. And again no kayaking, which is a bummer since the weather was pretty nice. Saturday we made plans to go to a park we like in Winter Springs, then lunch, and then the open house at Seminole County's Environmental Education Center. That was all pretty fun, except the park was a bit overrun with punk kids due to a couple birthday parties taking place. No surprise, but I think I'm generally a person who loves his own kids and dislikes everyone else's. :) Well, the ones I think are ill-mannered, anyway, which is a lot.

Sunday we had no real plans, so I was considering a drive up to the Geneva area to do some exploring and geocaching. One thing I've wanted to go check out for years is the former town of Osceola--it was apparently a bustling little city in its heyday (1916 to 1940 or so), but now all that remains is the old bank vault, which stands by the side of the road somewhere. It's not that exciting or picturesque, really, but I've long been curious to make a visit. But I woke up feeling a bit under the weather, so we let the girls decide what to do, and they opted for Leu Gardens. So we had a nice walk around there, then went to lunch, did some grocery shopping, and came home for the rest of the day. I took the opportunity to reformat my PC (I'd been wanting to move from Windows 7 to 8.1) and get that up and running. I was also going to drop in the hard drive that was formerly our movie storage, but I discovered my power supply only has 4 SATA power plugs and they're all in use. Oh well, I don't *need* the extra storage yet, just thought I may as well drop it in.

The girls made dinner pretty much all by themselves last night! They were really excited about it, and figured spaghetti would be easy, so we let them have at it (with some supervision and help where required, of course). And it came out very well. So well that Hallie went to bed wondering what she could cook for breakfast this morning. :) I'll have to teach her to make pancakes--she's helped me in the past, but I bet she could learn to do it herself.

At lunch Heather and I were talking about Hermione, and how she doesn't really have friends her own age. Most of the kids we know and who do things with the girls are younger, more like Hallie's age. And the couple older girls we do know seem somehow older than Hermione. Not necessarily more mature, because she's generally a very mature kid emotionally. But Hermione still likes to play with toys, and I guess these days kids her age who go to public school have already abandoned toys as being uncool. I say to heck with that. I can recall still being into toys when I was her age, and even older. Heck, I'm STILL into some toys, especially LEGO. :) So I think that's an area where I'm glad we homeschool. Seems like there's such pressure on kids in public school these days to grow up too fast, and focus on the stuff they're supposed to think is 'cool,' you know? I definitely want my kids to be their own judges of what they think is cool or not. And hopefully steer them into finding the right stuff cool. :)

This week I'm planning to take Wednesday off from work, for one last solo trip to Disney World before our passes expire next week. So far the weather forecast is looking a bit on the crappy side, but hopefully that will just mean even lower crowd levels. I'm mainly planning to hit 2 or 3 parks to ride the rides I don't often get to ride since I'm the only one interested. We went to EPCOT Thursday night and I did (finally!) get to check out the new version of Test Track, so I may skip EPCOT unless I really feel the urge for Soarin'. I'd maybe skip Animal Kingdom too, but I haven't been on Expedition Everest for quite some time, and it is a good ride. Mainly I want to hit the Studios and do the Tower of Terror and Rock'n'Roller Coaster a couple times each. Good stuff, and it's been too long!

Okay, I guess I'll toss in a few photos from the weekend, especially for you folks trapped inside by polar vortexes and whatnot. :)





At the educational center they were doing a fun craft, making little turtles from spray-painted plastic bottle caps.








Yellow-bellied sapsucker--I'm not sure I'd ever actually seen one of these, though I often see evidence of them (they're responsible for the horizontal lines of holes you can kinda see on the tree trunk here).




There were a LOT of robins hanging around, making lots of noise.


And this is why the robins loved this spot--a couple of camphor trees loaded with berries, the fallen ones of which the girls had a good time gathering up.




A good group shot for a change!




Red-bellied woodpecker, male.






Hermione was proud to have kept me to just two clicks of the shutter here.

And that was that. Thanks for looking!

Comments

[re-vised.livejournal.com]

Sorry you aren't feeling well. :/ Hopefully you'll get over it quickly! I've had some sort of weird drainage/nose thing going on for a while and I just cannot wait for it to be over! Ugh.

Lovely group shot with the girls! I like the goofy ones, too. They're cute.

I hear parts of FL might be getting snow this week! It's been snowing all day here, but with no accumulation. Very, cold though!

[cp.livejournal.com]

Seems like a lot of ick going around everywhere! I blame the ups and downs of the weather, at least around here. I still count myself lucky, though--we get sick pretty rarely compared to some people we know.

Yeah, I think the panhandle might get some flurries or at least sleet tonight, and of course Georgia and Alabama might be in for some proper snow. I half-joked with the wife yesterday that we should hit the road this evening and drive north until we hit snow, just so the girls can see some for the first time. :) But it doesn't sound too impressive, really, and Wednesday morning it's expected to be turn into ice, which would make for a dangerous drive. Ah well, someday. :)

[girlspell.livejournal.com]

Amazing photos. Very colorful. Love the photos of the birds. They were behaving themselves and let you get some good shots.

I had to look up geocaching! I'm ashamed to admit, I didn't know what it was!

[cp.livejournal.com]

Geocaching is fun, like a real-life treasure hunt! I first got into it years ago, when you really needed a handheld GPS device since cell phones weren't advanced enough for GPS and whatnot, but fell out of it when the kids came along. Now that they're old enough to enjoy it I really want to get back into it, though. Maybe next weekend! :)

[scriptdelalune.livejournal.com]

Very cute group shots! So many pretty birds, also. I think it's great to stay as young as you can for as long as you can :) Yay toys!

[cp.livejournal.com]

It seems rare that I get a shot of all 3 girls looking at the camera with smiles, or even normal expressions. :) Usually someone refuses to join the group, or won't look at the camera, or insists on making a silly face. Ah well, it's all fun, I guess. :)

[audamy.livejournal.com]

I remember still really liking toys up until about 6th grade when the pressure to abandon that stuff became too great and it was almost a choice between having friends and doing the things I really liked to do and that was like 18 years ago. I wish I had been able to avoid that pressure to only like the things that other people considered to be cool. My mom seemed to think that was just the "normal" thing to do because she is very much a people pleaser and a crowd follower so it never occurred to me that I could like the things I thought was cool despite what the popular opinion of my peers was at the time.

[cp.livejournal.com]

That sounds almost ironic to me. Gotta wonder if most kids that age would, if left to their own devices and unconcerned about group opinion, still choose to be kids, at least when it comes to playing with toys and stuff like that. Maybe they all feel like they have to give it up in order to be cool, even though most of them really don't want to give it up, you know? I'm glad my Hermione still likes her dolls and playing pretend with her sisters. If she's still doing it at 12, 16, whatever, fine by me. :)