Last week, Steve rented a house down in Cape Cod, and on Monday I drove the boys down to join him.

The house is the same house we stayed in a few years ago. The kids were much, much younger then, and I remember being pretty nervous about the steep stairways.

The house itself is just fantastic, with tons of bedrooms all jumbled together. They’re all kind of stacked together, as though someone created them separately and then picked them up, one block at a time, not looking to see if the next room was a hallway or a bathroom or a bedroom. It’s the perfect beach house.

Nick, Cape Cod, 2013

Cape Cod 2013

I was only there for a day, but managed to get a lot in. We went to the beach, we went for a walk to the windmill down the street, we went out for lobster - thank you, Lillian!. The next day we went out to breakfast at The Pancake Man! 

Sand Sculpture
Cape Cod 2013

The Pancake Man
Cape Cod, 2013

Mommy Fail

Nate was reading a new library book to us at bedtime. It was a book called Odd Duck, and it's about ducks. Story ducks, you know, who act like people, but who are ducks, all the same.

At this point in our story, the Main Duck was meeting the New Neighbor Duck, who was, as luck would have it, different. One might even say, odd.

The book said: But one thing was for certain.

Nate read aloud: But she knew one thing. He was Korean.

And that's when I cracked up laughing. I think Nate was embarrassed. He placed his hand over my mouth. "Laugh with your mouth closed!" he said.

But I just couldn't! I kept picturing a Korean Duck.

Nate, Cape Cod, 2013

Back to Life

It's been a week since we've been back from Disney World.

I keep talking about it, and I hope I'm not being too much of a bore. It's just that I really loved this vacation. I had such a great time.

I hope my brother and my mother had a good time. I really did turn into a bossy bee, making all the decisions about where we were eating, where we were going next... I discussed where we were going next as we were standing in line for a ride, and usually had the next two stops (at least) planned out in my head.

But there was almost no wait in the lines, and all sorts of new things were going on. I loved loved loved it.

Mom, Jamie and I did get to escape one night for a very fancy dinner.

At Animal Kingdom, Nate became attached to a certain goat, and Andy developed a fondness for a certain pig.

The hotel was being refurbished, which was a bummer. The main pool was closed, and the view from our hotel room was construction. The other pool was open, though. It  had a waterfall and a waterslide, and a kid's section that looked like Alice's Tea Party.

I never did get my mother to go on Tower Of Terror. We wore her out, making her walk around parks for three days straight, and by the time we reached Hollywood Studios she really needed a rest. I did take the boys on it, though!

We also went on Star Wars.

I could go on and on a describe every detail of the trip, from the busses there to the incident at breakfast with the cereal. But I'm not going to . You're over it already.


I will tell you that Nicholas started crying at about noon on Friday, crying because the next day we were going home and he wanted to stay at Disney World forever. It was really irritating, but I knew how he felt.

I usually compensate by planning other trips. So I started doing to same with Nick, involving him in my planning. For our next trip to Disney World, currently scheduled for sometime 2017. Nick liked the Floridian, although I an making a case for the Art Of Animation Value resort. Also, be aware siblings of mine, next time you are all coming, too! It's in the plan. And you can ask Jamie, I usually get what I plan for.

Hidden Mickeys

The thing about Disney World is... they like Mickey Mouse.

I mean, they really like him. He's everywhere.

And when I say that, I mean that they really put him everywhere.

We stayed at a really nice Disney hotel, thanks to my mother. The furniture was nice, the wall paper was nice... but even then, Mickey was hiding everywhere. And a few other Disney characters, too.

I started amusing the boys while I was unpacking by having them find all the hidden Mickeys in the hotel room. Mickey's? Mickeies? What's the plural of Mickey?
Anyway, ten minutes later my mother had a frightened look on her face. "I think I'm going to throw up," she said.

I took pictures of a few from our hotel (not the theme parks.) You'll see what I mean.

hotel room wallpaper

hotel hall rug

more hotel hall rug

hotel room desk

hotel room lamp - this isn't really hidden

hotel bathroom wallpaper

hotel lobby floor

hotel lobby floor

hotel lobby floor

Florida Family

One of the best things about visiting Florida is that we get to see family.

My Aunt Myrtle lives in Florida, not too far from Daytona Beach. She lives there with my cousin Andy.

There is a little bit of a generation gap between my Florida cousins and myself. My mother's brother was much older than she was, and when she was still quite young he had married Myrtle and they had a couple of children.

My mother, on the other hand, waited longer to have a family. She was (gasp) almost 30 when she had me.

The result is that my cousins had children that were the same age as my brothers and sister. One of them, Scott, still lives there with his wife and their two kids. (Keli  lives in Paris - she's the one with that cute little baby, remember?)

I'm embarrassed to say that, even though I had my camera, I didn't take a great number of pictures during our visit. I suppose I don't want to get in the way of having comfortable conversation with relatives I rarely see, and then just forget to get out the camera. Jamie has some great group shots.

Florida 2012

I did, however, manage to take a few of the boys playing in someone's bedroom. Ah, family!

Heroes

Our trip to Disney World gave us the chance to run into some of our favorite heroes.

Such as:

Abraham Lincoln

Winnie The Pooh

Tigger

Super Nanny

Alice

The Mad Hatter

Zombie Obama (Zombama?)

Peter Pan

Daisy Duck

Goofy

Safari Mickey

This Guy

Strange Awning Animal

Phineas and Ferb

Quick - Here's Everything

We are back from Disney World.

I am exhausted. And I have a lot to say. Many of those things I have to say also have photographs to go along with them.

See, before I left, Steve very kindly got me a new SD card for my camera. It's 32GB. The last one I had was 4GB.

I took my first photo of Steve, and then my camera said I still had room for over 4000 photos left.

So I was able to take many, many photos.

Here are a few: