Tag: aunts

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Rockin’ Rogers

Nolan, Larissa, and I went to a parade today.  The “Rockin’ Rogers Parade” as Nolan will tell you.  My cousin, Amy, is a flag girl for her high school.  We’ve been able to see her perform two of the last 3 summers.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t bring Lincoln this year because he was sick.  Poor kid.  Last summer he missed another parade because of an ear infection.  Maybe next summer!  The Rogers parade is a great one because of all of the entries.  They had over 100 cars, floats & bands.  Plus, it’s always more fun to go when you know someone IN the parade.  After Amy’s group passed by, we took Nolan over to the midway and Larissa rode down the giant slide with him.  You can’t tell by his face in the picture, but he did enjoy the ride.

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Birthday week continues

Two packages arrived via the postal service today.  It seems Nolan’s birthday week is still going strong!  We sat out back as he opened them.  Once again, Lincoln was his trusty helper.  Then, we were surprised by a visit from Aunt Larissa.  She came bearing two more presents for the big little guy to open.  What a lucky kid!  We now have both a doctor and a fire fighter in the house should anyone need their services.

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Cape Coral 2010

Days 6-8. After our visit to Orlando, we drove a few hours southwest to see my first babysitter, Lois (who turns 95 this April!) and her daughter, Kathi.  We lovingly call them Grammy Lois & Auntie Kathi 🙂  They hadn’t seen Nolan since he was about 13 months old and had only seen pictures of Lincoln.  Needless to say, they were excited to see the boys!  We spent 3/7 – 3/9 in in Cape Coral. It was a pretty laid back visit, which was a nice way to end our time away.

Larissa also accompanied us on this leg of our trip, which was fantastic!  It was great to have 3 on 2 defense.  While the weather was once again unseasonably cool, we were still able to take the boys to the local beach, where they loved playing in the sand.  I think we could plan a whole vacation around the beach and they would be in heaven!  We were also able to spot a couple of burrowing owls,  which are protected animals in the area.  They are probably my 2nd favorite animal.  🙂

It was hard to say goodbye on the 9th, but we left with good memories of our time together.  The trip home went smoothly.  Both kids slept for a good portion of the flight home.  We were all thankful to be back in our own beds.  And as an added bonus, we arrived home to most of the snow missing from our yard 🙂

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Orlando 2010 – Animal Kingdom

Day 4. Our second Disney park visit was to the Animal Kingdom.  This was my favorite of the two we visited.  So many cool animals to check out.  We didn’t take quite as many pictures because it was more fun to just enjoy the park. (I did have to include a picture of my favorite animal, though…the elephant.)

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Orlando 2010 – Cocoa Beach

Day 3. Lincoln said he would drive us to Cocoa Beach, so we took him up on his offer.  🙂  Well, sort of.  We did go to the beach and the boys LOVED playing in the sand.  It was a bit cool again, but the sun was warm and Jake actually ended up getting a bit rosy from it.  The boys and I sported our 100 SPF sunblock, so we were in the clear.  Jake made sure to enjoy a McRib on the beach (and rub it in by sending a picture back home to an old co-worker to create a little jealousy.)

Special thanks to Bri, Jason’s girlfriend, for several of these pics, including the group family picture we took at the end of our journey to the coast.

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Orlando 2010 – Magic Kingdom

Day 2. We had a semi-leisurely morning and headed out for our first trip to Disney’s Magic Kingdom.  I’m glad we traveled with Disney “pros” because the whole Disney system is really quite complex: 4 Different parks, regular tickets, hopper passes, shuttles, mono-rails…it’s enough to confuse any first-time visitor if you ask me.

To begin our visit, we rode the ferry across a large lake and at that point, I realized I should have packed the boys’ winter jackets and hats for the day.  Here I was thinking we’d at least be able to get away with just sweatshirts.  I assumed incorrectly.  Mother nature apparently hasn’t been that nice to Florida this winter and we found out later that it had been unseasonably cool for the last 2 months.  Oh well, we made due and attempted to hit a few indoor rides/shows to warm up from time to time.  By the afternoon, the sun warmed things up a bit.  We stayed to experience a couple of rides (Nolan didn’t care much for the Monster’s Inc. show we checked out,) the boys had their pictures taken with several characters, we watched the afternoon parade and had our picture taken in front of the Disney castle.  It was a full day and the boys crashed (thankfully) later that night.

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Orlando, FL 2010

Day 1. Left for the airport about 7:30AM.  Thankfully traffic was flowing nicely and we made it to the security checkpoint about 8:30.  Once through security we stopped for breakfast at McDonald’s and then headed for our gate.  Not surprisingly, the non-stop flight to Orlando was packed.  Larissa traveled with us; she was such a big help!  It was nice having 3 on 2 defense.  Lincoln slept on my lap for most of the flight and Nolan chilled next to Jake while watching various DVDs.  We were able to watch an in-flight movie, which made time “fly.”

Once we landed and picked up the boys’ car seats, we found our mini van for the week and headed for our home away from home in Kissimmee, just a few minutes from Mickey’s house.  The place we stayed in was quite spacious – 4 bedrooms, 3 baths and enough beds for everyone, which was great!  The kids enjoyed the over-sized bathtub almost every night of our stay.  It was a treat to have so much space for the boys as well as a nearby park for them to play at.  I can imagine I would have been a bit nutty by the end of the week if we had only been in a one-room hotel room all week.

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Oreo faces & baby belly

Jake took the boys to the pool with Auntie Larissa and on the way home they stopped to pick up Oreo ice cream sandwiches.  I’m pretty sure the boys enjoyed them.

Earlier in the day, Lincoln stuffed a washcloth under his shirt and told me there was a baby in his tummy.  He he he.

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New Year, New Decade, Same great relatives!

We piled into my parents’ “giant marshmallow” as Nolan has started calling it (thanks, in part, to my mom :)) and pointed north to the Iron Range.  Our “normal” family gathering was pushed a week later due to the Christmas snowstorm.  It actually worked great for us, since we usually can only make my dad’s family’s celebration every other year.  Once again, my Aunt Ann, Uncle Gene & cousin Amy were exceptional hosts.  They always have an amazing spread!

My cousin Cory and his wife Renee brought their 3 kiddos from ND so Nolan and Lincoln had a few playmates.  I think the kids had a good time with one another.  We should try to get them together more often!

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Christmas 2009 – take 1

Sunday afternoon, after the kids took much needed naps, we headed to Jake’s parents’ house to celebrate Christmas.  Unfortunately, Stacie wasn’t able to join in the fun – she was studying for finals.  We played a little Mexican Train, watched football, had a great ham dinner complete with cheesy potatoes & orange jello salad, and of course, opened presents.  The boys were very excited to help pass out the wrapped surprises and open them 🙂  I think they assisted everyone in opening at least one gift.  After the wrapping paper was picked up, we snacked on all sorts of sweets – ice cream, fudge, chocolate crinkles and dipped pretzels just to name a few.  The boys were more than happy to sample just about everything they could talk someone into giving them (or sneak!)