Isabella and I spent lots of time together today since the boys were busy on Xbox and Ripsticks and Manhunt! I finally found a Skip It for her...I've been looking for one for a long time because I remembered how much fun the older girls had with it! She mastered it pretty quickly and it's so funny because the video actually looks speeded up!
Isabella began piano lessons a few months ago and she's doing really well! She'll practice without any encouragement from me, which is really amazing! At Christmas time, she wanted to learn a holiday song, so in one sitting, she learned Deck the Halls. She practiced it religiously and despite not having quite the right finger placement on this one, we're really proud of how well she's done!
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Last night, Bruce and Isabella had a daddy/daughter night and went to McDonalds (of course!) for dinner, then to the circus in Tampa! I'm not a big fan of the circus (no real reason, just not my favorite thing to do) but fortunately Bruce is and they had a great time! They had third row seats so they were nice and close!
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Isabella said this was VERY cool... but VERY LOUD!.jpg)
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On Saturday, I turned 30-17! We spent the day in Naples, which is such a beautiful area! First we went to some luxury car dealers...not to shop...just to look at all the fancy cars they have there! Then we went over to the beach and spent some time walking around and out on the pier...the water was freezing! We drove around the older part of Naples then headed to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner...it's always been a favorite of mine and now it's a favorite of the kids too!
This car cost over $460,000 and had real wood on the back! Crazy decadent!
A picture of my Turtle cheesecake...taken on my new phone! Bruce TOTALLY surprised me (doesn't happen often!) and got me a Blackberry Storm! I LOVE it...and him!
This is a power plant, near Apollo Beach, that has a Manatee Viewing Center. The power plant generates warm water that flows into a small bay area. The warm water attracts manatees in the winter months when the Gulf water is much colder. It's hard to see in the pictures, but there were tons of manatees in there! Mostly they were just hanging out, but every now and then you'd see their tails flip out of the water!
This was a 900 ft pier that led to another viewing area.
Afterwards, we went to Woody's River Roo to have lunch on the Manatee River, just a few minutes from our house. We all decided that both places are somewhere we'll take visiting friends!
On New Years Eve, we got together with some friends, old and new, to ring in 2009! The kids played lots of games, we all ate way too much and most of us even made it to watch the ball drop!
Mario Kart ROCKS!
Our friends, Ali and Ryan are expecting TRIPLET GIRLS!
On Tuesday, we decided to head to Busch Gardens to use our season passes one more time before they expired...apparently so did everyone else in the Tampa Bay area! I've never seen so much traffic getting into the park, so we decided to go to Plan B and visit the Museum of Science and Industry and see the IMAX movie EXTREME! It was really amazing! We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the other exhibits. We got season passes so we'll go back again and again to see the rest of the exhibits, the planetarium and new IMAX movies!
The kids in the hurricane winds simulation room and Evan in a wind tube!
Jonah's debut as a weather forecaster...
Evan on a bed of nails!
