Fortunes

Ada recently brought home a pretend fortune cookie from preschool.  It is made of fabric and allows the kids to make their own fortunes to add to the cookie. 

Ada's custom fortune: It is important to go pee.

Max's custom fortune:  You are about to choke on a piece of paper.

South Book 2: Trip to Florida

One of the advantages of coming to Charlottesville for the winter is that it brought us 10 hours closer to Naples, Florida where Gus's parents usually spend their winter.  They have been bugging us to visit them for years.  We were finally close enough that we decided to make the crazy 15 and a half hour drive to visit them.

Everyone had a great time.  The kids were most excited by the first palm trees they saw out the car window on our drive down, but getting to stay the night at a hotel was a close second.  We even got a terrible all you can eat hotel breakfast the next morning which the kids thought was second to none (well...except the palm trees of course).  

Kids in front of the hotel palm tree

Grandma and Grandpa live in a lovely golf community in Naples.  The kids were very excited to stay with them.  They got to ride the golf carts, see alligators on the golf course and spent a great deal of time diving for golf balls in the condo pool.  Plus they got 5 whole days of Grandma and Grandpa's undivided attention.

Our second day in Naples we went to the beach.  The best part about the beach were the shells.  I have never seen so many shells in my life.  The beach was literally made of shells.  The "sand" was ground up shells, some fine enough to walk on; the rest was coarse enough that you needed shoes.  The kids collected pounds of shells to bring home.  Darwyn met a woman that taught her the best technique for collecting shells and came home with a beautiful selection that I had to clean and sort and cart back to Charlottesville.  Max and Grandpa enjoyed searching for critters under the "sand".  If you dug up a shovel full you would always find a few live shells that would burrow there way back into the sand.  

After the beach we visited the docks where the fishing boats come in.
Apparently the fisherman feed the fish guts to the pelicans.
Unfortunately the boats were early that day and we missed it,
but the kids still got to look at some pelicans up close.

Day three we visited the everglades national park.  Grandpa took us to a tourist center right along the highway that was nothing special, but it had a short boardwalk along a ditch that was littered with Alligators.  An interpreter came out with Alligator skulls, skin and teeth to show off.  Unfortunately, the Alligators really just sit there.  I hoped to see them eat something, but apparently it is not warm enough in the winter for them to digest food quickly so they rarely ate.  We did get to see a lot of aquatic birds catching and eating fish.  

 

Lazy alligators

We took a lot of pictures of our kids being eaten by fake alligators
(I believe you saw some on Gus's previous post).  Just to be clear, this is not
indicative of any particular fascination on our parts.  The kids clearly
believe this makes an amazing picture.  "Hey dad!  I bet no one has ever
taken their picture being eaten by the fake alligator!"

Day four was my favorite.  We visited a local parrot sanctuary where we got to hold, feed and learn about a variety of different parrot species.  They were fascinating and very loud.  They mimicked some of the things you said and also certain body movements.  Max found this fascinating and kept bobbing up and down and then grinning with delight when the parrot did the same.  

The tour guide had a small parrot she carried with her that she called a love bird.  It was full of personality and loved to be pet.  Whenever she stopped paying attention to it, it would cry for her to cuddle it.  My kids were instantly in love with this bird.  By the end of the tour Darwyn was convinced she wanted to work there.  The tour guide told her she could volunteer for up to 6 months and live on site once she turns 16.  Darwyn now has a life goal.  She told me only 10 years left to go.  She was quite depressed when she realized that is longer than she has been alive.  

Ada spent the whole visit to the sanctuary picking bits of leaves and grass off the ground and appeared not to notice there were parrots at all.

Best picture from the whole trip

Darwyn spent a great deal of time performing songs and dances for the parrots.

It was pretty adorable.

The final day we were in Florida we went kayaking through the mangrove swamps.  We hoped to see dolphins, but unfortunately we didn't see much wildlife at all.  Max did learn how sharp the barnacles that lined the shore were though.  Grandpa picked one up to show him and instantly cut his thumb.  There is no getting out to pee.  

On our trip home we were lucky enough to intersect with Jose and his mother who were also visiting Florida.  We visited a orange orchard where we hoped to pick oranges off the tree.  I have to say I was disappointed by the quality of the oranges.  They weren't that much better than oranges I get from the store.  I've never had any fruit picked right from the tree that didn't blow my mind....but fresh oranges are underwhelming.  After our short stop at the orange orchard we drove through the night and arrived home at 4am exhausted, but it was worth it to avoid another hotel breakfast :)  

Ada spent a lot of the trip picking things up off the ground
oblivious to the cool things in her surroundings

Sigh....I hate these things.

Charlottesville 2019

Photos from Gus's phone.  Images below.  In case Blogger decides to fail again, here's a link to the photo album.

Coco the love-bird

Visiting Jose and Magali in Florida

Darwyn's homemade bag, with help from Teela

Short sleeves in a snow fort

Nap time in the living room

Ada joins the ranks of Gutoski-James lego artists

South Book 1: Our new home

So as many of you know our family drove south this winter to avoid (most of) the snow and two spend a few months living in Charlottesville, VA with my sister and her family.  I meant to write a whole series of interesting blog posts, but we have been very busy and I have written nothing.  In the hope of catching up I am starting a new blockbuster series, called South.

Book 1: Our New Home

Many of you have asked about the place we are staying.  We have rented an air bnb in my sister's neighbourhood for 3 and a half months (See poor video below for a tour).  There are many things I love about the place we are staying: the sun streaming in the south facing windows in the afternoon; the awesome outdoor kitchen; the hammock in the backyard next to a bubbling stream; the living room fireplace, the deep soaker tub and the very soft blanket on our bed.  This last one is really on Gus's pro list.  He has removed the top sheet on our bed so the blanket touches our skin directly.  He lavishes affection on our blanket.  Last night they had a short tiff because the blanket was twisted, but shortly after he remarked to it "oh, how can I stay made at you!"

Big cons: the kitchen sucks, there are only 3 chairs around the dining table, the kitchen sucks, there is no place to put boots and coats and did I mention, the kitchen sucks.  Gus would write the same list but replace the "kitchen sucks" with "my office sucks". But, of course, these negatives are minor compared to our homes most redeeming feature:  the warm weather (oh yeah, and the presence of my sister).  Yesterday we enjoyed a high of 16 and full sun while back home they suffered through -8.  YES!

We also love our new neighborhood.  It is full of beautiful and interesting homes nestled into private hilly retreats.  Everyday we walk along a bubbling brook to where it empties into the river.  Then hike along the river bank through meadows, along the base of cliffs and along windy forest paths.  On every walk it seems I am accompanied by a half dozen deer and I have seen (and heard) a number of birds of prey sometimes perched on a branch only a few feet away.

Our neighbors are also lovely.  Everyone waves to everybody else.  We have gotten to know (with my sister's assistance) a few different families in the neighborhood and our kids have become friends with their kids.  Unfortunately, our next door neighbor is not one of those people.  On one particularly beautiful Sunday in January we decided to invite Teela's family over for a barbeque to use our awesome outdoor kitchen.  Gus was here ahead of the rest of us lighting a fire and getting things ready.  When we arrived home we were greeted by the loud motor (and smell of gas) of the neighbors leaf blower and a very grouchy Gus.

Gus: I am ready to kill the neighbor.

Teela:  Well it is a little obnoxious, but he is only blowing leaves

Gus:  He has been blowing leaves since 9am.

Indeed, the neighbor blew his leaves through our entire afternoon and cookout.  He finally put his leaf blower away as the sun was setting after a good eight hours of work.

Gus: (surveying the neighbors still rather leafy yard) How can anyone even blow that many leaves?  He would have been done hours ago if he had just used a rake and it would have done a better job.

Ah well, that was just one afternoon right?  Alas, bright and early the next weekend I stepped outside to be greeted by, you guessed it, the neighbors leave blower.  I've never known anybody that liked their leaf blower that much.  Perhaps it is a connection similar to the one Gus has with the soft blanket on our bed...

Awesome outdoor kitchen

View from the awesome outdoor kitchen

Ada makes us laugh

A couple cute stories from Ada recently:

Gus was up in the middle of the night working in the office.  Ada got up to go to the bathroom.  He could hear he on the toilet through the office wall talking to herself. 

Ada: When I grow up I am going to wipe my own bum.  When I grow up I am going to eat sour cream.  When I grow up....

------------

Ada came to Gus in the kitchen and asked him where her snack bowl was. 

Gus:  Weren't you just eating from it at the computer.  Did you check if it is in the office?

Ada: Yes.

Gus: Are you sure?

Ada: Yes

Gus: (In an accusing tone) If I go in there and I find it sitting on the desk, what will I get?

Long pause.

Ada:  (slowly and simply so that her dense father can understand)  A bowl.

Ada discovers synonyms

Ada and I were quietly rocking on the rocking chair.  She was staring pensively out the window.  Suddenly she said "Mom....Autumn and fall mean the same thing. You can say 'in the fall the leaves change colour and fall' and that means the same as 'in the autumn the leaves change colour and fall.'"

She seemed struck by the idea that two different words could have exactly the same meaning and I was struck by her linguistic ability!

On a completely unrelated note, here is a cute picture I took the other day of Darwyn teaching Ada to write: