We took a decent bike ride around some of the city's scenic and historic cites but it was not very young-kid friendly as it was mostly biking on the side of the roads.
That's Davis Bayou – take it or leave it (I'd probably leave it next time around)
Pastor Chan is a good friend of both Dayton and mine from high school. It's fun to know all the dirt on a pastor (even if it's 20 years old), but alas, dirt on him is dirt on us so I guess we'll keep it in the archives. Chan has an awesome family: 3 girls, wife Stacey and his mom and dad are like parents to us too. P.S. - great pizza at Kelsey's in Cape Canaveral.
Chan's church... Crosspointe Church
Airboats are pretty cool. We saw a couple gators, but “normally” they see 50 or so of them sunning themselves (note to self, go on a hot sunny day to see those reptiles out tanning). One cool thing was to hear about the Blue Heron named the “baddest bird around” by the air boat driver. The Blue Heron is a vicious killer who ate all but 4 of the 50 or so hatched alligator eggs by “braining them” (piercing through there skulls with its beak) and swallowing them whole – which it can do even when their a couple years old and 3 feet long or so – who'd have thought? (don't worry there's millions more gators in FL)
I guess you just have to see the video – I have no explanation for it really. I'm not sure how one comes up with this, but they did it many many times. I'm sure the definition is wide enough that one could call it art or interpretive dance or something... it's one thing to define it, but impossible to excuse it (someone's side of the gene pool contribution was found lacking)
The neighbor has a Harley Sportster that ALL the boys enjoyed.
After the camper was viciously, brutally, and un-provocatively attacked by a tree in South Carolina, I was able to fix a few things on the side of the 5'er. With my brother's help, we also made time to change oil, grease suspension, clean air filter and all that vehicle stuff.
We played on the beach capturing Hermit crabs – none of us were too eager to stick their finger down the hole to find those rascals but it was fun when we finally dug deep enough and pulled them up.
A new beach toy! The skimboard.
A couple rounds of mini-golf AK vs MN compliments of grandma
We made a list of fun things to do when in Florida (~1 hour radius of Cape Canaveral) so we'll be back to chip away at this list.
There's an 11 year old in the house! Entering the birthday season for the front-loaded birthday Nelsons. It's been a while since we were able to celebrate a birthday with the AK Nelson's.
Yes, we paid homage to the mouse, *sigh* Here's Dayton showing his excitement about going on “It's a small world”
If you go with Dayton you get free tattoo's for everyone – they are done with a sharpie marker of course (It started when he wrote “If found call ###-###-####” on his 7 year old... sigh)
Disney was pretty fun – we all got free ears too. I wore mine for quite a while, but I must say that being the cameraman has its privileges.
Space Mountain is always a favorite. What would be a very average roller coaster in the light, is made fun by not being able to see. Maybe we should wear blindfolds for all the rides at Valley Fair
Kobe was pumped to find that he was tall enough for Big Thunder (the inverse was true when he discovered he was not tall enough for space mountain)
The rest of the crew went to the Zoo while I had tires rotated at Sam's Club. The Brevard County Zoo is excellent, with lots of animals you can feed. Kim had the camera so we've got pics of the zoo but none of the tire rotation – sorry about that.
Go-Carting... Shae and I had the fastest car, which was nice... but I think Kobe had the most fun.
Cape Canaveral, we made it and get to spend some time with my brother and his family - It was a tight fit... – square peg, square hole I guess (square driver?)
Parking with a shoehorn.
Saw the ships heading out – Sunday nights at Port Canaveral
We had a couple nice days when we got to FL but then headlining the news was a chance of snow flurries for half of Florida.
We did get some record colds in Florida – I'm not being blamed for this because my brother is here from Alaska – we all blame him, he's the guy with the “Alaskans for global warming” t-shirt (I'm the guy with the “Stop global whining!” t-shirt.
The cold didn't stop some shuffle-boarding in the rain. We were the only people in the whole place. “You must be from up North”, said the lady behind the desk.
The kids don't mind the water. Meanwhile, I'm freezing, wishing I had my wet suit from Minnesota.
The boys getting to wrestle with their uncle – this is good on a couple fronts #1 – they love to wrestle, #2 I love to wrestle but the kids love it more so this is a break for me, #3 we are not in our “paper house” where wrestling is not allowed
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year – sorry I dropped off there with no posts. We briefly entertained the idea of not going home for Christmas, but we are too tied to family to let that happen. It was great to be home again.
The dealer in Georgia fell through, so we left the RV in Kentucky. Unfortunately we had to winterize it, but it wasn't too hard with advice from Mike and written instructions from Gary. We drove straight through from Kentucky to Minnesota – I hate the feeling of replacing sleep with 3 Mountain Dews and lots of junk food... but it puts miles on through the night.
If you cut down the tree yourself (from the backyard) and let the kids decorate it...
You too can make a tree this beautiful...
We got our white Christmas!
Our family's favorite movie is National Treasure, so we had to go to part 2 (in Cold Spring with the cousins).
Christmas run-on sentence, brain-dump summary:
Elan's Nova class party, Levi at Will's, sleepovers with Rob and Amy and Careys, Holidazzle/8th floor Macy's, supper with Norm and Eric, made popcorn balls and taffy, watched basketball, watched Lee and Rob officiate (they are excellent at this), Christmas at the farm, party w/ cousins Rick & Glenn and Zimms, Christmas in Cold Spring w/ great grandmas, 2 new cameras in the family (apparently 5000 pictures in 5 months wasn't enough so 2 kids will join the fun - on the plus side, when I mention the 5k pics and each one having a story, nobody asks to see them), add one mp3 player and a Leapster.
