Crazy Dancer

Here are two quick videos from Wednesday morning before school. Michaela was in quite the dancing mood that day and was getting her groove on big time! The first shows her fancy footwork.

This second video shows her rump shaking moves. I have no idea where she learned that one from!

Shamu! Shamu!

Another weekend means another trip to Sea World. We figure we should take advantage of it now while the weather's still cool enough and before we get involved in the moving and decorating the new house. Michaela was being a little picky with the lunch we picked out (she actually turned down a Publix sub!!), so we ended up going to McDonalds and picking up a chicken sandwich and a yogurt. I can't believe we resorted to McD's to get her to eat, but it worked. Luckily the days of refusing food is few and far between. Most days she will eat anything we put in front of her. Lucky us! Anyway, Michaela is getting pretty good with the spoon these days and didn't get any yogurt on her. That's a big accomplishment!

When we ate at Dine with Shamu last time they gave us cards to play some arcade games. Craig and I went over there yesterday and won her two stuffed animals.....a stingray and a killer whale. Michaela wouldn't put them down and kept saying "MuMu". Her MuMu is her new favorite animal and she hasn't let him out of her sight since we came home.

Michaela was excited to see the real MuMu (of course!). She sat on the seat and waited very patiently for the show to begin.

And when the show started......

Well, watch the video to see her reaction to Shamu!

A quick visit to the under water viewing was very nice as well.

Before leaving we checked out the Wild Arctic, where Michaela tried to pet the walrus through the glass. Then on to the dolphin show before heading home. We sat in the 4th row and our feet got a little wet, but Michaela had fun seeing the "Buddies" up close. That's what she calls all dolphins - Buddy. It's so cute when she sees them and yells "Hi Buddy!" Gotta love Michaela and her crazy love of animals.

A girl and her animals...

Michaela loves her animals - both the stuffed and real varieties. Each day she picks out a new stuffed animal to carry around. Sometimes it's more than one. I have a hard time taking them away from her when it's time to eat or go to school. What can I say? Everything's washable.

This is how I found Michaela the other morning. She literally collects a bunch of animals before she goes to sleep and piles them around her. She barely has room for herself, but I guess she's comfortable.
Today was a beautiful day out and Michaela and I decided to take in the Haile Village Arts and Music Fest. I asked Michaela if she wanted her glasses and she nodded her head and said "Mmm Hmm". The same thing for her hat. She also wanted her purse, and insisted on carrying her tiger. Michaela then got a balloon and had it tied to her wrist. We walked around for over an hour like this. We literally couldn't walk more than 5 steps before someone would stop us to tell me how cute she looked. I can't help it if I have the cutest baby in the world!

Michaela was a big help at the Haile's Angels (our rescue organization at work) booth. She had fun looking at the puppies and then held Wilhelmina's leash for a long time. Willy is our 9 year old black cocker spaniel that just got returned to us because her adoptive family couldn't care for her. Michaela loved how gentle Wilhemina was and even took her for walks up and down the street. Willy took it all in stride and even let Michaela give her a couple kisses on the nose. If anyone is looking for a sweet, calm adult dog, let me know because I have the perfect one for you!!

The Housing Situation

My last update on the housing situation was back in December when we received notification that we got the auction house. Well, a lot has changed since then. After starting the closing process on that house, we heard that the auction company made a mistake and our offer was actually denied. Craig and I had to start a new search and put an offer in on a different house in the same neighborhood. That house was in short sale and it has taken them 2 months to give us an answer. This past Friday, we finally heard that the offer was accepted. The only stipulation is that we close by March 31. Nothing like them taking their time, then rushing us into closing in 2 weeks! Craig and I are cautiously optimistic, especially considering we have not actually received the acceptance in writing yet. After all we've been through, I'm not sure either of us will believe that the house is actually ours until the keys are in our hands. Because of that, I haven't wanted to put any pictures up of this house. We had the inspection yesterday, and it passed with flying colors. The house is only 1 1/2 years old, but has never been lived in. We still have to get the water and electricity turned on before we can finish the whole inspection, but it looks like we will be getting a good house. That is, if we actually get it. So, we may be moving to Jacksonville in 2 weeks. If that's the case, I will have to commute to Gainesville for a little while until I can find a job in Jax and give my boss 30 days notice. I guess I can handle it, since Craig has been doing the commute for 6 months now. I will be sure to post pictures of the house once I know for sure it is ours. Until then, here's one shot of the outside.

Poor Kitties

Our poor cats are getting too much attention these days. Michaela is strong enough to pick them up and, unfortunately for them, she loves it! Sometimes they can get away in time, but if she corners them it's fair game. Michaela will give them kisses on the nose once she get ahold of them. I'm not sure they appreciate it.


Tiller only weighs 9 pounds, but that's a lot for a girl who only weighs 22 pounds!

As you can see, Michaela loves this. Quincy does not!

Brody's our biggest cat, and still a little too large for her to actually carry. This doesn't stop her from trying though.

More Sea World pictures

Here is another batch of pictures from Sunday's Sea World trip. These were all taken by my mom, which is why I'm actually in some of them. The first is from lunch, where Michaela was watching for Shamu.

They gave us some passes to use at the arcade games. Michaela was very happy to share them. Her face was covered in M&M dye. So much for not melting in your hand. They M&M's were black and white (Shamu colors, of course). Michaela picked out all the white ones first and gave the black ones to me and my mom. I guess they weren't very appetizing to her.

Of course Michaela loved looking at the Clydesdales.

Here's a shot of her picking out her stuffed animal. As you can see, she had a hard time deciding between 2 different otters or a polar bear. She thought she would try and escape with all 3, but we didn't let her get away with that.

While Craig and I went over to get started with the belugas, Michaela and her grandparents took in the penguins. Apparently my dad's not too good at sharing and held Michaela the whole time.

This little girl loves her ducks!

Michaela fell asleep about 5 minutes before we came out to play with the belugas, so she missed the whole thing. I'm not sure if that was a good thing or not. I'm sure she would have enjoyed seeing the whales doing their tricks, but it might have confused her to see Mommy and Daddy where she couldn't get to us.

I love this picture my mom took during our interaction. As I said, the water was only 52 degrees. That's really cold when it gets shot in your face out of the mouth of a whale!

Michaela and her otter before the Shamu show.

Before leaving we checked out the sting rays. Michaela actually wanted to pet them. I really think it was just fun to splash in the water. She never could reach far enough down to touch the fish.

Sea World for Craig's Birthday

Today is Craig's birthday, but we celebrated a day early at Sea World. My parents were able to join us and set up lunch at Dine with Shamu. We managed to get a table right next to the pool with a perfect view of the whales. Michaela was too busy watching to actually eat anything.

A shot of our table, poolside.

They brought in 7 of their 8 whales to show us some training techniques. The only one that was missing was the large male. Michaela was literally trying to dive in the water with them! She held on to the rope and jumped up and down in Craig's lap trying to get a closer look.

The cutest thing is that Michaela calls Shamu "MuMu". She kept saying "Hi MuMu" over and over. She also remembers the hand signal the audience does during the show when the whales come out to splash everyone. She will sit there and pump her hands in the air while saying "MuMu, MuMu". Saturday night I asked her, "Michaela, do you want to see Shamu?" and she nodded and started doing the Shamu signal. It's adorable.

After lunch, Craig and I headed over to experience his birthday gift. I signed us up to do the beluga interaction at Wild Arctic. We were excited to spend some times with the belugas, even though the water was only 52 degrees.

There are 4 belugas total, and they are all young so they still have their gray coloration. My favorite was Juneau, who acted exactly like Riley. It was cool to see their different personalities. The youngest was the female, Maple, who is only 3 years old. She still is very much a baby and was the least obedient. Craig thought it was funny to watch her misbehave.

Kisses from a beluga are lots of fun....

So are hugs.....

There are lots more pictures, which can all be seen here.

Afterwards, we caught up with Mom and Dad and Michaela at the Shamu show, then headed over to see the rest of the park. Michaela had lots of fun looking at the barracudas. She thought they were very funny looking and was happy to dance for them.

Michaela loves all the fish!

The dolphins were very playful yesterday. This one was having fun playing with Michaela. She was kind enough to offer him her Wheat Thins.

The last thing we did was watch the Sea Lion show. Michaela was exhausted by this time and had fun cuddling with her new otter. She had a hard time picking him out and tried to run away with 3 stuffed animals, but I think she made a good decision. She even slept with him last night.

Silly

Michaela LOVES the Backyardigans, which is a silly animated show with singing and dancing. All she has to hear is the theme song and she runs into the room to stand in front of the tv and dance. Although I don't love the idea of her watching tv, I feel better about it when she's up and moving around. These next two pictures were of her dancing along with her Backyardigan friends.

Michaela has a new fascination to torture the animals with. She is at the perfect height to hold on to their collars and drag them around the house. Maggie is usually the unwilling participant as she is not quick enough to get away like the other dogs.

Poor Maggie tries to back away, but Michaela's grip is too strong.

Duncan sometimes participates, but he will often end up pulling Michaela over. So in the end I usually attach a leash to Duncan's collar. This way, Michaela can still drag him around but there's more give if he turns suddenly.

Beautiful Weekend

We had gorgeous weather this weekend and managed to take advantage of some if it. Yesterday both Craig and I had to work, so Michaela spent the day with Lauren, Brooke, Anita, and Kerry Edwards. They had lots of fun taking her to various stores, out to lunch, then on to the Retirement Home for Horses. Michaela had so much fun that she didn't even nap! She just played and played and wowed them with her ability to mimic any words you say. Michaela had so much fun shopping with them and is ready for her next shopping trip with her adorable purse. She loves to carry it on her arm like the little princess she is.

Today we decided to take advantage of the warm (but not too hot!) weather and go canoeing in High Springs. Michaela even got her own paddle.

Michaela was very excited to get on the river.

I was really nervous that she would move around and tip the boat. At first she sat very still in the middle, but it wasn't long before we had to re-work our seating system so she could be in my lap.

Later, Craig and I switched positions and Michaela hung out in the back with him. She loved to help row, although I think she slowed us down more than she actually helped.

Of course she loved the wildlife and yelled "Hi Turtle!" We even saw a river otter, who was surprisingly tolerant of the toddler yelling "OTTER". He just swam up to the shore and groomed himself while we watched. Overall, it was a great and tiring day in the sun.

Our final day in Oregon

Wednesday was our last day in Portland. Craig had lectures in the morning but finished at lunch time. Michaela and I decided to take one last walk around downtown while we waited for him to finish up. There were several stores I wanted to look in, but most didn't open until 10:00. So instead I got a drink from Starbucks and enjoyed people watching. Michaela wanted to try, and since it was decaf I figured it couldn't hurt. She then proceeded to try and drink the whole thing! It's a good thing it was decaf! I can't believe she enjoyed it, but I guess Starbucks can really be addicting.

When Craig was done we took the shuttle to the airport and picked up a rental car for the day. We decided to head over to Mt. Hood and explore. As we got further and further up the side of the mountain we hit more and more snow. I was really happy that the guy at the rental company took pity on us and let us choose whatever car we wanted instead of sticking to the compact we had ordered. Craig was glad I convinced him to go with the SUV once it started snowing and the roads were getting icy.

Because of the snow storm we never got a great view of Mt. Hood. We did manage to head up to the Timberline Lodge, where we got out and explored. This was the hotel they used for the outside scenes in The Shining. Funny thing is that today I was flipping through the channels and recognized this exact shot when I came across The Shining on tv! It's amazing how much snow is drifted up against the building. They actually have a metal tunnel (to the left in the picture) to cover the stairs so that you can get into the building. Otherwise the snow would cover the stairway and the front door.

This picture was taken on the second floor from the inside of the lodge. The snow covered the whole window.

We then headed back towards Portland, stopping to see the Multnomah Falls.

Beautiful foliage on the pathway up the falls.

We walked as far as the bridge, but decided not to go any higher since it was freezing cold and raining at this point. Michaela loved the waterfall and kept saying "Ooooh, Pretty". When we left she shouted "Bye Bye WaWa". She hasn't quite figured out how to say waterfall yet, but wawa is close enough.

That night we took a red eye home, leaving Portland at 11:58 pm. We changed Michaela into her pajamas and let her run around the airport to try and wear her out. She really had fun pulling our bags by the handles. However, she cried for the first 2 hours of the flight and then slept for the next 2 hours. When we changed planes in Houston she then stayed awake until we got in our car to drive home. All in all this made for an exhausted Mommy and Daddy (and Michaela). However we all took nice long naps on Thursday to make up for the lost sleep Wednesday night. Overall, we had a great trip and I can't wait to make it back to explore some more.

OMSI

On Tuesday, the family fun day was a scheduled trip to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. As we waited for the bus Michaela decided she wanted to hold hands with Thomas, a 5 year old boy who's mom is a vet with Banfield. Thomas took his job as Michaela's protector very seriously and held her hand for the whole bus ride and the walk into the museum. He told me that he runs and skis to get strong so he can protect little kids from bad guys. I told Thomas's dad that it might be time to give Thomas a little brother or sister. He agreed.

OMSI was a very fun museum for us to visit. They currently are hosting the Leonardo DaVinci exhibit and I was excited to see all the replicas of his inventions. That man never fails to amaze me. Unfortunately, cameras were not allowed in that exhibit. After we finished up with DaVinci we headed into a huge room that is reserved for children 6 years old or under. Michaela had lots of fun playing with all the age appropriate and educational material. I made sure that she checked out the radiographs of wild animals, including a bird and a snake.

She also had fun looking at the various animal skulls.

There was one section of the room where they could pretend to be various forest animals. Michaela picked up this raccoon and carried him all through the forest.

She had fun with the magnetic wall.

She wasn't too sure about the eagle's nest.

Although the museum was fun, Michaela was running on empty. I decided to leave at lunch time and head back to the hotel to eat lunch with Craig. Michaela fell asleep before the bus left the parking lot and slept while I carried her into the hotel. However, as soon as she heard Craig's voice she popped up and yelled "Daddy!" and then stayed awake for the next 4 hours. I tried taking her swimming in the hotel pool (indoors, of course) but by then she was so over tired and just cried the whole time. We went back to the room and she finally took a nap for about an hour. When Craig finished with his lectures we decided to go for another walk. First we headed across the street so Michaela could see the geese in the park.

Then we walked all the way down to the south Portland district and rode the sky tram up the side of the mountain. This is another of Portland's public transportation that connects directly to the hospital. Yet one more way to reduce traffic and pollution.

That afternoon, it rained for a few minutes and the sun was still shining to the south. As a result, we had a beautiful rainbow right out of our window.

Portland, OR Here We Come!

Last week Craig had to go to Oregon for continuing education with work. I decided it seemed like the perfect opportunity for us to take a small and inexpensive family vacation, so Michaela and I joined along. I was really excited to go, since I have a strange and inexplicable love for the Pacific Northwest. In the past 2 1/2 years we have taken 3 trips out to Washington and Oregon, and I just can't get enough! We stayed at a beautiful hotel in downtown Portland and had an amazing view of Mt. Hood and the river right outside our balcony. Michaela was excited to spend 4 full days with both Mommy and Daddy (but especially Daddy).

What a little Daddy's girl this one is. Every time she sees him she screams "DADDY!" and runs up to hug and kiss him. I definitely get put on the back burner when Craig is around. After checking into our hotel we had fun walking along the riverfront and the park that was right across the street. Michaela was excited to see all the seagulls and geese that hung around there.
We took a little walk through downtown. Portland is such a cool city. Although it's very urban, it's much more personal feeling than other big cities. I'm used to NYC, where nobody gives you the time of day. Everyone was friendly and willing to talk with us in Portland. They also have lots of cool and quirky artwork and stores. I loved this statue downtown, and his umbrella came in handy when it started to rain just as we walked up to him.

The next morning we woke up bright and early as Michaela was still on east coast time. In fact, she woke up at 5:30 every day we were there! I didn't really mind, because we got to watch the beautiful sunrise outside our window.

Michaela had fun playing with Craig's glasses while we got dressed. I just love this picture! It makes me laugh every time I see it.

Michaela and I headed to the Oregon Zoo while Craig went to lectures all day. I had actually planned on going to the zoo on Monday, only to find out that the conference had arranged a zoo trip for the families. This worked out perfect! Not only did I get a free ride up to the park, but they paid for our tickets and I got to meet other parents and children who's spouses/parents were at the conference. Michaela quickly made friends with a little girl named Nadia, who was 6 days older than her, and Nadia's sister Simona, who is 3 years old. When we got to the zoo I ran to rent a stroller and somehow parted with the group. I didn't really mind, though, since I like to enjoy zoos on my own time. Michaela was excited to "drive" the stroller and refused to get out of it for the first hour we were there. The only thing that got her out of the stroller was the goats that she could pet!

I had fun snapping pictures while Michaela hung out in her go cart. I think these bats are so cool!

They had a really cool area in the Africa section where you could pretend to be a researcher in Africa. There were filing cabinets full of "confiscated poacher materials" and animal samples. I had fun poking around and looking at all the furs and petrified bugs and skulls and stuff. Michaela had fun playing with the old typewriter.

And then we got to the African Pygmy Goats..... Michaela jumped out of the go cart and ran up to the fence and yelled "Hi Goats!" When we went inside she ran over to a goat and just started petting him nicely. At this point the Banfield rep who was escorting us to the zoo appeared and was watching Michaela. She was shocked at how gentle Michaela could be at her age and how she has no fear of animals that are bigger than she is. I think it's funny that people think that's funny. She lives in a house with 4 big dogs, 3 cats, and 2 veterinarians! She is used to being knocked over by the dogs and knows that the cats will run away if she doesn't pet softly. What else would you expect from her?

This is my favorite animal picture of the day.

Michaela loved the cougar. She kept saying "Hi kitty!"

Of course she needed a new stuffed animal. This one is a Polynesian Warty Pig. Michaela had fun practicing being a mountain goat on a rock (you can see the real mountain goats behind her). Although you would never know it from this picture, but it actually hailed about 5 minutes before I took this. Other than that and one short sun shower, we had beautiful cloudless weather all day! I still don't believe that it rains in the Pacific NW.

She also loved the Stellar Sea Lions. They were huge! I love how this picture came out with the sea lion framing my beautiful little girl.

All in all we had a great day. The only thing that could have made it better would be if Craig could have joined us. Maybe next time he'll be able to ditch the lectures a little early and meet us at the zoo.