Florida '09!

P8093041
Originally uploaded by jwwl.

Rather than do a writeup about the awesome Florida Vacation that Miri and I just had, I will take the lazy route and just cute & paste the 6 emails I sent while we were down there. :)

Florida - Day 1

Water Park + Beach + Pool + Playing With Cousins + Eggplant Parmesan + Smirnoff Ice = I'm Going To Bed Now.

It was a fantastic first day.

2 videos from my mom's camera. Her camera does not do sound so if you want sound call my cell and I'll make sound effects for you while you watch the videos...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cqgI9e-69o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeJT8JUFH88

Plenty of pictures:
My flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwwl
Mom's flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/81988723@N00/

Many more photos and videos not uploaded and many more to come I'm sure. :)

love,
Jason

Florida - Day 2

Today wasn't quite as jam packed as yesterday, but it also wasn't a sleeper either!

Miri and I started off the day by dropping off Grandma at work, getting her settled into the start of her work day, then went back "home" and visited with Great Grandma Fournier. After lunch, Bugs and I went to Sugar Sand Park to ride the carousel and visit the Science Exploratorium. From there we headed back to Grandma's work and head for Deerfield Beach to try the public beach (more sand there then at Castle Reef). We had fun in the water, and on the beach, then finished up the day eating dinner and video conferencing with Aunt Janelle. Miri's now sleeping in a coma and I will be next.
(I feel like I'm forgetting something in there... but oh well)

love to all,
Jason (& Miri)

Pic of the Day:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwwl/3787625388/

3 videos from yesterday that I finally uploaded from my camera. Since my camera has sound you all can stop calling me for sound effects. (Video's were from the pool at Castle Reef)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptzi6laLLJk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPUdp2o1qcc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV0oKk8izlI

Today's video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnCqjPrOMoY

Today's Slideshow:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwwl/show/

Florida - Day 3

We toned down the outside activities for today but still had a great one with some special moments. We got up in the morning and stopped by BestBuy to get a new computer for Grandma's work. Turned out the store didn't open for another hour so we went to Einstein's Bagels for some lox and bagel (my favourite breakfast!). Miri then came up with a new version which she completely wolfed down... it was a cranberry bagel with strawberry cream cheese and lox on top! She was so quick at eating it, and I was too preoccupied with my one delicious, and more sensible, regular lox and bagel that I never got to try a bite of hers. (Special Lox Picture) Once our breakfast was gone we then went and picked up the computer and network printer for Grandma's office. As I was getting that all set up, Miri got into working and helping out at the store and therefore became Bras N Things youngest employee. She really got into it and enjoyed it! (Pic1 Pic2) For lunch we were treated to vegetable low mein by the store's owner, and family friend, Laura. (Lunch) The biggest surprise was at the end of the work day when Miri actually received her very first paycheck! She's actually on the store's payroll now. :) (Paycheck!) After our successful work day (yep, I got the computers and network printer playing nice) we headed home for a cookout at Grandmas. Paul, Great Grandma Fournier, Great Aunt Irene and Great Uncle Erick came over and joined us. Miri made another fantastic guacamole too. After dinner Miri and Grandma walked over to the new community playground to get some play in before bedtime. Another fun day finished off down in Florida!

Hope you all are doing well!
love,
Jason & Miri


Pic of the Day:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwwl/3790126808/

Today's Slideshow:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwwl/show/with/3791007508/

Today's Pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwwl/archives/date-posted/2009/08/04/

Playground Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ug_mhk3F8Y

Florida - Day 4

Another great day leaving me ready for bed... We're really enjoying it down here! After dropping Mom off at her work, which Miri also now calls her "place of work", Mir and I then headed back to Mom's to meet up with Great Grandma Fournier. A long long time ago in a galaxy far far away, my grandma owned and operated her own salon. Long after that, whenever my sister and I would make our summer trips to Florida, we'd end up getting a haircut done by our grandmother. In keeping with that Florida tradition, Miri got her haircut done by her Great Grandmother! With a nice haircut complete, we then made some errands and followed that up with a little down time at the house. Before we knew it, it was time to go rescue Mom from work! From Miri's place of work, we then headed on over to Castle Reef and Miri immediately put on the most amazing swimming clinic yet! She was swimming with her face in the water, taking some breaths on the go, trying to dive, swimming under water by four inches, pushing off the pool floor with her feet, and trying to float on her back... all in about an hour of swim time. We'll be spending a couple of nights at Castle Reef this weekend so she'll be getting all kinds of swim time yet! With hunger building we then went to the sushi restaurant where I had my first taste of sushi ever 10 years ago, and it was as amazing now as it was then. The sushi boat had me thinking of Miri's Mimi and Popop and how they'd probably agree that this unassuming strip-mall sushi joint would be an impossible step up in quality from Mt. Fuji or Gina's. So far, whenever I get back to Florida I always manage to get back there at least once. Oh... and this was Miri's second visit... we had been in the same booth over a year and a half ago. She ate the sushi up as usual... :)

Hope all is well and take care!
love,
Jason & Miri

Pic of the Day:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwwl/3794065532/

Today's Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvXv3kWdhcY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOL8uJam-SE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZ9NbBq5u8U

Today's Slideshow:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwwl/show/with/3794265138/

Today's Pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwwl/archives/date-posted/2009/08/05/

Florida - Friday

I went to bed before sending this out yesterday so here's a quick update this morning:
Paul took me out to shoot 9 holes of golf and I was wonderfully horrible at it. While we were golfing, Miri and Grandma went and had apedicure. We then finished the morning at Paul's pool. After a lunch of Broccoli Rhabe, Mom, Miri and I headed out shopping then back at Mom's place. We then headed over to Mom's pool and Miri then showed me how she can now dive to the bottom of the pool to retrieve dive rings!
Anyway, today we're off to Castle Reef for a couple of nights by the beach. I probably won't get another email out until Monday. We'll be doing a lot of beaching, pool swimming, and hopefully early morning baby sea turtle protecting and helping... (They hatch around now.)

love,
Jason & Miri

Pic of the Day:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwwl/3799234467/

Friday's Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSDynVLDE9I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGGpb2AiQIY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_tggaRI7NQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3l7sN7frMs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j4ogt0O2gk

Friday's Slideshow:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwwl/show/with/3800196502/

Friday's Pics:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwwl/archives/date-posted/2009/08/07/

Florida - Wrap up

This is it. Tomorrow we fly back to Little Rock. Either that or Mom will be flying back with Miri and doing computer programming and I will stay behind as a new bra fitter at BrasNThings. I'm going to think about it...

Anyway, we spent the last couple of nights on the beach at Castle Reef. Cousin JoAnn and her daughter, our cousin, Cristine drove down from Jacksonville to spend the time with us. JoAnn, being as awesome as she always is, had made a couple of my family favourites and they were perfect. The first night we had Carne Machada and the second night was a feast that included some fantasticEmpanadas. As a matter of fact, the Carne Machada was so good that the dogs (Chalupa and Louie) finished off the leftovers... Then again, Louie also ate Mom's flip flops, so I don't know what that means.

On Saturday and Sunday we spent about 6 hours in the pool on each day. Taking breaks from the pool by going in the ocean. :) We also spend another accumulated 3 hours of applying sunscreen!
(Pretty much an hourly ritual. Well, we did try to avoid the sun during the worst part of the day.)

Miri's swimming really took off during this time. You'll see in one of the videos that she can now swim the width of the pool. As a matter of fact, in the video she does it without her goggles or mask on and with her head above water... much harder than when she started off with her mask and swimming faster with her face in the water. A lot went on. We ate watermelon and Miri had her first Pina Colada. Mom got pushed in the pool and I kicked Cristine's butt in a splash contest. Miri taught Cristine how to hang from a tree and we got buzzed about 10 times by a crazy blimp. We did not luck out with the baby sea turtles though as they weren't quite ready to dig out and head for the ocean. Maybe next time we'll get to help them.

Oh, almost forgot... On Sunday Laura and Paul joined us to celebrate Mom's birthday with presents ice cream cake and spatula licking.

That's it for this trip!
love,
Jason & Miri

Pic of the Weekend:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwwl/3807594339/

Weekend Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSxRYrfisxo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1dSPg_lC5s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzxS9KwX9Hg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YDqtWJJ934
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SOPtU7i-Jc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urUHIqCYSNE

Weekend Slideshow:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwwl/show/with/3808621563/

Weekend Pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwwl/archives/date-posted/2009/08/10/

All Florida pics:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jwwl/tags/florida/