Happy 4th Birthday!

I am officially FOUR years old! Can you believe it? Mom and dad can't, either. On Thursday night when mom put me to bed, I reminded her that it was my last bedtime as a three year old. Completely melted her heart. I was really excited and had a hard time falling asleep. My birthday was on Friday and I got to take some Rice Krispie treats to school to share with my friends and teachers - I was SO excited about it! I got to wear a fancy dress and sparkly dress shoes to school - mom doesn't usually let me do that because of all of the running around we do, but she said it was a special day so it was ok.

I opened my gifts from mom and dad after school and before dinner. I got some really cool things including a beginning electronic circuit set, some new blocks, a new lego set, the Snow White movie, and my very own iPod!!! Three guesses what my favorite was. The iPod had all of my favorite apps on it and I was excited to have one of my very own.

We went out for sushi for dinner and I had a GREAT dinner. I had a bowl of Miso soup, split a plate of edamame with mom, had a few pieces of mom and dad's sushi AND had my own two sushi rolls. Yum. I told mom we'd do a sushi dinner for my birthday and Dogfish for her birthday - she laughed :) After dinner, the waitress brought us 3 cookies and a lollipop. Mom let me have her cookie, so I got to have TWO cookies and a lollipop in the car on the way home. Talk about a special treat :)

We read a very special book at bedtime on Friday. Grammy and Grampy Clements wrote a children's book called "The Runaway Hanky." We all sat in my bed and daddy read it to me. What a special book - I even got the very FIRST copy of the book! When I opened it, I saw Grammy and Grampy's picture on the back and asked mom and dad if they were the authors. When they said yes, I was really excited. I always ask mom about the authors of books, so it was really cool to see my own grandparents on the book!

I slept well Friday night - I was probably exhausted and crashing from all of the sugar. I was also pretty excited about my birthday party on Saturday. A lot of friends who I haven't seen in a while were there, so that was really fun! I got up pretty early on Saturday and helped mom get stuff together. Dad had to run all the errands (cake pick up, grocery shopping, etc.) since mom's still on crutches and can't shop too well. Grandma, Grandpa, Great Grandma, and Great Grandpa got to our house around lunch time, so I was excited to spend some time with them. I got to open their gifts, play, and spend time with them before my party. They stayed at the house and rested when we went to the Gym for the party.

I had a lot of fun at my party. My favorite part (aside from the cake) was the "snowball" fight with daddy. The pictures aren't great, but check out this series:

Getting ready to start the fight...



Jumping over the slide...



Daddy went down!



Nice recovery, dad!



And after all the gym fun, my absolute favorite part - the chocolate princess cake!





I'm so excited to be four!!!

Dance Recital for Grammy

It's been a while (again!) Will write more later, but it's been a fun and busy weekend. We had a great night on Friday and a bunch of my friends came over to play with me while our parents hung out. Delicious pizza for all and wine for the grown ups.

Grammy, Grampy, and Aunt Terry came on Saturday and we've had a really fun visit so far! Yesterday we played at home and I even read a book to them and then they read some books to me. I got to sleep in the guest room and let Aunt Terry have my bed. We got to go to a playground today (mom was dying to get out of the house) and went to a restaurant for a late lunch. Now we're watching football and playing.

Grammy brought a fun toy for me to play with and I had a dance recital for Grammy :)

Fun Last Day!

We had a very busy day today! We all got to sleep in a little - I didn't even wake up until 8:30! Mom woke up before me again and was confused that I hadn't gotten up yet, but she was easily able to roll over and go back to sleep. When I finally did get up, we had breakfast - I asked for pretzels and mom actually let me have them - she said we were on vacation, so it was ok. I picked out a pretty dress to wear and we packed up to go to the aquarium. It was supposed to rain, so we had planned on doing the aquarium just in case. Fridays at the aquarium are Fin Fridays, so there was a focus on animals with fins - like SHARKS! We got there just in time for the dive exhibit - they still have the replica of the U-352 (the wreck that daddy got to dive on Tuesday) and they have a bunch of sharks in the exhibit, including some sand tiger sharks, sand bar sharks, and nurse sharks. They were all pretty big and one even swam really fast right in front of us - it was pretty cool to watch how powerful it was.


This whole sculpture was made out of sand - how cool???




There were three divers in the water and one had a full mask on with a microphone cord which allowed him to talk to us, even though he was underwater. There was a man standing in front of the exhibit with a microphone who was taking questions from the audience and relaying them to the divers. I got to learn a lot about the sharks - did you know that they only eat two times a week??? That's crazy talk! I was kind of bummed - when the divers were ready to get out of the water, they were swimming by the glass and giving kids a diver handshake. I tried to give all three of them the OK sign, but I don't think any of them could see it well enough through the glass.



There was one fish who just hung out in the conning tower of the U-352. It was pretty funny.



After the dive show, we went back to the beginning of the aquarium and walked the whole way through. They have a new penguin exhibit this year and there were four penguins - they were all hatched in California and were recently moved to the aquarium here. Their names were Suki (the only girl penguin), Sly, South, and Oswald. It was hard to distinguish them from each other because they all had bands on their arms, but you couldn't see them too easily.



We left the penguin exhibit and saw the river otters sleeping. Those are mom's favorite part of the aquarium - they're really playful creatures, but these two must have been taking a nap, so we continued on. We took a detour to one of the outside exhibits and saw some crabs in the water and a few birds. On the way back in, we stopped to see a turtle statue and then found the stingray petting pool. They were swimming a little too deep this year for me to pet them and I almost (accidentally) put my face in the water trying to reach them - yuck!!! A butterfly ray swam by close to the top of the pool and I did get to pet that one :) Daddy pet a sting ray and had one back up away from him when he tried to pet it. We left there and went to see the hermit crabs and horseshoe crabs. They were fun to watch, but the horseshoe crabs were buried under the sand, so we couldn't see much more than the tops of their shells.

Giant Catfish!



We finished walking through the rest of the aquarium and saw lots of cool fish, including a scorpion fish, an eel, and tons of jellyfish. Speaking of which, I think I forgot to mention that daddy actually got stung by a jellyfish - TWICE! Once on his arm when he went for a swim in the ocean (a half mile, can you believe it???) and once on his lip while he was scuba diving. He said that REALLY hurt and he had a hard time not spitting out his regulator. When we got to the end of the aquarium, mom said she wanted to look in the gift shop, so daddy took me back to see if the River Otters were awake. One of them was, but the other was still sleeping. We met mom back by the exit and she surprised me with a stuffed river otter! She said she was going to get me a penguin, but the otters were too cute. I asked what his name was, but his tag didn't have one, so dad told me I got to pick a name. I decided to use one of the penguins names, but couldn't decide between Sly and Suki. After quite the identity crisis, I decided on Suki. So I now am the proud owner of Suki, the cute and cuddly River Otter :)

We left the aquarium and drove to the historic town of Beaufort. It was lunch time and we were all starving, so we stopped at a BBQ place. I only wanted mac and cheese and hush puppies (what else is new), but mom and dad said the BBQ was pretty yummy. We walked around the town a little and got to go in the ship building shop. No one was actually working, but I got to see a man working on a model ship. He showed me the ship and even let me hold the little life boat. It was pretty cool. I looked at all of the sample pieces of wood on the wall and picked out which ones I wanted to use to make a boat. I'm pretty sure that will never happen, but you never know.

There is a maritime history museum across the street, so we walked over there. I enjoyed it more this year than I did last year and got to see a bunch of cool stuff and asked a lot of questions. I particularly enjoyed the big wheel :) You couldn't use a flash in the museum, so pardon the fuzzy picture. On the way out, dad bought me a book about otters! I couldn't wait to read it - it's called Oopsie Otter!



We left there and wandered through the town along the water. There are some HUGE yachts docked there and there was a fishing tournament going on. We stopped in a few shops and mom bought me what she says are the cutest shoes ever! I'll have to ask her to take a picture of them :) On the way back to the car, we ended up stopping at a wine store - mom and dad had a glass of wine and I got a strawberry cheesecake gelato - it was delicious!



It was a quick drive back to the condo and I decided I wanted to fly my kite before we left for the week. So we grabbed the kite and headed down to the beach. It was SUPER windy and the sand blowing on my legs really hurt. Dad got the kite up pretty easily, but the string burned his finger as it flew up high - don't worry - he's ok now.





Daddy and I went for a swim while mom ran out to pick up a pizza for dinner. Dad got cold because the sun wasn't over the pool anymore, so he got out and sat on a chair right next to the pool. He was only a few feet away from me and I was sitting on the steps (still had no desire to actually go swimming). I told him "Dad, if mom were to come back right now, she would be FRIGHTENED that I'm in here by myself." Mom actually said that she would have been ok with that too :)

The pizza was yummy and daddy taught me a trick to fold the pizza in half so it's not so floppy. I thought that was pretty cool. I decided to read Oopsie Otter at bedtime instead of finishing Ralph - we only have one more chapter, but I think I'd like to finish it at home. Tomorrow we have to pack up and are heading home, but we get to stop and see my cousin Christine on the way!!! I'm so excited - I haven't seen her since I was 9 months old!

Definitely an awesome vacation. I had a really good time with mom and dad!!!

Low Key Day...

As I said yesterday, more of the same today - beach, lunch, nap, pool, dinner. Daddy got up with me this morning and got me breakfast and took me out to the beach so mom could sleep :) She met us down at the beach and I played in the water for a while. The wind really picked up yesterday, so the waves were a little stronger than they had been. I still got to find some shells and fill my bucket up with water. Yesterday when I got my shells, I gave them a nice cozy home in one of my buckets (i.e. I covered them up with sand). Daddy was careful to pack them in the cart so their nice cozy homes didn't get disturbed when we brought the cart up last night. 

I had mac and cheese (with the emphasis on the "mac") for lunch and mom and I took a quick nap (are you sensing a theme, here? What can I say, the sun takes a lot out of you!). We just took a short nap and set an alarm so we could go to the pool. Once again, I had absolutely no desire to swim. I just wanted to stand on the steps. Hopefully one of these days I'll change my mind and want to swim again. I got to play with Dominick again and we had fun tossing toys in the kiddie pool for the other kid to find. In the big pool, mom bounced me off of her feet and Dominick and I played a game where we held up a certain number of fingers under water and the other kid had to go underwater and tell the other how many fingers were up. I had a little trouble with that one, but we had fun. We left a little early because the restaurant we went to gets REALLY crowded if you don't get there right when it opens at 5. 

We got showered and I picked out a pretty dress to wear. We ended up getting there a little after 5, but didn't have to wait too long, thankfully. We had a nice table outside right by the water and there was even a sign that said "Please don't feed the Alligators!" I told mom I didn't think there were really any alligators there, though. When they brought the menu, I asked dad "Dad, what are my options?" He got a kick out of that. 

I ended up getting buttered noodles with parmesan and green beans. Daddy had Scalloped Scallops that looked delicious and mom had a great filet with cabernet onion jam and brie (yum). We shared a cheesy lobster dip for an appetizer, but I really just wanted the bread.  I even got to have my very first Shirley Temple! It was so delicious and I got to eat 2 cherries out of it. The best part of the meal, though, was that they had SMORES on the dessert menu! Daddy had cheesecake and I had smores. I was very careful to not get any on my dress, but my face and hands were another story. We had to go to the bathroom to wash my hands before we left. I ate two whole smores and they were absolutely delicious. We'll definitely be adding this restaurant to our annual rotation while we're here! We didn't take too many pictures today, but here are a few from dinner. 

Holding the buzzer asking a million times "When will it buzz???"

Messy Face!

Night all!

A Walk to the "Experiment"

We did more of the same today - beach, pool, hunting for shells, naps, dinner, you get the picture. Mom and I got up pretty early and read another chapter in my Ralph book before breakfast. We just read chapter 11 at bedtime and I think there's one or two more before we finish the book. I've really been enjoying listening to chapter books and trying to remember what happened in the previous chapter and predict what will happen next!

Dad took me to the beach this morning so mom could try to run. Her foot hurt as soon as she put on her running shoes (which are essentially brand new after buying new ones after her half marathon in February, but only running a few miles in them). She decided to try a different pair of shoes that she brought and didn't even make it a quarter of a mile before turning around. Back to the orthopedist (a different one for a second opinion, probably). She met dad and I down at the beach and daddy went for a run on the beach. It rained a little this morning, but never ended up being more than a sprinkle, so we didn't even have to go inside.

While daddy was running, mom and I went for a walk to look for more shells. We went in a different direction today and walked a half mile to a pier (aka the "Experiment")! That means we walked an entire mile and boy were my legs tired by the time we got back! But we had so much fun - I sang some songs, we held hands, we saw a BIG sand castle (like as big as our living room, big), and saw a few people fishing. At one point, I was singing the Wheels on the Bus and as I did the motion for the children on the bus go up and down, I jumped and ALL of my shells fell out of my bucket :( I got pretty sad, but mom said it was ok and helped me pick them all back up. We found some nice ones today, including one that looked like a snail shell and one that looked like a foot.

We also saw 5 different helicopters flying over the beach today! I waved at them and *maybe* they waved back. At least two of them were Blackhawks, but I'm not sure what the others were. I also saw a few people on kite boards which was fun to watch. 

After lunch, we all laid down and took a nice nap. I didn't argue with mom at all when she told me it was time to put my book down and go to sleep. I slept in mom's room again (so did mom because her white noise machine is in there), so daddy had to nap in my room - how silly is that?  We went to the pool after our nap and I met a new friend, Dominick. He just learned to dunk his head under water today, so he and I had fun challenging each other to go underwater. I got a new squirty toy for the pool and had fun trying to squirt dad while he swam away from me. I managed to get him a few times, though :) I didn't want to get off of the steps in the big pool today, but I did sing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" to mom and dad IN SPANISH! They had no idea that I knew the whole song! Ms. Carmen would be proud :)


We got showered and went to one of our favorite restaurants for dinner - it's right on the water, has a nice outdoor deck, and live music on Wednesday nights. Daddy got his usual fried seafood (shrimp and scallops), I got more fried shrimp (mom can't bear to have me order chicken fingers or mac and cheese when there's fresh seafood on the menu), and mom had some grilled fish with shrimp and scallops. Yum! I even got a piece of lemon blueberry cheesecake for dessert. 


I got to play Corn Hole while we were waiting for dinner tonight.





I was sleepy after dinner. I asked the musician to play "City of New Orleans" and he did! I think he was singing Wonderful Tonight here, and I was cuddling with dad.





More later!

Daddy's Dive Photos

Check these out! Dad bought a new video camera that can go underwater with him while he dives and he was able to take some screen shots.

On his second day of diving, he got to go back to the U Boat! He said this was the best day of diving he's ever had! I can understand why after seeing the video and looking at these pictures :)

Deck Gun Mount and Conning Tower



Conning Tower



Aft Deck Hatches



Bow Torpedo Tubes



On the second dive of the day, he got to see the SPAR, which was a wreck covered in sand tiger sharks! On the video, I could even see his hand pick up a shell from the bottom of the ocean - he brought the shell back to me, so it was really cool to be able to see it on the video.

FABULOUS Day!!!

What can I say? I learned my lesson yesterday (hopefully) that it pays to listen to mom and dad - makes for a much more enjoyable day for all of us! Daddy went diving again today, so was already gone when I woke up and got mom up. We had a quick breakfast, I played a little, and we got sunscreen on and brushed our hair - I asked mom for a messy bun today, lol. I didn't want my hair to tickle the back of my neck while I played. Then we headed down to the beach. It was about 9am and there was NO one else there except one other family with a little kid. Pretty relaxing! It wasn't as windy today, so mom put up the umbrella and I played in the shade while mom got to relax and read her book for a while.

While I was sitting there playing, a gust of wind came by and our umbrella went FLYING half way up the beach! Mom dropped her book and ran after it. Guess she should have used the anchor today! We ended up just putting it away and putting more sunscreen on.

After about a half hour, mom saw something wash up on the shore. The other family was standing at the waters edge and backed away from it. From afar, it looked like a turtle shell or something. We got up and walked toward it only to realize that it was a live stingray! Two older boys who were walking by stopped and helped it get back out in the water. After that, mom didn't exactly want to take me in the water! She's a little bit of a nervous nelly in the ocean in terms of running into fish and what not, so she really didn't want to take a chance of running into a stingray :) So instead of getting in the ocean today, we went for a long walk with my bucket and collected sea shells. Mom showed me how to look and see if they were broken or not and we only picked up the ones that weren't broken. We even found some sea glass that mom says Grammy will like, so I'll be sure to give those pieces to her the next time I see her.

When we got back, I dug some rivers with my shovel and filled my bucket with water to fill the rivers. The water instantly soaked into the sand, so it wasn't exactly what I had expected. Mom suggested that we move a little closer to the water so I could play with the wet sand and she could sit and watch me. I had fun filling my bucket with water and dumping it on mom's feet :)

I even wrote a bunch of things in the sand! Hard to see it, but I wrote: SYDNEY   MOMMY   DADDY and CAT (can't forget Razzy, can we???)



We figured we wouldn't be back down at the beach, so we loaded up the cart and headed back up toward the house. Mom said that since I had listened so well all morning we could stop at the pool before we came up for lunch. We got in the big pool since all of our pool toys were upstairs, so I sat on the steps and did bobs, but I didn't want to swim to mom. I listened extremely well when mom told me it was time to go. We had some leftovers (fried shrimp for me, mahi mahi for mom) and then I took a rest in mom's room. I told her I wasn't tired, but I think I was wrong. What do you think?



Mom read her book while I slept and we put on more sunscreen when I woke up before heading to the pool. There was only one little girl in the kiddie pool, so I played in there until daddy got home and met us. I pretended that my swim ring was a hula hoop. Didn't work quite so well, but mom and dad got a kick out of it anyway.



We all got in the big pool for a while before we came home to change clothes for dinner. Since I had been so good all day, we went to a restaurant for dinner - I had a delicious and HUGE slice of cheese pizza. We even got to walk next door to the ice cream parlor and I got a scoop of peanut butter cup ice cream afterwards. I ate every last drop - couldn't bear to leave any behind!

Mom and I walked to the grocery store from there (it's in the same complex) so we could get more sunscreen and some snack foods, and dad moved the car. We were going to stop at a book store on the way, but they closed early (boo). I took a bath when we got home and was STILL listening really well, so mom and dad let me stay up and watch a video of dad's dives from today. It was pretty phenomenal - he saw lots of sharks and barracudas! I kept telling him I didn't want to swim in the water with sharks, but he assured me that these kind (sand tiger sharks) were ok for divers to swim with. It was really awesome to see.

Mom read me chapter 9 of Ralph and the Motorcycle and now I'm talking myself to sleep in bed. The daily naps while we're here inevitably delay my bedtime, but I'd never make it through the days here without them. And I think mom enjoys napping while on vacation, too :) I don't blame her!