Hot Holidays

Well, Christmas morning came, and we were so excited to watch Jessica open presents. Ten years waiting for a Christmas with children! Finally! We were so excited, the night before we broke down and told each other our big gifts, after J was in bed. Despite my vow not to get Dave any more tools, I got him a soldering station. (Now that's love.) He does fix a lot of our broken stuff with borrowed soldering irons.

Dave got me new pans. I tease him that kitchenware is a big hint for me to get back into the kitchen and do some home cooking, since I bought a lot of frozen and prepared food for the last 3 months.

We'd also been wanting to buy the Good Eats DVDs (with crazy chef Alton Brown) and make every recipe. (The next week, we started watching with season 1, episode 1 "Steak Your Claim". It was really educational, since I feel like I know nothing about cuts of meat. We cooked a great ribeye in cast iron.)

The next morning we got up about 7 am and brought Jessica out into the front room. She was a champ at opening presents all morning, starting with the first:

Among the highlights are this toddler foam chair, which I think is adorable and fits her just right;

this homemade dress and matching hat sent by her Grandma Eyring;

and a lot of books and toys with buttons and lights. Her favorite thing is turning pages and opening and shutting things. She loves playing with her new foam letters during her bath, so now her tub looks like there's a wee little suckling pig, swimming in alphabet soup!

Jessica didn't need any help devouring this chocolate-covered raspberry stick:

Dave made wood blocks for Jessica from the discarded floorboards of our church's gym floor after it was water-damaged. Both of our fathers made blocks for us kids, so it was a sweet tradition to see Dave carrying on. He wrapped them in saran wrap, since I didn't get around to sewing a drawstring bag.

And after begging for a year, I finally got archery lessons, which I started today. The weapon of choice of my favorite story heroines is a bow and arrow: I blame Chronicles of Narnia and The Hunger Games. 

After the lesson, I couldn't wipe the smile off my face; it was so fun! I felt safe, and was pretty consistent, even though we were only 20 feet from the target. I told Dave everything, and he was like "Yeah, I got the archery merit badge at scout camp." Uuuuuhhhhhnnnn!!!! Boys get to do all the fun stuff!

Anyways, back to last week: We went to Miami for a 2-day trip. First stop: Monkey Jungle. (It was fun, but we thought Butterfly World and Gatorland were better half-day attractions for the same price.)

Monkey Jungle was unique because, like their ads say: "the people are in cages and the monkeys run free!" Jessica liked them a lot when she they were right in front of her, swinging around, and screaming loudly.

The weather was a perfect 70 degrees, and it was fun to get away and do something different.

Jessica was a pretty good trooper, sitting in the car and stroller so much. Below she's pictured in her smaller car seat, which she's really too tall for. (Her weight gain has slowed down: less than a pound in 6 weeks---great news for us, whose arms are falling off from packing her around.)

When we let her loose in the hotel room that evening, she was on turbocrawl and high speed jabber-scream. And she decided it was time to start pulling herself up to stand. The low side of the bathtub and her pack-n-play were her first. It was the day before New Year's Eve, so she was exactly 10 months old.

Last week on Christmas Eve, she showed us she can clap. And in the last 2 weeks, she's learned to comb her hair, sit Indian-style, hold her breath, identify and say "dots", point her finger, raise her hand, and cover her ears. Her hair is long enough I can put a *little* tiny clip in the top center of her head. When we reach across the table to hold hands during the blessing on the food, she puts her hand on top of ours for a second. She knows how to say "mmmm" for yummy food, and since she can't do the baby sign for 'more' (food), she's trained us to feed her with her own: she either yodels with her lips together, or growls with her "mmmm" if she wants food.

Unfortunately, she also squirms in her stroller (turning around or jumping out--which earned her that forehead scrape) and throws bigger fits. When she is really angry at us, she'll stare straight ahead, hold her arm up, then punch us in the mouth and try to rip our lips off. But now we usually see it coming and stop her. She's going to be great in martial arts.

But really, she's a sweetie. And a waffle thief, caught red-handed, below. Today she decided she can put her hands on the tabletop and stand on her tiptoes. Yesterday she stood at the piano bench and listened to me play. After a while she started whimpering, and I thought, 'I'll just finish playing this line". When I looked down she was stuck halfway down in the splits, one foot under the piano, the other under the rug, and her nose just over the bench and wobbling all over. {I made Dave snarf and choke on his own spit when I told him that story.}

Anyway, back to the narrative. The next day (New Year's Eve Day) we went to the Bill Baggs state park on Key Biscayne to see the lighthouse. This lighthouse is older than the Jupiter one, with a more tenuous history: blown up in the Indian Wars; surrounding area almost sold off for development; plant life stripped off in Hurricane Andrew... The tour of the lighthouse and keeper's home was good and included in the park admission.

The climb was a bit scary because the stairs are only anchored on the center pole, which swayed a lot with the tour group all climbing it. But the view was beautiful.

The keeper's house was quaint.

But Jessica's favorite part was her 10 minutes in the water. IT DIDN'T EVEN PHASE HER THAT THE WATER WAS COLD, or salty, or rushing up to her. She was trying to crawl straight into the sea, and threw a 10-minute fit when we left. Little Miss No-Fear won't have any swimming issues...Come to think of it, we also now call her Miss Wiggles, and Destructo Girl. (If she were raised in an Indian tribe, she would be very easy to name.)

Our favorite part was the family bicycle ride, after which we had a delicious seaside meal (paella & plantains and crab dip).

Dave's brother Danny, who lives in Idaho, texted Dave a picture of himself on a campout, waste-deep in fresh snow. So Dave texted this tropical picture back: surrounded by blue water and fluffly white sand. Tiny contrast in habitats for these brothers. (oops, their caption should read Dec 30 and 31 of 2010.)

We also tried to visit the nearby Barnacle, home of a famous old Florida shipbuilder. It was in beautiful downtown old Miami, which was gearing up for New Years. After waking up Jessica, paying for parking, and paying for admission, and walking a stretch, they were going to charge us again just to get inside the house. The tour guide sounded boring, so we just read the signposts and left. But we did see several beautiful peacock art statues, which I guess represent old Peacock family founders.

 
We detoured to Vizcaya, a very old, elaborate, expensive estate of a farm machinery baron. It's pretty much a shrine to old world culture and mythology and money. We weren't allowed to photograph the insides, which were tapestried, gold-leafed, carved, and embellished to the hilt. It's like the Flagler Museum, only more pagan, with better gardens. Some of our pics include Ponce de Leon,

a lady lion statue,

 and the mazey, awfully romantic gardens and fountains.

The funniest part of our trip happened on the freeway our drive home. Dave, despite his habit of keeping his tank at least a quarter full, and preaching to me about riding around on emtpy, RAN OUT OF GAS. I just laughed and read a book while waiting to get refueled. We got home in time to watch the new Karate Kid, play Yatzhee & drink sparkling grape juice, say happy new year and go to bed. Despite my holiday stress, and the fact that we were sad to be away from our family, it was a great end to the best year of our lives.