Lady's Birthday Blog

We met Lady and Paw Paw at Megan and Steve's place for Lady's Smurftastic Birthday Celebration. (Nathan was the party organizer and he decided that it would be smurf themed.) Our first stop was the Track and Jessica got to ride her favorite rides with her cousins. Here is everyone watching Nathan on the airplane ride. The spinners are Jessica's favorite. Nathan and Kathryn seem to be enjoying them too.

Jessica loves being read to. If you don't volunteer to read to her she will voluntell you to by bringing you a book and grunting.

It's funny how Lady and I both tried to feed Jessica some wild rice soup but she absolutely wouldn't even try it until Kathryn offered it. Watch Kathryn feed Jessica in this video:

Here's a video of Nathan and Jessica making music.

We went to the pumpkin patch during our visit.

The pumpkin patch had a petting zoo.There were ducks and chickens.Mini horses too.Jessica was very serious about picking a pumpkin.Here's a funny picture of Jessica covered in dirt after playing in our playground.

New York, New York

The last two years, Dad and I have taken a trip to New England to see the fall colors and hang out in small towns. Not this year. We decided to hit New York City last weekend for a faster paced getaway. It wasn't what you would call relaxing, but the weather was awesome and we had a great time walking the city for 8-10 hours a day.

Upon arriving, we headed to Midtown to check out the Flatiron District and then a trip to the top of the Empire State Building. Here is a nice sunset view of lower Manhattan in the background (new World Trade Center Freedom Tower is the tall one) and the Flatiron Building in the foreground.

We were visiting during Columbus Day weekend so the Empire State Building was decked out in the colors of the Italian flag.The next day we set out on our trek to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, taking our time to see the sights along our route.

Here is a better picture of the new Freedom Tower being built. We couldn't get into the 9/11 Memorial because it was booked till November so we had to just peek through the fences.Just down the block from the WTC site, we ran into the Wall Street protesters that have been all over the news. They were just hanging out, probably because it was Saturday and all the Wall Street offices were empty. We finally made it to the Brooklyn Bridge and we took our time crossing it, stopping many times to get pictures. We had a pretty good view of the Statue of Liberty

And of the Empire State Building.After crossing back into Manhattan, we thought we'd hit Times Square and see what was going on there.

This picture is just to make Jessica jealous.

Our final day was spent walking around the Upper West Side through Columbia University and Central Park. I fulfilled one of my "must-dos" and got a pastrami sandwich at a Jewish deli. I ate the whole thing.In Central Park, we wanted to go see the Strawberry Fields memorial, but it just happened to be John Lennon's birthday so there were some Beatles impersonators singing songs and a huge crowd was standing on the "Imagine" mosaic so we didn't get to see it. However we did get to see a pretty realistic John Lennon. This picture is to make Nathan jealous. As you can see, it was a gorgeous weekend in NYC. Me and dad had a blast as usual even though we're both probably a little sore from all the walking we did.

Weekend Getaway

This blog is all about our 4 day weekend getaway to Niceville to visit the Meissners. But first here are a couple pictures of us before church last Sunday (Jess looks too cute so these have to be posted).So, back to our awesome weekend with Megan, Steve, N8 n K8. We spent the weekend with them because Joe and Paw Paw went to New York for the weekend to sightsee and take pictures. I think, given the choice, I would go back to the Meissner's over New York any day! We had a blast, just see for yourself: Here's a video of some spirited dancing.









The funniest thing happened. Jessica discovered that she really liked Uncle Steve, even more than she likes Aunt Megan (if you can believe that!)
Megan says that it's only fair since Nathan is so fond of Uncle Joe. I guess Steve is going to be Jessica's 'Uncle Joe'.

Nathan is still Jessie's favorite though. Who can compete, he thinks of the most fun stuff ever.On Friday we took a trip over to Destin Commons. Nathan promised to take me and Jess and Megan delivered on his promise. I think the ride over was just as much fun for everyone as the playground. We all piled into the Spaceship, of course.Here's a couple videos of Jess picking on Nathan in the spaceship.

Here are some pictures of the kids at the playground in Destin Commons. These pictures are misleading, Jessica spent most of her time trying to escape the playground rather than play.Jessica is picking leaves out of the crack in the sidewalk while Nathan shows her his shoe.Always after Nathan's thermos, just like Uncle Joe.What a cute caveman!Get ready to smile really big... these videos of the kids playing are too cute!

Jessica perfected her walking skills over the weekend. Now she walks more than she crawls. I am so proud.

On Saturday we went to "The Track". Jessica loved the carousel, swings and spinners. It was her first time on these carnival type rides. She gets her thrill seeking from me, I love roller coasters.

Jessica's favorite ride was the spinners.

She liked the spinners so much that she rode them twice. Nathan had to ride with her to make sure she didn't climb out. It's a good thing he likes that ride too.

Here's a video of Jess and Nate on the spinners.

I let Jessica ride the airplanes too (only because Nathan held onto her with everything he had). I was still a nervous wreck and probably wouldn't let her ride again because once the novelty had worn off she would surely try to climb out. Nathan held onto her the whole time and I am sure that was as thrilling to her as the ride itself.

There was also an arcade and Nathan won some tickets, with the help of his mom of course. Here's a picture of Nathan making a very difficult decision, how to spend the tickets, and Jessica trying to help.

On the way home this morning she decided to practice saying Mama, so I got it on video.

We had such a good time. We are counting down the days until we can go back and play some more.