Growing Everyday

Today, was Beka’s Halloween party at school. Oh excuse me “Fall Party”, whatever, they all dressed up and got candy. Jared was
Lastly, here is a class picture.

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Fall has arrived here. Actually, I think winter has arrived. The kids have worn their heavy coats the last couple of days. Anyway, before that, we were enjoying some lovely fall weather. The leaves have changed color and started falling to the ground. Which meant we had to rake the yard. Luckily, the kids in the neighborhood plus our own wanted to help.

But youu can’t rake leaves without jumping in them.

I took Beka and Jared to pick out pumpkins the other day. Instead of carving them, we decided to paint them. Beka started out making a face and then just decided to decorate. Jared used the “polluck” method. He took two paintbrushes and just whipped the paint on there.
And I don’t know where they got this idea. But suddenly, Beka started doing headstands on the couch and Jared followed.

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During the last few days of our vacation, we went to Orlando. We took the children to Sea World. It was the perfect place to take my two. We visited all the animals in about 4 hours. One of our first stops was the stingrays and the kids tried to feed them.

The stingrays are kept in the big pool you see above and they just keep swimming around and around.

Then we saw the dolphins. I think those animals were Beka’s favorites.

We also saw manatees….
…and sharks.
We made it to two of the shows. We went to the Shamu show and in my opinion it was overrated. There is only so much a killer whale can do. The other show was one with dolphins in it. It was awesome! There were divers, dolphins, and birds. The kids really enjoyed see in all the performers do their tricks.

We spent the next day in the pool at the hotel. The children did fine on the flight back too. When you ask Jared about vacation, his first response: “We flew on a big AIRPLANE!” So I am assuming that was his favorite part. Overall, it was a great time. Jared and Daddy really bonded more while we were there.

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While in central Florida, we stayed at the Quality Inn in Sebring. It had a very nice pool that the kids both enjoyed. Both learned to swim quite well on their own with floaties.
We visited Lake Placid which is known for its building murals. This cowboy mural is on the side of the Winn Dixie and even has speakers for added sound effects.
Most of the time, Granny cooked for us during our time in Central Florida. One night we went out to eat at RJ Gators. I made a joke about us getting the alligator tail from the appetizer menu. Beka got all upset when I didn’t order any because she had assumed I was being serious. To save face, we ended up ordering some fried alligator tail for everyone. Quite delicious actually, and yes…it tastes like chicken.

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We visited my grandparents home in Lake Placid, FL on lake Persimmon. It’s a quiet area with a double-wide trailer between Lake Placid and Sebring Florida. The lake is pretty nasty from all the runoff from surrounding orange groves, but it’s gotten considerably better in the last few years since they installed an aerator in the lake. I actually saw minnows in it this year.

One of the highlights for the kids was riding in the rowboat. At first, uncle Tim, Luke, and Daddy gave it a shot, but didn’t have much luck. Rowing in a straight line is definitely a skill acquired over a lifetime. We only had one around the neck lifejacket, so Jared used that and we tied a seat cushon floatation device to Beka’s back.

After that, Grandpa showed us how a professional handled a rowboat. We visited the decoy ducks in the middle of the lake and also the lilly pads on the far side near the canal. On the following day, we visited the cattails and saw birds and a real duck.

Granny and Pop-pop watched from the dock.

Later, Pop-pop hitched up his wagon to his customized lawnmower and gave the kids a ride around the yard. During our ride, he kept fiddling with multiple switches on it that he’d added as customizations to it. He’s the original tinkerer in the family.

A lady on a horse came by and stopped and let the kids sit on her horse when she saw them waving.

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Our second day in central Florida included a visit to Highlands Hammock state park. This is a cypress swamp with hiking trails and catwalks where you can see some native flora and fauna.

This type of nature is what I imagine that Ponce De Leon had to deal with while searching for the fountain of youth.

Quite a bit different from the retirement communities it’s been turned into. Where else does your local CVS have designated parking spaces for golf carts?

We got to the park and we posed for pictures.

Everyone was fascinated with looking over/between the catwalk rails at the water below. We saw a water snake and a baby alligator sitting on a log.

My cousin David met us there with his son Nicolas (Nico). Like my brother Tim, Nico couldn’t take a picture without making some kind of weird face.

Grandpa pushed Jared in the stroller when he was tired of walking.

Before we left, I had to take an artsy photo of our reflection off the swamp.

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The Westberg family just returned from our vacation in Central Florida. The next few posts will try to summarize the highlights.

We flew out on a non-stop flight from Peoria to Orlando Sanford Airport. Waiting to get on the plane was a little boring for some.

Once on the plane though, everybody got excited. Beka couldn’t stop giggling while the plane accelerated during take-off. She must be an adrenaline junky like her father.

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We have been so busy around here. The kids are growing up so much so fast.

Jared is talking almost as much as Beka now. He is still not doing any better about her going to preschool. The whole while she is gone I hear him whine: “I go preschool.” “I big boy.” I really do wish there was someway to send him too.

Beka is, of course, loving preschool. Surprisingly, she is the most popular girl in class. Everyone wants to play with her. She gets drawings and hugs from the other children before we leave. She is always very gracious about it though. She worried me a little when she came home and told me: “Mason likes my hair in a ponytail so I need to wear it that way.” Fortunately, by the next preschool day she had forgotten that. Mason is the only boy in her class.

Andrew and I have been busy too. We are looking at houses. I know it is a surprise. I really never expected to move from where we live now. We have decided though to try to get in a neighborhood that has better schools for the kids. The school district here is changing all the schools into community K-8 schools. This change means that our children would go to a school with very low, below the state average, ISAT scores. I just don’t like that idea. We looked into private schools, but they’re just way too expensive in Peoria. So, that change has added some stress and taken away some of our time. Hopefully, house hunting will go smoothly.

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