It doesn’t happen that often that we can actually have one of the girls’ parties on their exact birthday, but that happened this year with Izzy. We figured since her birthday fell on this Sunday, we would have it on that day. It was a little tricky since her last day of pre-school was last week, so we needed to make sure and get all the invitations out to her class mates before the end of the year.
We decided to just have a part at the house and invite some of the neighbors and Izzy’s classmates from pre-school. We didn’t have much of a turn out, only about a quarter of the kids that were in her class were able to make it, but Izzy didn’t seem to care. They had fun playing various games like Pin the Tail on the Donkey. We ordered some pizza and then had some cake. Izzy was all smiles, which she usually is. She is very excited about turning five and going to her sisters’ school next year. She can hardly wait.
While I’ve been busy trying to finish out Madden NFL 11, Jennifer has been busy at painting the house. She has started with the entry room and is now moving on to the kitchen. We decided to move the dining room into the larger area closer to the patio. It gives us more room in the dining room, for when we use it. Eventually we will hire a electrician to put in a chandelier there and we need to now figure out what we are going to do with the space that was voided by the dining room furniture.
It’s amazing how much a little bit of paint will help a house feel more “homey”. The house we bought last year had just the basics when it came to paint and fixtures. We had to put in all new mini-blinds and ceiling fans when we moved in. All the walls were painting a plain old builder’s-grade white. Now the house looks like someone actually lives in it now. Slowly we are transforming the house into our home. We are really loving our new house here in Oviedo.
This all leads to this past Thursday. It was a dream come true when the video game I’m working on, Madden NFL 11, was featured in a Top Ten list. Drew Brees was announced that day as our cover athlete to coincide with the start of the NFL Draft. So, he was in New York and our marketing department was able to get him on the show. I think it was a great coup to not only get him on the show, but have a Top Ten List which basically advertised our up-coming game. It was great to see Letterman holding up a box of the game before the Top Ten was read. Perhaps one of these days I’ll get there to see his show live.
The week started off with a fender bender that Jennifer got into. Well, it was a fender bender for the other SUV. For ours, it was more of a smash the radiator and push in the hood. We contacted our insurance and the truck is being worked on. The wreck did around $5000 worth of damage and we should have it back in a few weeks. In the meantime, we are renting car.
On Saturday, EA paid for the whole company to go to Universal Studio. We could pick either park and then they were going to have a “picnic” lunch in the Universal CityWalk. We chose to go to the Islands of Adventure this time since we had never been there. Last time EA did this we chose the Universal Studios park because we thought the kids were too young for Islands. It turns out there was plenty of things for them to ride.
We started off in the Dr. Seuss area of the park, which had a few very tame rides, which the girls liked. We then headed over and saw the area where the new Harry Potter section of the park will be opening up in a couple of months. We split up so that Jennifer and I could take turns riding the Dueling Dragons roller coaster. It’s a couple of coasters which are intertwined where your feet are dangling free. It was pretty intense, several corkscrew 720 spins and a couple of full 360 loops. Both Jennifer and I were dizzy when we got off and it took us like 15 – 30 minutes to recover, but it was still fun.
When we got over into the Jurassic Park area, we decided to take the whole family on the River Adventure ride. The first part was pretty tame, just floating around looking at giant animatronic dinosaurs. Once you go into a building and start climbing way up into the air, it gets more intense. The last part of the ride has a giant T-Rex and you are heading right for it and then you drop. Needless to say Emily and Izzy weren’t too thrilled. Perhaps we should have warned them, but then we wouldn’t have gotten such a good picture as we were falling.
Overall, it was a great day at the park and we are thankful to once again be working for a company who will occasionally spring for such things.
We’re now back home after our week-long trip to Texas for my sister Jill’s wedding. While it’s great visiting with friends and family, it’s always nice to return home and to be sleeping in one’s own bed again.
While we were in Houston, we visited the Houston Museum of Natural Science and the Butterfly Center. We walked around looking at the various exhibits, but the best part was the Butterfly Center. It was amazing how many butterflies were flying around. One of the workers said there’s approximately 2,000 of them. Emily tried several times to try and get one of them to land on her arm. Even picking a tiny flower at one point, trying to pose as one of the plants that the butterflies were hovering around, but she had no luck.
The flight back was pretty uneventful. The plan was for the Jennifer and the girls to wait and get the luggage while I headed out to the long-term parking and pick up the Sequoia. I reached the truck and realized that Jennifer still had the keys. I had to trek all the way back to the terminal and meet up with Jennifer. By the time I got back our luggage had arrived so we all hauled our bags out to the Sequoia. To top it all off, we couldn’t pick up Austin from the kennel because they had already closed.
We all had fun in Texas, now it’s back to work and school here in Florida.
This weekend we flew out of Orlando to Houston in order attend my sister’s wedding in Shreveport. We decided to fly to Houston and then drive to Shreveport in a rental car because it ended up being cheaper than flying to Shreveport. There were no direct flights to Shreveport and that extra hop would have cost us another $500. So, we collected some of the points on our credit card and then used them to rent a mini-van for the drive.
The flight went smoothly and the drive over to Shreveport was pretty easy. We realized it had been several years since we had actually made that drive and the girls did great. I guess that’s the advantage of them being a little bit older now. Less drama around hour 3 in the car, which is what usually happened in the past.
Friday was the rehearsal. I met my fellow groomsmen, friends of Chris’s, for the first time. Abby, Emily, and Isabelle were also going to be in the wedding and they got instruction on what they were supposed to do. Afterwards, we headed over to Ralph & Kacoo’s for the rehearsal dinner. I tried some alligator, which tasted great (also like chicken of course). We had a great time visiting with Nana and Poppy, who sat at our table. The girls kept them in stitches when they told Poppy about their “get the plunger” saying that they made up.
The next day went pretty fast. We all got dressed up and headed over to the American Rose Center for the wedding. A lot of people had showed up and soon the wedding was underway. I escorted MaMaw and my mom down the isle and then ran back to be part of the wedding party, escorting my cousin, Brooks-Ann Camper, down the isle. Next Abby and Emily came down the isle throwing purple flowers and next Isabelle came down the isle caring the ring pillow. Finally, Dad came down escorting Jill. She looked wonderful in her wedding dress and the jacket that Brooks-Ann had made for her. The vows went fast and before you knew it, we had a new member of the French family, Chris Anderson. He instantly became an uncle to our three daughters, which I reminded him of when we all had dinner together on Sunday evening.
On Sunday morning, the Easter Bunny came and visited Nana & Poppy’s house. He was pretty sly hiding eggs in the room right next to where the girls were sleeping. But, they got up early and searched for the eggs that were hidden throughout the house. Nana and Poppy also gave them some kites, which we went down to LSUS to fly later that morning.
Saturday was an Easter Egg Hunt up at church. This was the first time we participated at the one at Oviedo First United Methodist. We had traditionally gone down to Winter Park’s Easter Egg Hunt. The “hunt” was divided up into age groups and Izzy was the first one out of the gate. She ran around, but there wasn’t too many eggs for the pre-schoolers. She only found nine.
Next the First Graders and the Third Graders were going at the same time so Jennifer and I had to split up. Emily’s group ran around a playground and she found plenty of eggs over near the wooden play set.
Abby’s group was the most complex. Their eggs were buried and were well hidden. Abby was rewarded by digging into a bag of sand and came up with a golden egg. The egg contained a message saying that she had received a free trip to Vacation Bible School this summer.
This past week I spent a couple of days going to see some Spring Training Baseball. The first day was this last Sunday where my friend, Tom Carbone, and I visited the Astros’ home field down in Kissimmee to watch the Astros play against the Mets. Tom was well prepared for the rain, but I guess I didn’t get the memo. The game was supposed to start at 1:00, but it was still raining a little bit and it wasn’t looking good when the tarp was still on the field. There was still going to be at least 30 minutes of warm-ups once the players got onto the field. They finally got the tarp off the field and the game started around 2:00. They got one inning in and the sky opened up. The players left the field and we waited for at least ten minutes in the rain waiting for them to announce something. Finally, they called it. The game was canceled. Fortunately Ticketmaster did refund the price of our tickets.
Tuesday was going to be the big double header. Tom and I were going to drive down to Bradenton, just south of Tampa to see the Astros take on the Pirates. Unfortunately, Tom had to pull out because of an important meeting he had to attend for his company, 360Ed. He was a critical part of the meeting and I understood when he decided he couldn’t attend. So, I stood the course and attended the first game on my own. The first thing I noticed upon arrival was that I was in quite the minority at the tender young age of thirty-eight. Apparently weekday baseball is a social event for the retired people of Florida. I was surrounded by old people who were more interested in talking about if their friends were at the game than watch it. It was a good game. The Astros took the early lead and kept pounding it to the Pirates scoring almost 2 runs per inning. They ended up winning 11-1.
The game ended around 3:45 and I had to rush to Lakeland, the home of the Detroit Tigers. It was an hour and a half drive and the next game started at 6:30. I met up with Tom and we headed over to the game to see the Tigers take on the Washington Nationals. Once again, the stadium was very nice for a Spring Training facility. I then came to the realization that the Astros’ field in Kissimmee is just not up to par with the others. This stadium was huge. It probably sat six time that of the one in Kissimmee. I discovered one of the great traditional disserts at Tigers’ games: their Strawberry Shortcake Ice Cream. It was a great day of baseball, food, and fun. I vowed to start making this trip something I do every year. Can’t wait until next year.
It’s exactly three years ago this week that we bought our camper with the money we got back from taxes and now we’ve sold it. We had many great adventures in our camper, but with this last trip in January, we decided we wanted to have new adventures without it. Been there. Done that. Let’s vacation in style. So, we’ve taken the money that we received from the sale and purchased into the Disney Vacation Club. We’ll be staying at various resorts within the Disney Resort system. Going camping was becoming too much work. We just wanted to be on vacation and not feel like we were working. Goodbye Camper, it was nice knowing you.
This week was an important week for Abby. It was the first time she had standardized testing. This week was the all important FCAT: the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. She must pass this test in order to move on to the third grade. The test was 1 – 2 hours for the past three days. One day of math and two days of reading. We are really worried that her reading isn’t where it’s supposed to be. I spend almost every night reading with her The Magic Tree House series of books. She has greatly improved, but we’re afraid that her reading comprehension just isn’t where it needs to be. We’ll see I’m sure we will get word in the next few weeks. Wish her luck.
Frenchville 