LegoLand

We had several Lego fans in our group so going to Lego land was a must. 

We also didn’t feel like we were quite up to taking on Disneyworld yet so tried to have another ‘easy’ day.  Well Lego land is a lot longer than just a short drive down the highway – more like an hour away, and all of our easy days plus, the fact that all the cousins had so much fun at night they didn’t go to bed until very late (and Jaydon was sure to wake everyone up first thing in the morning) meant all the kiddos were already getting very tired already. 

Legoland actually ended up being one the best places for Jaydon’s age. 

They had a tons of cute little rides with no lines that he could go on over and over again as he pleased (we of course didn’t appreciate this until later in the week). 

They also had an air conditioned kids quite play room which was a perfect place to let Tylor take some time out of the stroller or Bjorn. 

He had a great time trying to figure out the neat contraption Cody made with all the duplo legos that were there to play with. 

At lunch time we headed over for some burgers in the old world part of the park where they had ladies dressed as princesses walking around and interacting with people. 

This one came up to Jaydon and said “It’s so nice to meet you sir knight.”  Jaydon laughed and said “I’m not a knight”.  The princess said “Excuse me, are you a prince then?”  And without skipping a beat Jaydon responded “No, I’m the KING!”  I was flabbergasted at his response and the princess did everything she could to stay in character and not join in with all of us laughing.  She quickly curtsied and said good-bye.  I’m not sure where he comes up with these things some times… 

After lunch we headed off to see the cities made of legos and Jaydon’s favorite the lego dinos. 

After all that lego fun Jaydon finally fell asleep for a short nap and woke up just in time to sit in his carseat for the drive home to get ready for our first big day at DisneyWorld.    

SeaWorld

Jaydon, Tylor and I headed up north to meet up with Steve and his family in Kissimmee, Steve flew back to the US from Doha and a long 3 weeks away from his boys.  I had rented a 7 bedroom house and the plan was for all 3 of Steve’s sisters plus their kids and grandma and grandpa to join us and spend Christmas together (for the first time since Steve left for college).  Headcount was 10 adults, 4 kids, 2 infants all under 1 roof for a week – what could go wrong…  We all made it except for Steve’s sister Renee and her husband (they had an unexpected death in the family) but they still sent along their son Tanner with Steve’s other sister Niki. 
We decided to ‘take it easy’ for the first day and headed off to Sea World. 

One of the first things we watched when we arrived was the dolphin nursery.  This is a play tank where they have adult and young dolphins together so the young ones can learn how to do some of the tricks like jumping out of the water and sliding around on slippery surfaces.  The dolphins were having a great time and we found it difficult to tear ourselves away to see more until we realized that it was time to see Shamu. 

Talk about a flash back to childhood – watching the Shamu show was absolutely wonderful and almost emotional, I remember the first time I saw it and falling totally in love with Killer Whales.  It was great to see again and to watch Jaydon’s reaction to getting splashed by a whale. 

He and his cousin Karlee had a blast. 

Next we headed off to the Polar Express ride where the kids got to see Santa except Jaydon didn’t want anything to do with him, even with his cousins being so excited about seeing him. 

We had to settle for pictures with the Christmas dolphin and Santa Shamu. 

Jaydon got to experience some of his first amusement park rides.

Karlee and Jaydon did a train ride by themselves which Jaydon thought was great

and Tylor just hung out getting passed from relative to relative (until he saw mommy and started fussing). 

Nap time quickly came and went and finally Jaydon and his cousin James succumbed and had a quick nap on the go –

one of many to happen that way during the week. 

Once napped and refreshed Jaydon saw some of his favorite birds the flamingos (or mingos as Jaydon used to say) and we said good bye to Shamu and his friends after a fun day at Sea World. 

Athena

But before Steve could join us back in the US he had to take Athena to the vet for her last days of battling lymphoma cancer.  When she was first diagnosed the vet said typical survival time was 2 months after diagnosis.  Athena managed to fight for over 6 months before finally succumbing; the vet was always impressed with her when we brought her in and she became a bit of a celebrity among the Doha vet community with how well she was doing.  When we first learned about her illness in July, I never thought that we would be leaving for our trip to Florida in November with the possibility of seeing her when we came home.  Unfortunately, she didn’t hold on quite long enough for us to make it make from our trip which was very sad.  As anyone who knew our dog can attest, she was a wonderfully happy lab who loved people and wanted to do anything that would make you pleased.  She was great with kids and even got a few people in this dog-aversion culture to put aside their fears and play fetch with her.  Jaydon is still trying to understand what it means for Athena to be gone.  He’s woken up a few times in the middle of the night asking about her and has asked if someone stepped on her (he associates being dead with stepping on bugs).  Now when someone asks about her he explains that she is bones in the ground (actually she was cremated but we figured that was TMI for an almost 3 year old).  She left us just shy of her 9^th birthday and we miss her terribly.  I still find myself every once in awhile expecting her to walk in or meet me at the door when I get home.  Our cat Mav also misses her and has become a bit more obnoxious with his meowing and is also needing a lot more lap time then he has ever put up with before.  A few of our favorite photos of her…

Our sweet little puppy

Athena doing what she was born to do

Athena taking her turn watching baby Jaydon

and keeping a close eye on baby Tylor

Athena and Jaydon playing rodeo

A bunch of bird dogs taking a nap

Athena and the Connor family

One of Santa's helpers

Athena 2002-2011

Last days in Ft. Myers

Just in case we hadn’t seen quite enough Florida wildlife we visited one more nature preserve and Jaydon got to pet another alligator which he was thrilled about. 

Jaydon helped out in the kitchen to celebrate Ian’s birthday by decorating the cupcakes. 

And Tylor was on presents duty.

However, I think Jaydon ate more of the decorations then he used on the cupcakes. 

They also went out to practice their casting techniques (as best you can with a spiderman fishing pole). 

We were coming to the end of our time with the Forte side of the family so decided to treat ourselves to dinner out at the Crab Shack. 

Jaydon ate crab for the first time and liked it (and was not allergic like his father is which is good to know).  The boys also got in some good quality grandpa time and it was even documented through pictures (my Dad is notorious for ducking out of photos). 

The quite, low key, relaxing part of our vacation was over.  Next adventure was road trip from Ft. Myers to Orlando just me and the two boys (Tylor did great, Jaydon got a little whinny towards the end).  And the best part was Daddy was coming back from Doha to spend Christmas with us.  

Botanical Gardens

The highlight of the trip to the Naples Botanical Gardens was definitly Great Grandpa’s scooter. 

It took Jaydon a little while to warm up to the idea but once he got the hang of it there was no stopping those two. 

It was super cute to see and a good thing that the top speed of those scooters is no more than a brisk walk so that we were able to keep up with them. 

Grandma Squeak showed us her favorite spot in the gardens and Jaydon got to try out a hammock. 

Once he got stable on it he tried to take a nap but decided it was s little too weird to be up in the air swinging like that. 

Aunt Patricia was the Tylor porter and the two of them got along great.  Next it was off to the water gardens. 

We got Jaydon all suited up and he spent about 4 minutes in the water before he decided it was too cold and was not a fan of the random spouts of water that could appear and douse him.  Tylor on the other hand thought the place was great.  Between watching his brother navigate the water and the streams of water shooting up and splatting on the ground Tylor was in pure hysterics. 

He was laughing so hard that he actually attracted people over to where we were just so they could see what in the world was making the baby laugh so hard.  After all that fun we tried to calm him down by a nice walk through the butterfly house. 

Jaydon went to the kids’ garden and helped out with some chores. 

We also got some nice pictures of Grandpa and the boys on a porch swing

and then brought Jaydon to the tree house so he could expend his last bit of energy before loading back up into the car for a quite drive home.