Joshua's First Ride

Joshua started riding today. He loved it. He did very well, very calm and relaxed. He listened carefully to Ellen and held the reins just so the whole time. I think they both had a lot of fun. Joshua now wants to ride every day, and I had a tussle with him about whether or not he could wear his riding pants to bed. He asked everyone he met if they could guess why he was wearing riding clothes, they said no, and he would yell, I went riding today! He also picked the horse's hooves, curried her coat, and got the dustpan for cleaning up the mess on the floor. He was great!

last day of vacation

We get on the plane around 12:30 Sunday, 24th. Today. I am so sad to leave here. It has been so wonderful, peaceful. Joshua ad Sam discovered Speed Racer on the television and watched about 8 episodes of that and some Shawn the Sheep as well. Shawn makes me laugh pretty hard, so it is hard to mind. We are pretty sunburnt today, or at least Matt and I are red. Samantha managed to escape everywhere but her arm. Joshua has a rash from the suntan lotion, so he wore a hat. He is in the best shape by far. We loved just bobbing in the warm ocean as the waves came in. Joshua got pretty good at hanging onto his board in the waves. He was funny. He didn't want to go to the beach today, but once we get there, Matt can always get him in the water, and then we can't get his out, he so loves the ocean now. I even like it. I realize now that I just don't like cold water beaches. THese kind of beaches are the right kind of beaches!

Joshua would not get dressed today, so I figured he would get dressed at some point and I left him to it. Samantha went in and with no screaming at all, had Joshua dressed in five minutes. She was awesome! We had so much fun together here. Some magical place, this house in Boca Grande.

vacation April 2011

We are staying at Sally's family house in Boca Grande. It is this wonderful beach home with 5 bedrooms, 8 beds, and two bathrooms. Call me a hedonist, but my favorite part is showering outdoors with Sam and Joshua and having Joshua wash my hair and Sam scrub my back. Sam, being the young lady she is, refuses to shower naked. She has no problem mooning people from the ocean. Sam and I float a bit further out, about hip deep, and make up moves for the deeper waves. My favorite was Sam doing Parrot, Pirate doom! and Princess twirl. It is heaven here, and the best part is playing and laughing with Sam. She did magic tricks during lunch, really, really bad magic tricks. She would do them anyway with a big tada flourish at the end and then giggle with me and Josh. Fun! We flew a kite today. Joshua ran up and down and yelled "I'm flying a kite, look, a kite!" at these two men running up the beach. They were charmed and thought it looked like fun.

We are also watching Speed Racer. Joshua is entranced. Vacation is fun.