We’ve just returned from a wonderful week in Florida with Gretchen’s siblings. Rachel and Kevin generously donated a week at their timeshare in Ft. Lauderdale to celebrate Patty’s 29th birthday. The accomodations were wonderful and a good time was had by all. While we were there, we checked out the Young at Art, The Everglades, the beach near the Ft. Lauderdale fishing pier, Butterfly World and the Museum of Discovery and Science. We also spent some time just hanging out by the pool, playing mini-golf and other activities right at the hotel.
The trip back was an adventure when our connecting flight in Atlanta departed for home without us on it! Delta put us up for the night and we made it home safely Monday morning. See a collection of 60 photos from our adventure.
For those who may not have heard, Erik is spending some time with us while Pammy recovers from a surgery she underwent on the 22nd. She’s recovering nicely and Erik’s doing okay being here with Oskar and Xavier. The Alyn Family spent Christmas in Minnesota this year. We were also fortunate to have a white Christmas again.
Gretchen made the annual gingerbread houses, this year adding stained glass windows. The current thinking for next year is to create one larger house and let everyone collaborate on it. The kids had a great time decorating these houses, and eating candy too. Oskar’s friend Aounghus came up and decorated one as well. Xavier decided after a while that he was done working on his, so Egg took over and did some decorating where he felt the house was untouched. You can see a collection of the photos here that include the finished houses.
Christmas morning, the bigger boys were up at 4am to start in on their stockings. After eating most of a chocolate treat they were sent back to bed. Of course they had a hard time sleeping after that. Xavier finally kicked everything off at around 6:30am and our day began. Everyone had a great time opening presents and Xavier finished around dinner time while the other two were done much earlier. More pictures from Christmas day are online here. This year, Xavier received his own Pikachu plush toy like Oskar’s which Xavier immediately turned around and gave to Oskar. Gretchen and I were awestruck at his unselfish action towards his brother. The remainder of the day was filled with Bakugan, Legos, Radio controlled things and art supplies.
The day after Christmas seemed like a good time to get out of the house and so we headed to the Science Museum of Minnesota. The traveling exhibit of CSI is scheduled to leave on January 4 and so Gretchen smartly got us there. We watched the Mysteries of the Great Lakes IMAX and had lunch too. Egg was pretty excited to see the Seismophone and the CSI exhibit as evidenced by the photos he took. Photos from our day are here. We all solved case #3 successfully and enjoyed exploring the dinosaur, weather, light and myriad of other great exhibits the museum has.
Last night we had another bat visitor; this is our third bat of the year. Ironically, Folwell had one as well yesterday. Our other two bats were quickly caught (sort of) and released. This one proved more difficult and moved into the basement. We expect it has gone back to sleep somewhere in one of the many nooks and crannies that exist down there and we figure he’s probably asleep again until spring.
So being a full on geek, I hit the internet… looking for how to get a bat out, here’s what I found out.
Allow the bat to land, catching it mid air may hurt the bat.
Toss a towel (never any sort of netting) over the bat and scoop it up carefully. Some folks recommend a wet (not dripping) towel.
If it’s on a wall, place a coffee can or other hard container over the bat and slide cardboard or the lid under the can gently coaxing the bat into the can.
Wear gloves, if possible, when handling the bat. Bats can cary disease.
Trap them in a room and open any exterior windows or doors in that room, they’ll likely leave on their own.
Anyone wanting to know more about bats can find lots of good information here, here and here.
Snowed here last night adding another inch to the couple we had already. Definitely looks like winter here. The boys are ready for breakfast and we’ll be spending a good portion of today getting ready for Erik to come next weekend.
Oskar started back at Folwell this week and is enjoying being with other 2nd graders. He’s in Mrs. Jagusch’s class without most of his 1st grade buddies but he sees them at lunch and recess. Xavier has had a very long week as Gretchen has been a sub twice at rainbow school giving Xavier two extra school sessions. He’s really been enjoying the extra classroom time and has been sleeping well as a result.
I finally got around to getting the Chicagoland house website up. It’s also in the MLS listing database, but we’re hoping this additional coverage will help. We also lowered the price, effective tomorrow.
What started as a time killer before getting a hair cut this evening ended in one of those rights of passages that sets Oskar forward in a new realm of independence. He’ll tell you himself he’s not too good at starting yet and he’s going to figure out sharp turns tomorrow. He expects it won’t take too long since he figured it all out in about an hour this afternoon.
Fall is officially upon us here in MN. The overnight temps are not yet below freezing, but they are in the 30’s. Oskar and Xavier are doing well. We made a trip to the Rochester firehouse #1 with Rainbow school a few days ago. We got to hear a real call come in and see the firefighters jump into action. Xavier has decided he does not want to me potty trained and would like to continue wearing pampers.
Egg is heading to Virginia next week to assist NWF with a server migration, helping NWF phase out the equipment he originally deployed over 5 years ago now.
Since the trip is a working vacation for me, I wasn’t able to head to the Zoo with the family today but I think they had a good time. Here’s a couple of photos to tide you over until I upload a bunch to Flickr.
Last night we had another bat visitor; this is our third bat of the year. Ironically, 
I finally got around to getting the Chicagoland 
