Florida and Geronimo...

Once again, we lucked out by exiting New England just as the coldest weather of the season arrived

 and on Mt. Washington it felt like 60 below

but Florida felt a good 130 degrees warmer

Fulfilling a belated 40th birthday "gift", Dave suited up for a 10,000 foot tandem skydive

He crammed into the back of a rickety small plane

and climbed up to the moon, or at least it felt that high. The plane is that speck to the right.

 5,000 feet of free fall went by in an instant and then he drifted safely back to earth

 Back in Naples Tessie was reunited with her favorite dog in the world, Riley

 She caught a stomach bug and barfed once in the car

and for subsequent trips she needed a security bucket just in case. The snack the girls are snarfing is fried peanuts - eat the shell and all!

She may even have slept with the bucket

 

We went to the usual Gulf beach in Naples

 but also trekked up to Sanibel Island, known for its seashell hunting

 The rules are that no shells with live animals can be taken. This guy was still alive.

and we thought that we had followed the rules when we packed that trash bag full of shells for the trip home. But when we opened up the suitcase it smelled so foul that something must have been rotting. It was truly a horrific odor.  

Tessie sometimes looks like a little girl- what happened!

 Quiet time

 Caroline's 9th birthday request was for Mexican food, not hard to find in Naples

Birthday cake number two

 As usual Nana and Grampa Mike were great hosts and we had a fantastic visit

A perfect butt-slide landing


It won't be long before this last citrus grove in Naples is bulldozed

Winter 2016

To celebrate a Chocolaty New Year, the girls made a this-n-that cake that was surprisingly palatable

Caroline and Erin collaborated on a science fair project this year. The title also describes their respective dispositions during the process.

One of Mom's Heather friends had a baby

The older girls had their first cross-country ski lessons on man-made snow at a local golf course

Tessie stuck to the sledding

Erin's writing projects offer a window into her 1st grader world. Here is her description of riding "The Mammoth" water slide at Holiday World. 


I guess Erin's cupcake outrage is similar to the inequalities of segregation 

We finally had a real snow day with wet snow perfect for building snow men

You'll see how much work it was to roll these boulders in a movie below

Hugs for Max


Erin is still the cat queen

Odd Squad is a multigenerational hit on the screen

and the older girls still dress up oddly at times