Sunday, December 27, 2009

merry christmas to us

it was a good christmas thanks to secret santa. we love you. devyn had fun for the first time putting the ornaments up on the advent calendar my mom made me 15 years ago. she would ask about it every day.

she helped us set up and decorate the tree, but she liked it so much the pictures i/ve got are pretty much of the back of her head because she didn/t want to stop decorating and turn around long enough for me to take a picture.



and we made cookies and left them out for santa and his reindeer, along with a note that asked santa to tell frosty the snowman that devyn is his number one fan. (santa assured us in the note that back that he would let frosty know.)



(please ignore how dirty my bedroom is.)
devyn's favorite present is probably her $20 medical kit that one of my siblings or i owned when we were her age. it's a stethoscope, blood pressure cuff, ear-looker-inner-thingy, thermometer, and shot (all fake and pink plastic, of course) and a little case with an x-ray to carry them all around in. she calls them her "doctor". my aunt marilyn gave her a zhu zhu pet (mr. squiggles) that devyn calls her "kitty cat". she got a couple stuffed kai lans and an olivia and some little plastic yo gabba gabba gang guys. she got a unicorn head on a stick from granny and poppop that she rides around and says "giddy-up" and a blue moxie girl guitar that plays the drums (?) when you strum it and has a whammy bar and the struts play notes. she dances around when she plays it. she got some "piggy jammas" from nana and pops that she LOVES. i don't even know what else she got. some books and some puzzles. anyway. it was a good christmas for her.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

at the zoo










we went to the zoo. it was fun. all week when we asked devyn what she wanted to see, she told me elephants, tigers, lions, and giraffes. when we actually got to the zoo there weren't any lions. and she really couldn't have cared less about the elephants, tigers, and giraffes. or the bears, rhinos, manatees, or wolves for that matter. all those animals far off in the distance that weren't doing anything but eating or lazing. she didn't particularly care for any of them. but the smaller animals, the ones behind glass instead of bars, she liked them. the penguins, the spiders and snakes and frogs and lizards, the fish. and she also liked the monkeys, who were up and playing. but her favorite (which is also her mommy's favorite and has been for years and years) were the otters. they always look like they're having so much fun, and they were no different on this visit. they swam and played and came right up to the glass and she followed them around and pointed and stood right against the glass and laughed at them when they pushed off and swam away upside-down. we were thinking about getting a pass to the zoo, but we decided she didn't like it that much. but we're thinking she might like one to the florida aquarium, since those are the animals she liked.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

drama on the homefront

there/s a monkey that escaped about 2 weeks ago (or maybe a year and half ago, depending on who you asked). it/s been on the run since. it spent about two hours in my apartment complex this afternoon. i got some pics, but they/re with my cell so sorry about the quality. i also did not get any pics of the monkey because although they shot it with a dart (and missed two other times AFTER they had hit it once) it was still fast as lightning and my poor cell phone camera could not keep up with it.
i am not a monkey expert (and apparently no one else that lives in my complex is either, because the kind of monkey it is varied by who you asked) so although i saw it several times, i have no idea what it was other than a monkey. it was bigger than devyn, probably closer to kyle's size, for those of you that know him. it was about the same shade of gray as a squirrel is. it was really cute.
it got darted and fell off the third floor landing but then popped up and took off, actually running through the entry that our front door is in. eventually it got into the nature preserve to the north of our complex and the hunt was called off.
and in case any of you want to know -- the cops will threaten at least 14 times to put everyone in jail if they don/t go back to their own homes
before they change the threat to getting shot with an extremely poorly aimed tranq dart. no one went to jail (although a guy with a beer got kicked out of the pool) and no one got shot.this is animal control with a gun on the roof of the building beside ours
there were 2 firetrucks and about 6 cop cars that showed up
they put the ladder fdrom the firetruck up to the roof of the building

if you look close you can see a cop and one of the animal control guys. this is right before they shot the monkey and it fell
police helicopter -- didn/t really help them keep track of the poor thing. at one point they got on the bullhorns on the cop cars and were asking if anyone had seen it.
bay news 9 showed up and interviewed people. i/ll have to get online to see it though because since we have verizon fios cable, we don/t get bay news 9