We flew to Miami over Christmas to celebrate my mother's birthday. Besides celebrating, it was also nice to get a break from our boring stay-at-home COVID schedules in Maryland. The kids are now at more than 10 months without physically going to school.
Snoopy is ever the patient traveler. At the airport he rides around in Derek's stroller. Derek doesn't actually use a stroller anymore, but airlines let children 6 and under gate-check strollers, so as far as the airline is concerned the stroller is Derek's. I still look like a fool pushing a dog around in a child stroller, though with everyone wearing masks, it is harder to see people laughing at me. Snoopy also is good at getting hair and slobber all over my pants:
With the new Emotional Support Animal rules going into effect March 1st on Southwest Airlines, Snoopy will only have one more set of flights to look forward to, when we go to Florida next month. He will be grateful that we will plan on avoiding airplanes as a family for a while after that.
Once we landed in Miami, Lydia was the bravest one of all, as she jumped into my parents' pool! The pool was around 73 degrees and chilly. In the summer, their pool is close to 90 degrees.
Derek is often snuggly and Karina is a good big sister:
My mother made her own birthday cake: a Norwegian bløtkake. In the picture, you can also see a mango smoothie made from delicious mangoes from their backyard tree. My parents still have lots of bags of frozen mango in their freezer. We were spoiled with the yummy smoothies every day. The smoothies only have mango and sometimes water or ice to get the right consistency. The mangoes are sweeter than anything you can buy in a store.
The kids had one day of virtual school while we were in Miami. We brought their school-issued Chromebooks with us. Snoopy apparently participates in virtual school too.
Lydia and Derek (not pictured) spent some time searching for lizards. They are harder to find in the winter than in the summer, when they are everywhere.
Mormor's birthday present from Snoopy was the honor of being allowed to pet him. I also put Snoopy on her bed the morning of her birthday and I think they both liked that too:-)
We went to the beach at Bill Baggs State Park one day and enjoyed the beautiful weather.
Everyone took a dip in the water except me and Derek. They are braver than us I suppose.
Lydia and Derek were buried in the sand.
Bill Baggs always has lots of iguanas in the parking lot as well as raccoons. The raccoons were aggressive and stole food from some neighboring beachgoers right out of their beach bag even though the people were sitting two feet away. All of the trash cans at the beach are raccoon-proof with incredibly heavy lids. The seagulls were surprisingly aggressive too. One stole a cracker right out of my mother's hand when she looked to the side. Others circled us from above waiting for a chance to steal food from us. Here they are intentionally circling my mother who has a cracker in her hand:
Christmas brought lots of excitement. The kids got to open one present each on Christmas Eve.
It was the kids' first Christmas away from Maryland. We brought a few suitcases of wrapped presents to Miami, and I think it was worth having them so excited.
Derek liked his walking spider and iguana:
Snoopy gave Lydia beagle earrings:
Snoopy got treats for Christmas and the kids helped him unwrap his present.
Snoopy gave Karina the complete set of Peanuts comics that feature the fictional Snoopy in them - 50 years worth of Snoopy comics!
Snoopy was very generous this year. He also gave Lydia and I matching T-shirts (and gave Nate and Derek some Snoopy clothes). I think Lydia and I look cute together in our shirts.
Grateful little boy:
Grogu (Baby Yoda) from The Mandalorian was Lydia's favorite present.
Lydia took up painting one day with an easel Mormor has and paint. She decided to paint Grogu.
Mormor joined in on the fun too and painted a picture.
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