Some Zoe stuff (& Pierce too)

I'm going to interrupt my trip blogging with something quick because I don't want to forget it.  When Mattie was a little girl, the first word she learned to write (other than her name) was C-A-T.  She was very young indeed.  Pierce, unfortunately, I don't remember, though I may have written it down on the old website somewhere.  Zoe's first word that she can spell was, fittingly, H-I-T. :)  And her second word is C-O-S-T-C-O.  Both very appropriate.



Zoe loves bandaids.  She wants a bandaid whenever she gets the least bit hurt.  I usually require blood for a bandaid, but at a really nice restaurant (while on vacation) I needed to keep her busy while we waited.  So I gave her a FREE bandaid, with no scrape at all!  She called it an "un-blood bandaid" and was very happy about it for the rest of the day.


Zoe is always coming up with a new name she wants to be called.  Last winter she was called "A Different Princess, Rose" whenever she wore a certain dress-up leotard.  This year she is called "Galonze" with one leotard (I probably have a picture of it somewhere), "Julee" (accent on the last syllable), and lately "Layne".  She says her fancy name is Layne, and she spells it T-I-H-T (she's vague about the order, but the letters include H-I-T).


Zoe thinks she is very nearly all grown up.  She has lots of ideas for what she will do when she is a grown-up.  One thing that she will do call me Pam, her dad Matt, and her grandparents by their first names also.  One day walking home from school she told me that Perry took them to McDonald's... I told her that she needed to wait until she really IS all grown up to call her grandpa Perry.


Pierce wanted a marshmallow too.  It seems like forever since he's had front teeth!  He is so kind and helpful lately, it's wonderful.  He told me today that his teacher told his class that they needed to be writing for 30 minutes a day, every day, to be sure they're ready for 2nd grade.  He said it with a bit of concern, and I realized that he was a little worried that he wouldn't make it to 2nd grade.  Since he's reading at a late 4th grade level (or higher, it's been a few months since that assessment) I don't think he needs to worry.  He and his friend Parker are writing a book of oceanography facts.  He says they're up to 62 pages so far.  I hope he grows up to be a marine biologist!  I will go with him in the little exploratory submarines.


Pierce and Zoe are such good buddies lately.  Pierce is always on the lookout for ways that he can help Zoe, and Zoe likes to make him happy too.  (Although she told him that when he is kind to her, it makes her be kind to him.  But when he is unkind to her, it makes her UNKIND to him.  I reminded her that we need to make a good choice for ourselves no matter what anyone else does.)  I used to want a big brother, and I would have wanted one just like Pierce.

Magic Kingdom & Animal Kingdom!

And now I'm happy to start posting pictures from our second fabulous vacation to Florida! I can't believe we had two dream vacations within 2 months, but it was amazing and we loved both trips.  They were both pretty different, for various reasons.  This, the second trip, had more Disney days.  We were worried that spring break crowds would be difficult, so we did some park days at the beginning of our trip (because we thought the true spring break crowds would be more the 2nd week, and we were right).  The kids & I flew out 2 days before Matt did (they were super-good on the flight, thanks guys!) and we got a day at Magic Kingdom before he arrived.

We got some fun rides in before it got too crowded.  The teacups!  Fun!




I don't like to wait in long lines to meet characters!  Fortunately for me, the kids aren't crazy about waiting in long lines to meet characters either.  The white rabbit didn't have a line, and I think he was actually the only character the kids met up close this time.






Zoe and I didn't go on the Haunted Mansion ride, but we did ride the paddleboat twice!  Once just ourselves, and the second time with Grandpa (who just barely missed the first ride).  Fun!




We were all really excited about Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.  It's one of our favorites.  Zoe put on her "ride shoes" (the double-thick flipflops that take her height all the way to 40" so she is tall enough for some really fun rides) and she even enjoyed it this time.  Pierce and Spencer weren't scared at all.  (I don't think Spencer was ever scared on a ride.  But Pierce didn't like all of them - he likes this one though!)




We rode the rafts over to Tom Sawyer's Island and had a fun time exploring.  This is a fun fort we got to climb around.  The kids especially liked the escape tunnel. :)







We did some more fun rides, then got caught in a torrential downpour!  We were so lucky that we all had ponchos (from going on Splash Mountain, which everyone really liked - including Zoe).  We still got sort of soaked, but had a great night.  We caught the fireworks, which were lovely, and Teresa has some nice pictures that I should bring over.


The next day we spent some time in Hollywood Studios, somehow I didn't take any pictures there (?), and Matt arrived that evening.  The next day we went to Animal Kingdom (my favorite park). We got a fun picture of all of us in front of the Tree of Life.


We got to go on some of the other zoo walks.  They do such a good job.




This is in the safari ride - one of our favorites.




It got crowded in Asia, so we got a fastpass to Mt. Everest, and headed to Dinoland USA.  The kids ran around for awhile, and then played in the sandbox.












After some Dinoland fun, we watched the parade.  I have bits of videos of it - this one is fun because it shows the kids at the end (sort of).


Here's Mt. Everest, our favorite ride.  Pierce rode it again and liked it this time!  I think the yeti video is less scary after multiple ridings.  SUCH a fun roller coaster!


We rode on the roller coaster as many times as we could manage, with some pretty thick crowds.  One time we went single-rider and I took this video.  It's the whole ride so a chunk of the video is just darkness. :)


We did lots more things, and had a lovely day and evening in Animal Kingdom.  Fun!

Now it's soccer time

Basketball went by in a flash, and now it's soccer time again.  We play twice a year, in the fall and in the spring.  Mattie says she will be done after this season, which may have something to do with her best friend Hannah also saying she is done after this season.  Maybe.  But Pierce is planning to play his whole entire life, play in the world cup, and be a professional soccer player (among many other careers - he is going to be busy!).

Yesterday was Pierce's first game of the spring (it was meant to be Mattie's first game too, but the opposing team didn't show up, so they scrimmaged, then played girls vs. dads, then went home).  It was against another team that we always have to play, and they always beat us by like 100 points.  And they do non-stop fouls, pushes, pull jerseys, etc.  They're awful.  I think I'm going to ask the coach if we can request to not play them any more - he actually got so mad he threw a water bottle across the field this time, and he has never lost his temper in the past, so I'm guessing he may ask himself.  Anyway the good part of this story is that during this horrible massacre, Pierce was so amazing!  He had a happy smile on his face, he played super-hard, scored 2 of the 3 points that our team made and almost scored the other, and had a great time.  One time he had the ball & was racing across the field to the goal, and 2 of the other team's kids were pushing and pulling him back, and he still made it all the way and scored.  At the end he said "That was a GREAT game!  I'm so glad I didn't miss this one!"  He loved it!  He tried his best, luckily didn't seem to notice how many times they got scored on, and just stayed positive.  What a great little boy.  And as a proud mom, I can say that he is REALLY good at soccer.  He knows just where to be, he isn't intimidated by anyone, evidently doesn't mind rough players, and he's fast!  He's so fun to watch.  He's played soccer almost every recess of his first grade career, and half the time it's against third graders - I'm thinking that's where he really lost his fear of playing rough or playing against bigger players.  (And right now all the players are bigger than Pierce... he's pretty small right now... but fast!)

Pierce's basketball team

This winter Pierce tried a new sport - basketball! We were really lucky - one of his good friends' mom and dad coached a team, and Pierce and pretty much all his best friends were on it.  They had really bad luck with practices - they kept getting cancelled for various reasons, and they had some tough games, but they had a lot of fun.  The last game day was a double-header, and the Sharks won both games!  (I think there were 3 teams named the Sharks in their division, pretty funny.)

Pierce really enjoyed it and he improved so much.  It was fun to watch (well, some of the games were more fun to watch than others...) and I think it was really good for learning teamwork as well.  Which should be great because now soccer has started. :)  A couple of the boys from his soccer team played with the Sharks.

I did some team pictures for them.  So cute.




Now the action pictures!  Pierce played hard - at first he had a hard time making sure he was shooting close enough to the basket to actually touch the rim :) - but he improved so much.  He scored a couple of times and was making some great shots all along.  He was fast and not at all intimidated by some really big opposing players.  And he was great at defense too!  We hope his coaches decide to do it again next year.