After all kinds of issues leading to just two blog updates so far this year, we are back. The most recent issue was a laptop crash that led to a series of delays that just kept us down and out for awhile. So, rather than to try and compress all of those months into a single update, we're going to just talk about the past month or so, get a video up here within the week, and then move forward from there. So, without further adieu, here we go:
Once again, we took the boys back to St. Augustine for the 4th of July this year. This year was a little trickier because we were dodging torrential downpours in the area that shut down several fireworks shows all over the northeast Florida area. We basically just made sure that we ate dinner at the Castillo early so that once the rains moved in, we could lock everything up water tight and ride it out. We had a stroller for the boys so they would be covered and as the heavy clouds rolled in, we prepared for the weather to begin. As the skies grew darker, we began to hear rumors that the show would start 15-20 minutes early to try and squeeze it in before the heavy rains began. About 30 minutes later, still heavier and heavier clouds, but still not a drop of rain. The show began and once again, it was fantastic. St. Augustine fireworks for the 4th have never disappointed. Especially with front row seats.
Another big event for the boys was the destruction of the lawn in the backyard. Our lawn care provider (only covering bugs, weeds, and fertilizer) somehow managed to do none of the above and killed our entire healthy backyard. As a result, they had to come out, chemically treat the backyard and officially kill the entire thing to the point where the yard turned orange. Two weeks later, the next lawn guy came out and began tearing the lawn out, which took two days. Then the laying of the new sod began. Once that was over, a period of 4 weeks where nobody could do anything in the yard began while the sod took root in the sweltering Summer heat. In essence, the boys have been cut off from the play set in the back yard for roughly two months and finally, just the last couple weeks, have they finally been able to get out and enjoy the yard again. Another chapter that is hopefully behind us.
Speaking of the yard, a quick story. Part of this year's yard work included the planting of some new trees, a boatload of new flowers and bushes, and our first of seven banana trees finally starting to grow some bananas. Getting back to the new trees we planted, we ordered these things online. No idea what to expect. We're thinking some 3-5 foot tall trees are going to be shipped to us. Instead, we get what basically looks like a stick in a bag. Actually, three different sticks in the bag. Two Weeping Willows and one Cherry Willow. So, I figured "what the hell" and planted these "sticks" where we wanted the trees to grow in the yard. The Weeping Willows are supposed to be growing 7-9 feet a year, so maybe in two years, I'll have a couple 15-20 foot tall trees from these sticks. So anyway, we get these things planted in the backyard and of course, the yard gets opened to the boys at about the same time. Antoinette turns her back for a single moment and what does AJ do? He runs right over to the Cherry Willow "stick" and yanks it right out of the ground, all the while his Mother is in the background yelling at him to stop. Nope. Pulls it right out of the ground. Luckily we got that sucker planted again and it appears to be back growing new leaves. AJ, what a trip.
And of course, there's the minivan. That's right, Antoinette has convinced me that we now need a minivan. My initial reaction was "not a chance in hell we are buying a minivan", but Antoinette literally wrote out a sales pitch with every reason on Earth why it was far more practical to buy a minivan than to buy an SUV. After researching her case, I really couldn't argue with any of the logic. We had always discussed having room if our family grew, the van got about 30-40% better fuel economy, had 25% more cargo space, had more gadgets and gizmos (for me), and was about 25% cheaper than any of the SUV's we were looking at. Also with cheaper insurance rates. It also allows Antoinette to setup a zone for the bathroom for the boys without having to stop every 15 minutes at a rest stop on road trips. A simple stop anywhere would do the trick, plus either one of us can get back to them with ease.
After this discussion, we started looking for minivans and started looking at dealerships and CarMax. After doing a ton of homework on vans, SUV's, dealerships, reliability standards, safety features, and CarMax, we determined that the solution was to test drive the vehicle we were interested in (a 2012 Nissan Quest LE) at the Nissan dealership, get the best deal they could offer on the trade in and the new car (2013), and then compare that down the street at the CarMax (for their 2012 and 2013 models). So, Antoinette and I are talking about how we can go about getting the best deal on the trade in when we drop it off at the dealership for an appraisal and we have a great plan in place to maximize the value. That plan went to hell in a hurry because within 30 seconds of Billy getting introduced to the car salesman, he tells him "we are going to buy a new car because our car is broken and pieces are falling off." I have no idea what is falling off the truck, but he seemed to have saw something that qualified. After that, our cover was blown!!! When all was said and done, CarMax was able to beat the Nissan dealership by $15,000 which is crazy, just because the vehicle was 1 year old and had 8,000 miles on it already (never privately owned). It was a no brainer. So with a new vehicle on the way, we started looking at what the boys' status was as far as car seats were concerned.
Billy is still in the 80th percentile in height and weighs in at around 37 lbs. As a 4 year old in Florida, he is tall enough, weighs enough (approximately 40 lbs), and is old enough to warrant a transition to a booster seat in the van with a seat belt while AJ is getting a little big for his smaller car seat and could move quickly into Billy's oversized car seat. AJ is similarly proportioned to Billy, but their differences are apparent. AJ is longer in the torso and thicker in the legs. Billy seems to be more proportional. Both boys are tall for their age and about average in weight, which makes them appear lanky. Both are extremely active, constantly wrestling around with each other, and balls of energy, although AJ is clearly the more daring of the two while Billy is the more sensitive and more logical in terms of planning and thinking things through. Billy is a thinker and AJ is a doer. That's just in their nature at this point. AJ acts first and deals with the consequences later, while Billy really thinks about everything first, weighs his options and the consequences of his actions, asks questions to reaffirm his thought process, and then decides what to do before doing most things.
Finally, a couple quick funny quotes from the boys that came up in the past couple weeks:
1. While having a conversation with AJ and trying to convince him to act in a particular way, Billy was overheard saying, "AJ, wait. AJ, wait, and listen. Right now I'm having a very good idea in my brain!!!"
2. While watching a UFC fight, the boys were picking who they wanted to win each fight before we'd watch it. They would each pick a particular person and then say why they wanted them to win. I told Billy that I was picking this guy because he was "from the United States" and then pointed at the flag. Billy responded that he wanted the Brazilian fella, after looking at his flag (green square with a blue circle in the middle) because "he is from Mars".
3. Billy has been telling both Mom and I that he is "very proud of you because you don't let the bad guys get me." Thank you, Billy.
4. Billy has also started swearing now. His favorite is "holy shit", which we are correcting to "holy cow" slowly but surely, but that seems to be coming up quite a bit lately.
5. AJ's new thing is when he wakes up from his nap, he has to announce his arrival, by saying "hi, it's me, AJ" and he's been using words that are 3-4 syllables much more frequently.
6. Antoinette: "Billy, did you just call your brother a retard?" Billy, after some serious thought as to his response: "Noooo, I called him a......sweetheart!!!" Good save!!!
7. AJ's memory is also getting much better. He can almost memorize the words in some of his books now. And when Antoinette skips entire lines of the story intentionally, he corrects her and adds back the proper dialogue. Pretty impressive for a 2.5 year old!!!
8. Antoinette asked Billy to think really hard about any animal he could think of that he would want as a pet if Hunter wasn't his pet. He responded, "OK Mom. I thought really hard. I want a rat." She asked why and he responded that he would take him outside and play with him and that he would like to say to the rat, "OK rat, time to come back inside and eat some lunch." OK then. Rat it is. Clear that one with your Mother!!!
9. The boys' room was getting really hot at night, so we decided to leave their room open at night. Apparently Hunter felt this was an open invitation to go bother some other humans other than Mom and Dad and in the middle of the night, we hear AJ screaming. No idea what's going on, we run out of the room to their bedroom and find out what's going on. Apparently, Hunter was poking AJ with his wet nose and AJ really didn't like that while he was sleeping, so he responded by screaming his lungs out!!!
On a final note, football season is right around the corner and the boys have been watching the Bears preseason games and tackling each other after every play as they act them out. I think this could be a very interesting football season. They are also constantly asking if football games coming back means they get to eat pomegranates again!!! What little memories they have.
The next blog update will have a new family photo on there for this year. It's a little bit later this year because the day we were set to go and get our family photo taken, Billy decided to throw a toy at AJ's face and hit him directly in the forehead. Well, picture's out of the question until that thing heals!!! LOL!!!
I'll try and get the video up this week.
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