Orlando Outlet Extravaganza!

Yesterday we hit up the last (or hopefully the last) outlet stores within two hundred miles from here. So I guess next time we'll have to travel to Miami to find even better deals. Hooray for me. But we did stop in downtown Orlando this time, which was cool to see, except for the continuous rain. It would stop for a while, and then start, and then stop again. Paul of course, was quite fond of the puddles left behind, as he would run through, turn around, and splash back. We spent quite a while at Lake Eola Park in the downtown area.

The lake was full of these pretty incredible swans among a variety of other birds, and they even had giant swan shaped boats. Unfortunately, the rain closed up the boat rides, or you would probably see a picture of me paddling out into the water looking like a chump in a big bird boat. Paul liked the long necked fellows, but once they figured out he didn't come bringing bread or other edible goods, they impolitely snubbed him and went about their business. Stupid birds.

After that, Paul took his first shot at breaking and entering. He exclaimed, "No trespassing, eh? Do you know who I am? Get my lawyer on the phone!" Of course, this sort of behavior always results in Paul's mother shooting him the evil eye that only a mother could produce. Too bad he'll never learn to listen to his mother... or at least I never did.

As always, we had a good time, and we did our fair share of shopping and sight seeing in Florida's biggest tourist trap. Other than the rain, it was a great day. And to top it off, after dinner at the beach, Paul got to roll around in the sand for a while. There's nothing like waking up in the middle of the night with sand in the diaper to make a boy scream at his parents.

It was the weekend...

But now it's over. And since I didn't make a post, I'd better do that now. Not much to post about, yesterday was my birthday, which was so exciting. We did some shopping, as we do most every weekend. But this weekend Old Navy was offering $12 jeans, so we just could not miss it. And that, on top of the fact that most people had been bottled up in their homes the past few days due to the storm, made a wonderful shopping experience. After we had our fill of Old Navy, we went to a birthday party for my boss's daughter, and surprisingly enough, they not only bought a cake with my name on it, the whole room of people I'd just met sang happy birthday to me! So it was a good time, and Paul turned into Paulnon the Barbarian when he got the pinata stick. He was all about slaughtering the candy-stuffed paper donkey with his frilly rainbow colored sword. He didn't want the candy, he just wanted to slaughter something. Unfortunately, we didn't have our camera, or you'd get to see the maniacal facial expressions he made while bludgeoning the helpless animal.

Today was a little less exciting though, we just went downtown and walked across the bridge to the landing (aka the over-rated downtown mall, for those of you who have yet to visit Jacksonville) and took some pictures. Yes, the picture above is the bridge we walked over. It was interesting to see some of the flooding that occurred due to the storm. One walkway we frequently travel was entirely under water, probably five feet deep.

And then Paul found this yellow pole, which amused him for quite some time. I had to take this picture because just before this, Becky decided to stand in a pile of red ants. She then she opted to run around the parking lot in an arm-flailing frenzy, screaming, "My legs are on fire!"

And that was the excitement of the day. So in recap: my birthday was successful and I am now a year older, which makes me roughly half the age of the average reader of this blog (aka, all you old people), Paul enjoys simple things like yellow poles, garbage cans, and the occasional wooden fence to look through, and Becky learned that it's not a good idea to stand on the home of a million biting ants while taking photographs.

It's Raining, It's Pouring

Yes, we're still alive. But this is probably the worst storm we've seen since we've been here, and the eye is still 60 miles away. But the weather men keep changing their minds about what is really going on, so who knows. One minute it's going to be a hurricane, the next it's just a tropical storm. So we decided to act like intelligent people yesterday and went out to the beach.

As you can see, Paul was thrilled. We walked out on the sand as the red flags warned people not to swim (which of course they did anyway) and then the rain hit, so we had to hurry up and hide with all the other intelligent people under the pier. The waves weren't overly high, but the rain comes in horizontally, and the wind will pretty much rip an umbrella out of your hand. So we got soaked.

But it was pretty incredible to experience just how powerful the weather can be. I imagine a full blown hurricane would be awesome, until you got skewered by a flying palm tree. And I don't think we want that to happen, so we'll just be hiding in the bathtub from here on out.

The End of All Things

Captain’s Log, Stardate 2008-0819

We’re boarded up now, safe inside. The sky outside is dark, but a few clouds can be seen scattered about, distant scouts leading the way of the monstrous storm that is rapidly approaching. Becky and Paul are hiding in the bathtub as I write, their cheeks streaked with the liquid fear of impending devastation. I just got back from Walmart. It was hell on Earth. The shelves were stripped down to nothing, no bread, no Cup-O-Noodles, no Bumble Bee tuna. I saw a small child reach for the last pack of D batteries and a 300 pound woman tore his arm off at the shoulder and ate it. As the beaten down blue-vest wearing workers hastily pulled pallets from the back room, they were attacked like unfortunate gazelles wandering into a pool of ravenous piranha. I loaded the peanut butter and beef jerky into my cart, anything to get us through the days ahead, all the while dodging the rioters as they tore down displays of bottled water and Wheat Thins, rolling on the floor in fits of rage, overtaken by their quest for survival.

The hurricane is coming, and there’s no way out.

The schools are shut down, the streets are empty. The old man across the street is building a large boat out of hickory bark. Chester is buckled up tightly on the porch with a cat size life preserver. Families are gathered around their television sets as panicked weather men speak of our comrades to the south, already overtaken by Fay. When she gets here, she’ll be a Category I Hurricane. In 2004, the power in Jacksonville was out for nine days. This could very well be my last transmission.

Wait... I hear the thunder. It’s here.

Say Cheese

After having amassed an immovable amount of debt pursuing my own so-called dreams of being an arrogant, self-righteous attorney, dedicated to taking the innocent’s hard earned cash all in the name of upholding the law, I finally decided that maybe I should be a nice husband and let my wife have something for a change. I know, as she is fond of telling me, that it’s very rare that the money we spend is on something she wants. If she asks to go to SeaWorld for a fun filled family day, I say, “70 bucks!! Each?? Are you kidding?? Is that American dollars?? Uh, no.” But if I want an iPod, I say, “$240 doesn’t seem half bad, let’s go buy one today!” So she whines about all the things that I buy for myself while she is left wearing worn out shoes and a bathing suit from five years ago. But now… now I have something to hold over her head for at least the next seven years!

So we bought a new camera. And now Becky can continue on her journey to make Paul the most photographed child in all of Jacksonville, North Florida, and beyond! Of course as part of this deal she has to take 200 photos a day, enroll in night classes at Jacksonville University, and read 300 pages a night from some photography related literature.

But we all know it will pay off, as you can already see, Paul had his picture taken a few times this weekend. And who doesn’t love a picture of Paul?

NOTICE: This posting is an over-exaggerated version of the truth. The poster has never in his life overlooked an item his wife sought to purchase in order to buy an item for his own amusement. Neither is the poster’s wife wearing worn out shoes or a five year old bathing suit. In fact, on top of the new camera, said wife also recently purchased a new bathing suit. WHEREAS, the poster has also fully agreed to attend a fun filled family day in Disneyland or another acceptable venue as long as a third party is capable of coming to assist in the care taking of the poster’s son, hereinafter referred to as Paul, during said outing. Further, the terms hereinbefore laid out in this posting regarding said wife's requirements are a binding agreement, and any reader of this blog may bring an action to enforce said agreement upon said wife to produce a substantial amount of photos of PAUL each and every day. Let this be full notice to all parties present this 17th day of August, 2008.

Buy Paul Some Peanuts...

Since it's the last weekend of summer (for me anyway) we decided to catch one last baseball game. The season will be ending soon, so we thought we'd better eat one more hot dog and bag of peanuts. When we got downtown we immediately realized something was not quite right. There seemed to be a lot of people for just a Suns baseball game. So we asked one of the traffic directors what was going on and then found out that the game was conveniently starting at the same time that 13,000 people would be going into the next door arena to watch Bruce Springsteen. We almost turned around and left, but since we were "born in the USA" and enjoy baseball, we waited in the traffic. But of course the traffic made us late to the game, but also thankfully we were "born to run," so we rushed in and didn't miss much. We hurried across E Street (now I'm making things up) and sat in our seats to enjoy the last "glory days" of summer.

After the game, they lit off a pretty cool firework show, but Paul wasn't "dancing in the dark" to it. Mostly because he grew tired of the game after the first 30 minutes and preceded to try to run up the stairs to escape. But it was a good time, and the Suns won, so the home town crowd was happy. And they gave away four cars, but I didn't win. So now if I ever go to Philadelphia, I'll just have to walk the streets.

Ok, I'll stop.

Flying Beach Boy

Wouldn't you know, Paul wanted to go to the beach again tonight. But who can blame him? It was a beautiful night out in Jax Beach after a long day of heavy rain. We threw the football around again, and then decided to throw Paul around. We figured since he's taken swimming lessons, he should probably take flying lessons. (I would like his grandmothers to know that in trying to capture this picture I only dropped him almost once. I caught him by the leg just before he hit the sand. So no big deal. And he had a smile on his face the entire time.)

Other than that, he ran up and down the beach pointing at all the dogs and kites that people had brought out, and then played around in the sand a bit. But once again we had a good time, even though the summer is ending, as this is the last week before school starts.

The water seems to be getting a little colder too. Soon enough it will be winter again in Northeast Florida, which means the temperature will be unbelievably cold, like in the 60's. But for now, Paul is still enjoying the sand and surf of summer.