Bald Eagle

We had a flurry of birds at our house this weekend.  I wish I could have caught it on video, we've never seen anything like it.  At one point there were 8 birds interacting in the sky, including bald eagles, juvenile eagles, osprey and a goshawk.  They came back several times.  Some birds were flying low just below the treetops.  Of course Ian identified all of them. 

Then, today a bald eagle landed in the tree just outside the window of our room. 

Florida!

We started off our vacation on Beer Can Island, near Sarasota.  There was a short hike to get to it, but it was well worth it.  Secluded and quiet.  Definitely our favorite beach from the trip!

Sunday night, we visited St. Armand's Circle, which is just a big area of shopping and restaurants.  We got ice cream and watched the sunset at Lido beach, which is right next to it.

On Monday, we took a kayak tour around the bay area and through some mangrove tunnels.  

Saw dolphins swimming in the distance.

 After kayaking, we visited Siesta Key beach.  Much busier, but the sand was super duper soft.

Our third beach was Fort Myers beach on Tuesday.  Didn't end up getting any pictures of that one.

 Our fourth beach was Captiva.  Another quiet beach, but there is only about 30 parking spaces on the entire island, so that explains why it's so quiet.  Had the most shells of all the beaches!

We didn't actually get any pictures of Sanibel beach, either.  We weren't there long...Isaac was complaining that his stomach hurt and the water didn't stay shallow for very long so it wasn't the greatest for swimming.

Our last beach was Clearwater.  Much more commercialized and busy busy busy!  It was a really nice beach, though.  Had some big waves that Calvin and I had fun floating over.

This is the skyway bridge that we went over getting from and back to St. Petersburg.  It was a bit nerve-wracking driving over it.

Lately

We went to the Museum of Science and Industry a couple weeks ago.  This was the Mirror Maze, which was really cool!!  Ingrid kept bumping into the mirrors so she started walking around with her hands in front of her :)  

They have a recreated 1890s Chicago in the museum with a real ice cream parlor.  

Here's Felli with the German U-boat.  It's tough to get the perspective, but it was neat!

Felli has been to a couple epic birthday parties this spring.  She got to meet Cinderella!

Spring on the PATIO

Just reading a book.

We are LOVING having the patio this spring.  As of a few weeks ago, we had LOTS of snow, and there's still a bunch to melt.  But the patio is dry and clear, and nice and warm in the sun!

Making BIG bubbles and riding the scooter.

Snow!

The Chicago area got a ton of snow over the past week!  We haven't had this much snow since we moved here.  The girls think it's pretty fun!

The mailbox is basically buried!

Ice weapons!  Ryan pulled these off the house.  

Calvin's tooth

Calvin recently lost his first tooth too!  Today, in fact, at school.  We heard that the tooth fairy leaves double if the tooth is left on the kitchen table, so to ease Calvin's anxiety, we wrote her a note telling her where the tooth was so she could find it.  It says "In case you are confused, the tooth is downstairs on the table under the pillow."

Also, this weekend we took the boys to Ballocity in Burlington.  It is basically a giant jungle gym.  They had a lot of fun!

All About Ian

Ian lost his first tooth this week!

It was loose for a while. 

Today Ian caught a really nice bass ice fishing!

It was 4.5 lbs.  We had it for supper.