Perry’s Vacation to Miami, Florida, May 5 to May 12, 2007.

Perry gets the idea of a vacation

Perry knew we were going on vacation a few weeks ahead and told everyone whom he knew that he was going on vacation for 8 days. Albeit excited, he played it cool as if this was a daily occurrence. The night before we left, he spent the night at Memaw’s house and we met him at the airport on May 5th.

Pure and simple logic

Being the natural born great traveler, going through the airport was a breeze and pretty uneventful. The adventure began aboard the airplane. They announced the prohibition of all electronic devices (which included his portable DVD) and shortly after that the screens on the plane came on and started to display the videos about flight safety etc. Perry immediately turned to us and said “I thought they said NO electronic devices, are they breaking their own rules?” This had the people around him chuckling and Papa just shrugged his shoulders. 

So, this is what it feels like for guys?

During landing when Perry felt what I would describe as “butterflies in my belly”, Perry shouted “Hey, did that pull your testicles too?” 

Beach, Pool and hot tub

Perry enjoyed the beach, but LOVED the pools to the point where he no longer wanted to go to the beach. He informed Mama that he did not like the beach, because it burned his eyes. When Mama erroneously told him “That’s because there is a lot of sand in the water” he corrected “you mean salt.” The little nut loved being in the hot tub, to the point where he was “recruiting” us to go in the hot tub with him. He told Mama: “Trust me, you’ll love it.” So, Mama and Perry go to the hot tub one day and there is one other person there, Perry goes on and makes a big show of pointing Mama to the jets and is in a particular talkative mood. All of a sudden, the guy gets up to leave the hot tub and Perry asked “Why are you leaving, you don’t like the jets?” He responded “I do, but it’s very hot here.” Perry frowned and retorted [with one hand in the air]: “It is a HOT tub you know?” 

Making a good point?

A few days later Tante Mesh and Shiranui came to join us and on the way to the airport Perry was watching a movie in the car and announced that he would not be getting out of the car when we reached the airport. Mama told him that he may have to and then Perry made the following argument “Ava is sleeping and when you take her out, she’ll wake up and she will be cranky, somebody needs to stay with her, so I will stay with her and not get out of the car.” No response from Mama and Papa and Perry pressed “Hey, did I make a good point?” 

Perry to the rescue

Mid week Mama had a small panic attack and said “Oh, I forgot to let Perry’s school know that he won’t be there this week.” Perry volunteered “Don’t worry Mama, I already told Mrs. Bowes we would be on vacation for 8 days” [sigh, sigh] 

Visiting the Baker Family

We also went to visit the Baker family [our friends in Boynton Beach], Perry had a blast, everyone raved about his speaking ability and marveled at how much he manipulates. At one point the boys [Perry, Sharif and Tariq] came with a bug house that included two love bugs that were “stuck together.” The kids wanted to know how come? David turned to Ahmed and said “Have you told your kids the story about the birds and the bees? Ahmed dryly responded “Nope, we are going to use the glue story for this one.” The adults were amused, but the kids confused. Fortunately, they did not press too hard for an answer as they were quickly distracted by popsicles. 

Parrot Jungle

We also visited the Parrot Jungle and the bird show was Perry’s favorite. He could recite almost every trick they displayed! He was not too thrilled with the other show as the repeated conversation messages (recycle, reuse and renew) were a bit outside his grasp. However, he did love that the monkey pretended to die when the show girl said “Bang!” and pretended to shoot him.

South Beach, Shrek, and a little trash can

One evening was spent at South Beach, where we allowed Perry to play on the swings after dark, he thought this was pretty cool since it felt like breaking the rules.  

One evening we decided to go to McDonalds for dinner as we could not find “Pollo Tropical”, consider this an emergency meal.  They are heavily advertising Shrek, which we thought Perry liked.  Imagine our surprise (and amusement) when Perry did not want his chocolate milk, because it had Shrek’s picture on it.   Normally, he only gets chocolate milk in the morning so it was a type of treat to have it at night.  Turns out, Perry does not want to look at any pictures of Shrek - especially on his food.   David told him “But I like Shrek and I still want to see the movie.”  Perry answered “Then go see it by yourself.”  David said “Ooh” and Perry gave in: “Okay, I’ll go see it with you, but I don’t like his pictures and anything else that has to do with him.”

Not sure where he got it, but his goofy line for the week was "I'm a stinky little trashcan full of poop" - it would come out at bizarre times and get repeated which would be followed with "is it stuck in your head now".

America the Beautiful

When we returned home, Perry looked out the window during landing and said “Oh, I need to see this as I forgot what America looked like after I was gone for 8 days!!” Anyone care to tell the little nut that Florida is still America?

Ava Lou’s Vacation to Miami, Florida, May 5 to May 12, 2007.

Improving traveler

Ava has an iffy track record as a traveler, so her parents were super nervous about the travel portion of this trip. However Ms. Ava did wonderful, she was playful and easily entertained.

She walks and loves water!

This is the week when she actually walked! She has been taking little steps here and there, only to land on her bottom and resort to crawling prior to this trip. Ava loves being in the water and squealed and giggled when Papa took her out in the ocean. She also loved being in the pool, but quickly wanted to climb out of the baby floating devices which made it hard for the grown ups to keep her in the water. She has not yet made her mind up about sand though, at first she kept lifting her legs, but once Papa and Perry dug a hole and filled it with water, she was all games! She had a lot of fun having Perry, Papa and Mama around 24/7 and laughed a lot. She loved her stroller rides and was carried in the baby bjorn quite a bit.

Yes to swing, no to high chairs

Ms. Ava also loved being in the swing and this is the week when she outgrew – aka climbed out - the high chairs at restaurants, so we have graduated her to the booster seats.