The next few days we spent at Auntie Charlie's house. I loved spending time with her and had a lot of fun at her house. We had originally planned to take Aunt Charlie back to Blizzard Beach with us, but unfortunately Mommy started feeling pretty sick (later diagnosed as strep throat). In addition, we had been doing so much this past week, we were pretty worn out, and it was nice to just take it easy for a while.
Aunt Charlie loves puzzles, and has a lot of them! Each day we did a puzzle - all of them 300 pieces! I really stayed focused on them for a long while, and learned all about finding the edge pieces first. I think Mommy and Daddy are going to have to get some puzzles for back home during the winter!
Mommy and Daddy had no idea I would be so fascinated by the hermit crabs - but I was! Any time we came back in the house, or first thing in the morning, the first thing I wanted to do was take a crab or two out and let them crawl around. If the grown-ups were doing something else, I'd just lay there on the floor and watch them crawl around their cage. It was better than TV! I gradually got braver too - at first I just wanted to look at them. But then I progressed to picking them up by the shell (Aunt Charlie showed me how).
And later, I even let them crawl on my hand. It felt funny!
One day we went down to a walkway around a local lake. Daddy said he wanted to see an alligator. But I was happy enough seeing these big birds, called "cranes". We brought bread to feed them!
Aunt Charlie's cat Pitch, who we watched while she was deployed, likes to go out into the screened-in patio. But Aunt Charlie had just been leaving the door open a little for him to slip through. We thought it would be a great idea to say "thank you" bygetting her a little "kittie door" that fits into her sliding glass door. So we surprised her with it and I helped Daddy install it. it works great, and now Pitch can come and go whenever he wants.
On our last afternoon there, Daddy, Aunt Charlie and I went to the beach (Mommy stayed home to rest). I needed to at least dip my toes in the Atlantic Ocean. Daddy and I did much more than that - it was pretty rough! I gradually got braver and went in a little more each time, as long as Daddy was right there.
It's a good thing he was!
