Paper Crowns

Tonight we had fun with some Christmas crackers.  Do you know what these are?  It seems to be a tradition in Great Britain more than here in the states, but since Nana is from Wales, we picked up some Christmas crackers for the evening.  These aren't the crackers you eat, of course.  These are small packages wrapped somewhat like a Tootsie roll, where a person grabs each side and pulls like it were a tug-o-war.  There's a bit of material inside that pops loudly, making a cracking noise, and the package is open.  Inside there are usually paper crowns, which you can see above.  Also inside are little games and prizes.  Daddy got a shoehorn.  I'm not sure why.  But Madison got a little ring puzzle, and Daddy actually got a small sheet of paper that told the history of Christmas Crackers, so that was pretty neat.  I'm not going to type it up here - you'll have to look it up!

It was a full day of beach activity, of course.  The day was just beautiful for this sort of thing.  We had two really long walks down the beach - it was all just perfect!  The sunrise this morning, by the way, was gorgeous.  Daddy was up in time to see it.  The weather was cool outside, but the sun was heating things up quickly when it rose.

Nana and Ba-Ba have this view each morning.  You don't have to be an advanced photographer to take a gorgeous picture.  Just point out towards the east and click!

Madison has been very "list oriented" this trip.  She's had a few things on the list that are mandatory, one of them being ice cream.  Nana and Ba-Ba had plenty of that for her this week.  Another thing is mini-golf.  Today's weather was just right for that, so Nana and Daddy took her over to the pirate mini-golf once again.  We had choices of places to play golf, but Madison really enjoyed the pirate-themed one, learning about Blackbeard and so forth.  This is a really fun course down in Daytona Shores, and of course it doesn't hurt that you can literally see the ocean from there.  The weather was just right too.  We got caught up in a lot of fun there.

 But we weren't finished with the list.  It was back to the pool today.  It was pretty warm outside, but that pool water was quite frigid, even for Madison's standards.  She dipped her feet into the water, and promptly decided it would be best to go back to the indoor pool where things were warmer.  So off we went once more, playing Marco Polo and other games in the warmer pool inside.  It was quiet in there, as we had it all to ourselves, even the jacuzzi.  Daddy still needs that warm water, ever since this surgery.

Dinner was huge, a Christmas dinner in fact.  It was good, and quite a lot of food.  Afterwards, we all sat down to watch "Alice Through the Looking Glass," one of the many movies we got for Christmas.  And yes, they had popcorn for Madison.  She loves that popcorn!

What a full day!  We read from the Princess Leia book, and got to sleep early tonight.  Tomorrow is going to be a long day, so we certainly need the rest.