Now two months late I'll finish off with a few pictures from our Florida trip. After Key West, I went to a meeting in Miami. Marie took Alyssa to the Seaquarium and a mall while I was busy. Then we had a day and a half at the end see the sights. We each picked one thing to see and then at the end of the trip took alyssa to the Zoo. Marie picked the Vizcaya, a mansion built to look like a renaissance Italian villa. I was happy with that because I like architecture, and because it is named after one of the provinces where I used to live in the Basque country. They didn't allow pictures inside, so here are a few from the grounds:
My pick was a fan boat ride in the everglades. Marie was less thrilled with my pick but was kind and indulged me. The water level was low so the gators were all concentrated near the streams. There were dozens of them. Whenever we stopped, the big ones would head toward the boat to check things out until we got moving again. We got stuck in the mud on the way back and everyone had to stand on the front of the boat to rock us out. A poor british woman was pretty scared. It was great fun.
Oh yeah, now at swim lessons Alyssa always picks the alligator squeaky toy to play with.
Dan had to work Fourth of July weekend, so we originally weren't planning on doing much. He finished pretty early on Saturday, so we went to a barbecue. Here is Alyssa, conquering a slide, getting her first taste of a hot dog, and looking up adoringly at her Daddy. It turns out she doesn't like hot dogs. At least she ate the watermelon, and the cupcakes. Other new experiences included fireflies, sparklers and fireworks. According to her, she liked the fireflies the best.
Ever since Alyssa was a couple of months old, Marie has been taking her to the Yale infant cognition center where they study how babies think. They basically watch puppet shows and have the babies choose a toy. Alyssa likes it and Marie thinks the experiments are interesting. When Alyssa was 9 months old, a camera crew came by for some educational shows they were making. Here is a clip of part of that program with Alyssa in it. What is not on this clip is the time she hugged the "good" toy, and then threw the "bad" toy to the ground. I hope to see that clip in the future.
For those of you who don't know yet, I am 20 weeks into my second pregnancy. My due date is November 18th. Today was the ultrasound, where we also were able to find out the sex of the baby. Drum roll.........we will be having a girl! Alyssa will have a baby sister. The first picture is of her feet. The second picture is a great profile shot. Everything looks good, and we are excited to meet her in four and a half months.
I was going to refrain from politics on the blog, until Pat emboldened me, saying he liked the political posts. He even liked the link to the trailer of Mega Shark v Giant Octopus. Thanks Pat and Julie for letting me stay at your place for almost a month.
Health care. If, according to the Prez, 47 million Americans don't have insurance, that means we have 85% coverage. If you take out those who qualify for programs but haven't signed up for them, and those who can afford insurance but choose not to buy it, we have well over 90% coverage, and the shortest wait times in the world. Of course there are problems with all health care systems, but if the main concern was coverage, there are better ways than a national system, or a "public option" (which = a national system eventually). The Swiss system isn't that bad and has the world's second shortest wait times (I care because wait times matter in cancer).
ABC ran a huge Obama infomercial where they not only did not allow a rebuttal, they would not even let opposing groups PAY for commercial time to respond. Now it comes out that at the last "town hall" meeting today, the president and his allies chose the questions before hand, making the whole thing basically staged government propaganda.
CATO's website did a 5 minute rebuttal of the initial ABC infomercial.
It is eventually about more than health care. It is about statism vs freedom.
Since our current Republicans have been so inept recently, here is a speech from 1961. I think Reagan was still a private citizen back then.
Some petitions/groups against government healthcare.
Unemployment shot past the 8% level that we were told the "stimulus" package was supposed to prevent.
The dollar has started to fall again.
Cap and Trade passed the house, representing a huge tax increase on everyone. (Mostly on the poor and middle class.)
The Honduran President, a friend of Castro and Chavez, tried to extend his time in office in violation of that country's constitution. His Supreme court ordered him thrown out, his military threw him out, and his congress approved it and appointed an interim leader. Maybe it will be a mess all around, but our State department came out strongly in support of the would-be socialist dictator.
