Fishing Trip to the East Coast

Scott wanted to take us back to the fishing beach they found the weekend before. We packed the truck the night before and headed out very early. The beach was beautiful and very secluded. We didn't catch anything but a shell and two small whiting. Around 12:30 a man walked by and informed us it was it was illegal to park where we were (right off AIA), so since we had been there 5 hours and not much was biting, we decided to head north and see if we could find another fishing spot. We checked out a few spots, but they were all so crowded, so we headed home. The weather was so nice when we got home. We decided to head downtown for an outdoor dinner. We found a place that had live music and that made us all happy.

Scott setting up the fishing poles.

Looking North

Looking South

Eating her peanut butter sandwich.

Everytime she gets to the beach she jumps like crazy. It really is rather cute.

Running from the waves.

My first catch; a shell with an animal in it.

Preparing to leave - she looks happy here, but she was not happy to leave.

Hanging out with Daddy when we got home.

Happy Easter 2009

We crashed hard after Dragonfly Sushi Saturday night. We never even heard Easter Bunny! We had a few egg hunts Saturday and Sunday, but after a long weekend of Disney fun, the girls were out of patience for the egg hunt challenge.

Our company headed home mid morning and we did our best to be productive around the house, but we were wiped out. It's Thursday evening and we are still tired from last weekend.
And Scott informed me today that we are all leaving at 5:30AM Saturday to head to the beach. *yawn*

Ok, here are the last of the weekend pictures....




Davis, Reid and Avery (please know Avery dressed herself)

Davis, Easter Morning

Avery peeking around a column while the eggs are being hidden. Sneaker!

She called these her "Easter Ears"

There's that brick wall again! I know you all must be tired of seeing all the pictures in front of the bricks, but honestly there really isn't much else in the yard.

Avery finding eggs.

48 hour Disney experience

When we got to our hotel, the tickets Sherri had ordered to be delivered to the hotel were lost. What a mess - it ended up being the hotel's fault, but nothing could make up for Sherri's stress and the fact that it took them an hour to finally find the tickets.

We leave the hotel (on the hotel bus) and are headed towards Magic Kingdom - the girls are SO excited. The bus was packed. Sherri and Davis were up front and Reid, Avery and I were in the back of the bus. When we sat down I noticed a little girl that was directly across from us sitting on her mom's lap. I immediately knew she wasn't feeling well. About 10 seconds later I knew that we should not be sitting there, but the bus was so jammed, we couldn't move!

Sure enough, the little girl throws up and thus starts the next round of our crazy Disney experience! Poor Davis is VERY fearful of vomit and of course when Davis gets upset, so does Reid. We got off the bus, got cleaned up (it really wasn't THAT bad, but anything with vomit is BAD!). We tried to get the girls back on the bus and they did, but were crying the entire way. Sherri and I could only look at each other in disbelief. What are the chances of all of this happening before 10AM!?

We get to Magic Kingdom and it is packed. I mean REALLY packed. So, we managed to wait in a few long lines and make the most of it. The girls were really being troopers about the lines and it had seemed that our morning was almost forgotten.

The day went quickly and we made it back to the hotel at 6PM. Sherri and I enjoyed the snacks and drinks in the lounge with the kids and decided we would go back to the park (no bus this time, nor for the rest of the trip) so we could try to catch a few more rides with shorter lines.

It was great when we got to the park - not many people at all. We had a great time! So much fun that it was 2AM before we got out of the park. Do you know how heavy 4 and 5 year olds are at 2AM?!?! All in all, it was a great ending to a day that started out not so great.


Meeting the Princesses

3AM Sleeping Beauty

Davis, Sherri and Reid...it was tough to get a decent shot with all the people. Unfortunately I cut the top of the castle off!

Cousins come to visit!

A week ago we got our first visit from my cousin and his family. We had a fabulous time. Scott and Bobby headed to the east coast to do some fishing, while Sherri and I braved Disney for 2 FULL days. Below are some pictures from the day they got into town. We took them to where else???? SATCHEL'S!!!!

Bobby in the van at Satchel's


Avery enjoying her pizza

Avery and Reid in the van. Note Avery eating parmesan straight out of the container!

Davis out back by Lightnin Salvage

Reid playing on the playground

Egg Dying

Ok, so my master plan of an easy evening didn't go quite as planned. Avery didn't like dinner and complained the entire evening about it. Oh well! After her shower, we colored some eggs. We just did solid bright colors and tomorrow night she will put her stickers all over them.

Kids and their stickers....






Excited about Easter Eggs

Mommy & Avery

Well, it's Monday afternoon and we haven't killed each other yet. We were busy running errands this morning and she was such a trooper going all over with me. She was also such a good girl today at the 'hair cut place' (as she calls it). She got her toes painted a bubblegum color.

Right now she is taking a nap and it is so quiet. *bliss*




Ok, off to be productive.....I want to get a lot done while she naps so we can have a nice relaxing evening and dye Easter eggs....stay tuned for more pictures.....

Weekend Review

We had a birthday party to attend to Friday evening up the street, so Avery got to eat her favorite Chipotle rice bowl for dinner. When we ordered at Chipotle the guy handed it to me and said, "It's on the house". I have no idea what we did to get that, but it was a major bonus.

Friday evening in the late afternoon sun

We went to visit Grandma on Sunday. We had only been promising to show her our Italy pictures for over a YEAR now! We all had a nice visit and hopefully we didn't wear her out too much. Avery was a little fidgity and all over the place with energy.

We had Carrabba's afterwards and that was super yummy!

Avery & GG

Water Fight!

Playing in the grass


I LOVE this picture. (Yes, a chocolate bribe was involved to get her to cooperate)

Saturday we worked outside all day long. I took every item off our back porch and scrubbed the walls, rails and porch floor along with all the furniture that was on the porch and then moved it all back up and redecorated. I could barely get out of bed this morning I was so sore. The back porch and yard are looking much better. Now, if all our plants don't freeze this week. We are supposed to get near freezing temps mid-week!

This week is Spring break and I hope Avery and I don't kill each other. We have company coming into town Wednesday and we have a special surprise for Avery at the end of the week. :-)

I hope everyone has a great week and we sure hope our little cousin Leif gets better soon. You guys have been in our thoughts all weekend. *hugs*

Thursday 'Off'

Avery had a speech screening this morning at 8:30 and of course she didn't wake up early this morning! I had to wake her up at 8:05 and rush her out the door. She has been sleeping late this entire week, which is very unlike her. Who wants to bet she will be up at 7 (or before) Saturday AM?!

The evaluation was very educational for me. Turns out she doesn't have much of a speech problem, but more overall language issues. It doesn't seem to be much to worry about, but we will work with her on it and talk to her teacher at school about it in depth during the next parent night.

We came home for lunch before spending the entire rest of the day running errands.

Here she is playing in her room for a few minutes before we went out.

Spring Arts Festival Weekend

Scott was out of town for a guys trip and my mom came to visit us for the long weekend.
We headed over the St. Augustine Beach on Friday and I realized half way there that I forgot my camera. It ended up being a good thing though because the beach was freezing cold and the sand was blasting. We were only on the beach for about 45 minutes and then we headed into town. We had lunch and it started warming a bit, so we strolled around town, had some ice cream, watched the 'one man band guys' and then headed home. Of course we stopped at 'County Line' so mom could stock up on veggies and came home to relax around the house. Mom and I watched Twilight - she LOVED it.

On Saturday we headed down to the Spring Arts Festival. Avery desparately wanted her face painted and here she is....

Getting her face painted. I think it was some kind of pink and purple 'butterfly'.


Listening to the live music at the Thomas Center. She could have stayed there all day.

JAX Zoo

Last Sunday we got up real early and headed over to Jax to visit the zoo. Scott wanted me to drive because he needed to do some work, so I was driving on 1-10 when I saw a State Trooper pulling out of the median. I got that sinking feeling in my stomach and looked at my speed. It was 72, but I was distracted with Scott being on the phone and Avery complaining about the iPod, but I was pretty sure the speed limit was 70. I get in the right lane and so does he - SHOOT - he is after ME! How irritating! He came up to the truck and was super nice. He asked where we were going and when we told him he went into this whole spiel about the zoo and all these neat things about it. All I kept thinking was "ok Mr. am I getting a ticket or not"?! He takes my info and goes back to his vehicle.....we wait.....and Avery starts asking us if we are getting our zoo tickets now, etc. He comes back up to the truck and says, "I'm giving you a warning, just slow down and enjoy your day at the zoo". Apparently the speed limit had just changed to 55 and I missed it. PHEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We get to the Zoo a little after 9AM and it is wonderful. There were barely any people in there at that time and we could just walk and see whatever we wanted. They were just letting some of the animals out, so many of them were feisty. Especially these caged monkeys. They were SO LOUD! Scott was trying to talk on a business call and he had screaming monkeys in the background (made me laugh). :-)

We left the zoo around 1PM and the line was so long. It was great that we got there so early, I think that made a huge difference in our enjoyment. We will definately make a repeat trip sometime in the future. After the zoo we went down to St. Augustine to a plant shop for Scott to replace a few plants that had died and then headed home, but first we stopped at our favorite veggie stand in Hastings - the County Line - if you ever go that way - you've gotta stop - great fresh veggies!!!

Just getting to the zoo - styling in her Dora glasses


Photo Op Carousel


The real Carousel -she loved it!!!


She is checking out the kangaroos here. She had just studied about Australia animals in February, so she was telling us about them.

In the parakeet feeding room.

We found this great kids play area - here she is in the 'nest'. She thought it was funny until she couldn't get out.

Her expression after her first time down the slide.

The kids slide

These guys were HILARIOUS. Avery kept asking about their extra genitalia and claiming it was ''scusting' over and over. At one point she yells out, "hey, monkeys have penis' too". OMG.

These were the loud guys I was referring to earlier. "WOOOOOOP - WOOOOOOP - WOOOOOOP"

This bird was so cool! He was right next to me almost like he was trying to pose for my camera.

Giraffes are so cool! What was even cooler is that TWI did the rockwork at that exhibit. It was my first time seeing the rockwork - pretty cool!

Petting the goats

Feeding the parakeets