Gatlinburg

We had a wonderful time in Gatlinburg this past weekend. The kids always have a blast getting together iwth their cousins. 

Surprise, Surprise...Jackson loved this game!

Aubrie was not in to all the pictures.

The kids tried ice skating for the first time. 

Jackson loved it!

Aubrie....not so much. 

November at the Beach

We are lucky enough to live in a place where it’s warmer enough to visit the beach in November. Last Saturday (Nov.9) we headed out to Pcola Beach to enjoy a picnic. We even took a walk down the pier, which is actually something we’ve never done in the 4+ years we’ve lived here.

Belated Halloween post

We had a great Halloween this year, the weather was perfect. Jackson was a zombie and Aubrie was Cinderella! 

We took the golf cart trick or treating this year. 

There was  a little Halloween event at the park by our house, so we stopped by before trick or treating. 

Jackson and all of his neighborhood buds dressed up. 

Jackson looses a tooth!

Jackson lost his first tooth a couple of weeks ago. It’d been loose for a while and then finally just fell out one night, he was very excited

The “tooth fairy” left 5 one dollar bills underneath Jackson’s pillow, but somehow even weeks later we are only able to locate 4 of the 5. Jackson was disappointed because all of his friends got $5 but he only had $4, so Drew told him this to try and make him feel better (and let me state that he did not run this by me before hand): “Don’t worry Jackson, for your first tooth you get $4, your second you get $5, your third $6, and so on.”  So does anyone know how many baby teeth you loose? I need a calculator to see how big of a loan I need to take out to play tooth fairy!

The Best (and worst) of Aubrie

I'm putting together this post so that I have a place to save all of the random videos on my phone I have of Aubrie singing and dancing. These are all from the past 15 months. I can't believe how much she's grown! 

Look how little she is!

Is it a raccoon or a cocoon? 

More ABCs:

Hmmm...Aunt Amy what do you think? Future dancer?

She also loves to make up her own songs, what do you think, do we have a songwriter on our hands?

Even at Jackson's Karate class Aubrie wants all eyes on her:

But believe it or not...she's not always as happy and sweet as she seems:

Jackson's End of the Year Party

Jackson had his End of the Year Party at school today (even though their last day isn't until June 7th). I can't believe he's about to finish kindergarten! Aubrie and I got to attend:

We ate hot dogs, fruit, & chips.

Aubrie enjoyed seeing Jackson's classroom (yes, she picked out her outfit for the day): 

We had ice cream sundaes: 

We got to bring home a meal-worm, wahoo! We get to wait until it hatches from its larva and then turns into a beetle. Then we release it ;)

We did lots of playing:

Jackson and his teacher, Mrs. McPhail:

Fort Lauderdale: DAY 9

We woke up this morning to pouring down rain. so with our plans for swimming out we decided to go ahead and pack up and head home. We left around lunchtime and headed for Lake City. It was a long but uneventful drive and the kids were really good.

After a quick dinner we headed to the hot tub for a little bit. 

We are all exhausted and ready to be home. (Drew is still in Fort Lauderdale but should be home with us sometime on Friday!) Good Night!

Fort Lauderdale: DAY 8

This morning the kids and I visited Gumbo Limbo, a Sea Turtle rescue and rehabilitation facility in Boca Raton. It was a beautiful and well-maintained place that had a very helpful and informative staff, the kids and I loved it! As always, be warned there are LOTS of pictures! :)

They had some really neat tanks set up for viewing. 

This tank was desinged to resemble a sunken ship reef. There were small sharks, stingrays, huge lobsters, and all sorts of marine life in them.

We also got to see baby sea turtles as well as a few of the turtles that were in the hospital temporarily until they are well enough to be released back into the wild.

The baby in the video was 7 months old, at his full grown weight he'll weigh 300 lbs!

This was at the seahorse display.

The below picture is for the few members of our family that I knew would get a kick out of this. The display was hanging in the bathroom (!!) and titled: The Scoop on Poop. I'll let you guess what the display is of...

They also had a beautiful boardwalk with a nature trail, butterfly garden, and observation deck.

There were hundreds of fiddler crabs scurrying around in the roots of the mangrove trees. 

Jackson was exhausted after all of the walking!

Afterwards we met Drew back at the hotel and decided to attempt the beach again. It was SOOO much better than when we went over the weekend. While it was a bit overcast and windy, it was actually nice because it wasn't as hot. The kids had a blast because there was a playground right on the beach. I may be a  bit partial, but I think our beach on the Gulf Coast is soo much nicer...nicer sand, no oil tankers in the background, cleaner, less seaweed...pretty much everything ;)

Look what we found! A sea turtle nest that had been roped off for protection. The kids thought it was really neat since we just learned all about them this morning and the rehabilitation facility. 

We even found a coconut. Although we opted not to bring it home because it smelled like sour milk!

Now we're all back at the hotel (except for Drew whose at work) and are getting ready for a good night sleep. Our "journey" will be ending soon as we plan on leaving Thursday morning. Good Night!