Zoo

 

 

 

 

Wednesday we went to the Tampa Zoo.  The day started out rainy.  It had actually rained a good portion of the early morning hours.  I was afraid we would have to call off Zoo day.  As we drove to Courtney's the rain subsided and I was so relieved.  But as we drove to the Zoo it started to sprinkle and didn't stop for about an hour and half.  But the forecast insisted that the rain would clear up after lunch and we decided to brave the Zoo anyway!  What I loved most about this Zoo is all the kids exhibits, it had an entire kid areas with rides and a splash pad area.  I also really like all the different animals you could feed at the Zoo.  But my favorite part of our visit was the safari bus tour!  We took our three and Courtney's three on the tour.  It was a behind the scenes tour inside the animals cages and through there feeding and veterinarian care facilities.  We also were able to see there hurricane safety areas for the animals.  It was so neat to see a handful of animals up close and personnel.  I forgot to mention we took a lunch break and had a picnic outside the Zoo in there amphitheater on benches.  It was a nice little break before we headed back in the Zoo and we stayed until closing.  For dinner that night Courtney and I got to grocery shop and cook a meal together, like old times.  The big kids and I spent the night and Courtney and I got to play a few rounds of cards, I was in heaven!

 

 

 

 

Beach day

 

Tuesday was our beach day!  Clearwater beach is rated number 2 must see beaches in FL and its less than 30 minutes away from my sister.  Also its probably the most beautiful scenic drive I ever seen.  Your literally on a ten minute drive with just water surrounding a bridge.  There are places to stop off the road to fish, play, eat.  We spent several hours at the beach and our day at the beach was my favorite day off our vacation.  It was so relaxing and the kids still are talking about it.  We built water moats, dug in the sand, put are feet in the water, swam, found seashells, and ate a picnic.  My sister packed the perfect lunch with lunchables and all kinds of fruit!  Beckett was not to sure about the beach at first but he soon was running around and chasing seagulls. The weather was perfect the breeze was divine.  I enjoyed absolutely ever second with my sister and her family.  Richard and I even got to eat our first grouper sandwich, which we both inhaled it was so delicious!  Our time at the beach was over but no one wanted to leave!  As we drove back we stopped at this neat ice cream joint and all had some awesome dessert!  I believe I forgot to mention that we didn't stay at my sisters, our crew was just to big!  We stayed at a resort about an 45 minutes from my sister in Davenport.

Travel Adventures..

The drive to Florida is 21 hours! It's the exact distance to CA.  I have been driving to CA and flying my entire life.  But I've never been to Florida. We decided to break the drive up.  We left Saturday at 5 when Richard got off work and stopped at my moms for the night in ft worth. Sunday we drove 10 hours and crossed TX, LA, MI, and into Alabama. Monday we drove 7 hours to Tampa FL were my sister lives.  The drive was beautiful! We drove pretty much down the edge of the states as we followed the Gulf of Mexico.  We even passed the Mississippi River.  A lot of our drive  consisted of trees.  I believe in Alabama we drove through a tunnel that went under the Gulf of Mexico.  Our highlander has three rows.  Normally Cooper sits in the very back by himself.  Allison sits next to Beckett.  Because grandma came with us we put both big kids in the back.  It's been over a year since they last sat together and let's just say I was so over our trip in the first few hours of bickering! We were handing out spankings for fighting.  For example, Cooper if you don't stop you will add another spanking to your total and when we stop next you receive your spanks.  If they were quiet for thirty minutes a spank would be taken off. Ugh!!  So Richard and I decided to switch people around.  We put Beckett in the back and moved Alli in the middle. Heavenly silence!!!  We  don't stop often when we drive.  In fact we try to correlate meals with gas stops. We made excellent time to FL! We drove into town at 6 and ate dinner with my sister and her family.  I got to hold my twin nieces for the first time.  After dinner we walked to a park by there house which has a large lake.  It was a sweet reunion and perfect way to begin our vacation!  I had my camera packed at this point so the picture quality isn't that great from my phone.

Spring Break or bust!

Last April when my sister and her family made the decision to move to Florida we immediately started planning a trip to visit them.  We are always going to CA to visit family, but when would we ever go the opposite end of the state?  Here was our chance!!  When my sister's twins were born in late August I was dying to go.  We decided we would go visit in March during spring break since both the breaks coincided. 

It was so fun planning our vacation.  Richard and I researched and planned, my sister asked around and we planned together also.  We even involved the kids in our activities.  The day before our trip my mother in law asked to tag along, and we said the more the merrier as long as she didn't mind a bunch of loud kids!  We also hosted my nephews 21st birthday at our house the day before, which involved a friendly silly string fight.  My sister came into Midland the day we were leaving to let her kids spend a few days with grandma during spring break, and we all meet up for lunch before we got on the road.  Our car was fully loaded, we had a new DVD set, kindle, DSI games, snacks, and grandma we were on the road!!! Next up our travel adventures..

20 months and other things..

Today my baby B is twenty months old.  Poor guy actually has a cold he is fighting but should be on the mends before we leave town Saturday.  Beckett is totally a daddy's boy.  I think it has gotten worse with Richard's crazy afternoon school schedule which means we really only see him on weekends.  Having said that Beckett wont let Richard out of his sight on Saturdays and Sundays.  My Beckett is finally repeating words and has added several new words to his daily conversations; oh no, oh my, mine, snack, more, and vroom.  He will say car but he calls them vroom.  Beckett is in love with cars, he literally carries them in his hands where ever we go.  He doesn't want to put them down when he gets dressed.  Every night when we tell him its time for night night, he starts blowing me kisses.  Beckett has grown a ton lately he can climbed out of his crib and open any door.  One morning I was up turning on the oven and what not, I was about to wake up the big kids and I hear footsteps.  It was the first time Beckett climbed out of his crib.  Beckett will climbed up the latter on the bunk bed, but wont climb down.  He has also learned how to open the fridge and will help him self to food.  My little guy keeps me on my toes getting into things but he also loves to cuddle and always wants to be right in the middle of whatever I am doing.  I was just thinking that this time last year he had just started crawling at nearly 8 months before we left for spring break in CA, my how time flies.  I am infinitely blessed to be my his mother!!

Life has been so busy, I feel like I am always saying that but its true!  Our lives are pretty much schedule until June.  Soccer season started last week.  We don't have our first game until the end of the month but we have officially started soccer practices.  Kill me!!  Both the big kids have practices on the same days with in thirty minutes of each other in two different places.  Richard of course goes with Alli and the boys and I go to Cooper's practice.  We've all been at the dentist a bunch lately.  I went into Hobbs Tuesday for tightening and replacement of my front teeth brackets ouch!  Cooper and Allison had there six month check ups.  Cooper needed a mini rout canal on this one pesky tooth.  Allison needs three baby teeth extracted.  Her adult teeth are coming in on top of her baby teeth!  Beckett has been in and out of sickness due to the crazy highs and lows in our weather here.  Life has a way of constantly rolling on by whither you want things to slow down or not. 

Sam's two

My best friend in Hobbs her son celebrated his second birthday this past weekend.  We made the drive down for his party!  The theme was Cars!  My friend had the cutest decorations with race car flags on balloons and streamers.  She even had hot wheel race tracks with cars for the kids to play with. She also made a cake the number 2 with a Oreo cookie race track on top. My kids have now requested a chocolate cake covered in Oreo crumbs for there birthdays.  My friend out did her self with hats with the kids initial on the front.  The three boys are within 4 and 2 months apart from each other!  The party was a hit, can't believe lil S will be two Tomorrow!

After the party we promised the big kids dinner at big cheese.  We even picked up one of Allison's friends along for our outing.  We ate way to much pizza and the kids won over 1500 tickets.  We spilt it in three and they still walked out with a ton of things.

Host

A couple of weekends ago I threw a baby shower for a new friend at church.  I thought I would be a fun get together with just ladies to get to know each other.  I actually love hosting and throwing parties.  I had fun making my usual baby shower gift washcloth/burp cloths and who doesn't love shopping for baby clothes?!  I made a bunch of goodies and raspberry punch.  I even bought a new punch bowel my last one broke and I found this cute dispenser!  There were 15 ladies that showed, I even had two people drop off gifts before the shower.  I found these awesome games on Pinterest and we all had a good laugh trying to answer questions.  I was so bummed I didn't take a single picture at the party!  Considering Richard was working and both boys were home (Alli had a play date) during the shower I was lucky everything went as planned. Although Beckett woke up at the very end and climbed out of his crib and somehow locked himself in our room.  I had to jimmy the door open with a bobby pin.  A few of the ladies lingered and I had fun chatting.  When I came back inside from helping my friend load her van with her gifts I found Beckett slipping around the kitchen because he had poured the rest of the lemonade on the ground.  Which is still sticky after three times of mopping!  So glad I had opportunity to throw a baby shower for such a sweet person!