Florida, Part 1

We just returned from our annual family vacation to New Smyrna Beach.  Another year of fun times!  We actually headed down to Lakeland last Friday and spent the night there.  The girls enjoyed sharing a hotel room with Bama and making their fun sunglasses when they woke up Saturday morning.

 On Friday night, we had a great time at dinner with Hollis, Debbie, Emily and Hamilton.  While Ryan and I saw them just a few weeks ago at Lois' funeral, they had never met Mia and hadn't seen Lily since she was about 6 months old.  Also, it had many years since they visited with Liz, so this was a wonderful evening for all of us to catch up.  The girls warmed up to Hollis very quickly; apparently his sense of humor is a lot like Grandpops, so they loved that!

 After breakfast on Saturday morning, we went over to visit with Great-Grandpa Hooks for awhile.  I am always fascinated listening to his stories; he has led such an interesting life.  The girls were happy to perform a few songs for him.  I think just seeing them run back and forth to Ryan and me between performances was enough to wear him out though!

 We were all thankful for this wonderful visit.

 We left Lakeland and started heading towards New Smyrna Beach.  However, you really don't have a choice but to drive through Orlando to get there.  Since it was lunchtime, we decided to make a pit stop at Downtown Disney.  The girls were happy to see Mickey and Minnie (even if they are just statues).

 We were pleasantly surprised that at noon on a Saturday, we only had an 8 minute wait for lunch at Rainforest Café.  The girls were thrilled with their souvenir tree frog glasses with smoothies.

 After lunch, we stopped at Goofy's Candy Shop.  I would like to say this was because the girls love it, but to be perfectly honest, I absolutely love the peanut butter cups they make here.  I couldn't be that close and not get one.  After that, Ryan and I were talking about our lunch bill and realized the waiter had cheated us out of $20, so we went back over to Rainforest Café and discussed this with the manager.  After a few minutes of investigation, they refunded us the $20 and promised to look into the issue further with the waiter.  We weren't exactly thrilled with this, but at least we given the money back.  While we were dealing with this, Liz took the girls to the bathroom and then to the huge Disney store.  Not too surprising, the girls each fell in love with an item.  We caved.  Lily received a little Rapunzel set to dress up while Mia loved the Merida bow and arrow set.  She had been talking for a couple of days about having a bow and arrow (don't know where that idea came from as it's been awhile since we've seen Brave), so when she saw a "real" set, she was beside herself with excitement.  I have never seen her smile bigger than when we said she could get it.  She promptly declared this to be the best day of her life and thanked us multiple times.

 Apparently, anytime at Disney can wipe the girls out.

 Later in the week, Ryan and I had the opportunity for a date night, so we actually headed back to Downtown Disney to enjoy dinner at House of Blues; it was delicious.  We got caught up in the Disney excitement (as if that's something new) and decided to surprise the girls with costumes to go with their new toys.  How cute are they?

 Practicing her archery skills as Merida.  Love this cutie!

Happy 4th of July!

Happy birthday America!

 

Today didn't go quite as expected.  We were excited that we were going to walk with our school in the Marietta Parade that we always enjoy going to watch.  Unfortunately, it has been awful weather, and the parade and festivities were cancelled.  So we had an easy-going day at home instead.  We started out the morning with some flag toast.

 Lily wanted to make lunch.  She asked me to make us grilled cheese sandwiches and then she decorated them.  While she did this, I attempted a little science experiment using red (apple raspberry juice), white (sprite) and blue (Gatorade).  Unfortunately, the sugar content in the white and blue were almost identical so they mixed very quickly.  The red stayed separate though so that was cool.  Next time, I'll look for ones with a larger sugar difference.  The girls still thought it was pretty neat.

 We were able to take a couple of quick pictures in between rain showers.

 Red, white and blue dinner with Liz and my dad (Mom is in Tennessee and Ryan's in Alaska).  I put a close-up of the jello in here because, to be honest, I'm pretty proud of how well it turned out!  Tasted good too which makes it even better.  We also enjoyed some fruit, sun-dried tomato chicken and a roll.  For dessert, we had my homemade strawberry popsicles which are very yummy.

 The girls are now having a sleepover in Mia's room which they always enjoy.  A little more low-key of a birthday celebration than we expected, but nice nonetheless.  I always love time spent with them!

Girls Trip!

What a fun few days!  Since Ryan is in Alaska, I decided to take the girls on a little getaway for a few days.  On Monday morning, we headed out to Chattanooga.  We had a blast!  I took over 300 pictures in just three days, and I have narrowed it down here...it wasn't easy!

We headed straight to the Children's Museum when we got in.  The girls loved this place when we visited in December, and they couldn't wait to get back.  We spent almost 5 hours there, and I think they would have been more than happy to spend even more time there.  They both love the water feature area and the playground above it.

 They enjoyed creating their own cartoons.

 Playing with clay is always fun.

 Painting with water is a favorite.

 While Mia enjoyed the stamping area, Lily had a good time with rubbings.  They both made about 8 or 9 pages in these areas.

 Lily was fascinated by the mineral, crystal and critter area.  She studied the minerals and crystals, noting their sizes, colors and shapes.  Then she moved on to study the critters.  In this picture, she's watching the Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches before moving on to the gecko, millipede, corn snake and tarantula.

 Mia would have been happy to spend hours in the sand digging for fossils.  She loved this area!

 Next up was a little pretend play.  First they were dinosaurs before moving over to become doctors.

 Lily enjoyed the science area a lot too.

 The girls worked together to build this race set; they had fun rolling the balls down to see what worked on the course and what didn't.

 They loved the bee area.  Here they dressed up as bees, but they also studied the live honeycomb with its bees in the window.

 The rotating exhibit had some fun things from the mid-1800s in it.  It was based on one of the Magic Tree House books.  Here they are pretending to take a carriage ride, but they also enjoyed "driving" a coal train.

 We spent some time in the area for kids 5 and under.  Lily was a little bored until they discovered the train set.  Mia however loved being in here as things were closer to her size.  She cleaned the house, played in a tree house, drove a car, built a dog house and painted it here.

 The girls showed some self-expression with face painting.

 Lily listening to the ocean in a shell.

 Finally, at almost 3, we walked over to check into our hotel and rest for a little bit.  About 4:30, everyone got back up, ate a little snack and then headed over to Ruby Falls since it was raining.  The girls were fascinated by this excursion!  They were amazed they were down inside a mountain and walking through a cave.  Of course, they thought the waterfall all lit up was beautiful too.  This was definitely a great part of the trip.

 Enjoying the view of Chattanooga from Ruby Falls after the rain had stopped.

 Mia was elated to get this miner's hat as her souvenir!

 Both girls were worn out on Monday night!

 On Tuesday morning, we drove up to Jefferson City to visit with our Granny and with my mom who was also in town visiting.  This was a great treat for all of us!  The girls showed off some of their skills for her.  Lily read a book to her and showed her how she learned to tie tennis shoes.  Mia told a few jokes, danced and did a few karate moves.

 After spending some time at Granny's home, we all drove over to Morristown to enjoy a lovely lunch at Timeless Elegance.  The girls loved their individual tea pots and cups!

 After lunch we headed back to Chattanooga and both girls took good naps in the car.  We actually headed straight over to the Sepulveda's house where we enjoyed a great evening with them.  The kids get along so well, and I had a wonderful time catching up with Allison and Michael.

 On Wednesday morning, we ate breakfast and then checked-out of the hotel.  Allison met us at the aquarium to get us guest passes which was very appreciated.

 My little fish in the tank.

 We all enjoyed the Ranger Rick bird show.  The toucan was beautiful, the screech owl was interesting and the parrot was fun as he repeated sounds for us.

 Having fun!

 Mia couldn't help but pet the sturgeon, sharks and rays.

 Taking a break and enjoying the view.

 Holding still in hopes a butterfly would land on their hands.

 Watching the penguins.  This was a favorite exhibit for us.

 In the shark tank.  Mia said she couldn't wait to do one of these for real when she was older.  When I explained that it meant she would be inside it and lowered into the ocean and surrounded by sharks, she said "I know.  That will be awesome!"

 Mia in with the king crabs; Lily refused to get in here.

 This note was my reward of this wonderful getaway.  You can believe it was absolutely worth it!