New Smyrna Beach 2015

Recently our family headed down to New Smyrna Beach, FL for our family's annual vacation.  This year, we decided to simply take it easy and enjoy our time there; we didn't plan any side trips or before/after trips.  We were appreciative that Mom and Dad let us stay with them; they are always so gracious with that.  Overall it was a lovely week.  Here are several pictures (in no particular order) of the fun we had.

What a welcoming site!  Ryan and the girls headed down to the pool pretty quickly once we got down there, and I headed over to Publix.  This greeted me in the parking lot.  What a great reminder of one of God's promises!

I have to admit that we didn't take this picture; my cousin Lisa did.  Isn't this sunset amazingly beautiful?!  This was our first night there and the view from JB's restaurant.  I couldn't resist keeping it.

Randy and Georgia are so kind every year to play a game where all of their nieces/nephews get their birthday money gift from them and Meme.  Each child ends up getting around $40.  Needless to say, it's a much anticipated event!  Our girls certainly appreciate their generosity!

We surprised the girls with boogy boards this year.  They couldn't wait to try them out!

Trying to catch some waves!

Of course, the beach is also great for playing in the sand.

This is one of the beautiful sunrises Ryan saw...I missed this one (and every other one this week).

Well what do you know?  The boogy boards are fun in the pool too!

Mia loved getting some pointers from Papa on how to catch and throw a ball; she can't wait to play softball this fall!

Lily got the hang of diving this year!

Both girls loved it when Ryan would throw them in the pool.  Mia could catch some air.

Lily was a little more reserved (and just a few pounds more), so she didn't fly quite as high.

One fun little treat this week included a stop at Baskin Robbins after dinner one evening.

We were all so excited to meet our newest cousin, Maggie Jane.  She's five weeks old now.  Her birth mother chose Jason and Jill to be her parents when she was only two days old.  She is absolutely precious, and we are glad to welcome her into our family.  We had a fun baby shower for her and our second new cousin, Bryce, who technically joined the family last year just before the beach trip but was officially adopted in during the year.  We love kids in this family!

Both girls were a little nervous to try the big surfboard, but they were willing to give standing up a try with a little help and encouragement from McKayla and Madi.

Wayne and I enjoyed sitting down by the water catching up one afternoon.

Lastly, here's the shot of the big group after enjoying hot dog day.  My family isn't perfect, but we love each other.  I'm thankful for the traditions that have been established over the years!

On Friday, it started raining about noon, and the forecast said that would keep up the rest of the day.  We decided to pack it on up and head north.  We stopped in Daytona for a couple of hours first though, so I could get my Bubba Gump's shrimp in; still my favorite shrimp ever.  We headed on home after that which ended up working out well.  We missed a good bit of traffic (there's a mass exodus from Florida on Saturday), and that gave us the whole day on Saturday to catch up on laundry and rest.  Trips are always fun, but there's nothing like coming home!

Father's Day Weekend in Chicago

Our whole family was excited that we would get to spend Father's Day weekend in Chicago!  We headed up on Thursday and landed mid-afternoon.  Both girls have become pros at air travel which we appreciate.  I did laugh though as they asked what time we would launch.  I guess that's a carryover from our time at Rocket Center a few weeks ago!  David picked us up from the airport, and we headed towards their home.  The Blackhawks were having their Stanley Cup celebration parade that day, and we decided it was best to stay in for the evening.  We ordered in some delicious pizza and simply enjoyed being with David and Jan.  Nick joined us towards the end of our time there, and it was great to visit with him again.  We finally decided to head over to our hotel, so we could all rest up and get ready for a fun weekend.

I took tons of pictures throughout this trip, but I've tried to condense them down to collages where possible, just to save some space.

On Friday morning, we ate breakfast at the hotel and then drove over to Lincoln Park Zoo.  It was an amazingly beautiful day!  We were so fortunate with our weather the whole time.  The zoo really wasn't too crowded either, so we were able to take our time and get up close and personal with the animals.  The girls really enjoyed riding the endangered species carousel.  We were all fascinated by the gibbon monkeys and their crazy calls.  I loved being in the big cats' den where we were able to get incredible views of lions, tigers, wolverines, etc.  Lily was very excited to get a stuffed animal from the zoo to match "Linca," the sea otter she got last time. She settled on a cute giraffe that she has named "Necklace."  Mia decided she would save her souvenir buying for a later day.

After several hours at the zoo, we headed out for lunch at D4 which was so good.  Then Jan took the girls while Ryan, David and I stopped by a great butcher shop and our hotel to get a few things together.  Jan started by going to Walgreens to get the girls sweatshirts.  Though it was beautiful, we weren't expecting the upper 50's for the weather!  When the wind blew off the lake, it was really chilly!  After they got sweatshirts, they walked over to Maggie Daly Park where a new playground had just opened.  Mia was thrilled to see the new climbing wall!  She spent close to an hour and a half on it.  She was definitely the smallest person out their climbing, but she had the most determination.  I'm truly amazed at her confidence and willingness to try things like this.  Love this girl!

Just after she started climbing, David and Ryan dropped me off.  Jan and I alternated staying to watch Mia and playing on the rest of the playground with Lily.  It was a pretty neat one with lots of different areas to explore.  It started out being not too crowded but then filled up as the day went on.  We realized that was the last day of school for Chicago kids, so many were celebrating at the playground.

When Mia's climbing time was up, she joined us on the playground.  They had a great time together.

David and Jan were very kind and offered to keep the girls for us at their home Friday night so Ryan and I could have a date.  Nick found some tickets for us which we appreciated.  We cheered on the White Sox this time, and loved that it was "Mullet Night" sponsored by Great Clips.  It was hilarious.  This was a great evening.

While we were at the game, the girls were having a blast swimming at David and Jan's home.  They will always take the chance to go swimming!

They also took this time to play with Taz a lot.  They love that little dog!

On Saturday, we enjoyed breakfast together and then stayed at their home for awhile.  Ryan and I were super excited to visit Eataly for lunch; we love this place.  It's probably one of my favorite places to visit, anywhere.  After that, we went to see the newest Pixar movie called Inside Out.  It was really cute, and we all enjoyed it.  Saturday evening we spent eating all sorts of yummy meats and cheeses from Eataly.  It was wonderful.

Sunday was Father's Day.  We were thankful to have both Ryan and David around to celebrate with.  Our girls have no idea how blessed they are to have Ryan for their father; he's a great one.  We decided to celebrate by visiting the Adler Planetarium.  It was a fascinating place.  The first part was all about the Gemini and Apollo space missions which we all love.  Ryan and I loved that the astronauts read the creation story in Genesis as a Christmas Eve broadcast from space.  The NASA flight manual said they would do this because there was nothing more appropriate than this.  I had goosebumps just listening to it.  We visited the dome for an interesting space adventure movie, and we ate a little lunch in the cafe.  There were some beautiful views of Lake Michigan and the city from the cafe.  The rest of our visit was spent seeing how other civilizations used the planets to create calendars and tell time, and how our understanding of the solar system has deepened with scientists and their tools.  It was a wonderful visit.

Another beautiful day; love this view from the Adler balcony!

We made our way back to the condo and got everything ready to grill out for the evening.  Look at this beautiful view!  This is on the 17th floor of the condo tower where they have lots of grills and patio space for the residents to use.

I think it's safe to say the girls were worn out from this weekend.  This is them all cozy on our sofa bed in the hotel.

This is how we found them sound asleep the next morning.

On Monday, David picked us up.  We enjoyed a breakfast at Yolk and then stopped by to see his new office.  It's in a really cool loft setting.  We got to meet his employees too which was nice.  From there it was time to head to the airport to come on home.  Our flight was delayed for a bit due to some bad weather coming in, but we managed to get out before it hit.  Both girls fell asleep on the car ride home.  It had been a big weekend.  We all loved it though.  We always enjoy our time with David and Jan.  We look forward to doing it again!

94 Years Young

Happy 94th birthday to Meme!  We love this lady so much.  Our family went to visit after I got home from work but before she headed to dinner.  Mom and Dad were there as were Mr. and Mrs. Rice.  Meme was so happy.  She had lots of visitors all day.  She was in great spirits.  I'm so thankful for her!

Hometown Tourist

We had some painters in our house last weekend, so we decided to play hometown tourist and give the fumes some time to get out.  We headed down to have lunch at Veni, Vidi, Vici; we were sad to learn they were closing but glad we made it by to have agnolotti once last time.  From there we drove down to the Marriott Marquis.  We all loved the view from our room. 

 We spent pretty much all afternoon in the pool.  It's a really great one.  It's a combo indoor/outdoor one, they provide pool noodles which we all love, and there's a hot tub.  The girls made a couple of new friends too which was sweet.  Finally, it was time to head in for dinner.  You know what that means...club sandwich from room service, my favorite!

 Just hanging out with this cutie.

 On Saturday we went over to The World of Coke.  The girls had never been, and it's something every Atlantan needs to do in their life.  Given that they rarely drink Coke (in fact, I think this was their first time to have real Coke instead of a product like Sprite or Fanta), this was quite a treat for them.  They loved it, well, until they tried the Beverly from Italy.  It was fun to see their reaction to that famous product (see Mia's face in the bottom middle of this collage).

We all enjoyed seeing the different bottles too, especially the ones from Morocco, China and India, three countries that hold special places in our hearts.

What a fun way to show a little hometown pride!

Memorial Day Weekend in Huntsville

We had such a fun summer kick-off over Memorial Day weekend!  Both of our girls are fascinated by space.  Lily just spent 2nd grade learning all about astronomy, and Mia thinks astronauts are the greatest; she'll go to outer space in a second if given the chance.  So, we decided to give Huntsville a try.  I took so many pictures over the course of the weekend, so I've narrowed them down into these collages so this post wouldn't be too incredibly long.

We headed over on Saturday morning, and we arrived at the Botanical Gardens right about lunch time.  We decided to grab a quick bite in their cafe before exploring.  It was an amazingly beautiful day, and we had a great time wandering the trails, admiring the flora and just taking in part of God's creation.  We also loved that they had several Lego displays up throughout the garden; it was fun to spot those.  There was something beautiful and/or fun to spot everywhere we looked.

We really enjoyed our time together.  I think we could have stayed several hours on the hammocks!  The kids' area was really neat; the girls were able to pet turtles which was something new.  They both enjoyed being our tour guide and using the map.  There was a very small playground with a couple of regular swings and a rope swing; they loved that!  This was really a lovely day!  

 After several hours of enjoying our time at the Gardens, we headed over to our hotel.  We got ready for the pool pretty quickly and headed down.

 After swimming, we came up to order room service dinner and shower off.  We all wanted a good night's sleep so we would be ready for the Space and Rocket Center the next day.

There were so many fun things to do at the Center.  Of course, it was fascinating to learn about the history (and some future predictions) of our space program.  Mia's favorite part was rocking climbing "on Mars."  This girl always loves a good rock climbing experience!  She scaled the wall quite skillfully two times.  Lily's favorite part was in the "Robot Zoo" where they had all sorts of robots and robotic activities that resembled animals.  It was pretty interesting.  We saw Saturn V which was humongous!  We learned all sorts of fascinating information.  What a wonderful way to spend the day.

 After leaving the Center, we drove up to Chattanooga for the evening; there's really no good direct way to Atlanta.  We spent the night (swimming in the hotel pool again), and then took our time heading out the next morning.  We stopped on the way home at the Tellus Science Museum in North Georgia.  Lily had actually gone earlier this year with her class, and she loved it.  She was excited to return while the other three of us looked forward to going.  Again, it was very interesting.  We learned about dinosaurs, gems, geology, space and transportation.  The girls enjoyed playing in the kids' area which included lots of science activities and also a temporary exhibit on the history of toys.  I think it's safe to say though the best part for all of us was the planetarium show where we learned about the night sky over Georgia.

This has certainly been an educational weekend, but we all had a great time!  What a fantastic way to kick off summer!