Name Change

After almost 6 years, Mia has decided it's time to change the name of her special toy that she loves to sleep with. From now on, apparently Glowie will be Mia Jr. Love it!

A Weekend in Tennessee

This past weekend Ryan had a retreat to go to, so the girls and I wanted to do something fun.  We were excited to join my mom for a quick trip up to Tennessee to visit my grandmother.  We don't get to spend much time with Granny, so we knew this weekend would be a wonderful time.  We got in on Friday evening, visited for just a bit and then headed to bed.  Saturday came, and it was a beautiful day!  We were ready for a day of fun.

 

4 generations in Granny's front yard. 

 Granny with the girls and me with Mom.

 The girls couldn't wait to get back into the huge tree in Granny's yard.  They love climbing it.

 We left about 11 and headed over to Gatlinburg for lunch at Pancake Pantry.  It was delicious!  The girls were thrilled with their breakfasts, so they wanted to snap pictures.

 Always a good choice for yummy food.

 After lunch we visited the candy store next door because it's always fascinating to watch them make their own taffy, roll it out and package it.  It's interesting to watch the process.  Of course, we bought a few pieces to snack on.

 

After that we headed over to the trailer for the afternoon.  I have so many memories of coming up here over Spring Break as a child and spending time with Granny at the trailer at Outdoor Resorts.  There's lots to do there, but I was pretty sure the girls would have a blast playing in the creek that runs by her property.  I was right.  They played for over 4 hours without a break; they didn't stop for a snack or the bathroom.  They laughed and had a great time.  I took a lot of pictures, but I made several collages and put them on here instead of individual pictures.

 They had a lot of fun with leaf races over the little waterfall.

 Faces of pure happiness.

 They had a blast jumping off the waterfall.

Lily said this was her favorite part.

 What a great way to spend the afternoon!

Luckily I had followed Mom's suggestion to bring a change of clothes for them because they were absolutely soaked.  They changed and we headed over to The Apple Barn on our way home.  We had a little bit of wait, but we enjoyed the shop during that time.  I had never been here before, but it was a delicious meal.  We ended up not getting back to Granny's until close to 10, so were all worn out.  On Sunday, we had a little bit of a lazy morning together before we drove back home.  This was such a wonderful weekend!  I hope we can do it again sooner rather than later.

First Day of School!

School has started!  We all absolutely love ACCA and were happy to welcome a new school year.  The girls were so excited to get back and see all their friends.  I think we all do better with a routine as well.

 I love taking these pictures each Fall.

 Kindergarten and 2nd Grade, here they come!

 The girls with their main teachers.  Lily's teacher is Donna St. Hill while Mia is with Laura Keesee.  We love both of these ladies and are thrilled they are teaching the girls.

 It was a tiring first few days but some cuddle time helped!

 At the end of the first week, the school has "character day" where each child comes dressed up as a character from their summer reading list.  Lily wanted to dress up like Mary from The Secret Garden but I couldn't find anything for her to wear, so she went instead as a girl Raymond from Meanwhile.  Mia was quite excited to be Uncle Elephant.  Many thanks to Elizabeth Smith at Libbie Wicket for these great pictures.

 These first few weeks have gone great!  Both girls are absolutely thriving.  Our family is settling into it's new routine since Liz has moved back to Birmingham.  All is going well and we're looking forward to the new year.

End of Summer Wrap-Up

We had a few weeks to adjust back to life in the real world between our vacation and the start of school.  We enjoyed relaxed quite a bit, but also had some fun.

 

We enjoyed our visit with Meme one afternoon.  It always brightens her day to see the girls, and I love getting to talk with her.  She let me read the journal she's been writing with lots of her memories.  I loved it and hope to read more soon.

 The girls always love to transform our packing boxes into something else.  I love their creativity!  This time the box became a rocket ship.  They couldn't quite figure out how to make it "really launch" but they are working on it.

 I was thrilled that ACCA started a week after the majority of public schools in the area.  That meant we had a day at White Water practically to ourselves!  Of course the girls wanted to practice their snorkel skills.

 We three girls had a great time together; I love being with these two.

 Ryan and I received free tickets from Scana to go to the first Falcons' preseason game this season.  I can't even remember the last game I went to.  It was a lot of fun and very exciting.  We are loving watching Hard Knocks this season since it is following the Falcons; that made the game even more fun.

 The weekend before school started we made Frozen sugar cookies and used this obnoxiously bright blue icing with sprinkles.  We used Christmas cookie cutters for reindeer and snowmen.  It was a fun little activity.



Big Summer Vacation, Part 4

When the Allure docked on Sunday morning, we were able disembark and get through customs in about an hour.  From there, we stopped for a quick bite to eat and then headed north.  Thankfully, we only had a few hours drive in front of us as we going to meet up with the rest of our family for our annual trip to New Smyrna Beach.  Mom, Dad, Liz and my extended family had all arrived the day before, and thankfully, they had gone grocery shopping and had everything ready for us when we arrived.  It was a wonderful week with family. It rained a little more than usual but it was still lovely.  We didn't take as many pictures this year; I think we were "pictured out" from the week before!

Ryan saw this beautiful sunrise one morning.  It is so pretty that it almost made we wish I had gotten up to see it myself (almost...).

The girls wanted to be at the pool most of the week to practice their new swimming and snorkeling skills, but we managed to hit the beach a few times too for sand castle building, sea shell searching, wave jumping and relaxing.

 One evening, Mom, Liz, Lily, Mia, McKayla, Molly and I went to Daytona Beach.  We were heading to Bubba Gump's but the wait was crazy long so we went upstairs to a restaurant called Sloppy Joe's.  It was pretty tasty.  The evening took an eventful turn as we were leaving, and Mom slipped and fell in the restroom, cutting her forehead and giving her a couple of black eyes.  Dad met us about halfway back to the condo and took her to the hospital.  Thankfully, she did not have any type of an injury to her head or hip, and she has since made a full recovery.  This picture was taken at the beginning of the evening while we waited to go to a restaurant.

 On one particularly rainy afternoon, we let the girls open up their new Lego sets that we had recently purchased.  This kept the occupied for a couple of hours that afternoon and then a good bit of time the rest of the week as they could rebuild and show off their creations.

 We were so excited that Ryan's cousin, Emily, and her daughter, Kate, drove over from Lakeland to spend Wednesday with us!  We always have a great time together, and unfortunately, we don't get to see each other nearly enough because we live so far apart from one another.  The girls had a fantastic time playing together in the pool and on the beach, and we had a wonderful time catching up with Emily.  Lucky for them, they came by on hot dog day, so we all enjoyed that!

My dad helped the girls with boogie boards which they all loved!

A picture of the 6 cousins.

 Mom and Dad with their kids and grandkids.

On hot dog day, it's a tradition for us to take a big family picture.  We were all glad Emily was there as she was chosen to take the pictures this year!  There are 63 of us in this picture which is the majority of that side of my dad's family.  I love these people.

Another wonderful summer vacation in the books!

Big Summer Vacation, Part 3

There were three days of being docked on our cruise.  The cruise left port on Sunday and on Monday we docked in Nassau, Bahamas.  Since our family has already been to Nassau on the Disney cruise, we didn't even get off the boat.  It was wonderful to practically have this massive ship to ourselves!  We had a great day playing on board instead.

 

We cruised on Tuesday, and on Wednesday we docked in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas.  It was a lovely day as we left the boat, got on a open air bus and headed to the other side of the island to a small marina.  Here we boarded a catamaran and sailed to nearby St. John.  Ryan and I were so excited to go snorkeling in the beautiful Caribbean water.

 The girls were a little more hesitant.  I wrote in the previous post how they both learned to snorkel well; it was after this adventure so at this point they were a little nervous.  Ryan had jumped in the water from the side of the boat while I led them down the stairs off the boat.  Ryan took this picture while I was floating in front of them trying to coax them in.

 Finally, they came in, and to be honest, they were terrified.  The water was a lot deeper than any of us expected.  Thankfully, one of the deckhands could tell how nervous they were, so she threw down a couple of noodles so us for them to hold on to (in addition to their life vest); that helped them a lot.

 Ryan was loving this!

 We had about an hour and a half to snorkel, so for the first little while Lily and I stayed together while Ryan and Mia were together.  The water was unbelievably clear.  We saw lots of beautiful fish, stingrays and coral.  We were told there were sea turtles nearby but it was a little too far away for the girls.  The underwater camera doesn't take the best pictures, but here are a couple.

 

 Eventually we ended up on the beach at St. John and took a little family selfie.

 This was near our snorkel site.  Can you see the house at the top of the mountain?  That belongs to Kenny Chesney, one of my favorite musicians.  Unfortunately, he was not out snorkeling this day.

The girls and I played on the beach for a few minutes while Ryan snorkeled farther down.  Soon though we heard the conch shell blast to let us know it was time to head back to the catamaran.  Ryan got back before we did, but I love this picture he snapped from the catamaran as the girls and I got closer.

 This excursion was lots of fun, but it wears you out!  We relaxed on the ride back to the marina and enjoyed the snacks provided on the catamaran.  Though we all enjoyed the bread, cheese, fruit and meat that was laid out, the girls were very excited to see a big bowl of Hershey Kisses.  They probably had 5 or 6 each!

After we got back to the marina, we boarded the open air bus and headed back to the port where we found our souvenir Christmas ornament and got back on the cruise ship.

 

On Thursday, the Allure docked in Philipsburg which is on the Dutch side of St. Maarten.  This was the view from our balcony when we woke up that morning.  Beautiful right?  I could have sat and stared at this view all day, but we had another day of fun planned.



 We got off the boat, and this was the view from the port; still beautiful.

Welcome!

Excited to be on the dock.

 From the port, we boarded a tour bus and drove all around the island and entered the French side of the island.  We were given all sorts of interesting and fun facts about this beautiful island as we traveled.  When we reached our destination, we boarded a very small boat with about 15 other people.  This boat is actually a semi-submersible submarine, so after we set sail, we all headed downstairs into the submarine area.  You sit two by two and there are windows all around.  They explained that the window are made of magnifying glass so it appears we are just above the sea floor when in fact we're about 12 feet above.  We stopped at one reef where a diver got out to feed the fish and brought them all around the boat.  After watching that for awhile, we continued on where we saw a lot more fish, sea turtles, coral and sea grass.  It was a pretty interesting trip.

 While that's not our boat in the picture, this was right by where the tour boat left.

 The dock we left from.  Everything about this island fits right into my idea of what the Caribbean is really like.

 Our bus tour continued on for a little bit longer.  We stopped for about 45 minutes to let individuals do a little shopping, or in our case, enjoy an ice cream break by the water.

 

After the shopping/ice cream break, we headed back to port for the Allure, stopping for just a few minutes at this beautiful vista.

 When we arrived back to the port, we had two shops to visit.  One was a souvenir shop where we bought our Christmas ornament.  Two was a chocolate shop.  The Dutch make wonderful chocolate, and we wanted to try it out; we were not disappointed.  We had finished a very full day at this point so boarded the Allure to get ready for dinner and then enjoy two more days at sea before landing in Fort Lauderdale on Sunday morning.  We thoroughly enjoyed our time in the Caribbean!