Marine Discovery Center

Yesterday we all took a trip to the Marine Discovery center on Ponce Inlet, about 40 minutes away from our house. We have been wanting to go for awhile, and yesterday afternoon we suddenly decided to go! It was kind of a race because we got out the door around 2:30 and they stop letting people in at 3:30. Even though they close at 4 which means we wouldn't have very much time to see everything, we figured that there would never be a day when Anthony was home earlier than yesterday so we might as well go and enjoy it as much as we could before they close.
It was fun! They have a sting ray touch tank and tons of separate aquariums, most of them saltwater. Anthony was in heaven :) He kept looking at their equipment and setup and going, "Did you know that each one of those is $400???" and things like that. Later he mentioned that he would love to have their budget for his tank at home. Sometimes I really think he missed his calling, that man would love to be a marine biologist.

All of the aquariums had a kid level viewing window like this, and I think it is the best idea ever! James loved it. He would crouch down and look and then rush over to the next one and do the same thing, around and around to each one.

Anthony was trying to get James to touch the sting ray, but mostly he just wanted to splash the water.

 I tried to get a picture of the sting ray coming up right to the edge and how much they put their bodies out of the water. Whenever I see sting rays in tanks like this, it always fascinates me how much they obviously like to be petted and get attention. They are just like dogs! If one is getting attention, another one will come up and try to slide on top of them to get in on the action. It is even more amazing, since this was just a touch tank, and not one where you lure them with food.

 There was a really tall artifical reef tank in the middle of the room that had some cool stuff in it. I was trying to show James the HUGE lobster in there.

 Look at the lobster photobombing our pictures!! Ha!

 These were some fresh water turtles sunning themselves. We got to see them swim around underwater through the viewing window and it was pretty neat.

 I was totally fooled by this guy when I first looked at him. I thought he was a rock!

This tank had two moray eels and they are creepy looking. They have rows of sharp looking teeth and they look like some kind of sea monster. It reminds me of the huge one we saw in the keys last year while we were snorkeling. Yikes!

The part of the center I was most excited to see is their sea turtle rescue and rehabiliation center. They are the go to place in the area for injured sea turtles and they have a huge room full of multiple seapools that are labeled like hospital beds (They have ICU 1, ICU 2, etc..) In front of the viewing glass they have a map of which sea turtle is in what pool, their name, type, when they came to the center, their injury, and what type of rehabiliation they are recieving. For example, one turtle has limited use of his front flippers after some kind of infection/illness and now he is getting physical therapy to try to get his use back. Cool, right?

I don't know if you can see, but this turtle is missing his front left flipper (the one closest to the camera) from a boat strike. It didn't seem to stop him from getting around though, he just did more circles than probably necessary :)

 It is hard to tell in this picture too (I had to take them from high up behind a glass wall), but this guy has a huge gap in his shell right on the top behind his head (you see the white line?) from the propeller of a boat. It is causing him bouyancy problems so they are working on it with him.

They had a chart with the numbers of turtles they received for rehab over the years and I was really surprised at how high the numbers were. In 2011, they received something like 150 adult sea turtles and 200+ baby sea turtles. Since they only had 3 or 4 adults in the hospital, I am assuming that most of them were released...or maybe that is wishful thinking. They didn't give any numbers on how many didn't make it, but maybe because that would be too sad :( There were pictures of some of the releases back into the ocean that looked really cool, so we will definitely have to look for an announcement of the next release. They are open to the public, so it would be a cool thing to go to and see.

Busy, Busy, Busy

We have been busy over here lately, it seems like June has just zoomed by! Last week we looked after our friends' children in return for them watching James for us a few weeks ago. Oh my word, having three kids all together is loud!! I'm not going to lie, it was a little overwhelming, especially since James and their little boy Jaxton are only a month apart so it is like having twins plus an older sibling. But, we had a great time!! Our friends have an awesome playroom that I am totally jealous of and we had fun playing dress-up, play-doh, and hide and seek and James loved pushing around the different shopping carts they had. It was kind of funny to see the look on James' face whenever one of the other kids would come and sit in my lap. He would get this "Hey, that's my spot...what are you doing in my spot....?" look and then he would come over and try to wiggle in. So cute.

We took a picture of them all in the tub and it was adorable, but I'm only going to post the pictures we took of James since I'm not sure how their mom feels about bath pictures up on the internet :)

James has started to notice different body parts on himself and is starting to realize that other people have those body parts too. His favorite right now is his belly button. If you ask him where his belly button is, he will immediately lift his shirt up and look for it, almost as if he isn't sure it is still there! Then he looks over at me or Anthony and lunges towards us, grabbing at our shirts trying to lift it up so he can see our belly button. He thinks it is hilarious that we have one too!

A few weeks ago we went to a fund raiser event at a local horse rescue and James loved it! I really need to find a local farm or something that we can visit more often because he loves seeing all the animals and chasing all the chickens. He especially loved running around in the mud, much to my dismay! :) We got to feed and pet the horses, there were so many of them. They even had a baby miniature horse that was the size of a child's rocking horse. So cute!! James was not afraid of the horses at all. One of them was in a separate pen that was made up of a few horizontal bars and James tried to stick his head through and wiggle his body over to get inside multiple times. The horse would come up and sniff James to see if he had any food and he would just laugh!

With all the rain we've been having, a lot of the fun activities on my list of the summer have been put on hold and I've tried to think of things to do to get us out of the house. The mall is a good 30 minutes away from us so we don't go that often, but they do have an indoor playground so we've gone a few times. For some reason, don't ask me why, all of the decorations and play equipment are large scale breakfast items... It is kind of weird. But that doesn't stop the kids from having fun! Every time we have gone they are all running around going crazy and having fun. James likes climbing on the top of the eggs and standing there like king of the mountain. Then he slowly sits down and slides down backwards off of it very cautiously :) He also really likes the bacon slide (so odd!! who came up with piece of bacon for a slide?? Why??)

The rule at the playground is for everyone to take their shoes off, which isn't a problem except that James is in this phase where he loves to pick up people's shoes and bring them to them to put on. Loves it. Does it nonstop at home. So of course when he saw the tower of shoes in shoe rack he squealed and looked so excited! It was pretty difficult to keep him away from them for the rest of the time. He also has started saying "Shoe" a lot, one of the few words he will say. He talks and babbles all the time, but he doesn't say very many distingushable words. I think he knows how to say more than he does, because out of nowhere he will say something and Anthony and I will look at each other like, "Was that what we thought it was??" but he won't repeat it or do it consistently.

James has also started getting into EVERYTHING. Instead of just screaming and crying when he can't get at something he has started to get creative..

My phone camera is awful, but if you look closely you can see that he pulled his ride-on fire truck up to the couch so he can get at the side table that has remotes, candles, books: everything he isn't supposed to get :) The funniest part was that I was sitting right next to him by that blue pillow when he did it. I was reading a book and had no idea until I happened to glance over and he was level with my face. Attentive parenting in action :)

Anthony's work is going great, he still loves it and he renegotiated his contract for another year. He also has been really excited about his aquarium lately. A friend of his sold all of his corals, so Anthony made out like a bandit and now his tank is FULL of new stuff. He hasn't been fishing lately, but once the weather gets better we hopefully will get to go out in the boat again soon.

I haven't been doing anything too exciting. I really enjoy the one day a week I volunteer at the library. I usually just put my mp3 player on with podcasts I like to listen to and I zone out while I reselve books. It is relaxing :) I bought myself a Kindle Fire, I had been thinking about it for 6 months and I finally decided to do it. Anthony and I share an Ipad, so I thought it would be nice to have something for each of us. Of course, when Anthony is at work or doing something with his tank I use the Ipad because it is so much bigger so I've been feeling kind of guilty that I don't use the Kindle more. First world problems right? :)

Loving Summer

We have been loving our summer so far! Ever since we have gotten back from vacation, it feels like we have been going nonstop. James has started going to the toddler story time/kids in motion class at the library and it has been fun to watch him interact with older kids and try to figure out what they are doing :) This past week one of Anthony's sisters and a few of his nieces were in town, so we tried to spend as much time with them as we could. It was so much fun!!! James had a blast exploring their hotel room and the awesome water park at their resort. I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted to...I need to get a more convenient camera-one that you can just whip out and start shooting. Ours has to be taken out of its case, the strap unwrapped, wait for it to power up, etc... I got a few of Anthony and James playing in the wading area. James liked it, but it took a little while for him to warm up to it.

Yesterday, Anthony and I got to go the temple to do an endowment session for the first time in 2 years!! We've been to the temple a few times over the past years, but never long enough to do a full session. It was wonderful!! It was our first time leaving James with a non family member. Luckily, our friends who watched him are awesome! (We are watching their children next week so that they can go) They have a son that is only a month younger than James and they are best little buddies. It is so cute to watch them play together. As we were pulling away from their house, both and Anthony and I were a little upset. We kept saying, "we don't like this!" and it didn't feel very good to leave our little boy behind. I started to calculate in my mind how quickly we could get there and back and how soon until we could pick him up :) My friend texted me a few times while we were gone giving me little updates and letting me know how well he was doing. It helped a lot!!! We got back right before bedtime and he was having so much fun, he didn't even really react that much when we walked in the door. He was probably think, "man, now I have to go home and go to bed!" :)

On our way home from Orlando, we drove by Universal and I got a glimpse of Hogwarts as we were merging onto the highway. Now I want to go so bad!!! Anyone want to go to Harry Potter world with us?

North Carolina Beach Vacation

We just came back from our week long beach vacation with family and it was a blast!!! There is so much to write about! I was super nervous about the drive, it was going to be the longest drive we had ever made with James and I had nightmares about him screaming his head off for hours on end. All of my worries were totally unfounded, he was a champ!! He barely fussed the entire 12 hour drive there and the entire 12 hour drive back!! He would play happily, eat his snacks, and then take little cat naps. We stopped every 3 hours to switch drivers and to give James a break from his car seat and he loved running around rest areas, truck stops, and restaurants. One lesson we learned: when we normally give James a sippy cup of milk or juice he usually just sips it while he plays and hardly ever finishes it. Except when in a car for long amounts of time. He downed those things in minutes flat and we had quite a few diaper leaks and wardrobe changes along the way. Live and learn, right? :)
When we finally made it to the beach house, this is what we pulled up to:



This was the view of the neighborhood from one of the upper decks:

It was a ginormous house!! For the majority of the week we had four different families staying here and it didn't feel crowded at all. There were 5 bedrooms and 4 1/2 bathrooms spread out on three different levels. The beach was a short walk from the house, as well as a community pool and playground. James had his first pool experience and did really well!! We are definitely doing swimming lessons with him soon. He already loves going to the beach at home, but it was way fun getting to go with his aunts, uncles, and cousins. He absolutely adored he 4 year old cousin, Savino, and followed him around all the time, trying to copy everything he did.

Our first day there, a few of us decided to go on a jeep tour of a nearby wild horse preserve. It was so surreal, we drove these jeeps all through this public beach and the roads of beach house neighborhoods and saw tons of wild horses. On one side we would see horses grazing, and on the other a group of vacationers getting ready to go to the beach. Now that would be a fun house to rent!

You can see the huge puddles we had to drive through. It was so much fun!

This was the first group of horses that we came across. The guide told us that there were about 170 total horses on the preserve.

Here are another few horses that we saw in someones front yard.

 This was probably the coolest thing we saw on the tour. We drove back onto the beach and right in front of a group of sunbathers were five horses standing in the surf!! There were three dark horses standing together and a mother horse and her foal standing separately. The guide told us that the baby was three weeks old and the youngest horse on the preserve. It was so neat to see them! We even got to see the foal nurse a little bit. The law is that you keep at least 50 feet away from the horses, so our guide wouldn't let us get too close for pictures, but the other beach goers were much closer than that. Technically if they come close to you, you are supposed to back away but in reality how in the world can you do that?? If a wild horse walked up to me, there is no way I would back away from that experience!

 After seeing the horses, we stopped by the lighthouse to look around. It was a cool looking lighthouse, but they charged $7 per person to climb up it, so we just walked around outside.

Since there were so many of us sharing a kitchen at the house, we all took turns cooking and we had some great culinary creations. We all are huge fans of epic meal time, so there were tons of bacon strips, bacon weaves, and even 4 year old Savino was demanding his bacon! One night we also decided to make what we dubbed "inception cookies" since they are a cookie within a cookie: chocolate chip cookies with oreos in the middle. Oh. my. word. These things were so good!!!

We spent a lot of time at the beach or at the pool, but only took the camera a few times. Luckily we got some great pictures. James had so much fun running around in the sand, playing with stuff he picked up off the beach and trying to eat it :)

 James was cracking himself up, trying to get my sunglasses!

 He loved the water, but it was soooo cold for us florida folk!

 You have to zoom in on his face in this picture. Priceless!

 He picked up a stick from the sand and decided that it was good to chew on. Such a crazy kid!

 I was trying to take a nice picture with James and my brother decided to photobomb it!

 Here is another evening trip to the beach to run the kids and the dogs.

 James would just pull away from us and run towards the sand dunes as if on a mission. He had no fear!

Another day we decided to go visit the Wright Brothers Memorial at Kitty Hawk since it was only about 30 minutes away from where we were staying. We got to learn more about the Wright brothers themselves and to see replicas of the planes they built. Then we climbed to the top of the hill where they took off in the first motored manned flight. There is a large monument at the top of the hill and we could see quite a few helicopters and planes circling around from up there. It was really neat!

 Savino was so sweet, he really wanted to push James' stroller up the hill all by himself. He lasted longer than I expected!

We tried out a few restaurants while were there, but I don't think anyone was too impressed. We almost never eat out at restaurants, so maybe our expectations were a little too high? Either that, or we are all just such great cooks at home that nothing else compares :)

Most nights after the kids were in bed we would try to play games or some kind of activity. It was a blast!! I don't know when I have laughed so much. We played the newly wed game one night and the players were: Anthony and me, my sister Gabrielle and her husband, my other sister Angi and her husband, and my brother Daniel and my mom. That's right, my brother and my mom were a couple!! They spend so much time together, we figured it counted :) Anthony and I came so close to winning, but on the last question, we got it wrong, my brother got it right and so my mom and my brother came out victorious. It was hilarious to hear them talk about each other's annoying habits!! Another night we played a marathon game of Phase 10 that took close to 4 hours to complete. By the end, we were all giggling at every little thing and my brother Daniel was laughing so hard he was crying and could barely play.

It was such a fun vacation, I can't wait to do it again. One day I was thinking to myself how special it is that so much family could live under one roof and have such a good time together, with no real arguing or bad feelings. Seriously, if we had a big enough place I would live under one roof with these people full time, I love spending time with them that much. How long until next May?? :)