Christmas 2012

We had one full Christmas holiday! My mom came to visit Friday before Christmas so we were able to get some time visiting with her before the rest of the family arrived Christmas eve and Christmas day. Friday night Anthony and I went out to dinner for our anniversary and it was so strange to go somewhere without James! Dinner was wonderful and it was heaven to be able to eat in a restaurant without worrying about James. He is not a fan of sitting down for meals :)

Christmas Eve Anthony went fishing with his dad and they had a great time! They stayed out all day and caught 5 red fish (but were only allowed to keep 2). Anthony is dying to get back out there soon!

While Anthony was gone, James and I took my mom to check out the dinosaurs at the botanical gardens and find the geocache. The weather was perfect, and I walked right to the geocache! I had researched a little more online and realized that I had been looking in the wrong spot before. Once I got to the right area, it was a cinch!

Here he is, trying to give me a stick he got of the ground so I can put it in the "ash" (trash). He gets very concerned about litter or things he thinks are out of place :)

'

At one point, he decided to just sit down and draw in the dirt with his stick. I don't think I have ever seen him do that before:

When we would get to a dinosaur, James would say "whoa!" or "cool!" and then proceed to find something more entertaining to play with. At the triceratops, he found a palm frond on the ground and pushed it around for the rest of our visit. He loved that thing! He cried when I made him leave it. I just think it is so funny that right in front of this HUGE stone dinosaur he would rather play with a stick:

As we were getting in the car to go home, my mom put James down in the passenger seat for a minute so we could put our other stuff in the backseat. Quick as a flash James crawled over to the driver seat so he could play with the steering wheel. When I pulled him away to put him in his car seat, he clung to the wheel like glue, he did not want to let go!

Christmas Eve my brothers made it from Gainesville and we had a great time visiting and playing board games. I love how much we laugh when we all get together! My older brother had to leave real early the next morning to make it home in time for work, but we are glad he got to stay for the time he did.

Christmas morning, I was up waaaaay before James was. I think I got up around 8:30 and finally I went into James room to wake him up around 9:45. Why can't he sleep in like that on a normal day?

After everyone was up, we went into the front room for presents. James had a hard time getting the hang of his stocking...he would get one thing out and then want to play with it and act annoyed when we would want him to keep looking for more. Eventually he got into it :)

For some reason he ended up with three different play microphones. He loves them though!

Anytime I ask Anthony what books James should have (since I can't resist buying him books!) Anthony always says The Poky Little Puppy, since that was one of his favorites growing up. This year he got it!

Another car:

A large car track/set. It is about 50/50 right now between him being really irritated by this toy and loving playing with it. It might need to disappear and come back in a few months...

The grand finale of the morning was his new jeep! He absolutely loved it!

Here is a video of him driving it around. He now has become a pro at pressing the reverse when he gets stuck somewhere and then backing out. Anthony is trying to think of ways to fix the wheels so that they don't get stuck so often in the grass.

Christmas afternoon Anthony's parents and his sister and her family came over for appetizers and desserts. The food was great and we had a blast visiting and opening presents. James caught on to Anthony's parents' names really quickly and he kept asking for "Mimi" and "Papa" all night:

Of course we couldn't leave the dogs out of the fun. They absolutely hated it:

It was a great Christmas, I hope everyone else's was just as wonderful!

Key West 2012: An Overview

Yesterday we got home from our 8 day trip to Key West and it was a blast!! We had so much fun this year and it was great to have James be a little older than last year so that he could run around and enjoy himself. The drive down was relatively quick and uneventful. Once we arrived in Key West, we had some time before we could check in to our room so we decided to do some geocaching downtown. We ended up getting three geocaches in a little over an hour! So fun!

We decided to make an effort to take more pictures this year, so there will be many pictures to come, but just so you know it was close to eleventy million degrees in the Keys so I look like a hot mess in the pictures :) Seriously, the heat was pretty excruciating. As soon as you walk out the door, the humidity and the heat slam into you and almost every day I would be sweating before I got to the car. James was extra cranky on most days too, which I'm pretty sure was due to the heat because it brought out the crankies in me too!

Our first night in the two bedroom trailer that we rented was rough. The rooms were so small that James' pack and play was right up against our bed and he woke up multiple times during the night because he would hear us come in or see us moving around in bed. Then around 6am, a rooster started crowing right outside our window! Seriously, the walls are really thin so it sounded like he was right in the room with us. In fact, I thought Anthony had changed his alarm to a rooster sound and I shook him to ask him if it was his alarm. It wasn't. Of course, the rooster woke James up again and there was no going back to sleep. Argh. After talking it over with our friends who were renting the three bedroom townhouse option, we decided to pay the extra $30 a night to make the switch to one they had available. Best. Decision. Ever. The new place was soooo roomy compared to what we had been in, the windows had blackout curtains so you could sleep in past 6am, James had his own quiet dark room to sleep in, there was a screened in back porch where you could lay out wet swimming gear, it had a washer and dryer (!), a second bathroom, and it was newly renovated and was equipped with free wireless Internet (the other ones didn't have it). Seriously, that rooster bugging us was the best blessing in disguise. We enjoyed our trip so much more after our move there the second day.

After that was taken care of, we spent the rest of the week seeing the sights in Key West, swimming, snorkeling, visiting with friends, and soaking in the island life. This was actually the first vacation I have taken in a looooong time that I was genuinely sad to be leaving to go home. Usually I am such a creature of habit that I get homesick really easily and miss my routine, but I was surprised at how much being there felt like home. We had such a nonstop good time, and Anthony was in heaven with all of the fishing and lobstering he got to do. James was crankier than usual, but he also grew so much while we were there. I think we counted close to 15 new words that he said just in the week we were there!

On the way home, everything started out smoothly but unfortunately we ran into some bad traffic after about 40 miles. The cars were all stopped and people were getting out and walking around, so you know it is going to be awhile. We saw ambulances and tow trucks going by, so we assumed there was wreck. Sure enough, Anthony googled it on his phone and there was an accident a few miles ahead of us. We were planning on stopping for brunch an hour or so later, so we decided to turn around and eat then instead while we waited for the traffic to clear. After we ate and got back on the road, things were moving again and we were able to get past the accident without too much trouble. It looked really bad and even though it was a pain to be so delayed on our trip home, we were really grateful that it wasn't us in that wreck. For the rest of the 70 or so miles through the keys, the traffic was pretty frustrating. It would be going along smoothly and then be stop and go for miles and then back again. It took us something like 3 hours to go 100 miles!! It didn't help that James refused to sleep in his car seat and cried. A LOT. There is nothing like a crying baby to make a long car trip seem even longer :) Finally we made it home around 5:30pm and we couldn't have been happier to see our driveway!!

4th of July 2012

We had a great 4th of July this year! Anthony had the day off of work, so he got to sleep in for the first time in a looooong time. Since he works Monday through Saturday and we have church on Sundays, he never gets to sleep in. Ever since having James, my body just doesn't let me sleep in, I always have to get up so I was happy to let him sleep :)

We planned to go to the big farmer's market that they have every Wednesday at the fairgrounds in Deland and I was so excited to show Anthony since he has never been. I wondered if it would be open since it was a holiday, but I checked the online calendar for the fairgrounds and it was listed...I should never have trusted that thing! I bet someone put it on automatic repeat for every Wednesday and didn't think about holidays. Anyways, when we got there, the fairgrounds were closed up and only a few people had set up tables in the parking lot. So at least we got to walk around a little bit, but it was a tenth of the size it usually is. I had been talking it up all week to Anthony so I was sad that I didn't get to show him everything. We did end up get 13 green peppers for $3, so that was good!

In the afternoon we set up some of the new outside toys that Anthony's sister Robin gave us last Sunday and let him run around in the backyard with them. He loves them!!! He seriously wants to be in the backyard all the time now. I have to be careful if I am letting the dogs out, because he will try to run out too and will cry if I bring him back inside. He gets so dirty when he goes outside that I try to make it so he plays outside right before bath time. I had this great idea to put the new slide we got so that it goes straight into our inflatable pool. James sort of liked it. For the most part, he just wanted us to leave him alone so that he could go back to pulling his wagon around the yard. He loves that wagon!!! He tries to put anything and everything in the wagon so he can pull it all around with him.

Towards the end of the day Anthony and I both ended up feeling worn out and James kept having meltdowns, so we decided not to go to the city's fireworks. They didn't start until 9pm and it felt like we all needed a good bedtime that night! I talked to a friend who went and she said it was a good decision, the mosquitos were horrible and I know I wouldn't have thought to bring bug spray!! Maybe next year :)

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.

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?? :)