Flashback Friday

Alex 's many years at the beach!!



Age 9 months- Galveston, Texas

Age 1 1/2 Ft. Myers

Age 2: Sanibel Island

Age 3: Ft. Myers

Age 4: Destin

Age 5: Destin

Age 6: Destin

Age 7: Santa Rosa Beach with cousin Jackson

Age 8: Santa Rosa Beach

Art Camp, Nature Hikes, and Swim Lessons

This week has been busy! Caroline started a little art camp on Monday that goes 4 days from 9-12. Each day she gets to do a Bible devotion, study an artist, and draw/paint in their style. She has been loving it-- I will take some pics of her favorite creations and post them later this week.

The first day of art camp, Alex and I decided to go on a nature hike through Point Washington State Forest. It has been fun spending one-on-one time with him while Caroline is busy painting. He helped me put this blog post together with these pictures, and these are his descriptions of the pictures he took on our hike.



This lizard was shedding his skin and we saw him climbing a tree. He was a grayish green with black spots. He was really cool.

This is the pretty path we walked on during our nature walk. (It would be good for riding your dirt bike.)

I took a picture of these pretty flowers I found on the side of the path. I took a picture of yellow and purple ones.

At the beginning of the path I found this weird moss next to some trees. They were different colors: green, blue, and white. I wanted to take some home but Mom said NO.

Last, I found this red ant hole in the path. Red ants were swarming in and out of the hole carrying dead bugs and plants into it and looking for more food.



Okay, back to me {Kristi}.

The kids also started two weeks of swim lessons. We have to drive to Panama City Beach to a Rec Center there, but it's really nice -- it has an Olympic size outdoor pool plus a fun kids play area with slides and fountains. They have really enjoyed swimming every day.. and Alex has even mentioned being interested in joining the swim team. ( I am not sure how his father feels about this though...:)

A Quiet Weekend

Hope you all had a good weekend! It was a quiet one here. On Friday, the kids finished up Vacation Bible School. Here is a picture of Caroline and her very sweet teacher, Ms. Jamie, and her granddaughter who was in Caroline's group, whose name is Sidney.



The kids had a great time and we are so thankful for the church and all of the volunteers who spent time teaching the kids about Jesus, making crafts, singing, and cooking!

Alex and Caroline met some new friends this week who live down the street. Cyrus and Grace came over to play on Friday, and they had so much fun together. After playing with only each other for almost a month, the kids were excited for some new playmates!

Saturday, we had to run some errands in Destin, so we stopped by my parent's house for a swim and some relaxation time.

And today after church, we went to the beach for a few hours and Jason took the kids out on the kayak. Nothing too interesting was spotted, but they had fun looking!

Only two more weeks until school starts, so we are trying to enjoy every last minute of our summer vacation!

Flashback Friday

The past 6 years of Caroline at the beach!


6 months in Ft. Myers, Florida

15 months in Cancun

2 years in Destin

3 years in Destin

4 years in Cancun

5 years in Santa Rosa Beach

It's VBS Week and Mommy gets a break!

I love my children dearly, but I have been with them pretty much 24/7 for the last few months. Mommy needs a little break now and then, and I am so glad that I decided to sign them up for Vacation Bible School here. They love it and get to hang out with other kids; I love it and get to go for a nice long walk along here:



The water was like glass today, and about 4 different shades of green and blue. If it weren't for the seaweed, it would have been perfect.





Caroline and I have been practicing riding our bikes together. She learned how to ride without training wheels this spring, but still needs time to gain confidence and learn the rules of the road. My parents bought me a new bike as an early birthday present. I love it! I guess you would call it a beach bike. Not for trail riding, but for leisure and bike path riding. I love it because I can sit straight up and not have to hunch over, which kills my neck.

There are bike paths everywhere, so when Caroline gets better at her bike riding and the slew of tourists are gone, I know we will be biking around a lot as a family. Here is a lovely shot of me on my bike that Caroline wanted to take.....

And here is the real road racer before our practice session this evening. All mailboxes and road signs stayed intact in the neighborhood tonight. Thank the Lord for helmets.

End of the Week Wrap Up

We had a fun week with Jason's parents here visiting. It's always sad to see family leave, but we are looking forward to more visitors from up North coming this fall!

We spend the remainder of the week just hanging out, sightseeing and eating lots of yummy food. Caroline decided to join in the fishing one day .... Love the pink outfit?:) She lasted a few hours and then wanted to come home.

Alex found this lovely specimen the other day and was very intrigued with it as it crawled around on the sidewalk next to Pizza by the Sea. He informed me that this horn-nosed beetle needed to go back into the pine straw. I asked him how he knew it was that kind of bug, and he said he read it in a book last year. Glad he can retain that info, but can't remember to make his bed! Ha!

We went to "Fired Up" to paint pottery with Jason's mom one afternoon. It was very crowded in there, but the kids had a blast creating their little knick knacks.

And the highlight..... Eating crab legs. My 9 year old son can put away almost 2 pounds of them. And he loved every minute of the cracking, cutting, digging, etc. It's too much work for me so I stuck to the shrimp and scallops.

I don't have a pic of it, but I had the most delicious key lime pie at The Great Southern. I shared a piece with Caroline and it was like the battle of the dueling forks, positioning for the last piece.

YUM!

Have a great weekend! We are laying low and relaxing... only 3 more weeks until school starts!

Oysters, Fishing, and Torrential Downpours

Greetings from hot Florida! We are in the middle of a really bad drought, but fortunately we got some much needed rain here. We hear thunder continuously, but all of the storms always seem to stay north of the coast. But yesterday, the skies opened and some areas got a good amount of rain.

Going back to Sunday, I got a pic of Alex trying some oysters for the first time. I am not a fan, but I was proud of both of the kids for trying them. I wish I had a picture of Caroline's face-- oysters were not her thing! But Alex loved them. He eats about anything I put in front of him.




Monday, Alex went fishing with Jason's dad. They tried out several different spots recommended by a local tour company, but ended up finding a great spot off the bay by themselves. Here is Alex holding up his catch of the day (some kind of catfish.) He was so proud that he promptly brought in his trophy in a bucket into the house to show me (the fish was still alive and gasping for air, mind you). I told him to please remove the fish from the house and put it out on the porch:)

Monday evening, we decided to take Jason's parents over to Destin Harbor to walk around and eat dinner. It was really pretty until a torrential downpour blew in across the bay. These were taken before the typhoon rolled in.

We ended the evening with a visit to Old Time Pottery and some ice cream. If you haven't been to Old Time Pottery, it is a huge store of all sorts of home goods at discount prices. I could have spend hours in there! Since we had the kids, I didn't spend too much time digging through all of the stuff, but definitely a place to keep in mind for a future shopping trip!

Ema and Papa are here!

We were all very excited to today for the arrival of Jason's parents (or Ema and Papa). They arrived today after a long 2 day drive. The kids must have asked me a million times when they would be here. They have been talking about going fishing with Papa since we got down here.

The first thing we did is take them to eat at Pizza by the Sea. We went early, but it was already really busy so we had to sit outside. It was a bit warm (105 heat index today!) but the food was great. I think everyone enjoyed it! Next I drove them around the area where we live and showed them a few sights.




When we got home, Alex was ready to help put together the fishing gear. Very serious work going on here......

I had to share this funny pic of Caroline. She has been having trouble sleeping in the morning when the light comes in her room around 5:30. She has a big semi-circular window that has no shade on it. We made a temporary cardboard fix for it until we get a special shade ordered for it.

She has been really cranky due to her waking up literally at the crack of dawn. So, I gave her this......

Whether she will actually use it in the morning remains to be seen, but at least she is having fun with it!

Fourth of July Part 2

The 4th started early in the morning: the kids and Jason rode in the Pizza by the Sea Jeep in the local parade which started at 8 a.m. They were so excited to be in the parade and throw out frisbees to the onlookers. I walked up the street and stood at the corner and watched with my parents. It was really fun and many of the people were all dressed up in red, white and blue. Fortunately I snagged a few beads from people throwing them out from their floats, so that was my patriotic costume. :)

Here's the kids before the parade:




The YUM mobile rolling down 30a.... unfortunately it died before it finished the parade, but two of our staff pushed it the rest of the way (thanks to Dylan and Jared!). They got it restarted to get it back to the store. I guess for a 1973 old postal truck, it runs pretty well!

Later that evening we took pizza down to the beach for dinner and let the kids play while we waited for the fireworks to start. It was a perfect evening: not too hot and a nice breeze. Jason had fun hanging out with my dad.

The kids had fun running around the beach despite the seaweed that has invaded the past few days. There was a beautiful sunset.

We watched the fireworks in Seaside from the beach near our house. Even though they were a little ways down, we still had a great view! We were all so tired we fell into bed when we got home, sandy feet and all. I guess we will get used to having sand everywhere, including our beds!

4th of July weekend part 1

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend! It was good for us; different but good. We are used to big family cookouts and fireworks on the lake and get togethers with our friends. This year was time spent with just our little 4 person family, time with my parents (it was great to have family here for our first holiday in Fla.), lots of time working for Jason, and fireworks on the beach!

Saturday morning we went to the beach so Alex could try his new raft. Jason had fun with it too:)

Caroline has really come a long way in her tolerance for the beach. It has not been her favorite thing in the past. Now that she is older and can go out boogie boarding with Alex, I think she enjoys it more.

Sunday we got up and went to church. We really liked the one we visited this week. It is fun trying new churches, but it is hard, too. I am so used to the way our other church did things.... isn't it funny how we are such creatures of habit? It felt great to worship and be in fellowship. I have missed going to church. I felt refreshed after the service, and the kids had fun in children's church. We ran some errands Sunday afternoon and Alex went in to the restaurant with Jason for awhile. He loves helping wash dishes. He is fascinated with the sink and the dishwasher... imagine that!

More of our 4th of July weekend coming soon!