A day at the beach

Still working on these trip pictures. It's so fun to look back at what an amazing time we had! I wish we lived in Florida! :)

You'll have to forgive me for this post - I have a lot of pictures of Zoe and Pierce, because they were the ones staying close on the sand.  And I didn't want to take the camera too far out into the water. 

We went to Jetty Park at Canaveral Seashore, just north of Cocoa Beach.  It was a gorgeous park near the an outlet that the cruise ships take out to sea.  It was the perfect day with the perfect temperature and we had a fantastic time.  The bigger kids spent most of the day in the water (the disastrous consequence was some awful sunburns for Colby, Casy, and Spencer... somehow our kids have an easier time tanning).  They body surfed, jumped the waves, went WAY too deep and were shouted into coming back, and had a wonderful time.



Zoe dancing at the beach:

I think this was taken after the deepness policy of "no deeper than waist high on the shortest cousin in the water".  I felt much better after that.

Some lunch on her face along with the sun!


The big kids got really good at the body boards!






We rented some chairs and a couple of umbrellas, which helped the adults relax. When we got a little tired of all the sand and water, we went on a hike over to the pier.  There were little sea turtles swimming around in one area, and a fisherman even caught one while some of us were watching.  (He put him back in the water, where the turtle swam away, hopefully unharmed.)  There was a terrible fishy smell.  And three huge cruise ships sailed to sea right past us, which was really fun to watch.

We finished up with a wonderful dinner at a big pier in Cocoa Beach.  We got to sit, eat seafood (and alligator), and watch the sun set through the big windows over the water.  What a great ending to a perfect day.

A day a Wekiva Springs

Wow, I am really having a hard time getting to this blog. But something is better than nothing! I'm still happy I started. And now I will get back to our vacation adventure last month:

I'm not sure why this picture is here, but as long as it is, I'll write about it so I don't forget.  This is a compilation of their pictures from the Mt. Everest ride.  It's hard to see (they don't actually like you to take pictures of their pictures) but you can see how happy we all are!


On Saturday we decided to take a theme park break.  (I know, can you believe we wanted a break???)  We went to Wekiva Springs, one of Florida's many natural springs, and a state park we'd never been to before.  It was SO beautiful.  Unfortunately it wasn't clear from the website that the main activity was really going to be swimming, so we weren't super prepared for that.  Mattie forgot to bring her suit at all (we wrapped her up in my swimsuit) and most of the adults didn't bring one either.  But we bought some snorkels (even though we had some at the house too...) and the kids - & Matt - had a fantastic time in the beautiful spring water. 






It wasn't really very warm, but with a towel to wrap up in, and some sandwiches and snacks, it was great!


We happened to be there on a day when the parks service was sponsoring an art contest.  So there were a bunch of painters competing to finish paintings in just a couple of hours.  This guy was a pro, and not in the competition (I thought doing such a big painting was kind of showing off).  Some of the paintings were great, some I did not love.  His painting was... certainly big and striking!  In any case, how neat is it to go to a park with lots of artists!


I believe the kids were capturing tiny little fish in a mesh sack for their own "aquarium".








Seeing this really makes me want to go back!


Zoe had to be coerced to go in the water.  The water wasn't real warm, and the day wasn't real warm, so she mainly wanted to look at the water and eat snacks.  But we rented the life jacket, and I thought she should get some use out of it!




We all went on a really nice nature walk along some boardwalks and trails.



And then suddenly we were all hungry for dinner, and the bitey little flies came out, and we took off in a hurry. But it was a wonderful way to spend the day!

i.r.o.n.y.

What could be more ironic? After my last post, where I was joking about Zoe's first word that she can spell being h-i-t, she h-i-t her friend on the head with a shovel, and the shovel had a sharp edge (not being intended for use as a whapper), and her friend ended up in the hospital with 2 staples in her head. Nice. I don't think Zoe will hit again. (There are so many bad consequences! Not to mention that she loves her friends, and was sad that she had gotten hurt.)

Zoe has (also) been doing the cutest thing that I need to record.  She has been learning about the earth's creation at church, and at home saying things like "When Heavenly Father made our house..." or "I'm so glad Heavenly Father gave us this dinosaur washcloth!"  I remember Pierce one time was missing a lego toy that he really wanted, so he said a prayer, and then found it in another room.  He told me that Heavenly Father "reached down and put it in the basket."  I love their faith.  And I feel like they're almost exactly right - Heavenly Father did bless us with the means to buy this house (and the dino washcloth), and blessed someone with the inspiration to design & build it just the way we like it.  And He blessed Pierce to know where to look for his special lego (which he had earlier left in the basket). 

Oh, another thing - this is Zoe's "Julee" dress.  She wears it a lot.  It's very teeny so I make her wear tights and a leotard under it in the winter, but that is a rather unsatisfying way to dress up, so she's always very relieved when it's warm enough out that she doesn't have to wear anything under it.


I got a new light - it's a ring light & it makes this cool catchlights in your eyes.  I hope I use it a lot. :)  Mattie & Zoe modeled it for me.

Some Zoe stuff (& Pierce too)

I'm going to interrupt my trip blogging with something quick because I don't want to forget it.  When Mattie was a little girl, the first word she learned to write (other than her name) was C-A-T.  She was very young indeed.  Pierce, unfortunately, I don't remember, though I may have written it down on the old website somewhere.  Zoe's first word that she can spell was, fittingly, H-I-T. :)  And her second word is C-O-S-T-C-O.  Both very appropriate.



Zoe loves bandaids.  She wants a bandaid whenever she gets the least bit hurt.  I usually require blood for a bandaid, but at a really nice restaurant (while on vacation) I needed to keep her busy while we waited.  So I gave her a FREE bandaid, with no scrape at all!  She called it an "un-blood bandaid" and was very happy about it for the rest of the day.


Zoe is always coming up with a new name she wants to be called.  Last winter she was called "A Different Princess, Rose" whenever she wore a certain dress-up leotard.  This year she is called "Galonze" with one leotard (I probably have a picture of it somewhere), "Julee" (accent on the last syllable), and lately "Layne".  She says her fancy name is Layne, and she spells it T-I-H-T (she's vague about the order, but the letters include H-I-T).


Zoe thinks she is very nearly all grown up.  She has lots of ideas for what she will do when she is a grown-up.  One thing that she will do call me Pam, her dad Matt, and her grandparents by their first names also.  One day walking home from school she told me that Perry took them to McDonald's... I told her that she needed to wait until she really IS all grown up to call her grandpa Perry.


Pierce wanted a marshmallow too.  It seems like forever since he's had front teeth!  He is so kind and helpful lately, it's wonderful.  He told me today that his teacher told his class that they needed to be writing for 30 minutes a day, every day, to be sure they're ready for 2nd grade.  He said it with a bit of concern, and I realized that he was a little worried that he wouldn't make it to 2nd grade.  Since he's reading at a late 4th grade level (or higher, it's been a few months since that assessment) I don't think he needs to worry.  He and his friend Parker are writing a book of oceanography facts.  He says they're up to 62 pages so far.  I hope he grows up to be a marine biologist!  I will go with him in the little exploratory submarines.


Pierce and Zoe are such good buddies lately.  Pierce is always on the lookout for ways that he can help Zoe, and Zoe likes to make him happy too.  (Although she told him that when he is kind to her, it makes her be kind to him.  But when he is unkind to her, it makes her UNKIND to him.  I reminded her that we need to make a good choice for ourselves no matter what anyone else does.)  I used to want a big brother, and I would have wanted one just like Pierce.

Magic Kingdom & Animal Kingdom!

And now I'm happy to start posting pictures from our second fabulous vacation to Florida! I can't believe we had two dream vacations within 2 months, but it was amazing and we loved both trips.  They were both pretty different, for various reasons.  This, the second trip, had more Disney days.  We were worried that spring break crowds would be difficult, so we did some park days at the beginning of our trip (because we thought the true spring break crowds would be more the 2nd week, and we were right).  The kids & I flew out 2 days before Matt did (they were super-good on the flight, thanks guys!) and we got a day at Magic Kingdom before he arrived.

We got some fun rides in before it got too crowded.  The teacups!  Fun!




I don't like to wait in long lines to meet characters!  Fortunately for me, the kids aren't crazy about waiting in long lines to meet characters either.  The white rabbit didn't have a line, and I think he was actually the only character the kids met up close this time.






Zoe and I didn't go on the Haunted Mansion ride, but we did ride the paddleboat twice!  Once just ourselves, and the second time with Grandpa (who just barely missed the first ride).  Fun!




We were all really excited about Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.  It's one of our favorites.  Zoe put on her "ride shoes" (the double-thick flipflops that take her height all the way to 40" so she is tall enough for some really fun rides) and she even enjoyed it this time.  Pierce and Spencer weren't scared at all.  (I don't think Spencer was ever scared on a ride.  But Pierce didn't like all of them - he likes this one though!)




We rode the rafts over to Tom Sawyer's Island and had a fun time exploring.  This is a fun fort we got to climb around.  The kids especially liked the escape tunnel. :)







We did some more fun rides, then got caught in a torrential downpour!  We were so lucky that we all had ponchos (from going on Splash Mountain, which everyone really liked - including Zoe).  We still got sort of soaked, but had a great night.  We caught the fireworks, which were lovely, and Teresa has some nice pictures that I should bring over.


The next day we spent some time in Hollywood Studios, somehow I didn't take any pictures there (?), and Matt arrived that evening.  The next day we went to Animal Kingdom (my favorite park). We got a fun picture of all of us in front of the Tree of Life.


We got to go on some of the other zoo walks.  They do such a good job.




This is in the safari ride - one of our favorites.




It got crowded in Asia, so we got a fastpass to Mt. Everest, and headed to Dinoland USA.  The kids ran around for awhile, and then played in the sandbox.












After some Dinoland fun, we watched the parade.  I have bits of videos of it - this one is fun because it shows the kids at the end (sort of).


Here's Mt. Everest, our favorite ride.  Pierce rode it again and liked it this time!  I think the yeti video is less scary after multiple ridings.  SUCH a fun roller coaster!


We rode on the roller coaster as many times as we could manage, with some pretty thick crowds.  One time we went single-rider and I took this video.  It's the whole ride so a chunk of the video is just darkness. :)


We did lots more things, and had a lovely day and evening in Animal Kingdom.  Fun!