Category Archives: Friends & Family
One last trip to the beach
It was super windy and you could see storm clouds rolling in…but the kids wanted to take just one more trip down to the water. It didn’t last too long as it started to rain…so this is them heading back home.
Beach Frisbee
Owen and Anna were bestest buddies!
Then Kathryn and Izzy were playing frisbee and Owen wanted to join! This is his catching stance.
His robot stance.
Look at that form!
Good catch!
Proof that his form actually works! He can throw pretty well!
I told him to write his name in the sand. You can see the normal-ish sized O right behind his feet…and then I told him he could do it a little bigger and so he’s drawing an O about three times his size (he’s finishing up the last of it). That’s as far as he got with his name before he lost interest. 🙂
Fudpucker’s
I stayed home so Katie could take a real nap (i.e. in total piece and quiet) while everyone else went to Fudpucker’s in Destin.
The food was taking longer than expected and the gator show was about to start, so they sent the kids off by themselves to the show.
Then it was back to sign their names—and add some drawings—to the wall…
And then Owen tried—and liked!—alligator!
But got pizza for his lunch!
And then it was time to feed the alligators!
And a few photo ops:
Then it was off to get ice cream!
And a gun that I’m sure he wanted but he did not come home with:
Tom said Owen had a great time! And Katie had her very best nap all week—just over three hours!
Windy Beach
It was too cold and windy but the kids still wanted to go to the beach and the guys wanted to try fishing one last time. We took pictures from the balcony. 🙂
Just hanging out
And Tom working on Gramma Jean’s computer that she hauled from Michigan so he could update it to Windows 7.
Storytime with Gramma
Legos with Anna
We brought a new Lego kit for Owen to build…and Anna was more than willing to help! They made a great team and did a good job. (The next night, Izzy helped and they did an amazing job!)
Owen said: “Wow! We have a lot of Legos going on here.”
Cousins at the beach!
I love this picture—it looks like David is the Godfather sending his minions off…
The wave snuck up on him!
Katie LOVED the sand…and was COVERED in it.
Anna and Owen in their hot tub!
Bubbles!
Testing out the non-heated pool. It was COLD but Owen stayed in for probably 15 minutes!
And one year ago…the same cousins on another beach.
Gramma Jean’s Hair Salon
Gramma Jean has taken over Katie’s hair duties…and she just sits there patiently.
Afternoon at the Zoo
Today we all went to the Gulf Breeze Zoo — it was Katie’s first zoo experience!
Stole the cup right out of his hand!
Owen can jump as far as a tree frog!
Who can jump farther?
Train ride!
Hugging the stuffed animals!
Owen picked a bat mask at the gift shop!
Katie’s turn at the beach!
Owen was out with daddy and grandpa, so we took Katie to the beach!
This is her saying “SNOW!” She kept saying snow snow snow—and we had to keep telling her it was sand. 🙂
Waving goodbye to the birds as they flew away!
Splashing in a little pool!
Chasing the birds!
Scouting out fishing locations
Grandpa David and Tom took Owen with them to scout out potential fishing locations…
Owen hits the beach!
We waited until Katie went down for her nap, then we took Owen down to the beach. It was a Red Flag day which meant dangerous surf conditions, but it was too cold to even get into the water anyway…but he still had fun!
Bedtime at the condo
Both kids got to bed late tonight due to the long day of travel plus a time zone change…
Package from Papa and Grannie
I had a very attentive audience!
She grabbed a bag of cookies right away!
Then dug right in!
“Oooh!”
Nanny Alice, Day 4
Naptime project!
Alice said he completed 90% of it on his own!
Their final dinner:
Post-dinner bike ride!
Both kids were in bed when we rolled in about 7:30…and both got a good report overall! Katie has lots of attitude now and Owen had a few grouchy spots but nothing major. Neither missed us, which is a good thing! And Alice wasn’t waiting in the driveway (though she was packed to leave!)…so we consider it a major success!
HotAmi 2014, Day 2
Good morning!
We ran some errands then headed to our group lunch spot:
Waiting for drinks:
It sounded (and looked) better than it tasted:
The whole group:
Then it was back to the house for visiting, games (trivia, which my team came in fifth of five!), and fun! I missed pictures of the delicious catered Cuban dinner we had!
Cigars with Sheryl—a tradition!
Tom and Elle!
We knew we’d have an early morning so we said goodbyes around 11!
Nanny Alice, Day 3
Miss Alice surprised the kids with chocolate donuts and chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast!
Candyland while Katie was napping:
Katie swinging and singing her ABCs:
VIDEO COMING SOON! CHECK BACK!
HotAmi 2014, Day 1
Aside from my usual 4:45am potty trip, I slept in until 7:41! WOOHOO!
We went to our host’s house to carpool to a Cuban lunch:
Then we joined him on errands…which included Costco and Total Wine:
Then it was back to the house to visit and hang out before dinner.
And then Sheryl was having issues getting the iPad to take a picture so we were laughing. 🙂
On our way to meet for the “high end” dinner!
We were originally going to do the “budget” dinner…but then learned that a forum friend from California that I’ve really wanted to meet was going to be attending as a last-minute surprise so we switched. So we got to sit next to Brett and hear lots of Apple stories (super interesting to me)—he was a top engineer at Apple for many years and just recently retired. You know Siri? That was him. HDR on your phone? Him. AppleTV? His team. Just fascinating.
Our table of 17:
Recreating a photo from last year (substituting Katie for Nancy who couldn’t make it this year):
And another California peep, Darren:
After a nice dinner and dropping people off at hotels, it was back to the house to visit for just a tiny bit until we called it a night—the previous night was 12:30 and tonight was 11:30 and we were exhausted!
Nanny Alice, Day 2
Snacks before taking Owen to school! Miss Alice even did Katie’s hair—something she hadn’t done to a little girl’s hair in 10 years!
The view from her lap:
Today’s after-school snack: blueberry seas with goldfish jumping and pear sailboats with teddy Grahams. Too creative for this exhausted mama!
Pre-HotAmi Dinner
After we checked in to the hotel it was straight to the sushi restaurant for dinner with friends. We had seen most of the small group last year but I was SUPER EXCITED to see Katie, one of my very bestest friends whom I hadn’t seen IN SEVEN YEARS! SEVEN YEARS! (It hadn’t felt like that long since we do talk online and text/call now and again…but it’s obviously not the same as seeing each other in person.) I think she was even more excited than I was, and we hugged hello for a good two minutes!
It’s a long-running joke that the two of us share a brain because we think a lot alike, have the same views, like the same things, have finished each other’s sentences, etc…and it was proven again tonight—remember we haven’t seen each other in seven years and really only talk on forums…yet we both wore black capris, a purple shirt, and a black jacket.
We visited with friends until after midnight then headed back to the hotel to crash—we hadn’t been up that late since I don’t know when…and were exhausted from a long day on the road.
Nanny Alice, Day 1
Our friend Alice (actually a professional nanny—though usually for much older kids!) is staying with the kids while we go to Florida. The kids met her about two weeks ago when she came for two nights to meet them and Owen was excited to have her back.
This was the first picture we got on the road—some pre-nap cuddles!
Maggie and the kids enjoying the nice weather, the bubbles Alice brought, and playing swords!
She spoiled the kids with a fun dinner: Owen got a caterpillar hot dog and Katie got hot dog palm trees. Both got strawberry flowers:
And she braved giving Katie yogurt:
My honest first thought was What is she doing to me? Now the kids are going to expect fun dinners all the time?! But my immediate next thought was Oh what a super special surprise that only Miss Alice does! 🙂
Loving on Virginia
Katie was enjoying cuddling with Virginia when Maggie decided she wanted to join…
Kid sitting
We were watching our friends’ kids overnight so they could stay out. Katie wanted to sleep with them!
Our peanut-shucking queen
We went out to dinner to celebrate a friend’s birthday and we discovered Katie is a peanut-shucking queen! She didn’t want the peanuts, but just kept shucking them and shucking them. It kept her busy…and quiet!
Jumping Birthday Party
We had a birthday party for one of our best friend’s kids at the bounce house place today.
Being goofy on the bounce house:
How she eats pizza:
And how she eats a cupcake:
Around the time we wanted to leave, we couldn’t find Owen anywhere. Tom and I each took a turn looking (and there’s only so much you can see without actually going into the bounce houses yourself) and neither of us could find him in the throng of kids. Turns out, he was in the under four area playing with blocks. Yep, it was time to leave! But a great time was has by both kids!
Snow day birthday Lego project
Owen wanted to work on this Super Heroes Lego kit he got for his birthday. He did quite well for the first two hours…then he started to lose his focus and get a little grouchy. So we took a break and finished it when daddy got home. But overall he does really well and doesn’t need much help.
The post-party party
We had the gang over after the gymnastics party so we could hang out and visit—with everyone’s busy schedules (and with Trimble’s living back on base instead of in the same neighborhood) we rarely get together anymore. We ordered pizza for dinner and had a few drinks while the kids played. We had Owen open his gifts sporadically throughout the night and then had him blow out candles on his cake (I had forgotten candles for the gymnastics party). He loved opening his presents and pretty much every response to every gift was an excited “WHAT!?!!” It was super cute.
Then he opened his big gift from us—a used iPhone 4—and he looked at it like “Huh?” and immediately said “Daddy, this is yours!” and tried handing it to him. He completely didn’t understand that it was for him, even after I showed him the Lego Indiana Jones wallpaper. He was just too excited about all the other Lego/Ninjago/Star Wars stuff. We should have kept it until after all the excitement of the day was over.
Building one of the smaller Lego sets he got:
Taking his birthday picture…that I didn’t technically need to do because it wasn’t his actual birthday!
Happy 5th birthday, Owen!
We had Owen’s 5th birthday party at one of the local gymnastics places. We invited his entire class (16 kids) as well as our friends. Half of his class RSVPed (of which two asked to bring other siblings, which was fine) and I was annoyed but honestly pretty impressed that we got a 50% response rate. However, of those eight that RSVPed, four didn’t show…two of which were the ones that asked to bring extra kids. 😐 So that cost me extra because I opted to go with the 25+ kids plan (which allowed for another employee to be scheduled) because we were right on the line with RSVPs and I figured we’d likely get some that would show up without having RSVPed. So we ended up with 15 kids total instead of 23. Oh well, it’s only money, right? And Owen had fun so that’s what matters, right? But he did have fun so it’s all good!
Ursula made the awesome Ninjago cake!
When I called Owen over to see it (he was out playing) he said “It’s Jay!” (Of course, he was right, Jay is the blue ninja.)
Owen with two of his classmates, Tanner and Braxton (who I’ve posted pics of before). You see that Owen really isn’t the same size as the rest of his class. 🙂
Katie having fun running around:
Katie was very interested in what was going on in the bounce house—but we put her in with the kids and she screamed. So she was content to just peek in for a bit.
I showed Katie how to hang on the bar and she loved it! She’d hang and swing then drop off—over and over.
And then she got in the bounce house because it was fairly empty:
Back at the bar showing daddy her tricks!
The birthday boy in the middle of the parachute!
And here’s a 6 minute video of the parachute fun (pretty much for the grandparents). 🙂
Each kid got to do their own thing in the middle of the parachute balloon. Owen did a spinning twist.
A few last runs before leaving…
The last pic of our best friends for quite some time—our friend Tom is deploying next week and we’ll be moving this summer…
As Ursula was getting the cake packed up to go, Owen saw that the head was off to the side and was VERY concerned that it wasn’t coming home and kept asking about it. We assured him Jay was coming home. Then he saw Ursula carrying it to her car (to bring to our house) and he was concerned that the cake itself wasn’t coming home at all!
Overall, it was a great party for Owen’s first REAL birthday party (not just something at our house with a few friends or family). 🙂