Our Last Day :(

Tate is such the Ladies Man!!!

James and Sean...BFF!

The shack we've been staying in these last 10 days

Ava is TOO CUTE!!!

Here are a few pictures from the last day....actually the first one is of the BFFs last night. Today we drove through Casey Key to see the monstrous houses and then picked up some food at Beef O'Brady's. Then we decided to get in some final pool time. It's been cloudy and a bit rainy off and on, but there has been no lightening, so we've all been swimming anyway! We are so sad to leave and look forward to coming back again someday together!

Rare Sighting!

We were swimming in the pool today and FINALLY saw some exciting wildlife...IN THE POOL! Check out the video...


Rare Sightings!

Banyan trees

Today the guys golfed and when they got home we went to downtown Venice and walked down the streets, looked in the shops, ate ice cream and went to see the Banyan trees. It was so much fun. We got lots of great pics! We plan to grill kabobs tonight and just hang out. Tomorrow is our last day! :(Tate and Ava had a romantic little moment on the bench in front of the banyan trees.

I LOVE this picture!!!

Mr Moms

Look Mom, I climbed the tree!!!

I did too!!!

Little sweeties.

The Peakins

Winding Down

Today, we had a pretty relaxing, uneventful day. We were all a bit tired...probably from all of the sun yesterday. I shouldn't say that "all" of us were tired though because Tate was a ball of energy all day! Of course he chooses the one day that daddy and mommy would love to get a nice nap in!

We woke up, and decided to hit the Waffle House for breakfast. It was yummy as usual and Tate got his first taste of eggs which he loved! Then we came home and thought that we would put the kids down for a nap. Tate napped for 15 minutes! Much shorter than his usual 2 hour morning nap! I got him up and fed him and planned to lay him down again in little bit. In the meantime, Sean decided to take a nap. Shark week on Discovery started today, so we had that on the TV all day. We all just sat around with the kids and watched the shows on Discovery and chatted. After Sean woke up, I decided I wanted to take a nap. So, since Tate was STILL up, Sean took Daddy duty and I took a much needed nap. I woke up an hour later to find out that Tate was still awake and not showing any signs of being tired. We decided to try to lay him down and realized that he just wasn't going to have that. We could just tell that for some odd reason, he wasn't tired. He never was crabby or anything, in fact he was the complete opposite...he was happy as could be! I decided to start dinner. I made roasted vegetable pasta and we had chicken and shark (in honor of shark week!:)) After dinner, Ava took a swim with James and we decided to get Tate in his pajamas and have a little wind down time. Tate was WOUND UP! He was being hilarious, so I took a video of him during what was supposed to be our "wind down" time. Ya right! Just after the video was taken, Tate went down without a peep. Although, he's cried out a couple of times since he went down, so we'll see how the rest of the night goes. So, Tate was up from about 9 this morning until 9 tonight! Little stinker!

Ava decided to "moon" us through the window after her swim!

"Winding Down"

South Beach

Yesterday we headed to Boca Grande and ate lunch and hung out at South Beach. The kids loved the beach. They swam in the ocean, both for the first time and then both took great naps! The guys found TONS of shark teeth and I stepped on a crab. It was a great day...we were all exhausted by the time we got home!

The first time Ava put her toes in the ocean!

A Day At The Beach

Rub a Dub

The kids took a bath together on Friday night. They had so much fun in the tub together! During the bath, we noticed that Ava got her second tooth!


Rub a Dub

Florida Fun

Florida Fun


Here is a video of some of our activities here in Florida. Enjoy!

Bare Bums

After dinner tonight, the kids both slept for about 45 minutes...when they awoke, they were in great moods and we didn't want to rile them up too much, so we decided to get into the hot tub with them and thought it would relax them and get them calm before bed. They had both pooped, so we weren't too worried about them going in the hot tub, so we just got them naked and put them in. They LOVED it! They both even went under the water. Ava had never gone under before and she went under all the way and didn't fuss about it...in fact, she came up from the water with a huge smile on her face. The kids were trying to kiss and hubg each other. It was so cute! They also loved when we turned on the jets...they splashed and squeeled! It was great night! We never want to come home!The cutest bums in the world!

Nice tans, guys!

What a cute little crack!

You gotta love the crack shots!

Boating in Florida

Today we rented a boat and went boating for the afternoon. It was the best day we could have chosen to rent a boat...the weather was perfect! After the initial problems getting out (we got stuck in the rocks about 50 yards out from the dock...oops! It was a little misunderstanding on where we had to go) which were resolved quickly with a little help from the boat rental people, we had a smooth trip. The kids both slept for a bit of the ride and we searched for manatees and dolphins. Apparently, the manatees were in the channel mating, or so the rental guys told us. We never saw any, nor did we see any dolphins! This was a surprise because you ALWAYS see dolphins in the channel when you're boating. Oh well, it was a great time! After boating, we went to a really fun restaurant on the water called Marker 4 and had a fabulous meal!

Tate did a great job driving the boat!

The kids were so funny in their life jackets!

Tate's life jacket fit him a bit better than Ava's, but he still couldn't move in it.

The DeCooks enjoying the boat ride!

The happy family! :)

More Fun In The Sun!

Today we hung out at the house while the guys golfed. If rained from about noon until 3:30, so we stayed inside during that time. After the rain stopped, we sat outside for a bit while the kids napped and then we decided to go out to Sharky's for dinner and a walk on the pier. It was a GORGEOUS night! Dinner was great, the kids did so great at the restaurant and we all really enjoyed our walk on the pier. We hopped in the car and drove to the south jedi and saw some dolphins and the beginnings of a beautiful sunset! We didn't get to watch the sun go down because the kids were tired and needed to get to bed, so we headed home and got out Bagg-O and have put the kids to bed. Our plan is to have a fun, relaxing night and then the guys are getting up in the morning to go golfing again. We're having so much fun and so are the kids!!! :)

Our First Day...

Our first day has been great! It has consisted of swimming, more swimming, lunch, more swimming and then a little more swimming! The kids napped and are having the time of their lives! They both LOVE the water and are going to be prunes the entire time we're here I have a feeling. The kids have a couple of great floaties that they love and just float around the pool in. Lora and I are able to swim around, Sean and James are playing made up games in the pool like 12 year olds and the kids just sit in their floaties and float around the pool! This is the life!

We're Here!

Well, we made it! The kids were fabulous on the plane. They played the first half of the flight and then slept the second half. When we got here, we settled in and went to the grocery store. As you can see in the second picture, we bought A TON of groceries! We are so happy to be here and having a great time already!

Ready to go!

I haven't posted any pictures in several days because I haven't taken any! I know, that's hard to believe, but really, I have been so busy this week that I only took 12 pictures all week! These are 2 of the 12 that I took. Tate was being a silly boy making faces at the camera (as usual) and I managed to capture one partial smile (the 1st pic) in the total 12 pics I took.

We are packed and ready for vacation! WOOHOO! Our friends the DeCooks arrive tomorrow around noon and our plan is to just hang out and have a low key evening with an early bedtime. :) The guys are planning on going online to pick out the golf courses they want to golf on and I am sure Lora and I will just chat and make our grocery list for when we arrive. Also, the guys are going to pack the van tomorrow night so that when we wake up in the morning, we can just get the kids up and head out the door. We will arrive in Florida around 1:00 on Sunday and don't leave to come home for 10 days! We hope to get a lot of relaxing in.

I will be posting from Florida, so the next post will be coming from a well rested (at least that's the plan), happy girl! :)

Risky

I think it's a bit of a risk that I am blogging this and I have been debating on whether I should announce this to the world in fear of the second I do it, things will change, but...

I am not sick! I don't think I caught Tate's cold. I have had an extremely mild cough since I took a TON of Airborne, but have had no terrible symptoms of a cold. This is amazing for me as I usually catch anything that is near me. Also, I am a kissing machine (when it comes to Tate) and didn't hold back too much even though Tate's been snotty and coughing for days. Tate seems to be clearing up and I have hopes that he'll be back to his normal, healthy self by Sunday or Monday, so that's good. I have tried to do all of the right things and have been taking advice from Dr. Stewart (my sister-in-law:)) and drinking lots of water...well, lots for me at least! So, we'll see...I am praying that all of us are healthy for the trip. That's the worst to be sick on vacation!

Tomorrow will be a busy day. We want to get everything pretty much packed and the house cleaned, laundry done, bills payed, checks deposited, fridge cleaned out, mail put on hold, van cleaned out and a few other odds and ends done before Saturday. We don't want to be stressing to get anything done once the DeCooks arrive around lunchtime on Saturday. We plan to have the van loaded that night so that we can just get up and load the kids and ourselves and head out at the crack of dawn! Hopefully the kids will be okay despite the fact that we will have to wake them up in the early morning in order to catch our flight!

It's after midnight and I should be sleeping! I have a million things running through my head and about 4 lists I have to check items off of that instead of checking things off, I keep adding things to! AHHHH!!! This traveling business is much different when you add a baby to the mix! I am going to be now...finally!

Why wouldn't I?!

I think I may have caught Tate's cold! I thought I was in the clear...I felt like myself the entire week Tate had his cold, but then last night I couldn't stop coughing. Right now it's just a dry, tight cough, and I don't have the constant snot faucet for a nose, but still, I am not feeling quite right. I am going to down a TON of Airborne and hope that that zaps it! It probably won't though because without fail, every time I go to Florida, I have a cold! The good news is that for some reason, the Florida weather always seems to clear it up within a day or two! Hopefully I can clear it up here before we even leave!

I know the rest of this week is going to fly by. Today I have a few small errands to run and then this evening we're heading to Erin and Luke's house to hang out for dinner and I am going to do Erin's hair. Then tomorrow, I have Bode in the morning until the afternoon sometime. After that, I plan to try to get a few things done around the house. On Friday, I plan to get most of our packing done and get the house all picked up and cleaned so that we come home from vacation to a clean house. Then on Saturday DeCooks will be arriving sometime around lunchish or shortly there after and we will be hanging out, getting the car packed and probably having a early night because our flight leaves early the next morning. Then, the plan is to have 10 days of relaxation! I can't wait!!!

"OUCH"

Tate seems to be learning new words every day! Today, he said, "ouch" and we got so excited that he kept saying it all day. I tried to make a video compiling all of the things he could say, but he wouldn't say all of them. He did pretty good though and said most of the things I asked him to say. I have to say, he might be a genius! :) Well, not matter what, he's a genius in MY eyes!


"Ouch"

Happy Birthday Bode!

I have been behind at posting this because I hadn't uploaded my pics from last weekend yet...

Last weekend, we celebrated Bode's 2nd Birthday! Wow, how these 2 years have FLOWN! I was fortunate enough to be able to be Bode's "daycare" a few days a week for almost the first year of his life! He is so funny and sweet and he's been that way since he was a baby! It's hard to believe that he hasn't been a baby for quite some time! The sweet way he says, "do-dee" (thank you) melts my heart instantly! He is already a little comedian at the age of 2 and gets funnier by the day! I can't believe it's been 2 years!!! We love you Bode, Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Brigg!

We celebrated Brigg's 6th birthday on Saturday night! I cannot believe he's already 6! It seems like just yesterday that I was driving down to Iowa from Minneapolis because Cassie was in labor when my phone rang and it was Mom saying, "It's a boy!" Brigg was my first nephew and it was the first experience I had ever had that I fell SO in love with a baby the instant that I held it in my arms! I remember going to visit Cassie, Paul and Brigg almost every weekend from that point on until I moved back to Iowa. When I would leave their house, I would cry because I didn't want to be so far away from my new nephew! I love him just as much today, 6 years later, as I did then! We is one special boy with SO MANY gifts! We love you Brigg, Happy Birthday!!!Brigg was so excited about his Hot Wheels Cake that Nana made him! This picture doesn't do it justice either...it was really cool! Nana even put little pictures of Tate, Lani, Macy, Bode and Brigg (in the driver's seat) in the front seat of the car! Too cute!

Brigg blowing out his candles!

More Swimming

We got the same hotel for Brigg's Birthday Party (in fact got the same 2 hotel rooms) as we had for my grandpa's 90th Birthday Party a couple of weeks ago. We had pool side rooms and the kids had a ball! Daddy and Tate went swimming again and despite the ice cold water, Tate didn't seem to flinch! He kicked and kicked and splashed and squeeled like he was in heaven! After the swim though, he looked awfully cold! He was shivering, his lips were purple, his eyes were blood shot from putting his face in the water a thousand times and his arms and legs were like ice cubes, but he still had a smile on his face! Little sweetie!