Florida Part Two

After soaking up more of the beach, we would always mosey on over to see "Hammah" and "Big Daddy" aka Grandmamma and Granddaddy!

Down the garden path toward the porch

Anna preparing to assist in the cat's bathing process...

Silly girl!

Playing Soccer in the yard! Grandpa keeps a safe distance ;) I love how my little brother looks in this picture: Like a big, ball-stalking T-Rex!

Anna and Andrew playing with water. I think she is trying to aim for his mouth, but you can tell that didn't work out!

Wet all over! What a good sport!

Ben wanted to treat my Dad to a game of golf while we were visiting but my Dad couldn't escape from work long enough...SO they dueled it out with the Wii! There really were some great gestures and facial expressions during their games, I just couldn't capture them :P

It wasn't ALL fun and games in Florida. My mom had a pretty serious finger injury and fate would have it that Anna should try to follow suit. She slammed her thumb between a sliding door (with the locking mechanism poking out) and the wall. Her thumb was busted up and bloody, but didn't need stitches. In this picture, we wanted Anna and my mom to both hold up their injured hand, but Anna didn't quite get the gist ;) Can you still see her little bandaged hand?

We are lucky enough to have all sorts of awesome family practically on the same street! Here the girls play with my Aunt and their cousin:)

Howler Monkey!

Granny lives just down the street from Mom, too. Here is our Four Generations picture!

For our last supper, my parents bought us an amazing and fresh seafood dinner! When I saw it packaged as above, I thought I had better eat IT before it eats ME!

Ben getting to work! ARRR!

Oysters, Corn on the Cob, whole Crabs, grilled I-forget-what fish, Hush Puppies, and Taters, all Cajun style! YUM!!!

Oysters down the hatch! Sorry about the flash...I'm not sure why we let that happen...

Everybody chowing down!

Somehow I feel like I haven't done the experience justice. Well, we had a WONDERFUL time! To this day, Ben and I sigh and wax wistful about our Florida vacation and everyone we were able to visit there. It was so luxurious and relaxing! Thanks so much, Mom and Dad!!! Love you!!!

Here we go again...

Where to begin...again. I think we all know I'm lacking in the consistency department. That said, let's begin this whirlwind of posts. So much has happened in what seems like no time at all! My BEAUTIFUL girls are growing up and doing and saying so many amazing things!Anna turned FIVE last month and Sabrina is now two and a half years old!!! Holy cow, how did THAT happen?!? --Cuz I know I'M not getting older...wider, maybe...but not older, thank you. And as I watch the newness surround me, I find Ben and I are a part of it. I've developed some mad cooking skills, a shred of craftiness, and a new-found love for Zumba, among other things. I stay at home with the girls and serve in the nursery on Sundays and for midweek RS meetings. Ben now serves with the eleven year old scouts, continues to work in Seattle, and chugs right along in grad school. He is amazing, lemme tell ya! What a keeper! We continue to be blessed with great friends old and new and wonderful family that make life worth living. To start, let's head back to April and move on from there.

We had an amazing Florida vacation! Thanks Mom and Dad and all our family who helped make it happen!!!

A view from our condo smack-dab on the beach!



Ben and Anna constructing a moat around the castle.

Anna and her seahorses!

Sabrina, after she wriggles up and slides down a dune: Mom, why am I covered in SAND???


I love this picture of Ben talking Sabrina through her experience of the waves. She is our fearless water-baby, but still appreciates reassuring words from Dad now and then. :)

Happy Vacationeers!



Relaxing inside the condo. Oh behave!

Ice cream at Kilwins! Anna generally wants anything pink, but raspberry ice cream has become a huge favorite. Love her in this picture!

Sabrina loves "Lellow" sherbet!!!

Happy, happy!

I don't know what to tell ya...that one must have been Frog-flavored.

My favorite part of this clip is at the very beginning and you have to look carefully to catch it! Ben is out in the shallows enjoying the moment when he kicks up his foot and runs like a little French girl for the safety of land, PAST our child waiting for his help! Why? He's been pinched! Haha, ninny! ;)

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Okay, there is so much more I want to add to this post, but it is taking FOREVER to load anything and it's driving me nuts. I've come back to meddle with this one post for several days, now! Grrrr. Off I go to defrag, update and anything else that, with any luck, will cause my computer to behave more efficiently.

I'll get the rest of the Florida experience up here soon if all goes to plan. 'Hope you've enjoyed it so far!

Itchin' for a Change!

For the past week or so I've had really bad hip and lower back problems but as of yesterday I've been feeling MUCH better. All I had to do was talk a consulting nurse into calling in a scrip for me (no appt, thank you!!!) and take that with Aleve and whammo! muuuuch better.

As of yesterday my energy level has been up and I was bored with the usual cleaning SO I decided to clean Anna's room (which is quite the feat) and arrange it so that the girls share the room! Woohoo! Let the chaos begin...again! Last night was their FIRST night together and, over all, I would say it went well enough. They went to bed around 7:30-8:00. Fifteen minutes later, Anna got out and went to the bathroom. That was okay, I could deal with that. After ushering them back to bed and saying no more potty trips, I braced myself with fragile hopes of good fortune. --And things went well...until about thirty minutes later: Anna started yelling about Sabrina peeing on the floor. I thought WHAT?? I had just given her a new diaper and it is not like her to disrobe and risk a yucky bed. But Anna kept on fussing, and after a while I decided to investigate. What I saw when I went in was Sabrina all snug in her bed, Anna sitting up in hers flailing about pee, aaaaand a large circular wet spot between the beds. After thoroughly checking Sabrina, I turned to Anna. By then she was getting pretty creative with her lies. saying that somehow Sabrina had managed to pee out of the side of her diaper without getting wet. That's what clinched it. When I asked for Anna to come to me and let me check her undies, she refused and quickly scooched away from me. By then I was so upset from all her lying that I really fussed at her! What a liar liar pants on fire!!! I can't believe she did that!!! How many time does she really have to go potty at night??? Okay, so I've counted up to eight, but really I thought she was just making up excuses to get out of her room! Arg!!! So that was our big ordeal from the whole affair. If I can get myself to look past that, then I'm okay with how things went. I'll let you know when I completely succeed. *sigh* Moving on, I'm pretty happy that they didn't trash their room or beat each other up. Everyone survived intact.

Here's a before picture

After

The scene of the crime (under the towel).

Unusual Bed-Buddies: Sabrina likes tocuddle up with her Dora doll, but when I went in to check on her I found her sleeping with her Doodle-Pro and my duster as we!l. Silly girl!

Well, there's the scoop on the maiden voyage of room-sharing! Wish us luck! I have little hope for the impending nap time. 'Hope you all have a great day!

Baseball Buddies

Well, Ben says he needs a boy to have true sports camaraderie, but so far he and Anna have been having a good time together being Baseball enthusiasts. Whenever the sun hits the grass in our backyard, Anna starts chirping and hopping about playing baseball with Daddy as soon as he gets home --which is NEVER soon enough! On this day, Anna got her wish: as soon as Daddy walked in the front door and gave everyone hugs and kisses, he walked straight out the back and started playing with Anna.
(Since then, Ben has expressed his surprise that he didn't even change out of his work clothes...and hereby asks that nobody mock him for his pleated "puffy" pants, as all of his other nice pants met an untimely demise. Silly :P)

"Okay, this is how you hold it..."

"Yep, just like that, now choke up on it a bit..."

THE PITCH!
(I missed the ball in this shot, but you can see the its shadow in the grass)

She's got her eye on the ball AAANDD......

It was a HIT!!!
Here they are hugging it out! What cuties!!!

Here's another victory caught on tape!

K, just a disclaimer: Anna dressed herself that day, but I still think she looks so pretty with the sun caught in her hair! AND I would have taped more of her victory dance, but it looked like she was about to battle a wedgie and who needs to see that? Anyway, it's so fun to watch Anna get all excited, practice and finally succeed! She LOVES playing baseball with her Daddy. We're thinking this is a slow progression towards T-Ball! I can't wait! I just hope Ben doesn't tell Anna about kicking dirt over the plates when you feel you've had a bad call. She would be EXACTLY the type to do that!

Beach Day

I dunno if you've heard, but we've been having greeaaat weather over here! Instead of endless dark drizzles, we have the occasional shower and enjoy seeing the sun and getting up to the low sixties!!! Okay, usually it's the fifties, but the sixties happened, people, and you better believe we got out to soak it all up!

A few weeks ago we packed everyone in the car and drove up to our old stomping grounds in Federal Way to enjoy the boardwalk, beach, and a cute little hands-on aquarium. When we got there we went straight to the aquarium with high hopes of poking sea critters --only to find it had closed for the day! :( So, we went down to the beach. Luckily, it was low tide, so we had plenty of room to roam around, hop over little streams of water, throw sand (Anna's favorite) and collect rocks. Bear with me through these very less-than-perfect pictures.

I loved how they were all holding hands with each other! Ben also enjoyed watching the scuba divers in training who can be seen in the shallows.

It was really hard to get the girls to hold still amid their exploring...so nevermind the random lady in the background <:) At least everyone is smiling, right?

Investigating. Just how cold is that water??

Once I felt like Ben had an eye on BOTH girls, I acquainted myself with these little fellas. I loved their subtle colors and textures that I couldn't see until I got up close.

See the nice blue-blacks, mochas and creams? I guess if I were to more accurately describe the cream color of some of the barnacles, I would call it 'Bone'.

I LOVE light on water
and enjoyed this scene because of the stark contrast given by the piers beams.

!!!Beautiful!!!
(If you let your eyes unfocus while looking at the black, I think it can look like so many different things. The first thing that came to my mind was an enormous constellation of stars.)

As the the day wore on the winds picked up, so we ended our visit on the boardwalk.

I think we all really enjoyed the day. Being back in Federal Way made Ben and I feel nostalgic; we miss living near the water and in a community with so many well-planned exercise trails and nice parks. Still, I'm not really complaining about where we are at present. We're doing just fine here, and it's nice to be aware of the blessings we receive wherever we happen to be. This next comment is kinda unrelated to the whole post, but as for blessings, Ben and I are very happy to say that we have successfully refinanced our house and no longer have to live in dread of foreclosing in two years! YAAAY! So lets hear it for many more a year living, ohhh, close enough to the water and having many more happy moments together.