Month: March 2018

Today was all about the beach. We’ve had one green flag day since we’ve been here and we’ve been waiting for another but it just hasn’t come. So we decided to brave the red flag 🚩day and go for it!

It was worth it! It was windy but the sand was great and the water a little rough but ok.

The girls loved playing in the sand, they built a castle 🏰 and then dug a giant hole. They made fiends with a little girl who helped them and her dad dug most of the hole.

Katie and I soaked up the sun, a little too much!

We played and swam until after lunch then headed for snow cones and the pool. It was windy, but not sunny at the pool. Bree enjoyed her chips and salsa, she was finally able to redeem her coupon for winning iron chef!

We headed upstairs after a long and tiring sunny day! The kids were beat!

The Sales headed home and the girls and I went for a moonlit walk on the beach. 🌜It was so pretty! We were hoping to see sea turtles 🐢 coming up to nest on the beach but no luck.

Such a great day! We drove about an hour and found Lion Country Safari. At first we thought it was just a drive thru safari, but there was so much more!!!

We rented a van to go through the safari, didn’t want an animal ramming our car!! 😳

It was so neat, we saw tons of animals. The favorite part was the ostrich trying to get the kids. She kept pecking the window as the kids were looking at her.

We finished the safari and headed into the park. Our first stop was lunch we were starving! Then we rode the carousel and flying elephants, fed birds, rode water slides, fed giraffes, panned for gold, and so much more. Such a fun day!!!

Such a great day, we stayed until it closed. We couldn’t imagine it being so awesome!

Ryanna’s favorite – feeding the giraffe and the pecking ostrich! 🦒

Bree’s favorite – the water park and the ostrich pecking us!

💜🧡❤️👩🏻👧🏼👧🏻

We have had an great vacation so far, another two great days!

We traveled to Vero Beach 🏖 to meet up with some friends, the girls were so excited! I had not told them we were gonna see some of their besties!!!

Unfortunately the wind has just been whipping here and the sea is angry!! They made the best of it, jumping in the waves and playing in the sand.

It’s amazing how much fun these girls have when they get together. It was so windy it was actually cold. We decided to eat lunch on the beach then head inland to a park.

The park was perfect, slides and swings and make believe. They had a great time together.

This day was so much fun, unfortunately it took us hours to get home because South Florida has got some traffic!!! It was crazy!! 🚦🚗🚕🚙🚧

Wednesday morning we decided to go even more south, to the Everglades! 🐊🦆

After a terribly wrong turn that took us about 35 minutes the wrong direction we finally arrived. We didn’t get to see the whole place, just a few look outs. It didn’t matter though, we loved it!

I was hoping we would see some kind of wildlife and low and behold right on the side of the road was an alligator! 🐊

So cool!! Bree was terrified he was gonna eat her, Ryanna loved it and got a little too close for me. Such a neat experience.

These two girls make it all worth it, experiencing life with them is so much fun. I’m so thankful for all we get to do together.

Happiness is mother daughter time!

So I wrote a huge blog posts about the last two days. Tons of pictures and awesomeness…apparently I forgot to publish it and it deleted. So I’ll try again, but this will be a abbreviated.

1. Picked up mom and dad! Welcome home!

2. Drove to the beach

C. Got souvenirs from mom and dad

4. Roller skating down the boardwalk to dinner

A. Early morning drop off for daddy to fly home, he has to fund his vacationing girls, back to work!

B. Head to the beach

3. Lunch and snowballs on the boardwalk

D. Iron chef at the timeshare, Bree won!

– secret ingredient was spaghetti

– Ry made lemon garlic shrimp pasta

– Bree made brown butter chicken pasta

– Her first prize loot, Ry won second, there were four older teenagers that competed too. They were so kind and sweet to my girls.

12. Roller skating over the drawbridge

J. Movies under the stars, poolside…in 20 mPh wind!

Z. The end of a great day!

B.E.A.C.H = Best Escape Anyone Can Have

Our first official outing was to Sea World with our friends.

They live in Florida now and it was so good to see them. We met in the parking lot 15 minutes later than we had planned, it was so nice to be with other late people!!! We spent the entire day at Sea World.

First thing was first though, she brought me comfort food after the day we had yesterday. The best friend ever!!! I stuffed my face with her homemade danish. It was so delicious!

The first thing we saw when we got in the Park was the Manta ride, a huge coaster Ryanna was dying to ride. The rest of the kids were scared or too short so we headed to the stingrays while Ry hung with the big boys!

After riding the Manta twice we headed to the Shamu show! Some of us did not want to get wet and some did.

The dry crew

The soak zone crew!

Such magnificent creatures created by my God! Amazing!

We split up after the show, Ry and the dads headed to some more big coasters. Maco and Kraken while he rest of us went to kiddie world!

We rode the Shamu Express and the train. Bree was my riding partner, she’s brave!

Our next stop was the Dolphin discovery! Up close with a dolphin. It was so awesome. 🐬Katie told us about it, so we ran and got tickets first thing this morning. Bree was so excited, we got to pet the dolphin and train the dolphin. Such a great experience…until the dolphin decided to drench us! 💦 We were having such a blast that we hadn’t even thought about lunch, so Tony took us to an amazing underwater grill! Sharks Underwater Grill! It was so neat, such a fun experience!

We sat right next to a giant grouper who never left us, even when the kids made funny faces at him. He was massive, longer than Callan, wider than Bree! It was a delicious meal and the kids even got Shark sundaes.

Next up…sea lion feeding! They were loud and crazy and the birds were mean it was unreal!

Our last show of the day was the sea lion show, the sun was setting and and no one really wanted to be in the soak zone so we all finally sat together. Which is a good thing because I think this show the people got the most wet in the soak zone than any other show.

After one more big ride, journey to Atlantis, (which we have no pictures of because we just didn’t take any), we headed to kiddie world to finish the day.

I am so thankful for our friends. We don’t see each other nearly as much as we would like to, but when we do it’s like nothing has changed. Katie and I are silly and fun together, Tony and Alan talk computers and just hang out, the kids get along so well. We just love each other, true friendship. It was exactly what my family needed a great distraction after a hard week. We love you Sales! Thank you for a great day in Orlando!

I’d say Sea World was a success!

Good Times + Crazy Friends = Amazing Memories

Spring Break is finally here! Since we started school this year we have been working towards this break. Our goal was to finish all our school before this break and we did it!! 📓✏️

Unfortunately, the beginning of this trip didn’t start out like we thought. We started today out saying goodbye to our sweet puppy Peanut she has given us 15 years of companionship, but today she finished her life.

We were all very sad and contemplated not leaving for vacation and taking a few more days, but in the end we decided vacation was what we needed.

We headed south to Florida and warm weather. Our first week of Spring Break is taking us to Sea World and the beaches of Fort Lauderdale. 🏖 Our 2nd week, Disney World!!! 🐭

We started out great, but Vice President Mike Pence decided to visit Atlanta and as we were headed out he arrived. This made traffic terrible, but we did it, got out of town and arrived in Orlando!

Tomorrow Sea World! 🐳🐬🐟🦑🐙

We loved you so much Peanut, you were a good girl Peanut. 🐶😢

And we are off!

CLOVER, ready for her first road trip!

We recently purchased a new car, this is her first road trip! I love seeing the girls celebrating milestones, it’s the little things in life that make us so happy!

I love that no mater how big they get they still love to ride the luggage cart with Alan. I need to find a pic like this from a long time ago!

Road trip!

Family time is the best time!

Because the greatest part of a road trip isn’t getting to your destination, but all the wild things that happen along the way!