Hog Country

Joaquin's maiden voyage with his car seat turned around facing forward!  Too bad it didn't help=/

This past weekend we took a little family mini vacay up to Fayetteville. We decided we wanted to take the time to enjoy things we don't normally get to in the rush of our football weekends.  We spent the weekend with one of my college roommates and her family.
One of the events we have been dying to go back to is a baseball game. The U of A has a beautiful baseball stadium! It would have been a really great idea to take a picture of it.....but I didn't=)  This is the only picture I managed to get. Because of the youngsters we sat in the grassy area so they could run and we could have a picnic dinner. We were quite impressed at how long the kiddos made it as we didn't leave until the bottom of the 6th inning.  I think Kim and I saw 2 plays!

On Saturday we grabbed lunch from one of our favorite sub shops, Loafin' Joe's and headed to the football stadium for another picnic.  We were trying to soak up as much of campus life as we could. What I didn't remember was all the hills and how old I apparently am. Good grief I thought I was going to die!

At some point in the midst of the chaos of eating with my children I wondered, "What about this idea sounded good to me?" Joaquin was ALL over the place and kept falling down on top of food because of the terrain, NJ was having a meltdown for I don't even remember why and I don't even remember eating my sandwich. You know, the one from our favorite sub shop. Well, maybe next time I'll enjoy it.

After we ate we headed to the stadium where we found a nice shady spot at the top to chill out and "watch" the scrimmage game.

Again, two young children in a football stadium is not really conducive to seeing much of the game, but it was fun for them to experience it all. Now Natalie will understand where we are going when we tell her about the games.  Just another opportunity to soak them in Razorback spirit!

Joaquin actually reached out for Kim several times over the weekend, but here he was just looking for a free ride!

We left the scrimmage early (no surprise there) and proceeded to find mine and Brian's names on the Senior walk. Excuse the terrible photo with my shadow, but Natalie is pointing to my name etched in concrete showing I graduated with my Master of Arts in Teaching.  I hope one day her name is on there as well. Sniffle.

Although our time went quickly and was a bit of chaos it was so good to be back on campus.  It was also good to catch up with Kim and her family!

I love Hog Country.

One day I hope these three girls have this picture posted in their dorm room on the U of A campus=) Maybe Natalie and Audrey will be second generation roomies!

Destin Part 2

As with every Florida trip you always plan for a rainy day activity. This is the first year EVER that it did not rain a single drop while we were there. Crazy! Well, Mimi had an "unbirthday party" planned for a day to hang out inside away from the sun.

Mimi and the girls made oreo cookie pops while Poppi and Evan hung out. Then Mimi had puppets for the kids to decorate and put on a puppet show. We had monkey bread for breakfast and made safari binoculars. Fun times! This actually worked out perfectly because I had to make a visit to the Minute Clinic for an ear infection. So annoying. 

Once Brian and I returned we all decided to head to the local mall area called Destin Commons.

As you can see above it had a great play area that was mostly shaded. If we had known there was a sprinkler area we would have come prepared for the kids to play in it=/  We did a little shopping around and Poppi and Mimi paid for the kids to ride the train around the place. Gotta love Grandparents=)

We ended up at Johnny Rockets' for some ice cream and snacks. Turned out to be a perfect non-beach day.

Brian was dying to rent a scooter and go cruising Old Hwy 98 along the beach so we did! Safety first for me! I'm 100% certain I was the only one on a scooter wearing a helmet.  I'm not going to lie...I felt a little vulnerable on that little thing and we only went 20 mph. That's fast on a scooter, folks.  We enjoyed our time but 2 hours was more than enough time. We ended our journey at TCBY with some ice cream.

Family pictures and out-to-eat night was a hit. We walked to Pompano Joe's from our townhouse. How perfect is that? We saw a line of folks waiting to get their names on the waiting list which didn't seem promising. After about a 7 minute wait they got us right in, table of 10! We were pretty cramped because that's the way the place is but we were right on the beach and the food was great!

 Group shot at the restaurant. JZ and I didn't make the shot as I was the photographer and he was next to me=)

View from behind us

I'm only allowed to show you our family photo. The whole family is off limits for mom's Christmas cards!

The youngsters each chose a date night so Brian and I went down to the Destin Harbor to walk around and found a great Mexican place to eat, Crab Island Cantina.

We had a nice viewing of several dolphin cruises, show boats like the pirate one above and sail boats. Beautiful area! We also got a little airshow that was fun!

This trip was a blast! I am so thankful for each and every time we are able to pull something like this off as each year gets more busy with kids growing up.  I'm also thankful that we all like each other enough to spend a week together on the beach=)

Destin 2014

This year our family decided to stay in Destin instead of Navarre. I wanted clear, calm water with a long sandbar and mom wanted to stay right on the beach (I was not at all opposed to that idea). We got exactly that! After a lot of Internet searches for places on the beach that we could afford we found this townhome......

It is the Sanddollar Townhome on Miramar Beach.  It was a little older of a place than we normally stayed, but it turned out to be just perfect. The bottom level had a huge deck with shower and lounging chairs and the owners provided a ton of beach toys. The next level up had two bedrooms joined with a bathroom. Bedrooms each contained a queen bed  and futon plus tvs. The bonus about this level is the porch swing with a perfect view.  The next level up was the main living area and kitchen (half bath) with a great walk-out deck for grilling out! Beautiful view.

The top level was the master suite and fourth bedroom with two full baths. The master suite had a sitting are with a large window facing the beach. Perfect.

We seriously could not have found a better place and since we went before Memorial Weekend we got a great deal on it. We met the owners and they were very friendly and accommodating. Our biggest complaint/annoyance was that the kitchen didn't have a pantry. What?! It was kind of a small kitchen but with a unit housing that many people you have to have a pantry. We cleaned out a cabinet and made one that worked, but come on!

The kids successfully enjoyed the beach and waves all week long. The townhome also provided a plastic pool that we took down to the water for the kids to splash around in, but they honestly enjoyed the ocean more!  We met some neighbors with 8 kids and I think their little one spent more time with us in the pool=)

As you can see, the little AND big kids enjoyed the waves!

As the photographer of this next series of pictures I just couldn't resist the chance to capture this....

*notice how Evan realizes what's coming & I'm not about to warn them

*HA! Poppi's reaction cracks me up!

*And these last two are truly my favorite....Dad's expression says one thing, "You dirty dog!"

I was laughing so hard and it could not have been timed out any better. Luck!

JZ had so much fun in the sand and water! His first beach trip was a huge success. He was giddy and ran with wreckless abandon towards the waves! Getting knocked down and water soaked didn't bother him a bit. He just laughed and kept going back for more. The camera was loving him!

Oh my goodness I want to squeeze him!

Natalie also really enjoyed the sand and water and got very brave walking into the waves up to her waist. She wasn't, however, so cooperative for the camera so our pictures are minimal=/

Funny tidbit.  Natalie is wearing the same bathing suit that she wore 2 years ago. Not like, Oh that suit is so cute we will buy it in a bigger size now. No. The same suit when she was 18 months old. SMH

The highlight of our trip was the next to last morning when we finally saw dolphins!

This picture does not even do it justice. Right where that dolphin was swimming was where we had been swimming all week.  It literally could not have been deeper than 4 ft. He was practically walking the sandbar, folks! I have been to Florida many many times and have NEVER seen them so close! All the kids got to see the dolphins (we saw 4) so we felt the trip was complete=)

I won't lie that I initially thought it was a shark. Our neighbor friends had been paddle-boarding right in the area before it changes to dark blue and had seen a hammerhead shark just a few days before. I was relieved what we saw was a dolphin=)

Stay tuned to part 2...

Easter Fun

Since I'm months behind on posting any kind of blog we will just do pictures.....

Easter gifts from Grandparents on both sides

Easter baskets from Mommy and Daddy

Egg hunting with neighborhood friends!

My favorite cuties with outfits (well, JZ's tie) made by Mommy!

Mimi and Poppi's Playhouse

One of the joys of getting to stay home with my kiddos is taking road trips whenever! This one lead us back home to my parents' house for a few days.  Like an idiot, I forgot my good camera so these pictures will all be from my phone=/ So excuse the poor quality.

We hit the road Tuesday morning and headed to our usual Texarkana Chik-fil-A stop. It's the perfect half-way point with good food and a playground perfect for both kids. I wish all of their restaurants had the same play area as this one!  Joaquin just becomes giddy at this place. He wants to be a big kid so badly! That's the best shot I could get of him. He was having too much fun.

We arrived at 3pm and enjoyed the rest of the day hanging at Mimi and Poppi's house.  The next morning we ventured out to Little Rock to see the Game and Fish Nature Center.  It was a neat little place.  The kids got to see two, live baby alligators, a couple of snakes and a variety of fish. I'm disappointed that I only got the one picture above.   Natalie wasn't scared to touch the snake!  After that we jumped on over the Heifer International building.  This was a neat place but a little over the heads of my kids.  Here is a link to learn more about this project: http://www.heifer.org/about-heifer/index.html. 

The next day was spent with my Granny. We took her shopping for her groceries. Her list included: chocolate chip cookies, ice cream, garlic bread, and a few other yummy things. When I'm 93 my list will look the same! The essentials.=) Loading two kids and my Granny along with 3 other adults was quite funny.  We ate at Chicken Express which pleased everyone! After our running around we returned to her house for the afternoon. Natalie got to see and pet the neighbor's goats and Alpaca (random, I know) so she was happy.

Before we left, Granny and Natalie needed to enjoy a cup of ice cream and a cookie!

What a pair! Love the one of her and JZ too.

On Friday we met my dear ol friend Sarah and her kiddos at Chik-fil-A.  I was so excited that she let her oldest skip school to come see us. The last few visits we have coordinated have been without him so it was a nice surprise.  I failed to get any pictures of any of the kids=( But we had a good visit and watched Londyn and Joaquin both be brave and climb up the playground and go down the slide! Fun times.

We spent as much time outside as we could while at mom and dad's house. Friday night was pizza on the patio and it was just perfection. We stayed outside all afternoon. Joaquin popped a few wheelies on his scooter!  Natalie and Poppi rode the truck and then she fell asleep in my arms in the rocking chair. Sweet girl.

We had a great week away and could not have asked for better weather!

Road Trip

Brian doesn't get to travel much (I'm thankful for that, but he wishes there were more), and when he does it's never to anywhere cool.  Sorry, but it's true. Kansas, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Nebraska.....need I go on? No offense to these places, it's just not somewhere I would jump to go with him on.  And previously I have been a working mom so it couldn't happen anyway!  A couple of weeks ago he went to Austin and a friend asked why we didn't join him. After a few moments of dumb-foundedness (if that's a word) I had no idea why we didn't join him!  Thankfully, he got to go again and for a day longer so we POUNCED on it!

Thursday we loaded up and hit the road to Austin, Texas. Ok so maybe it's not exactly a thrill seeking city, but it was close and I had two kids to keep entertained=) I can only hope that one day I will get to follow him to Hawaii!
We got to Austin around 4ish and got checked into the Radisson which was right on the river. We had a nice few from our room.  Brian had to do some preparation for a 6:00 meeting that night so the kids and I played around and ordered a pizza to eat once he left.

Pretty cute little dinner dates I had there! And yes, Joaquin got to partake of the pizza as well.  After we ate, we then had to entertain ourselves in the room until bedtime. We read books, played with babies, made a tent with the pack and play, jumped on the bed, and thankfully found a movie on TV because at this point we had only passed an hour of time!  NJ begged nonstop for her popcorn so we finally got it out for the movie.  She now thinks hotel is synonymous with popcorn and pizza (we did the same when we went to Sea World).  

By the time Brian got home at 9:15, Joaquin was out and Natalie was holding strong!  Unfortunately she was sharing a bed with us so she wasn't going down until we were=/  A king-size bed seems so big until she is sleeping with us.

The next morning we were up and ready to go by 7:30.  Not exactly my idea of a vacation day, but we had to drop Brian off at the UT campus by 8:30.  That meant killing an hour and a half of time before the Children's Museum that we were going to would open.  Again, not perfect planning but that's the way it goes when you are tag-alongs for a business trip!  

I was a little nervous navigating my way through a new town (and huge campus) with two kids in tow.  One of those kids being Chatty Cathy. Why did you do that, mom? Where are we going now?  Why did you turn around?  Are we here yet?  Did you find it yet?

Oh good heavens!

We hadn't eaten breakfast since we were rushing around to get Brian where he needed to be on time so we went looking for a donut shop. Natalie wanted a cinnamon roll.  Well, I couldn't easily find a shop that was somewhat in the vicinity of where we were trying to go so we opted for a McDonalds.  She got cinnamelts and there was a playground. We all win.

That child ate her entire meal plus half a sausage biscuit of my meal!  And then got mad when I ate half of Joaquin's biscuit.  I have literally never seen her eat so much.  This McDonalds had a neat play area for toddlers so it was perfect to let them play and kill the time we needed to kill. Thankfully there were also 3 other kids there to interact with in the play area.  They had a blast!

Off to the Thinkery we went!

This is quite possibly the coolest Children's Museum I have been to. I was very impressed!  Even Joaquin was able to participate in a lot of areas and it was set up where I could let them play in different areas yet still see them both. This was huge for me as I'm often left holding JZ so NJ can do something.  Just when I thought we discovered an area that he would be excluded from, BAM!, they had a squared off area for toddlers to play.

Natalie is painting on the glass wall over there while Joaquin is securely playing in the cubical just below and loving it!

My favorite part of this day was having NO time schedule. We had ALL day, and I do mean ALL day as we couldn't pick Brian up until 5:30. I let them both go at their own pace and didn't have to rush them through any of the areas. We definitely got our money's worth!

This captures one of the water play areas.  It was so cool! The drums you see in front of Joaquin were being "played" by drops of water from high above. There was a hydraulophone (sp?) where the kids could play songs (a song book was provided) and that was my favorite!  There was also an outside water area with toys and scoops, but I failed to get a good picture of that.

This little playground outside was a blast for both kids. Joaquin enjoyed the freedom of climbing and crawling on the ropes and was, of course, quite brave.  I was very proud of Natalie who climbed up much higher than I thought she would! There was a sand play area as well, but the kids didn't spend anytime there.

They get plenty of that at home, I guess!

The second floor had a Farmer's Market (Natalie's favorite) along with a closed in area for babies and toddlers. It was the neatest area. It had soft pillows, balls, mirrors, tunnels and everything safe for little ones to roam freely. Joaquin really enjoyed this area. I liked it because he was gated in one area and I didn't have to obsess over watching him or moving him from place to place to get out of others' way. 

He couldn't quite figure out this bubble at the end of the tunnel and why he couldn't touch me=)

There was a light play room with a huge Lite Brite board! It was awesome and Natalie really liked it. Joaquin slept through that whole room!  It also had light painting and colored light shadows.  

We spent 4 hours at the Museum before we gave in. We decided to go back to the car and get snacks and play outside since the weather was nice.  

I could tell they were both fading quickly (as was I) so after our playtime at the park we headed back to the car.  Natalie was out like a light within seconds of being strapped in her seat.  Joaquin followed quickly behind her.  At this point we still had an hour and a half to kill before needing to pick Brian up. I wanted them to stay asleep so going back to the hotel wasn't an option or they would have been woken up after about 20 minutes.  So, after driving back through campus to make sure I knew where I would be picking him up, I drove to a Whataburger, grabbed a shake and parked in the parking lot with the car running.  

Lucky for me I picked up on someone's WiFi for free so it gave me something to do to pass the time!  45 minutes passed and all was going well.  That is until I closed the visor mirror and it made a loud POP!  Natalie immediately stirred and started crying followed quickly by JZ who started wailing. Crap.

We still needed to kill 30 minutes and now they were angry. I was rethinking my "don't go to the hotel" decision.  

They needed more milk so we drove to a gas station to get some where NJ continued to wail that her heel was hurting and she couldn't wear her shoes. Drama. I forced her to walk because I couldn't carry them both, pay for the milk and carry back to the car. I refreshed their cups of milk to which neither wanted any part of. Sheesh.

Off to campus we ventured to find a parking spot and I was doing my deep breathing methods to stay calm.  The Lord was good to me in giving us a parking spot just down from where we dropped Brian off that morning.  10 minutes to go.  I paid for an hour of parking thinking what a waste! Yeah you see where this is going........

I let Nat get out of her carseat to keep the whining to a minimum but decided to keep JZ locked and loaded so as not to anger him when we had to put him right back in when Brian showed up.  If only I had known.....

If only I had known he wouldn't come out until 6:20.  Yes, we sat in that stupid car for another hour folks.  In that hour they were relatively good, but Nat informed me she had to potty. Really potty.

Fantastic.

I have no idea where the nearest bathroom is, nor did I know if we even had time to make it there. I grabbed a pull-up (so glad I had tossed that little gem in) and told her to let loose=)

Brian gets in the car and says, "Yuck who is stinky?" Don't even test me, man. We've been in this car for 2 hours!

Aside from that part of our day we had a really wonderful time getting to travel with Brian on his trip.  I'm thankful we got to be with him and do something new.

A Special Valentine's Day

This year the kids and I woke up to find this in the kitchen!

The kids got a sweet book from Daddy and a Dora book from Mommy along with her favorite snacks.  Natalie also got a rose and a precious card to which she responded, "Ah how sweet," after I read it to her! I got some new sewing tools and my favorite candy bar (score!).  We had a card and daddy's favorite candy waiting for him when he woke up a little earlier than us=)

BUT the special part of the day was getting to spend it with my sister and her family!

They were passing through on their way to West Texas and only stayed one night so I wanted to make that night fun and special....

As you can see, we had a delicious dinner and dessert!  My nephew, Evan, was beyond excited about the dessert. He made sure that everyone saw it and knew what it was!

The kids all ate really well (yes, even my child) and had fun at their own table!

After dinner we decided to open a few more presents. Brian and I got Evan and Audrey a little gift to help them on their long road trips and Mimi and Poppi sent gifts for the kids as well.  Evan opened his card from Mimi and Poppi to discover some cash and as you can see from the picture, he was thrilled!  The older three all got some cash and a Valentine mailbox with cards to decorate.  Since none of them are in a classroom this was a fun activity for them to "pass out" Valentine cards.  Joaquin got cash too, but he was more excited about the squeezy food pouches that came in his gift sack. He downed one immediately!  

Natalie really enjoyed this and wrote several cards to family and friends. Too cute! Thanks for the fun, Mimi and Poppi!

A couple of days before Valentine's Day the kids received a package in the mail from Grandma.  I wasn't able to hide the box from Natalie so we had to open it then=) I'll admit I was a little excited to see it too!

Grandma sent the kids a new book (always a crowd favorite) and some new slippers for Natalie. She thought they were so cool.  Joaquin really enjoyed his card and new shoes which were too cute for words!

Thanks Grandma for making Valentine's special for the kids=) Smiles were all around.

I'm so thankful for family. Not because of the gifts but because of how much they love my kids. What a blessing!  And so thankful to get to love on my niece and nephew for Valentine's Day this year!