Of Sun, Sand and Spoilage...Florida 2013

 And then one day you realize that it's cold here and it's warm there. You've had about enough months of winter and you decide it's worth the 40 hours in a minivan with 5 kids to be warm again. Lucky for us, we have family in Sarasota, the perfect excuse I'd say.

And we're off...

Yup, everyone was smiley and pleasant for the whole 40 hours about as long as it took to snap a picture. Actually, over all they did pretty good. Much less stressful than the last trip when the little Miss was just a tiny baby. We played a couple hundred rounds of the Alphabet game, counted state license plates and listened to Toby Mac one. more. time. all with a good supply of junk food and juice boxes. We like to travel overnight so the kids can sleep a lot of the time. That plan works great as long as there is a good supply of this...

 But again, reality is, this was my only cup of Starbucks, most of our steaming cups o' joe came from your average scary gas station. Let me just say, the restrooms are much cleaner at 3:00 a.m. but the scare factor of the coffee is at least doubled.

  We spent part of 2 days on the beach. The first of which was rather frigid but what did we care, we played the tourist role well, sweatshirts and blankets but we were at the beach!
 

   We (ahem) 'warmed up' with ice cream afterward. No trip to Sarasota is complete without a generous serving of Big Olaf's.

 

   One scoop of food coloring, er, Superman ice cream please. It was a hit I tell you.

  The second trip was much warmer. Perfect actually.

Sand Angels :)

These 2 are only about 6 weeks apart in age and they were inseparable. They got along so well and had so much fun together from the minute we arrived until the (tearful) minute we left.

That water was C.O.L.D. but no one seemed to notice but me.

My Little Beach Babe!

  We spent a morning at the (more sweatshirt appropriate) Park.

Our super fun picnic lunch.

The little people loved it. The big kid thought of it more as an appetizer than a meal.

  We loved the Tampa Zoo so much the last time that we went back for round two. 

This guy kept himself busy capturing and documenting. I wonder where he might have gotten his shutterbug tendencies from. Hmm?

  Meanwhile in a cage nearby....

Petting sting rays ~ Big Hit!

Well, what do you know, Mom was along on this trip too.

Anybody else relate to the "we're lucky if we have at least one picture with Mom on it" issue?

  There was a round or two of golf for the guys and some retail therapy with a side of coffee shop chats for the Mommy's.

  There was a (family friendly) night on the town with a mountain of all things BBQ'd devoured in short order. Please pass the barbeque sauce and the napkins.

  We threw in an egg hunt on the last day just for good measure. Nothing like loading the kids up with a sugar stash before jamming them back in the van for hours. Since we were traveling home on Sunday, that was the extent of our Easter celebrations this year. No Sunrise service, no family feast....I have to say I missed it. It just didn't seem right to be remembering such an important event with a few worship tunes on the ipod and our gourmet lunch of beef sticks and cheese crackers.

 
  We had a great time relaxing and hanging out with these super generous people who left us take over their house and disrupt their lives for a whole week. We were generally spoiled with cheesecake and cinnamon buns and bottomless cups of coffee served with a smile and an endless supply of clean towels. Thanks guys!

 

  Miss Kyra made friends with the puppy on the first day.

 But it took her until the last day to make friends with Uncle Kenton. Silly girl!

  There was time for reading and video games and soaking in sunshine and snuggling.

Somebody found himself a best buddy for the week. 

We may have created a need here...

Thank you Land of Sun, Surf, and Ice Cream for refreshing our bodies and renewing our smiles!

Playing Catch-up

I have this little issue with this ol' blog. You see, it seems when life is busy and full of things to document and remember, than life is busy and blogging gets shoved waaaayy down to the bottom of the list. It's been a rather crazy few weeks here. I'm really not sure why I ever expect anything else.

My pajama clad pirate/ninja [guarding my yard sale junk like nobodies business.]

Let's see, there was the double paint project followed directly by the "hey, let's have a yard sale," urge.  The yard sale proceeds came in handy on our family vacation in Florida over Easter break. And apparently vacations are dangerous because I spent most of the following week flat on my back. Since I do have a laptop I thought that I would be able to get some writing done from my couch post last week but  my typing skills are only impressive to my 4th grader so typing from the lying flat position was really rather frustrating.
 
What little people do while Mom is laid up....

Cut lots and lots of teeny, tiny pieces.

Hang out with Franklin the Turtle. We love him!

Cut more paper snibbles!

Consider this your warning. If you aren't interested in the finer details of the above, feel free to bail now. No hard feelings, I promise!

Made Me Smile Monday

{a  snapshot --or two-- from my week. with or without words. something exciting. something ordinary. something special. something silly. just something. that made me smile this week. a memory to brighten my day. to make me smile again. even though it's MONDAY!}

As if I really need to be reminded to smile on this project tackling, laundry hanging, flip flop wearing, perfect spring day.  But here you have it. This is what happens when somebody says the words "Daddy's coming home." The spontaneous version was better but naturally my camera wasn't on cue.

WHHH! Whh! Whhew! Wow, things have gotten awfully dusty around here. Does anybody even post here anymore? Excuse me while I brush the spiderwebs out of the way...

 
  There, better...So you remember that Mama who said she wasn't taking on any more projects for awhile? Yeah, that lasted about 2 hours. Things somehow went from crazy to insane and I was left huffing, puffing, and panting trying to keep up. There may have been several gallons of paint, a big pile of junk (ahem) high quality used items for sale, packing, cleaning, and school projects in addition to the usual laundry piles, dinner cooking and general chaos management that is standard procedure in our house.
  Some of those things are a post all there own but for now a glimpse of life on the {funny} farm.


Of willing little laundry helpers....

Of silly boys and celebrations ~ 100 days smarter...

Of weekends with friends and fun and food and reconnecting and relaxing...

Of a sweet but feverish little boy...

      (and of gratefulness that he didn't share with his sibs and this was the  extent of our  sickness this winter)

Of one hugely successful trip to the thrift store...

 

Of making homework a little less mundane for a very smart boy (kinda glad I'm not taking any 4th grade spelling tests any time soon, but he rocked it) ...

Of good times with cardboard, race cars and a dash of creativity...

 

Of "I wanna be just like Mommy," a.k.a.  "it's time to feed them all AGAIN!"

Of Welcoming Spring with free Rita's ice...

It's not glamorous but it's my life and I'm rather enjoying it. Hope to be back soon with some before and after pics but I suppose that would go better if I actually took the after pics.

Made Me Smile Monday

{a  snapshot --or two-- from my week. with or without words. something exciting. something ordinary. something special. something silly. just something. that made me smile this week. a memory to brighten my day. to make me smile again. even though it's MONDAY!}

 First day at the park with the kids this "Spring."