Tree trimming and the great state of Florida

 

Lacey enjoyed sitting on the mat like a big kid at story time. It lasted almost 20 minutes.

Julia’s writing is coming right along. She wrote Dad for the first time! Her first word to write. Good job Julia.

Last week Cody had a day off so I put him to work as usual!  Some serious tree trimming was in order.

I Love that upon driving into our circle I know see my house instead of our bushy tree. A big thanks to our neighbor for helping me pull the branches away from our house while Cody cut and for letting us borrow his ladder and extension saw. It made our work a lot lighter.

Lacey has stood up on her own 3 times now! I caught her in this picture just as she was getting back down. She’s growing up fast. I love that she is wearing Julia’s hand me downs too. I swear every time I dress her I am taken back in time to the first time Julia did something wearing that same outfit.

This is the same tractor Kevin learned to walk with 4 years ago. Lacey loves it just as much although she is not as adventurous as Kevin, she is more timid on it.  Lacey has a lot of the same mannerisms and behaviors as Kevin did/does. I see Julia in her occasionally, but she is definitely a mini Kevin.

Thursday before leaving to Florida with Cody I had a little water party for the kids with some of their friends. They soaked up the sun and had a great time. And of course we had to cool off with popsicles. It was 95 degrees and about 110% humidity. Florida felt nice and cool after that day.

Kevin reminded me about 47,000 times to take lots of pictures so he could see what everything was like. I’ll spare you and only show you 1/80th if the pictures I took! (Which just so you are aware, I spare you every time I blog! I know, I take a ton of pics!)

Leaving on a jet plane.

Dinner at Chili’s with a very tired babe.

Passed out.

This is what my family in Idaho was dealing with when we were leaving to Florida. It breaks my heart for the 66 families who lost their homes. Some of which we know personally.

Lacey took a morning nap to catch up after our late night while Cody was in his interview. Our hotel was across the street from the office building, which was LOVELY!

Then we headed to Miami Beach. I hated it… with a passion. I was way to Closter phobic and I’m not a Closter phobic kind of person. Unless you were on the beach you could not see anywhere. The buildings are soo tall and so jammed together that there is no free space. I couldn’t get out of their fast enough. And when our car was nearly towed after about 1.5 hours of being there, we decided to leave. 

In Miami Beach Lacey threw her full bottle of milk on the sidewalk and it shattered. Once we got to Fort Lauderdale, our next stop we found a new bottle and some ice cold leche. She was a happy girl.

We enjoyed a few hours at a beach in Fort Lauderdale.

I found this shovel floating out in the water and retrieved it while Lacey ate the beach.

Then we buried her.

After a diaper change and a rinse off in the shower we enjoyed dinner outside across the street from the beach. It was perfect weather and oh so lovely.

The after math of the Mink Creek Fire.

We walked through a national Park walk way in Coral Gables and were surrounded by little lizards on all the walls.

We also went to Key Biscayne, which we don’t have pictures of and enjoyed South Beach there. It was LOVELY 80* water. We walked out about 1/4 of a mile and we were only to our waists. We sat down in the water where it was about belly button deep for Lacey and we played in the water for about 2 hours. Lacey was in heaven and even got so comfortable with the water that she would lay down and put her face in and blow bubbles. (I could so picture myself loving the Miami area.)

Lacey was soo tired Sunday morning as we were getting ready to leave the hotel. She slept through me changing her and getting her dressed. Poor baby. I hated making her wake up,

but I was so ready to get home to my big kids.

Lacey loves her blanket and it was a life saver on our trip. We can get her to sleep most places if she is engulfed in this sea of pink fluffiness. 

Cody worked on his capstone whenever we had a break. He is 19 pages and one big presentation away from having his Bachelors! (Only two classes left!) YIPEE! I’m so excited.

Kevin with his new haircut. He was insistent that I take a full body picture. “Make sure you get my feet too Mom!”

Florida was tons of fun, I was grateful for a little getaway with Cody, baby and all! It was the perfect weekend. I’m also grateful for my fabulous friend Sarah for keeping the kids so that this weekend would even be possible.

I’m blessed and I know it!

(PS, I blogged twice today! keep reading!)