Florida

A few weeks ago I was on Facebook way too late and happened to catch the comment my little sister, Dolly, made about everyone in our family ditching out on her trip to Florida to see our other sister Leanne. Offended at not being asked to go at all, I told her she was a bum and why wasn't I ever invited. Just cause I have kids doesn't mean I'm no fun. In fact, I think that might add to my fun level.

She quickly realized her mistake, begged me for forgiveness, watched my kids for me for 2 days straight, and in return, I provided the vehicle to Florida. True, it was a minivan full of 3 little kids and all their paraphernalia, and yes, we did have to drive 14 hours straight through the night so those kids wouldn't drive us crazy, but all in all, I think we had a fun trip.

We took these beach obsessed kids to Honeymoon Island

and spent a day fighting off the seagulls (brazen things stole my cookie out of my hand and bit me enough to bring blood - it was war, I tell you!),

playing in the waves (even Nathan got brave this time!) and building sand castles.

We also had a two-fold purpose in going to Florida. I wanted a piece of this baby!!! This is the beautiful, chunky, good-as-gold, sweet, sweet, sweet little hunk of love from one of my oldest friends and old college roommate, Erin. I took off in December of last year to visit Florida for her baby shower and I've been waiting to meet this baby ever since. Addy is 6 months old now and we had a great time holding and kissing her.

Nathan especially liked this baby and I can tell, would be a much better helper now than he was when Lias was born.

Technically, Erin's a high-falutin lawyer but really, can anyone be high-powered when pictured in a swimming suit holding a tub of lard that she produced? Probably not and I like it that way!

Last time we went down to Florida, John was busy in meetings, so I took the kids to Downtown Disney and they loved it so much we decided to do it again. Ava and Nathan were so excited they started hugging each other as we were driving up and say, "We're going to Disney Land! We're going to Disney Land!" Nathan was so funny, pointing to Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and saying, "Oh, look! It's that mouse. And his friend the duck!" I'm not sure if I should be embarrassed or proud that my kids don't know who Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse are. But I do know that it means I can pull off Downtown Disney (entry fee = $0) as the real Disney World (entry fee = $85 a day). That is some mighty fine parenting if I do say so myself.

Lias quickly latched onto Uncle Bubs and didn't let him out of his sight. He played football, watched TV and wrestled around with him the entire time. Luckily, Lias is still pretty dang cute so I think he made up for his screeching when he didn't get his way. He came home full of new saying, especially "Web-E?" (Ready?) and "Oh Man". He almost drowned Bubs at one point by not asking him if he was "web-e" before he jumped into the pool in the deep end with him. Bubs pulled out a pretty cool trick and held Lias above his head while he himself sank, till he got him to the edge. I watched the whole thing, thinking "What a cool hold" until the last 2 seconds when I realized Bubs was drowning. Ah, the bonding moment for the two.....

We ate at the Rainforest Cafe, which was a big hit with the kids. Nathan was especially excited about the lighting and thunderstorm and they all liked the monkeys swinging around. And my boys also got some pretty short haircuts, which ended up even shorter as we tried to fix them. I like them but John told me never to shave them off so I'm not classifying this as an actual shave.

After the dinner, we walked around looking at the stores, watching the impromptu dance contest, eating Ghirardelli's chocolate ice cream and enjoying the Red man. Doesn't he look just like Val Kilmer? Dolly tried to get a kiss but ended up with just an arm.

And somehow, on the last day right before we left for our drive back, we ended up in our swimsuits for the bagullion-th time and went swimming with like 6 other moms, all somehow related to this awesome gal in the blue. Leanne went and found a great friend, so I've decided to latch on too. Sarah's a spunky, fun mom that writes a great blog that I spend a ton of time reading and gaining inspiration from. She's also an awesome photographer that took Lias's pictures when he was little and takes all kinds of fun pictures of her 4 little girls.

She and I caught glimpses of conversations in between saving drowning kids, bandaging hurt toes, nursing babies and teaching kids to swim. It's always nice to meet a kindred soul - I just wished she lived closer.

And then the trip was over, and we hadn't taken any pictures of the three of us girls, so Sarah convinced us to snap one. This is just before our drive home and just after our swimming party so obviously I was not expecting pictures. I guess Leanne and Dolly didn't get the memo cause they both still look great! We really did all have a good time and, other than the 14 hour drive, I do it again in a heartbeat.