Spring Break – St. Augustine Beach (April 1)

After a few days in Orlando over Spring Break week, we headed to Nana and PopPop’s house in St. Augustine Beach for a wonderful Easter dinner and then spent a few days hanging at the beach and pool and checking out a few St. Augustine attractions we’d actually never hit before.  The day after Easter we spent some time enjoying the beach and then in the afternoon, after getting rained out at Fort Matanzas, we went to a wine tasting in St. Augustine (the kids tried native-Florida grape juice) and then walked historic St. George Street.  Most of that was documented via Instagram, but here are a few pictures from our morning at the beach.



{this is aunt jacqui’s reaction to how cold the water was.  yes, it was fuh-reezing.  the kids didn’t seem to mind at all.  but, i kept thinking i'd go out into the water a little further to get better pictures, and then the water would hit my feet and i was out.  notice how we seem to have the beach to ourselves.  ha ha}

Spring Break – Easter Activities & Cousins

We stayed in Orlando for most of Easter weekend, heading up to St. Augustine on Easter Sunday.  We spent our time in Orlando hanging out with Jonathan’s brother’s family at their house outside Orlando and then at an Easter festival.  Aunt Chrissy helped the kids dye Easter eggs—which was great because we had done a sum total of zero Easter activities leading up to Spring Break—but, mostly the cousins just loved having time to hang out together.  The coming week after Easter, our kids’ Spring Break, was not a week of vacation for cousins Jacob and Noah, so these few Easter weekend days were the kids’ chance to hang out.  They didn’t skip a beat.  [No pictures of actual Easter Sunday in St. Augustine here—I think I got in one on Instagram, though!  :) ]








{two peas in a pod, these two—jack and cousin noah.}


{just a week after wandering off near our house, gator tried to pull the same disappearing act here once a gate was left open.  not to be trusted.}

{aunt chrissy and uncle chris took us to a fun Easter festival at an orlando-area church on saturday morning.  the kids made a killing in the egg hunt and had a fun time burning off all of the sugar in the bounce houses later.}


{it’s actually emilee—the kids got their nametags to participate in the egg hunt.}

{back to playing in the backyard.}

{ella loves playing caretaker to sweet little emilee.  guess she never got to nurture her little brother much.}

Spring Break - iFly

At the very end of March, we headed down to Florida a day early for Ella and Jack’s spring break vacation.  We had to get there with a weekday to spare to make sure to fit in a super-extra special activity, something Aunt Jacqui and Uncle Randy had given to the kids for Christmas and planned for them—indoor skydiving! Ella and Jack could hardly contain themselves with excitement.  These two are totally adrenaline junkies and this Christmas gift for them was the perfect fit.  They.loved.every.minute.

{they volunteered to go first, of course.  could hardly wait.  all of these pictures were, of course, taken through lots of glass.}

{getting pointers from the instructor.}

{she was a natural. it was actually pretty tricky—some people really couldn’t keep their bodies in the right formation to stay steady in the wind tunnel. go ella!}



{superman.}

{waiting for their second go-round.}

{hard to capture, but, at the end of their second time in the iFly wind tunnel, the kids got to spin around and around while flying to the top with the instructor.  ella said it was slightly scary, but super fun.}


{pretty sure he had fun. :) }

{all smiles afterwards.}

{thanks aunt jacqui and uncle randy for such an awesome gift! …gotta’ love the hair coming out of their helmets—can you say windblown??}

Ella’s Birthday

Ella turned 9 on March 21st, which is crazy-town to me.  She’s becoming quite the young lady.  I’m not sure what the technical range of “tween-age” is (be-“tween” little kid and teenager), but Ella’s definitely starting to show some of that tweenage angst and sass—still in a cute way, though.  A world of new activities are opening up to us as she grows up—I see us becoming tennis and shopping buddies over this next year, not to mention the responsibilities around the house she’s able to take on—which is definitely the silver lining to the knowledge that our sweet little girl has gotten one step closer to growing up and moving out of our everyday lives.  But, back to the present—my mind tends to count the summers we have left with them at home whenever I think about birthdays—Ella is 9.  She’s sweet, confident, artistic, cuddly, very athletic, and nice (that was Jack’s input to the list).  Ella loves to read, loves listening to audiobooks even more, and spends a lot of time drawing in her sketchbook.  She’s very crafty, but definitely forgets to go back to projects (cross-stitching, rainbow loom, friendship bracelets, etc.) if she isn’t prompted about them.  She readily gets along well with other kids, makes friends easily, but has stayed loyal to her best friends (Julianna and Baden).  Ella has done extremely well in school—all-A honor roll, math acceleration, and always in a good relationship with her teacher.  Ella is a joy.  We’re so proud of her and love her to pieces.  9!


{ella and her BFF julianna—at her school lunch birthday celebration.}

{ella wanted to pass out school cupcakes to her classmates again this year.}

{ella has been friends with this kid, tim, since kindergarten.  he’s so sweet and funny, and especially nice to ella.}

{the at-home celebration, after a dinner at brixx.}







{and, the iphone pics because i guess i never took a picture with my big camera of the shirt she wore all day with a big ‘9’ on it.}

{she got a kindle fire for her birthday, along with a new bike around that time and a room update (more on that later because, well, we didn’t finish it until july.}