Florida Trip #1: Part 2

I think Joanna's favorite part of having us there for the week was snuggling with these precious kiddos every morning:

The kids got to play with Madison's old toys that Joanna has kept. They loved the doll house:

Their favorite was all the animals! We made an African scene around a water hole where an elephant was stuck in the water!! I love seeing this boy's imagination at work.

Mid-week, Madison and I took the kiddos to a splash pad just a few minutes from their house. MAN, it was so neat. I so wish we had something like this in Knoxville! It was a walk-in pool that progressively got deeper the further out you got. The kids LOVED it.

I am SO thankful for Ryan's mom getting Henley this "Puddle Jumper." I had no idea how much more at ease I would feel with her being around water with this on. 

And she loved it, too!

On Thursday, we got to go to the beach. We normally go to Coco Beach, but coincidentally, some other relatives of ours (my grandmother's sister Linda and her family) were staying at Ormond Beach in North Daytona. So we drove a little bit further and spent the day with them. We usually only see them at Thanksgiving, so it was so fun to get an extra visit in--in Florida! :)

Gavin was hilarious. Without being prompted, he started karate chopping the waves the second he got in the ocean:

Gavin and his cousin Rex fighting the waves together:

Kung Fu fighting the waves:

Madison, Joanna, and Henley Jane:

Me and my sweet girl:

Missing Ryan!

Henley definitely preferred being under the shade building sand castles instead of going in the ocean. She kept crying when her feet would get wet!

Her little life jacket even worked great for her in the ocean. It gives her a lot of confidence and she loves wearing it! I thought for sure she would hate it!

This girl let us know when it was time to go back home! She was done!

Apparently the beach tuckered everybody out! :)

                                     

In the evenings when Ryan got home from work, we would practice with Gavin's balance bike. This is a bike without training wheels to get him used to balancing. It's supposedly going to transition into riding a bike much easier!

Ryan insisted on bringing the bike down and I'm so glad he did. Joanna's neighborhood was perfect--flat and sidewalks!

Henley walked Coco almost every night. She looks too big here!

So proud of this boy. He really got the hang of his bike while we were down there!

Now onto the kids' favorite part of our trip: Joanna's pool!

They loved using their floats in the deep part:

But LOVED swimming in the hot tub part! There was a ledge all the way around that they could stand on. Gavin swam from one side to the other over and over and over again. I think it really helped his newly learned swimming knowledge!

Here's a video to see him "swimming" (really more like gliding) across. Look at this straight legs, Melanie!

The ride back home was good but long! These guys are troopers:

We stopped for a long supper at Cracker Barrell:

Gavin decided to use his beach towel as a shield to block everyone out. Ha!

I finally just gave them the box of toys we brought down and they had fun:

Henley stayed like this for forever with the box of toys in her lap!

We got home just before midnight. Whew! I would say that I don't want to do any long distanced traveling for a while, but we just got back from a 2nd trip to Florida! More to come on that. We are crazy! :)

Joanna, thank you SO MUCH for opening your home to our crazy little family for a whole week. We had so much fun and are getting spoiled getting to see you so much recently! :) Love you!

Florida Trip #1: Part 1

Ryan occasionally has to travel for training for work. Usually it's to Charlotte, NC, but this time it was to Florida. My Aunt lives in Oviedo (outside of Orlando), and the office Ryan had to go to was just 15 miles away from her house!! So in a very last minute decision (maybe 2 weeks in advance), me and the kiddos decided to tag along!

I was TERRIFIED to say the least of driving so far in the car with these 2 youngins. So I adapted an idea I got out of Family Fun magazine. I cut out these pictures I found online and put them in a jar that we pulled out randomly along the way to switch things up a bit:

All in all, the kids did great. We drove to Chattanooga Saturday night and stayed with my parents to shave off an hour and a half. Then woke up Sunday morning at 4:30 am, hit the road by 5, the kids were awake and happy until Atlanta, then slept 'til 9:30!

I took the following few pictures to text our mommas as we were traveling to give them updates of how things were going:

Watching movies was definitely the most relaxing option! :)

New coloring books + new boxes of crayons = feels like Christmas morning! :)

(By the way--another idea from the magazine. Gavin's lap desk is a baking sheet! Genius!)

Please look at the madness of the van! I promise it was organized when we started our journey!

When in doubt, music usually works in this family! "International Harvester" is the kiddos' favorite song. (Technically this is from the ride home, but it's too cute to wait 'til the end to share :) )

After lunch, we practically drove through a hurricane, got a bunch of tickets for tolls that we didn't have cash for, and finally arrived safe and sound 10 hours later!

My Aunt Joanna's husband John travels for work, so I was so thankful we arrived Sunday to see him before he flew out on Monday. Henley loved reading with him:

Joanna lives about an hour from Disney. I think the kids are still too young for it to make it worth the money, so we opted for a free-admission evening at Downtown Disney instead!

I was so excited to bring the kids to Rainforest Cafe!
(Henley was not as excited as this picture would show, however!)

These bar stools cracked me up:

We got to sit pretty close to an aquarium which of course the kiddos loved:

My cousin Madison and her boyfriend Jonny:

My new favorite family picture!

Gavin's 1st mozzerella stick. Apparently it was life changing. :)

I got a video of the super coolness of Rainforest Cafe:

After dinner we got to hit up the Disney shops around. Gavin's favorite was the Lego store!

He got a new Lego Mater that shoots missiles like from Cars 2. It is definitely his new favorite toy!

Outside the store, they had Lego car races. Any kiddo that wanted to participate got to build a car and race against each other. No prize for winning, just a fun game! (Please check out what Ryan had to do to Henley ever few minutes to keep her happy!)

                          

It was so official. The guy had a checkered flag to start them off and everything!

Gavin did not win the first time, so Ryan decided to step in and help. They made a Dragon Racer:

I am SO BUMMED that I took a picture instead of a video because they WON!

Here's a video of the race (sadly, not the one he won)

There were some crazy things built out of Legos. This is what inspired the shape for their racecar that won:

I wish I had gotten more of this in the picture. This is the end scene from Toy Story where they fly off the race car. So the car is at the bottom out of Legos, too!

This was one of the neatest things to me. A wall of Legos!

To be continued...