Florida...Part 3

Getting tired of Florida yet?:) Well, we're getting there...sort of. Day 3 (Monday) we spent the day just hanging out, thanks to Claudette (the tropical storm). We woke up, read some good books, then headed out to our favorite place to eat in Destin....okay, one of our favorites:)....the Donut Hole. Oh...I want one.

Me & the girls, reading one of my favorites....aren't I enjoying myself?

"The Monster at the End of this Book" (it's Grover)

At the Donut Hole, picking out what I want. I always stand there looking at all of them, like I don't know what I want. But then I always get the same thing...along with a few others...a powdered sugar donut filled with chocolate. A chocolate dream angel. Mitchel says it's way too sweet & orders his blueberry donut. Parker liked it though, so...obviously, he's wrong:).

See?:)

After we got back, the rain had slowed, and was just coming & going, so we headed out for a walk on the beach. The birds were out, the wind was blowing, and the waves were big. Very peaceful.

That night we had dinner with the Dobberstein's at Fuddpuckers. They have live alligators outside. And the food was pretty good too. The kids had fun....once the food came. All the adults watched the tv over our shoulder that kept playing all these old music videos. We laughed at the songs some of us knew...

Skylar & Parker peeking at the alligators.

Or in Parker's words: "agg-igators."

Ew. Apparently they're eating raw meat.

They thought it was very cool.

The Dobberstein's.

The Mershawn's.

The "yiddle geels" (little girls).

Um...

Turned out to be a fun day. Nice try Claudette, but we made our own fun:).

Parker, Skylar, & Mikah each left this place with one of those toys with an alligator head on a stick that you make the mouth move. Does that make any sense?? Hmm...oh well. It was note worthy, because they were all very possessive of their "agg-igators" for the rest of the week. Happy times.

Here he is!

Finally got our sonogram pics uploaded. Here's our boy:). I spared you the FOUR shots of his, little boy part. Yes, I said FOUR. I'm ready to meet him. I remember doing that with Parker. Taking a few days to think about life with my baby, and then you just can't wait to see them & hold them. Anyway...

Tucker Brooks Mershawn

Picture #1: His profile

Picture #2: His face (eyes, nose, little mouth)

Picture #3: His chest with his arm & fingers sitting next to it.

He kept moving his little fingers all around. Then when we were looking directly at his face, his mouth was moving a lot. Crazy to think about what's hanging out inside of me. A whole tiny person. (emphasis on the tiny...) Second time around, and it still seems so amazing. So that's him. 

I've already started getting into boy shopping....his bedding has been ordered, he has a few little onesies (one all the way from Alaska, thanks to Grammy & Poppy), a pair of blue pants....it's getting exciting. 

Now, if he'll just come on time, and not run into Christmas, & be perfect & wonderful, it'll be awesome. hehe

Florida: Day 2

I'm doing good so far:). Day 2 was a Sunday....see what we did?! Just hung around the house, and played at the beach. We grilled burgers that night, and just didn't leave to do anything. It was awesome! Good family & friend time.

Mikah, Parker, & Skylar. All up early, playing away. No sleeping in on vacation with kids. That's okay. They're tons of fun.

On the beach....again. Me & P this time. There was a lot of seaweed in the water that day. Didn't bother me until we got back home & cleaned up. It was ALL over us. Mmm...

Parker & Mikah

Parker's forced best friend :) Skylar.

She's 5 months older than Parker. They are good buddies.

Daddy's are so very fun.

This picture cracks me up. Great 2 year old play.

Good friends...umm...

Mikah's looking at me like, "aren't you going to stop them?"

I did. I think....

And, then there was Tropical Storm Claudette. She rolled in that night. Wild wind & rain. But through it all, the electricity stayed on (yay!) & we had a nice relaxing day together the next day off the beach & out of the rain.

Florida: Day one afternoon & evening

As promised...beach pictures. This was Saturday. We climbed out of the car, unloaded all our stuff, threw (that would be the correct spelling...hehe) on our swimsuits, and headed down to the beach. It was so great....ahh. I miss it. Oh well. Parker got some good practice with her shovel in, and then hit the water with Mitchel.

Unloading.

We found a "pre-dug" hole & stuck her inside:). She thought it was funny, but wasn't quite sure what was up.

My big kid:). He was so happy.

Sand lesson from daddy.

Then the water. The waves were pretty strong the whole time we were there. She got knocked down a few times, but it never upset her. She did learn fast that ocean water does taste terrible.

Ugh. Yes, he's throwing her. Made me nervous, but I can just hear them laughing away. She's so much like him...

We cleaned up after our beach stint, and headed to the Mellow Mushroom for pizza. We were starved & tired. Good times:).

Poor girl.

Big stuff eating your own WHOLE slice.

Made her happy.

Walmart was next on our list, but, we skipped pictures at the local Walmart.

We were home & had our beach kid in bed by 9ish. Way past her bedtime.

She was up at 7 the next morning....

Ahh...life at the beach;).

Really cool links

I was hanging out on a favorite blog of mine....and stumbled across 2 new sites that I wanted to share.

This one is a girl who serves the Lord in Uganda. She's only 20 & has her own ministry. Crazy, unimaginable...hard to wrap my mind around someone who gives up so much. Anyway:), click here to read her blog.

These people apparently are in the middle of an adoption & posted this really good video on adopting bi-racially. I'm really interested in adoption, and for whatever reason thought maybe one of you might be too:). Click here to watch.

Florida: On our way

To spare you all from having to see all 345 pictures of our Florida trip at once, I've decided to break it up. This was our trip down. We left Friday morning, drove 6 hours and spent the night in Lafayette, LA. Parker cracked us up because she was so excited about staying in a hotel. She even giddily got in the "hotel baf" (bath) that night.  It's fun having a kid that gets so easily excited:).

Park & I, packed in & ready to go. See her piggy? I love him...

The excited husband. He's like a big kid on a trip. Very giddy himself.

It was hard explaining to a 2 year old how long it would take to get to the beach. She got a little frustrated until we wised up & started talking up the hotel. So, after lunch, we explained that if she took a good long nap;), when she woke up, we'd be there. As you can see, she followed through with our plan. hehe

Her toes were painted pink, especially for the beach. I couldn't resist how she had her foot all propped up. Cracked us up...

Got to the hotel, unpacked just a few things, changed, and went to dinner. We were excited to eat at Landry's in Louisiana, but sadly, it was NOT good. Weird...

We were a little disappointed, but we knew what we had ahead of us, so we got over it:). Cool building though.

FREE breakfast at the hotel, and then we were off Saturday morning for the beach!

One of our landmark pictures....Louisiana swamps. I think they're so cool. I know that's strange, they just look really interesting. Of course, I would NEVER want to be in them, near them, smell them, fall in them....you get the picture. Nice from a distance:).

Lots of silly moments in the car...

Really cool bridge almost to Mississippi.

Really pretty rainbow after it rained. I like those too...and not so strange.

The trip starts to get exciting when we start crossing borders...

Welcome to Mississippi!!

Welcome to Alabama!!

And finally welcome to Florida!

Yay! We had another hour drive after this point, but that felt good.

We stayed in a house in Miramar Beach 15 minutes outside of Destin. Walked to the beach everyday. Pool right around the corner. Perfect:).

That's it. We stayed with our good friends the Dobberstein's. It was great, just for us.

Beach pictures tomorrow...