Florida - Bonus Night at the Beach

The last two times we went to Florida, we never actually had a beach day that first afternoon.  Not so this time.  It was a gorgeous day, so we made it to the beach as quickly as possible.

My four favorite beach bums.

The waves were high, but these girls were ready!

Hello Gulf of Mexico!

While the big kids swam and boogie boarded, this little one was content to play in the sand.

Of course, we made her and her big sister into mermaids right away.

I tried to get Cameron to just chill and enjoy looking at the ocean with me.  She had other ideas, though, and quickly got away from the water!

After a long day or two of travel for all of us, it was SO great to be able to just enjoy being together.

Show these kids a beach and they will dig a hole.  I'm surprised no one fell in:)

Cami and Teagan made everyone some delicious sand cupcakes as well.   Yum!

My girl!  We met in 9th grade, cheered together the next three years and have remained close ever since.  That's 22 years of friendship!

 

We loved watching all the girls enjoy the beach so much.
Boogie boarding was a fave activity for sure.

Jackson and I even took Cami to ride some waves for a little bit.

Next year Baby Matthew will be out there enjoying the water too.
This year he was so content to sit with his mama:)

Beach life--these dads could get used to it, I think!

Carter and Lindsey had fun soaking up the last minutes of daylight...

and so did this sweet girl.

Sunset at the beach with this guy--really doesn't get much better.

Santa Rosa Beach--we love you!

We ended the night with the first stint of the 7 night sleepover.  These kids were in hog heaven.

Florida 2016 - Road Trip to the beach!

The beach!  It was finally time for us to return to the beach!  The excitement was at the top of the scale for sure.  We haven't been since I was pregnant with Cameron, which was three whole years ago!  Now just look at us...

The day before we left, this little girl accompanied me to the nail salon.  Although she declined to get her nails painted, she did enjoy sitting in this cute chair.  And for once, she was really good the whole time!  First time at a salon.  Nailed it.

Somehow, some way, we were in a very full Escalade by 8:25 the next morning.  Four happy kids.  So far, so good.  We stopped for lunch in Louisiana...

then made it to our hotel in Hattiesburg, MS before dinner.  These kids adore staying in a hotel.

Soon after we met Chloe and her family at Cotton Blues--a fantastic restaurant with pancakes on the dinner menu for the kids.  All 6 kids ordered them and they were GOOD!

By the end of the night, we had the patio all to ourselves.  We may or may not have let the kids get their wiggles out:)

Then it was back to the hotel.  Cami thought that she wanted to sleep with the big girls, but very quickly changed her mind.  She's a mama's girl through and through.

We got on the road by 9am the next day and pulled up at Fudpuckers in Destin for a late lunch around 2:00.  Three very happy kids to be done with our road trip.

We met lots of our friends inside.  The Longs were headed out, but the Pointers were just arriving.  So many kids!  The excitement was palpable.

We all squeezed into one mega-sized booth and the fun began.

After lunch, we went outside for the main attraction--feeding live alligators!

Cameron was sure happy that she had her big daddy there to help.

Everyone else did pretty good putting the food on their stick and lowering it down to the gators.

Such a fun way to start our vacation.

"We fed and rode an alligator!"

Other attractions included meeting a mermaid--only she didn't have red hair like Ariel, so Cami shunned her.  Lol.  I had to admit, she was sort of a spare mermaid!

By far the most impressive creature to this little girl was the albino alligator.  Ha!  She loved it.  Whined the whole way to our condo about how we needed to go back and see it.  

When we arrived in Santa Rosa Beach it was gorgeous!  We set a record getting our things unpacked and literally ran down to the beach.  The start of a fantastic vacation.

Stay tuned for more fun in the sun!

Lucky #13!

A couple of weeks ago, Jared and I celebrated our 13th anniversary.  Little did we know, the plague would hit our house later that night.  Thank goodness we had a fun night out before that happened!

We met for dinner in Rockwall at Bin 303.  It's one of our faves, and was really close to the ball fields where Jackson was playing.

We each got champagne on the house (a fun perk!) and then had a wonderful dinner.

A little while later, we were in his truck and driving to see our oldest play some ball.

Jackson had been asked to guest play on this team.  He made three outs for them playing in center field, scored the go ahead RBI and was then asked to come in and pitch the last two innings.  It was a very close game, so we were hoping he could come through.  And he did!  The Rangers won 4-3 and everyone thanked him multiple times for playing with them that night.  It was the perfect way to end our date night, too.  Happy Anniversary, my love!

UT Reunion Weekend

May 2002--that's how long we have been out of college.  That's 14 years!  While I've seen my roommates on and off, we could only remember one reunion weekend, and that was when I was newly pregnant with Jackson.  Simply way too long ago.  So we decided to do something about it!

Amanda and I kicked things off with dinner at Gloria's on Friday night.  Then we met Jen and Nicky at Top Golf on Saturday morning and had plenty of kiddos there, too.
They just love this place!

Big brother got his sister all set up for her first turn.  

My girls!

It was the first time for us to meet Jen's long-time boyfriend.
He fit right in with everyone--always a relief!

Miss Thang was so pleased with herself for snatching Madison's cool new shades.

She mostly just bebopped around our two bays, but every once in a while she'd try her hand at golf.

She also loves hiding in small spaces.  This is where I found this stinker when asking all the kids to take a photo:)

All six of them--even the little sassy one!

Turns out, she loves golf...

and posing for the camera when the mood strikes her.   

A few hours later, Carol and her family made it in from Houston.
Reunited and it feels so good!

  There's nowhere to be but in the water during the summer, so everyone hopped in.

 

We all enjoyed the afternoon so much.

Jackson, Cason and Chase played plenty of basketball--practicing their dunks, shots off the diving board and even some from the slide.

Chase showed us his flipping skills...

we got to visit with great friends...

the boys played HORSE...

and this little girl zipped all around the pool in her lifejacket.

After our fajita dinner, we got back in the pool for an evening swim.
My favorite time in our backyard!

I'm pretty sure the kids enjoyed themselves as much as we did.

It was a fantastic night that I didn't want to end!

Cameron convinced his parents to let him stay up way past his bedtime...

there was simply too much football to be played to go to sleep!

I hope that this sweet girl makes lifelong friends, too.  No doubt that she will.

We had everyone over for breakfast the next morning and didn't want to say goodbye.
I'm hoping we can do this every summer from now on!