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Lilypie Second Birthday tickers

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

The Keys

My fabulous husband planned an amazing 3 day birthday celebration (I turned 28...no shame in sharing my age) weekend getaway for us in the FL Keys.  He has been multiple times now over the past several years on his annual guys' trip, but this was my first trip ever.  He did a pretty good job of keeping it a surprise, but I am really good at guessing and he eventually broke and told me.  In my opinion, it's really hard to plan a surprise trip for a girl because only a girl knows how to pack for herself.  He arranged all of the baby-sitting and made the reservations.  We left at 1:00 a.m. on Saturday morning and with the help of some sleeping pills, I slept for about 5 hours of the 6.5 hour trip.  We had some time to kill before we could check in at our campsite so we ate breakfast and drove all the way down to Key West.  Then, he bought me some snorkeling gear (another first for me). 

After checking in and setting up, we headed out to snorkel.  The campsite we stayed at took up the entire Ohio Key so there was several beach access points.  We just walked in and swam around for a bit.  The water was calm and fairly comfortable.  That night we went to this awesome restaurant that we would highly recommend and definitely plan on returning to.  It's called Sunset Grille and is just north of the 7 mile bridge.  It is an enormous tiki hut with open sides and is right on the water.  We ate just after sunset so the weather was beautiful.  I have to admit that I definitely did not keep my diet, but it was my birthday so I earned it!  Yummm!

It rained pretty hard that night and was really breezy so the water was a little rough the next day.  These are a couple of pictures from the morning.

 For anyone thinking that my diet really isn't working that well...these pants are actually very loose on me and the wind was blowing them.
 This is where we snorkeled from the first day.

 We took the jon boat out the second day to see if we could get closer to some lobster, but we caught zip.  The place we snorkeled in the morning was pretty calm, but the other side of the island in the afternoon was a little rougher and not so fun.  We turned in earlier than expected.  We did see a sand shark though.
 The palm trees in the background was part of our campground.

 Sporting my new wetsuit (another awesome gift from one of George's co-worker friends)


 Our campsite.  The rest of the campgrounds were pretty much filled with snowbirds with amazingly nice RVs.  They come down for months and then head back north once schools get out.  We talked quite a bit with a couple from New Jersey that was camping next to us.
 I wanted one picture of the both of us!

After learning that the steaks we brought down with us were spoiled, we went to another local restaurant, which we definitely would not recommend.  It is called Sparkie's Landing.  The service and food was sub-par.

I walked over to the beach the next morning and watched the sunrise.  Kate wanted me to bring her back a pretty seashell so we did our best to find one.  We found several conch shells while we were snorkeling, but you can't take them if they have something living in them.  George did take a hermit crab shell and we found some empty scallop shells.  The camper's next to us had some beautiful conch shells that they found just walking the beach, but we weren't so lucky.  We were able to bring back some pretty ones though.

As we headed back, we ate at Jimmy Johnson's Big Chill restaurant.  It was right on the water and beautiful.  Another place that we would definitely recommend.  It's on Key Largo.  And we also happened to see Troy Aikman eating lunch there, too.  I'm pretty sure we also saw Jimmy Johnson himself.

George has definitely passed on the Key's bug.  I would love to go back as a family and either do the camping thing again or invade his normal trip in August!  

  
This picture was from this morning.  Kate eating breakfast on the couch with her daddy.  A little treat since we know they missed us.  Back to the grind...

A huge THANK YOU to all of our family who watched children and Bella.  George and I really needed some husband and wife time!  

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

A Baby's Best Friend

Not too much to share except for some cute pictures.  We have been a little housebound because of Reagan's cold, but she is on the mend and ready to head back to the gym and church.  

 How can you not love a girl who likes to get into the cabinet, pull out the snacks, and proceed to dump them all over the floor?  Bella certainly does!
 "You gotta a little snot right there, Reagan.  Let me get that for you."

Auntie Erin and Uncle Dru got this Elefun game for Hannah and Kate a long time ago, but I hid it away in the closet until I thought they could handle it without draining my patience.  They actually could've handled it months ago...ooops.  For those unfamiliar with the game, butterflies fly out of the elephant's trunk and you're supposed to catch them in the net.  Daddy even played a couple of round with us and then sat on the floor while the girls were getting ready for bed and proceeded to attempt to catch every single butterfly. 


Thursday, February 16, 2012

Disney World

As noted in my previous post, we went to Disney World with Matt, Sarah, and Rachel.  We still had another 4 months left to use our last day, but I wanted to go when the weather was cool and before spring breakers started flooding in.  I think the longest we waited was about 25 minutes.  It was busy, but not terribly crowded.  We got to ride on pretty much everything we wanted to.  


 The first time meeting Ariel

 First time meeting the Fairies

 Hannah, Rosetta, & Kate
 And you should all know who this famous fairy is...Tinkerbell!




 Sleeping Beauty

 Belle

 Cinderella

 One of my favorite princesses.  She was SO good despite having the onset of a cold.  You can tell by her groggy, watery eyes.  She got to ride a couple of rides, but was fairly content to be in her new stroller.


 Eating dinner at Tony's-the restaurant from "Lady & the Tramp"
 His face says it all

Hannah and Kate asked for balloons all day long and Daddy surprised them with ones that lit up! 

George and I both agreed that we are Disneyed out for a while, but we had a great time.  

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

My Loves

Ahhh...love is in the air!  Let's start with these two little lovebirds (just kidding...I'm really not that mom who already has my daughters' husbands picked out...leaving that one up to the Lord).  Joseph is the son of some close friends, Summer and Sean.  For those of you that went to our wedding, you'll remember (maybe) that Summer was my maid of honor.  We don't get to see them nearly enough because they live about 45 minutes south of us, but it's much more convenient now that she's a stay at home mommy.  We had a lot of fun hanging out with them yesterday and I couldn't resist snapping a picture of them.   


Kate has been very into helping with Reagan recently and she wanted to feed her her bottle last night.  Reagan really holds her own bottle, but Kate can hold (with close mommy supervision) Reagan.



 Nanny & Grampie Lantz bought them these adorable Valentine's Day dresses.  Hannah and Kate absolutely love them and luckily the weather is warm enough today to wear them!  Reagan seems to know just what to do when I break out the camera.  I can't believe I got all three of them to smile and look at the camera.

 Daddy got Hannah and Kate a box of Princess chocolates for Valentine's Day.
We are going to Disney tomorrow to use our last of the three day passes we bought.  Matt, Sarah, and Rachel are coming with us.  It should be a lot of fun with all of the little ones getting to see the princesses together. 

Happy Valentine's Day!