Seabreeze!

Whenever we go to NY, or at least the past 3 years we have visited a little amusement/water park there called Seabreeze.  It is a nice size for the kids, never very crowded and has something for all ages.  This year all of our kids were 48" tall so they were able to get the adult bracelet which meant they were tall enough to ride everything and you have to pay more $!  Sam even got the bracelet although he did not want to ride anything that required you to be 48" tall.  Increased height does not = increased bravery!  

Claire loves all for the roller coasters!  She rode on the one that spins you around while you are going up and down the hills-yikes.  The Jack Rabbit is also one of her favorites.  Emma preferred the Screaming Eagle which is different than the Screamin' Eagle here!  There it is not a coaster, rather one of those rides that turns you upside down over and over again and sort of leaves you hanging briefly at the top.  Does not sound good to me.  I did not ride it.  I am starting to feel sort of old.  That sort of stuff just isn't very fun to me anymore.  

The water park portion is my favorite and if it were warmer I would spend the entire day there.  Sam and I did the tube slides over and over again in a double tube until he got too cold.  Several times as were were going down laughing he would say, "Thanks for taking me to Seabreeze Mom!"  

Claire and Emma in line for the Helix ride.  Otherwise referred to as the "toilet bowl!"  

The Music Express was also a favorite ride for all of us.  It goes around and around in one direction and then reverses all while playing classic, groovy tunes.  It is really fun!  

Emma and Daddy's self-portrait 

Oh, the Tilt-A-Whirl!  This ride makes me sick just watching it!  It has that county fair feel that brings back memories of my childhood where you can remember throwing up your funnel cake!  Needless to say, I did not ride this.  However, all the kids loved it!

Bye Seabreeze, Bye NY, see ya next time!

New York Summer

We were able to squeeze in a trip to upstate NY to visit Scott's family this summer.  This summer trip is always a highlight for us and a great escape from the STL summer heat.  

It was even cooler than normal there this year.  It made for chilly pool time, but pleasurable weather for fishing and running and we like to fish and run!  I never even made it into the pool this year because it never got above 80 all week.  I like it to be in the high 80's or 90's before getting wet!  The kids did not seem to care that it wasn't HOT and had fun with their cousins.

We could walk to the pond from G&G's house.  If you look closely in this picture you can see the frog that Emma is trying to catch.  I did end up catching one for them but Grandma let it go :(

Claire got to celebrate an early birthday there.  We are usually there for her birthday and Grandma loves to make cakes.  Claire requested cupcakes with whipped cream, sprinkles and a cherry.  Exactly the same as last year.  She has to be the easiest kid!  
Here is Grandma with the cupcakes and Uncle Randy trying to make Grandma into a cupcake!!
Here is little Maddie enjoying her cupcake.  She is enjoying being the baby of the family until October when she gets a little sister!!  When Maddie was not seen this week with a cupcake she was either with Claire or double fisting Grandma's homemade muffins!

Emma, Ashlyn and Claire

Kristina, Sam and Brendan

Rolling down G&G's hill is a cousin favorite pastime!  Here is Sam doing his somersault while Maddie watches!
Did I mention there are a lot of creatures at the pond?  Here is Emma covered in snails!

Claire, Sam, Ashlyn and Haley in G&G's pool.  There were many rounds of "basketball" and "mermaids".  And Uncle Scott remained the pool toy for most of the week!

Sam and Brendan enjoyed the sandbox.  I am still boggled that we have a sandbox at home that no one ever plays in.  Hmmmm.  

The last night we were all together Papa had the idea for homemade ice cream!  What a treat!  It was super yummy and they all smothered theirs with toppings!  Sweet finish to a fun week!
Thanks for having us Grandma and PaPa.  We had fun!  

Cousin Craziness!!

Last Wednesday through Sunday Scott's sister Sheryl, her kids and Scott's mom came to STL to visit.  We visited Grant's farm on Thursday.  The goats were a favorite and seemed pretty nice because we did not feed them!

Cousin Maddie loved on all the goats!  So cute.

Brendan and Sam enjoyed getting to meet this iguana and a boa constrictor at Grant's Farm.

We did see the "Animal Encounter" show and Claire got chosen to hit the ball that the macaw pitches out of the pitching machine!  She was sooooo excited!  Thursday afternoon we went to Tilles Park and enjoyed the playground and the fountains.  It was a great way to cool off.

Friday morning we got to the zoo early to do all the free stuff including the sting rays!  They are really neat and slick feeling.  We also did the carousel which is such a treat.

Cousin Ashlyn with a nice goat at the zoo.

Ashlyn, Claire, Emma and Brendan as river otters at the Children's zoo.

All of the cousins with the baby elephant

Fishing at Lewis Park was very successful!  

Saturday ended up being a decent pool day after we got rained out on Friday afternoon.

Claire was a great helper with Maddie and she is so excited that Aunt Sheryl is having another baby for her to "mother".  We stayed at the pool for 3-4 hours and everyone had a good time doing the slide, and diving boards.  Brendan even did the high dive!!

Even though it had it's crazy times, the cousins get along really well.  I think they all had a great time.  Ashlyn was asking to stay another week so I guess she had a fun time!

Fourth of July

Since we checked out of our FL condo on the Fourth of July we decided that it wouldn't really be very fun to watch fireworks or celebrate the holiday in the car.  We made plans to stop off in Nashville where our good friends, the Ellison's live.  We didn't get there until about 7:30 pm and the kids went right upstairs to play.  We enjoyed catching up with friends and almost forgot about fireworks all together.  We did buy some sparklers in Alabama so we were prepared!  The bad news was that a storm was moving through and so between not being able to find any matches and trying to avoid the rain we managed to get 1 or 2 sparklers done, but no one was really into it (except Scott) so we let them just continue playing! 

Here are the dads outside with the kids attempting to light the sparklers with a candle!  Emma and Reagan were already dressed up.  They looked like Little House on the Prairie, except I never remember Laura and her dad doing fireworks together!!  Reagan will hate this picture later, but for now with his long wavy hair and round face, Kim and I both agreed he could pass for a girl!
Here is the whole gang!  We love these guys...all of them!  Emma was in no mood for a picture but this is the best I could get with 7 kids.  Sunday morning we went to church with them and then sadly we had to head home.  It was a great extension to our trip and made our drive a bit more fun!

More Florida

We spent one week in Florida.  We drove.  Thank goodness for DVD players.  The kids asked 16 times in the first 3 hours "How much longer?"  We rented the same condo at Seacrest Beach that we rented last year.  It is always a real vacation when you can just hit the rewind button and know what to expect.  We choose this place because the beaches are nice, the pool is huge, we can walk or bike everywhere we want to go and it is a very family friendly place to visit.  

I took the kids to the beach by myself on the last night there to try to get some nice beach photos.  It is always hard and I came away thinking that I didn't get anything good, but there are some fun ones.  Sam and Emma are really into shells and so they spend much of their beach time looking down and watching to see what washes up.  I allow them to collect as many as they can and then at the end of the week we throw away anything that was possibly a home to a one-cell creature.  If you stand up for these one-celled creatures, sorry but that is just the way it is!  Sam and Scott did find a few hermit crabs when fishing one day and we did find a friend that we met over the week to take them off our hands! 

Claire brought her boogie board that we got her last year.  We almost did not bring it because she really didn't do it that much last year.  What a difference a year makes.  She was really good this year at catching the waves and riding them all the way in!  She had so much fun catching the waves!

We had promised a trip to Shell Island for Emma this week and we held it off until our second to last day so we had something for her to "earn" all week.  On Friday morning as we are eating breakfast at 10:30 we begin telling our waitress about our plans to go to Shell Island and she tells us that is a full day trip and that we should just go to the park where the shuttle takes off from and just spend the day there.  So, that is what we did although Emma did not really know that we did not go to Shell Island.  We referred to the State Park as Shell Island and that seemed to work.  We did find some great shells there, as well as some really clear water and lots of sun!  In fact this was our last day and we got a little lobster like in our walking quest to find shells!

Emma and Daddy at "Shell Island"

Sam, Me and Claire at the fountains outside our condo.  Photo by Emma.

Claire looking so 8.75

Emma the shell girl. Daddy found her this one!

Nighttime swimming

C-ya soon Florida!

Savor it, one lick at a time!

I have more Florida photos that I have been wanting to post.  It is hard to narrow down the photos because I like all of them.  After a bike ride one day we stopped in Alys beach for ice cream cones.  The kids were so hot and really needed a cool treat.  The photos really reflect how much they are loving these cones!

Florida we miss you!

We just returned from our fun family vacation to Seacrest Beach, FL.  We had a ton of fun doing all the Florida things we love.  Here are some of our favorite activities.

We had a private sand castle lesson with the master of "Sand Odyssey" at Alys beach one morning.  He taught us how to make a really professional looking sand castle by using a mound of sand and a ruler!!

Here is our castle!

Here is our lesson with Mr. "Sand Odyssey"

Sam on the Zip-line at the playground at Alys Beach!

Emma on the climbing, spiral hill

One of our many crabs we caught at night.  

"The Crabbers"

Sam got pretty good with a snorkel in the pool

3 KIDS RELAXING

more to come...