The End and the Beginning

Well, I thought I was done blogging about the beach vacation we had last July/August, but there’s just a few more words left in me.  The funny thing is that as I wrap up last year’s vacation, I am booking this year’s!  We thought we’d go back to Pensacola Beach but we are gypsies when it comes to vacation spots.  I always wanted THAT spot that we always went back to year after year but even when we find somewhere we love, the next year, we want to try something new.

This time I polled my town’s Facebook friends and got 70+ responses for beaches in the 7-9 hour driving radius.  (This is the coolest part about having most of the town we live in on a FB page.)  We first looked for condos…back to vrbo.com.  But they are so hard to gauge not seeing them personally.  Finally, I decided to look for actual houses on the beach because even with a condo, you still have to carry chairs, toys, bags, towels, Kylie etc. to the beach.  And even from the 4th floor condo and less than 50 yards of boardwalk, it’s still tiring.  But houses are SO expensive.  Much more for a family or two and you don’t find many houses literally ON the beach.  Well, thanks to VRBOs filtering capability, I noticed townhouses were an option and BINGO!  We found the perfect place for us.  With the damage deposit (which we will get back) and taxes, it’s a wee bit over our budget, but y’all…you walk down the back deck stairs into the sand.  YES.  I can’t wait to go.  But I digress…back to Pensacola…

After the professional photo session, I decided to try some of my own with the girls…it was evening on a different night and to be honest, they didn’t turn out too bad.

By this point, we were all peeling!

Absolutely my favorite.  This one went with our most recent post placement report!

One afternoon late, Jenna was getting bored so we rode around and found some go-carts.  Obviously, Kylie was too little to ride and that seemed like something Steve would enjoy, so I sent them around the track a few times while Kylie and I enjoyed a late afternoon sweet.

I’m also including this one (and the next) to prove I was on this vacation too. 

We made the most of the last few days we had and boy did Kylie start to enjoy the beach and our new “home”.

I have a bunch of photos of her on me in various stages of cheesin’.  I’m just so glad she loved the beach.  I can’t wait to take her back!

Contrary to how it might appear, Kylie was not always happy.  In fact, most nights at dinner, it was hard.  She didn’t eat well and we were starting to tire of seafood (I know?!?).  Our last evening there we went to a Greek place.  The only way we could get Kylie to settle down, not scream and eat just a little…was this…

I’m not joking.  She sat at the table the entire time like this.  Eating her food.  Luckily, we were about the only folks in this joint.  I tell you…this kid always makes me laugh!

After checking out for the week (and waiting on the elevators for at least 30 minutes), we headed towards the Aviation Museum which was not too far away and FREE. 

Steve really enjoyed this and I would have too had it not been for Kylie.  Walking around a museum after a long week at the beach is just not her thing.  While we were there, Jenna found some authentic fighter jet seats you can sit in.  While trying them out, a gentlemen, retired Marine himself and volunteer at the museum, came up and offered to strap her in the way they were really strapped up.

This guy was super nice and it was interesting to see where everything clicked and buckled together to make you super tight.  I’ll admit, I was a little afraid of getting her out because he did walk away after he was done.  Then, I started to actually consider that it might be a good thing…

Oh well…it was a fun thought!!  Not really…but Jenna enjoyed being shown something like this from someone who had actually strapped himself in a few times.

After we finished at the museum, we were homeward bound.  It was bittersweet, but we knew we’d be back…

(special thanks to all of you who have stuck with me as I go back in time…lucky for you we are almost caught up…almost, but not quite!)

Ah Summer…

The weather has been crazy this winter and so we are already planning our beach vacation for the summer.  Silly, maybe, but it’s getting me through these long, dreary, days!

I’ll hurry and wrap up our trip to Pensacola beach.  Most of the week we hung out at the beach and the pool.  We had great weather just about every day.  There was one day where we spent a good portion of the day driving down to other popular beach towns just to give our skin some rest from the sun.  We had scheduled professional family photos while in the area and we didn’t want to look like crabs fresh from the ocean!

Let me stop here and give a huge shout out for the condo we stayed in.  Our good friend Will B. recommended it as somewhere his parents had stayed recently and it was very economical.  The pictures on the website don’t do it justice.  It was much roomier than we thought and it was plenty of room for our family of four with one bedroom and a pull out couch.  My biggest concern was whether it was “ON” the beach.   So many hotels and condos say they are “on” the beach and it really means they are really close, across the street from, near a public part of or 300 years from the beach.  But this place was ON.  THE.  BEACH.  As a condo, it was in a building several floors high, but we were located on the 4th floor.  The owner has a reserved parking spot in the covered garage which meant our black truck was always cool and the spot was literally about 5 steps away from the elevator.  Once on the 4th floor, the elevator doors opened and about 3 steps away was the front door of the condo.  The beach walkway was probably 50 yards long.  It was HEAVEN.  I can highly recommend!

There was one day where Jenna and I went parasailing.  We debated on renting a pontoon boat but we passed on that idea.  Jenna really wanted to do a jet ski but we decided to parasail instead.  It was not Jenna’s first trip up, nor mine.  And I had a wrist camera they gave me where photos were taken just seconds apart the entire time we were up there.  Since I didn’t take my laptop, all of them are loaded on Steve’s PC…I’ll try to load them up later for some laughs.

But we did find a photographer who was reasonable and available the time we were there.  We ended up using Savanna’s Studio.  The weather for the day we selected was perfect and it was even a good hair day (to start with) for me.

The problem was that Kylie was not enthused.  We managed to get some decent shots but the pics would have been oh so much cuter if Kylie had be the normal happy girl she usually is.  She did great on the car ride down (which given her meltdowns surrounding being in a car seat was a miracle) and back and she loved the beach.  Restaurants and photos weren’t always easy.  Of course, this was the first “big” trip she’d been on since she had been home so I am sure some of her behavior was just her being out of sorts.

I was determined we were NOT going to do matching khaki and white.  I wanted COLOR.  I think we ended up coordinating pretty well.  And I got the color I was after.  That’s part of the reason I chose Savanna’s Studio was their spectacular use of color.  I didn’t want to be washed out into the background of the ocean.  And they did not disappoint!  Here are a few of the better shots.  And trust me…I had no trouble spending a ridiculous amount of money on the ones we did get.  I’m a sucker that way.  And if you need a photographer in that area, check out Savanna’s Studio!  You’ll be pleased, I promise!

This one of Jenna was one of my favorites.  There were some pretty corny shots but this is the most genuine of them all.

Don’t be fooled.  She is smiling, but just a little.  And just because we were letting her do whatever the heck she wanted.

What you can’t see in this one is the reason why Kylie was ticked. There was a bright pink stuffed monkey (hereinafter dubbed “pink monkey”, not to be confused with “green monkey”, “blue monkey”, “purple monkey” or “red monkey”) that we’d just bought her (and which started the monkey craze) that we refused to let be in the photos.  The dang monkey had a freakin’ eye patch!  But yes, the thing not only made most of the photos, but was toted everywhere from that point on.  She is her mother’s daughter (and so is Jenna) when it comes to stuffed animals.  Also notice the broken sail on the little boat?  That was a prop of the photographer and yeah it took Kylie about 3.2356 seconds to break it.  Fabulous.

At least it’s not a scowl but this was still early on and Kylie was not happy.

Yep, so my hair is blown all the heck and Steve’s back is about to break and if you look closely, Kylie has a big handful of my hair in her hand.  But she’s got a small grin, so this made the cut.

And this one pretty much sums up the whole experience.  Katie is just thrilled to be in the picture and basically thought it was playtime in the sand.  I’m all hunched over, hair blowing across my face and my breasts nearly hanging out of my shirt thanks to Kylie.  Kylie scowling at Katie for even thinking about having a good time.  Steve looks like he’s about to cry or laugh, who knows which and then Jenna who amongst all the chaos was managing to pose like a dang model.  Sigh.  This is the story of my life summed up in one photo.

But it was a good time and we were able to laugh about it later.  Like, much later.  As in, when I saw for myself that we did get several good shots.  And in the end, I’d do it again.  All of it.

In Front of the Camera

If you remember this post, you'll remember I'm attempting to be in front of the camera every once in a while.

I'm trying to get some with my big girl and some with my little girl...I hate looking at myself but I know when I'm gone, my girls will treasure these photos.

And honestly, it isn't about me looking at myself anyway.

Which is a really good thing!

My Girl(s)

Something happened recently that I cannot wait to share with you all in great detail.  But until I can do that, I'm going to share with as much detail as I can.

Ever since Kylie has been home, I have had the intention of getting our family together for a family photo. 

And when I say "family", I mean our whole immediate family.  Which includes our two Bigs and my one Grand.  The last whole family photo we had was probably when Jenna was little.  When they both agreed, I was ecstatic!!

I set the date months in advance, but then we ran into snags because the sun is going down sooner now and we had to move the time up which created a problem with the Bigs getting off work in time to get ready and get all the way across town.  But thanks to our fabulous photographer (more on her in a later post), we worked out a new location closer to them.

Here's a sneak peak while I was getting ready...

Kylie has a thing about chairs and so when our photographer pulled on out, it was good times...

This was, believe it or not, my Big Girl's first time to meet Kylie.  I wasn't sure how she'd react to Micah, but as you can see, it didn't make any difference.  This girl has pointed at Micah's photo in our foyer for 7 months now, so she took right to her.

 

I can't wait to see the pictures of my Bigs.  CAN'T WAIT.  Micah is about as gorgeous as you can get and she takes a mean picture.  Chase is so good looking and I can't wait to post all the pictures here.  There are 3 16x20s of each of them, plus Jenna, hanging in our foyer.  Chase's is his Marine graduation (um, OLD) and Micah's is of her high school graduation (she's been out of there for nearly 10 years), so it's HIGH time I get those replaced.

 

Can you tell these two girls are related???



Where's Mom?

The link to this story has been reposted multiple times on Facebook over the past few days.  I had it forwarded to me by moms and moms to be eventually :) alike.

I've read the article and it's touched me as it has many other moms.   If you haven't read it yet, I encourage you to go right now and read it.

Basically it's an encouragement to moms everywhere to get out from behind the camera and get in front of it.  Because as much as we hate to think about it, we aren't going to be around forever.  And let's be honest, some of us have shorter time than others.  And you just never know.

My mom always hated being in pictures.  She never thought she looked good in them, and I'm much the same way.  She was always more concerned with making sure I was in photos, but definitely not herself.

And when she died at 55 years old, I was only 18.  I have a small photo album of all the pictures she is in.  A SMALL ALBUM.  That's all I have left of her.  Because the pictures in my memory have faded over the last 20 years.  I have a couple pictures of my mother when she was young and I absolutely TREASURE them.  I never got old enough to be curious about my mother when she was young and the opportunity slipped away from me.  I don't want my girls to end up like that.  Sitting around wondering what my young life was like and wishing they had more pictures with me in them.

So, here is my start.  A grainy, iPhone photo of me and Kylie. 

She's eating mashed potatoes and I am already in my PJs (though you can't really tell).  There are others of Jenna and I but we'll save those for another day, another post.

I encourage you...married or single...moms, moms in waiting or moms to be...dads...whoever you are...get out from behind the camera and get in front of it every once in a while.  There are people who love you and want to rememer you living life.

Photo shoot 18 months

This past weekend, I tried to do a quick little photo shoot of Kylie.  The problem is that she is ALWAYS on the move, so it's nearly impossible to do.

But I got a couple cute shots and since I'm a little short on blog worthy material....

Yes, she has discovered the cabinets.  Usually she just opens and shuts the doors and then looks at us to applaud!

This could possibly be my favorite.

Um yeah, she was done with the picture taking by this point!

May Photo Shoot

I had a quick chance to get a few new photos of Kylie a week or so ago.  She was in a particularly good mood and cooperated and I tried a few different settings on my camera.

Kylie has been running a fever for the past several afternoons and it's made her REALLY cranky and whiny.  So whiny that I wasn't sure Steve or I could take much more.

Luckily, yesterday she didn't run a fever and was in a spectacular mood.  And of course, these pictures were taken before it all started.

We are really starting to see her personality come out when she's not cranky.  It's hard knowing the reasons for the crankiness when your child gets dropped in your life at a year old.  We have tried to think about what we do differently each day but ultimately, it is just about her getting more and more comfortable with us.

She is crawling very well now and starting to explore on her own.  Both of which show her comfort level is improving.

She especially likes looking out the door to the deck and playing on the air vent.  She likes when the air (or wind) blows in her face. 

And yes, I notice that I have a penchant for black and white.  I don't know why but I'm trying to get more into color.  But for May...you get mostly black and white!

Super Moon

This past weekend we got to witness the Super Moon.  The moon was larger than ever.  I know from Facebook that most everyone was watching and took their own pictures, but since our days here are starting to seem very much the same, I'm scraping the bottom of the bloggy barrel for material. 

I know that I've had my Rebel for several years and should know more about taking photos, but I don't and so I just messed around with the settings.

First Family Pictures!

About 2 weeks ago, I saw some wonderful family pictures on a friend's facebook page.  I inquired about the photographer.  Turns out, it was her neighbor who was getting her photography business rolling and she had a GREAT deal.  So I FB'd her and miraculously she had an opening last Friday when Jenna was out of school for teacher in-service. 

I had no idea how Kylie would do since she doesn't really smile on command yet.  Not to mention towards the end of the shoot would be getting close to nap time and I didn't really know how she would do and how long we could push her.

We met just down the street in our little town.  Who knew there were such neat places for photo ops right in our back yard!!!!

Family pic sans Katie

I didn't like any of the ones of me close up, but I wanted to include one of us together.  I love how Steve looks here.

Sisters!  They really do love each other so much!!

Family pic WITH Katie!  There were cows in the field to our right, so it was nothing short of a miracle she looked at the camera at all.

This is by far, my FAVORITE photo of the shoot.  It absolutely captures Jenna's personality.  Oh how I love this girl!

Not to be outdone, here's one (the only one) of Kylie by herself.  Turned out GREAT.

So, if you are local and want more information about our photographer, just click here and tell her I sent ya!