Spring Cleaning

 It's Spring. I can feel it. I can smell it. I've worn summer dresses and flip flops this week. And sunglasses for about 5 straight days. Bring. It. On. We had zero plans over the weekend...so this gave us ample time to enjoy the weather. We rode bikes on Friday. We bounced on Saturday. We played for hours outside today. I'm ready for more weekends spent outside. Yes. Please.

 The Fellers stopped by on Saturday for an impromptu bounce date in the neighbors' yard. Luke has the drop-sit down pat.

 And Laney is becoming more and more comfortable jumping and being bounced around by the bigs.

 Sunday morning the girls and I went to the indoor pool for a few hours while Mikey got his long run in. Speaking of which, I was elated to be able to run in shorts on Saturday morning. To not have to wear tights, a jacket and gloves was more than welcome. My 12 miles felt really good...only thing that could have made it better was a partner :(

 Today we ate lunch outside and spent several hours in both our front and back yards. Also, Laney has gone potty almost all weekend on the big girl potty. On her own accord. Her prompting us. We are shocked and quite honestly pleasantly surprised. Had no idea this was in store for us. Yet another welcome surprise to top off the weekend.

 Mike and Jason were able to finally bottle their first batch of Irish Stout. They filtered it several times over the past few months. And now the beer just has to sit in the bottles and age until carbonation occurs (um, I have zero idea what the technical terms of all this is obv). After they bottled a few cases, they started brewing their next batch. They are even journaling the recipes and what they did so as to make the next batch even better. Love listening to them in the kitchen giggle while they are learning this process. I can tell they both really enjoy it.

So there you have it; a weekend filled with a lot of nothing. I did manage to perform my annual window-washing extravaganza (my least favorite household chore, but not behind cooking). Oh, how I loathe cleaning the windows (inside and out) and the dirty sills. I laid to rest more than several dozen of last season's lady bugs. Gross. Spring cleaning at its finest.

Florida Vaca 2011

The family has been planning a vacation for about a year...to celebrate my sister's & Mike's graduations. We wanted warm weather and that's what we got...in FLORIDA!!! Mike and I packed up the girls early last Saturday morning to make the 12 hour car trip to Destin. We left the house at 3am and arrived around 4pm. The girls took a total of 1 hour naps. Each. Let it be known we did attempt the Ben.adryl trick and that just doesn't work. In any dose. But we tried. Even survived. We watched about 12 movies. And ate a lot of snacks. But we made it. In one piece.

My dad, step-mom, sister and niece/nephew drove down a little before us, staying over in Alabama the night before we left. They had a stop at the emergency room late Friday night as my dad was in severe pain from what they learned was a kidney stone. They gave him an i.v. and some hefty dru.gs and sent him on his way. We read the headlines a few days later that 9 people died in Alabama hospitals due to i.v. bag contamination. Scary Mary.

I took over 350 pictures over the course of the 9 days we were gone. It was hard to decide which to post, as I love them all. But here are a few of my favorites. Be warned: there are a LOT of pictures in this post. Which, btw, is my 401st post!!! I can't believe I've been blogging for 4 years now...love it!

 As we drove we watched the temperatures rising and were thrilled when they reached near 80. Windows were down baby.

 We unloaded the car and grabbed a drink...and headed directly to the beach. We just couldn't wait. On the way to the beach (which was a 400 foot walk from our house) we told Izzy we were finaly going to see the beach and the ocean. She said, "I don't know the ocean." Well hold onto your hat, girl, because your world is about to be rocked!

 Starting Sunday morning, we fell into a routine that lasted the entire week: Mike and I going for our daily runs along the coast, loading up for a few hours at the beach, come back for lunch and naps, another few hours at the pool, cook dinner and then drinks & games. We had weather in the 70's & 80's the entire time, with a little rain one morning. Was the best. For reals.

 This was a banner that was being toured across the coast (for all of the Spring Breakers, I'd imagine) and I HAD to take a picture. It's dedicated to Mike's relay team (the RILFs).

 I attempted to fren.ch braid Izzy's hair one afternoon (two of them, one on each side) and I'm hoping my mom will be proud of this attempt! She looked so stinkin' cute!!!

 Sisters are the best!

 All the grandchildren:

 The drive home was (almost) seamless. Izzy was complaining of her tummy hurting (she sometimes does this to score herself some T.ums) and after more prodding, we finally pulled over and let her have a potty break among the cows. We were there for 10 minutes, so thankfully we stopped (we were in the country and had nowhere else to stop). I'm glad I had the forethought to pack the travel potty, as it was a HUGE lifesaver. And you KNOW I had to take a picture of this...Izzy will wring my neck one day. But until then...

We're home at last. Laundry is nearly done and bags are almost all unpacked. Can't say I'm all that happy to be back, as the weather is chilly here. Leaving some sand in my shoes for the memories. And we cannot wait to do this again next Spring!