Summer Vacation - Gulf Shores 2015 Part 2

The boys know how to swim, but loved floating. Sometimes, they would share a buggy boggy board. Again, our house is in the background.

After two days in the sun, everyone was given a hat. Gwyn wore one of Pappy's. The water was bluer at the start of the week. Throughout the week, it got greener, and each day the sea weed was different. One day would have none, then the next would have a row of it, then it would be everywhere. And I had to act all cool about it so the kids would be cool. One day we went down, and there were small clear jelly fish EVERYWHERE. They were on the beach, and all in the water. You could feel them bump off your legs as you walked around. That was a hard day for me to be out, but I did it.

Gwyn, yet again, loved her innertube. She got a pink one this year.

Pappy and Grandma's last night.

By Wednesday, I wanted the kids out of the sun a bit more. (We would go down after breakfast, and stay there until dinner. Sometime Gwyn was down all day as well.) So we made the ocean pool. We filled it with ocean water each morning. I must say it was well-received by the kids. They liked having a new place to play, and it allowed Gwyn to play in water without an adult!

Wednesday was also my birthday. Gwyn and husband went grocery shopping in late afternoon, and Gwyn saw this and made husband buy it. I wasn't really expecting anything, as we celebrated before the trip. But Gwyn said that cookie cake is my favorite (she is right) and that I would like the beach picture. I just asked her about it now and she said "I love you mama. I got you this cake. It's a beach cake and you love the beach."

Since the boys can now swim, and are taller, they could go in the ocean by themselves. (But only to mid-thigh.) Colin mostly enjoyed looking for creatures. They both would jump over waves. They are getting so tall!

Just two ladies enjoying the ocean pool.

You can see the family that shared the house with us. Anyway, Kevin stayed out an extra 40 minutes to finish his sand castle. It was pretty adorable.

We returned to Lulu's, mostly for the climbing structure. Here is Kevin (orange shirt) climbing. He had no trouble this year being brave, and went up to the top level all by himself!

Rachel easily walked the plank. I also did it again, but I was a total baby about it. I was scared and slow. She clearly thinks it is no big deal. I saved going to Lulu's until Rachel was with us, since I really wanted her to have a chance to do this climbing. She stayed up for about an hour with me and the boys. (Gwyn, husband, and DTG were on the ground watching, taking pictures, and waiting for the table.) Rachel even helped the boys out a few times when they asked.

Here is how high up the plank is. I am walking out to it from the right with Kevin behind me.

Colin being amazing and walking. He loved it, and, naturally, talked the entire time. Seriously.

Since he was taller this year, he had an easier time moving his tether on his own.

Colin walked the plank!!! Twice!

Dinner time. We asked why they had bags of water hanging around the rafters. Apparently, the bags keep flies away. Cool fact.

We returned to The Track for one more hour of go-carts.

The last evening, everyone but DTG rode the big go-cart. I wanted to get a picture since we all were having so much fun. Colin did not want to be in the picture. (You can see the ramp of the go-carts behind us.)

We also returned to the kid area. The boys drove their own go-carts, and Gwyn went on the little rides. She is so happy on the swings. The picture of her on this ride was on our Christmas card last year!

I wish I had a better picture of the end result of 4 days of sand castling. (Is that a verb?) On the left, Rachel built a castle for Gwyn. She had an umbrella to keep her in the shade, tunnels from Colin, and entrance, and a spot for her chair. She LOVED it. On the right is the final castle from husband. We left them for the next family to destroy or add on to.

We made it back home! We did the entire drive on Saturday and got home that evening. Again, the drive was nice since we had two cars and the kids could choose to ride with daddy or DTG. 

It was a wonderful family vacation, one that I hope the kids will remember. It is funny, once you have kids you realize that trips are not for you, they are for your children to make memories. I hope they like this one.

Summer Vacation - Gulf Shores 2015 Part 1

I didn't really post this summer (mostly to laziness) but I want to have this post to remember the trip. So here goes!

This summer we returned to Gulf Shores. (Technically, we stayed in Fort Morgan, about 20 minutes outside of Gulf Shores.) Here is last year's post. We did not stay in the same house. We ended up 7 houses down the beach from last summer. This one better fit everyone. For the start of the trip, Louise and Kevin (The Original) stayed with us. They left halfway through, and then Downtown Grandma and Rachel joined later the same evening.

We stopped in Memphis on Friday night, to have a shorter drive on Saturday. I think Kevin and Louise were surprised by the amount of traffic there is going to to Gulf Shores. It is crazy. Once you enter Alabama, the road goes down to one lane, and it is pretty much stop and go until you get off the highway. It is daunting. But this year I bought a game to keep track of license plates that we see, so we had something to do along the way. Also, the kids got to choose which car to ride in at stops, and I think having that change was good for them as well.

I will do what I did last year, and tell the trip through captions.

To deal with down time, I had the kids pack toys. Here the boys are playing as we unpack in the kid room. The place was wonderful! There were 2 bedrooms upstairs, each with their own bathrooms and showers. Downstairs there was a third bedroom with its own bath, and a half-bath off the kitchen.

Playing with Pappy

The view from our dining area. We had 1/2 of the condo, and another family had the other side.

This was taken during Gwyn's nap the first day there. All the guys were in the water playing, and I was watching HGTV in the bedroom.

Many games were played! This was the first round of Wizard.

I am pretty sure he is a super hero. Apparently, one that wants to hold shovels.

Our first visit to The Track. Gwyn and Grandma rode together! It may not look like it, but Gwyn is having so much fun...

...but possibly not as much as I am.

I love this picture.

They look so serious when they drive. Colin was able to drive the bigger go-carts on his own this year! He was tall enough.

Gwyn was also tall enough to drive the small go-carts on her own! She told me "it was fun and difficult."

Watching Gwyn drive.

She also had a serious face while she drove.

This was after the boat ride, where we squirt each other with water. The kids loved it. I was wetter than I anticipated.

How can you not love this face?

Relaxing on the beach. Like last year, it is a private beach. But this house was about 5 houses from the "beach access" which people use as a public beach. So this year it really was only the people in the houses around us. And with the exception of the family sharing this house, and two days with neighbors, we were the only ones on the beach for hundreds of feet. It was quiet and relaxing. Twice we saw dolphins swimming, too!

Another summer of collecting clams. For some reason, it was much more difficult. We really didn't find much.

A game of bags on the beach.

A game of Beat the Parents. (The number was uneven, so daddy switched teams to help read the cards.) The kids won, but barely! ;) By Tuesday the kids were getting red, and I wanted a break for them from the afternoon sun. So Pappy took the boys to see Ant Man, and I took Gwyn to see Minions.

This face. Funny story to tell - Colin would spend most of the time talking to anyone. At one point the family from the house next to us were looking for fish and creatures in the water. They wandered over to us. Colin had been looking for fish earlier, so he offered his net, and told them the best places to look. Then he talked to this teenage couple for about 30 minutes. When the couple left, they asked Kevin "Is this your kid? He is pretty cute."

The beginning of several sand castles, built over several days. People even complimented the sand castles as they walked by.

After the first day of sand castles. Our house is the middle one in the background. We stayed on the right side (from this point of view).

This was Colin's sand castle. It started as the pile from the other sand castles, but he added to it.

Stay tuned for more!

Gwyn's New Furniture

Okay, this is the furniture I started painting last summer. Kevin dragged it out and set up and area to paint in the basement, and I was able to get it finished!

I love that the bed is grey, and not white. It is just a bit different than what these beds normally look like. And her bed is super-comfortable since she got an awesome new mattress. (Seriously, husband slept in it last week.*)

She was ecstatic to get her furniture, and saw how much work I put into it. Gwyn would come down and talk to me when I would paint, and helped a few times. (I was holding my breath hoping no big mistakes would occur.)

I like that her old decorations of butterflies and flowers still work as well. I have since relocated a few flowers since the pictures were taken, and Gwyn has added a new clock. Up next - paint! (Don't hold your breath.)

She LOVES her new bed!

The new comforter and sheets were given to Gwyn by Santa at Christmas. He must have known I was going to finish the bed!

Here is the rest of the furniture. 

* Gwyn and I had a night together, with husband and the boys out. To end our girls night, she wanted to sleep in the same bed as me. So husband wonderfully agreed to sleep in her bed.

Fun memories from the other night.

Thursday night Kevin stayed at a friend's house. (No school the next day.) I said his name at the dinner table. Gwyn got out of her seat, climbed under the table, over to Kevin's chair, and put her hand up to the edge of the table, where Kevin usually sits. Then she used her hand as a puppet and pretended to talk as Kevin. She even used a little voice to be her brother!

Later that night, my back needed to be popped. I yelled to husband, "Honey, can you please step on my back?" Gwyn yelled from her room "Okay mommy but I need to take off my heel shoes first." (She was wearing a pair of princess shoes.)

She has so much personality! 

Lemonade Stand (Part 2)

After the successful lemonade stand in August, the boys have been wanting to have another one. Well, we did it again last weekend!

Kevin is running the Chicago marathon in a few weeks, and he is using the race to raise money for Homes For Our Troops, an organization that builds mortgage-free homes for severely wounded veterans. The boys are proud of him and want to help him meet his goal. The lemonade stand was the first thing they did!

We set up at the same parking lot, but this time brought a tent for shade. We sat back, and tried our best to let them do everything. (We did have to help them talk to people.  No surprise there.) They were adorable! They ended up raising over $130! 

It was amazing even talking to the people. I ran into a men who was a principal in Pattonville when I was a student there. We even met the same two guys who gave the boys $20 last time! They asked how many times we had been out, since this was only their second time at the lot. We had to tell them this was our second time selling lemonade. One lady even went to Kevin's donation page later that day to donate since she didn't have money on the Katy Trail. It was a good experience, and a great memory.

The boys also came up with the idea of a hat day at their school. (Kids donate $1 to wear a hat all day.) It looks like it is going to happen, so between just the two of them, Kevin might get a couple hundred dollars towards his goal!

If you are interesting in donating to HFOT, here is the link to Kevin's page.

Lemonade Stand

I know I need to post. But Kevin put our vacation pictures on the computer I don't normally blog on, and school has started back up. Here is a post from July.

The kids have wanted to have a lemonade stand for months. One Saturday the weather was perfect, and we had already purchased supplies, we we did it. We set it up at the parking lot near our house. The lot is next to a trail that many runners and bikers use.

Kevin and I had to teach the boys how to talk to people when selling, like thanking them and making small talk, like asking how the run went for the day. Once they figured that out, sales got better. At first people were buying one cup and letting the boys keep the change, or buying two cups for $1. But then it turned into one cup for $5, and then someone even gave the boys $20 for two cups! (For those people, we had to teach the boys about free refills.) Overall the kids made over $40!

Of course they wanted to have lemonade stands every day after that. But we reminded them that the weather was nice, and there were people out since it was the weekend. That calmed them down a bit. But I think it is time for another lemonade stand soon. As soon as we have free time again!

The set up, with parents off to the side to remind them to talk to people!

This girl spent time either snuggling or running around us.

Kevin was most focused and into the sale. To the left, the trail goes to the Katy Trail, and towards the right it leads to Creve Coeur Park.

The snuggling.