Panama City Beach!

It was so much fun to have an entire week in Panama City Beach.  We enjoyed going out to eat, shopping and really just hanging out.  With all 14 of us it wasn't always an easy task, but always an adventure!

Uncle Johnny is so much fun!

Lots of entertaining went on!  Aunt Marcia was a great reader!

It has been a tradition for Grami and Pop Pop to take the kids to Gulf World, sans parents!!  Definitely something I look forward to!  :)  I haven't actually been, but love seeing the pictures!  They talk about the dolphins and fish all the time!

The last night we were there, we did sparklers around the pool!  Poor Cooper was already in bed and missed them, but there's always next year!

Another great year at the beach spent with cousins!  Until next year...!

the BEACH!!

5 hours of driving later... we made it to Panama City Beach Florida!!  Somewhere near Destin, Josh and I may have wanted to throw each other out the window, but we blame that on traffic and no air conditioning!  We pushed through and arrived at our house only to find this:

Ahhhhhh!!!  Absolute PARADISE!

We quickly forgot about the car and decided just not to drive it for a while.  :)  Everyone else arrived late that night so we had a little time to ourselves to explore the beach and get the house ready.  This year my Aunt and Uncle and cousins came too!!  They rented another house across the street that was really close.  We had a BLAST!!  It was so much fun having all of the kids together who could play and entertain themselves.  This time we were only missing Uncle Andy!  Both Josh and Paul stayed the entire week and we all were not pregnant or with newborns, so the trip was a lot more relaxing and enjoyable!

Of course we had LOTS of beach time!

 2 mermaids and an Octopus before the tide came in!  (And an Ellie in the background refusing to touch the sand!)

RoAd TrIp #2!!

So just about a month after our first 16 hour road trip of the year to Arizona, we hopped back in the car to venture east this time for our annual Florida Memorial Day trip!  We figured we would skip the hassle of flying and just drive to make things easier.  (If you don't remember, we don't quite have the best of luck!)  Everything was going great as we packed up the car and started out.  It was only 30 minutes in where our air conditioning went out!!  It kind of slowly stopped and then fizzled out.  Then the air was not cold at all!  This is NOT what you want to happen 30 minutes in to a 13 hour drive!!!  Leave it to us!  While only a short distance outside of Dallas, we stopped at a quick fix car place and had them fill the car with coolant.  This seemed to do the job and worked great... for about another 30 minutes!  Then the same thing happened!!  We called our brother in law who knows a great deal about cars and he thought it would be best to keep driving with no AC and they could look at it together in Florida.  The back air seemed to be blowing better so the kids didn't seem too affected, however it was so loud with the windows down and so stifling with them up!  I can't say the trip was really that great and Josh and I might have had our patience tested!

We stopped at Nanny's house in Purvis, MS to break up the drive, arriving here 8 hours later.  We got a good night's sleep!  It was fun to see Nanny and LC and see Purvis for a second time.   The kids could not get enough of Aunt Jenny's Mickey Mouse room!  Cooper even found an all blue Mickey which he fittingly called {would not put down}  "Elephant Mickey!"

 Josh decided we absolutely need a porch swing on our new front porch!

 Nanny cooked us a great breakfast where Uncle Sonny and Debbie joined us and then we ventured over to Aunt Faye's house.  Aunt Faye is Nanny's older sister who just turned 96!  Neither I nor the kids had ever met her.  We had a great time talking to her, hearing stories and listening to her play the piano.  She is still sharp as a tack and a hoot to listen to!

We left town just after 10am for the remaining 5 hours of our trip.  While we turned the car on, every one of us prayed... but we still set out with NO AIR CONDITIONING!

School's OUT!

Another year behind this little girl!  Time just goes TOO fast!! Caroline's 2nd year of preschool came to an end in May.  She started out at MacArthur Baptist and we switched her to Northwest Bible (our church) in January due to our move.  She did GREAT and didn't skip a beat!  She quickly made friends with everyone in the class and loved going every school day.  She learned quite a bit more at her new school and finished knowing how to write almost all of her letters, as well as her name.  It was also really neat that she got to see most of her classmates on school days, in the nursery at church and also at choir, so our weeks were full of friends!

Caroline got to take cupcakes on the last day of school to celebrate her summer birthday.  She picked out ones with hot pink frosting and princess hearts on top.

Here are two of a kind!  Caroline and her best friend Madie.

SO proud of our little girl!  She really has grown into a beautiful person both inside and out!

We love you big 3 year old!!  Off to the 4 year old class for now!

Yordanos

Meet Yordanos!

An adorable 4 year old from Ethiopia!  

We decided to start sponsoring this little one in March after an email went out to my home church in Colorado stating that children were awaiting sponsorship.  A girl I grew up with in Greeley, helped establish the Elshadai Development Organization and lives full time in Ethiopia.  She has made quite an impact in so many children's lives!  We saw this face and just could not say no!  Caroline loves the idea that Yordanos is exactly her age and it has been so neat to see my children really excited about praying for and thinking about someone else.  Every night at dinner and night time, both kids blurt out "Don't forget Yordanos!" every single time.  Although we've never met her, we sure love this little girl!!

You can read more about this organization on their website here.  There are many different places out there where you can give money, but I love this one because it is small and has ties back to home for me.  Caroline keeps saying that she wants to meet Yordanos one day and one day I really hope we get to!  I have always wanted to go to Africa and this just makes going even sweeter!  I can not tell you how many times I have been able to explain different things to my kids using Yordanos.  At the store today Cooper was crying about us not buying a toy that he wanted.  I told them that we can't always get what we want and we need to use our money wisely.  Our money has to go towards food, our house, our needs, gas and even money to give to Yordanos.  It is much more important to help others than to get toys.  Not sure they loved that answer, but they really did stop crying!  :)  And my favorite memory of this has got to be from a couple months back.  I had been explaining to Caroline that some children, like Yordanos, do not have food every day like we do and that we are very lucky.  She said "Does she even have a refrigerator?"  I told her that most likely she does not.  Then several weeks later we were talking about what to send her for her birthday.  The first thing Caroline came up with to send her was a Fridge!

This has been such an amazing experience for my children!!