Florida! (part 2)

After a week down in Ft. Lauderdale, the girls, my mom and I headed upstate to her house in Ocala. Austin flew in to an airport where we could conveniently pick him up on the way. The first day we got in late, so just relaxed while the girls explored "Grammy's new house". This was the first time they had gotten to see it.

Sunday we had a relaxing day going to church and then had one of my dear old friends from my single adult days come over with his kids. My mom and I knew Mick from the time he was first investigating our church. It was good to see him and meet his children. We had most fun playing a rousing game of "Nertz". This was a game we had played quite often years before.

Eliza helping Austin with his tie

Monday, we headed out to Rainbow Springs park for swimming tubing, and a picnic. What fun! The water was freezing, but luckily the sun was out and made for a really nice day. Afterwards, Grammy treated us to Sonny's BBQ.

On the path of Rainbow Springs

At the dock of Rainbow Springs

Tuesday, we headed over to St. Augustine and met up with our original PA friends, the Millers. They were so good to us when we first moved to PA getting settled. It was wonderful to see them again. They are living in Jacksonville, presently. We had fun exploring the old fort and climbing the lighthouse.

Castillo de San Marcos

The barracks

The girls outside the St. Augustine Lighthouse

These stairs were killer!

A view of what we had just climbed

We ended the perfect day with Dairy Queen Blizzards and a group picture.

Wednesday, we spent the day up in Gainesville. We started out at the University of Florida to see the exhibit, Butterfly World. What a great display they had. The girls thoroughly enjoyed walking around with the hundreds of butterflies.

What's on your head, Julia?

Eliza and her cookie

After a quick picnic lunch, we headed over to another of our favorite PA families who are now in FL...the Nances. They had just moved in the day before to their home, as Jason will begin teaching law at the University of FL. The visit wasn't nearly long enough for the girls who have known the Nance girls for 8 years!

Playing in the packing paper

Fun in the pool

Group shot

Thursday, we sadly left Grammy's house. We had quite the adventure packed into those few days. The good news was though, we were on our way to Christie & Chris's new rental house in Ft. Myers to see Penny one more time. We only had a few hours at their house before we had to fly back to PA, but enjoyed seeing them one more time and even got in a quick trip to Sanibel Island. Goodbye, FL...until next time :).

Florida! (part 1)

Our big family trip this year was to visit family and friends in FL as well as have the older girls to go to EFY. What fun we had. Our first stop was in Ft. Lauderdale for EFY & fun at Uncle Mike's house. While Julia and Anna spent their days at EFY, Eliza and I played. We went to a movie, out to lunch with old friends, jet skiing in the ocean, and endless swims in the pool.

We were lucky to be able to see Adam & Mybree also while we were there. They came in just for the weekend to go to a single's conference that Mike had organized. Chris & Christie were also around while they were waiting to move into their new place in Ft. Myers. And Grammy also came down to join the party.

Adam, Chris, and Mybree playing Wii

If you dressed as a cow, you got a free dinner at Chik-fil-A.

We were all over that!

After the free meal, we had to break out the games.

and every day there was pool time!

Eliza having fun jumping off the edge

Even Penny joined the fun in her cute polka dots

Julia & Anna absolutely loved going to EFY and insist that we make this a repeat trip next year. Sounds like a plan.

YW Pool Party

Always fun to have a summertime pool party. Here are some cute pictures of the YW & activity day girls in our ward having a fabulous time.

4th of July fun

The eruption after dropping mentos into coke

We decided last second to have the Matson's over for a bar-b-que. They were the first family we met when we moved to Pennsylvania 12 years ago. The end of this summer they are moving a couple of hours away to York where Ken has bought a music recording studio. We are happy that they were finally able to sell their house in this bad economy, but so sad they are moving!

After eating the kids had fun with a water balloon toss.

This was also the first time we have tried the mentos/diet coke experiment. I have put a video here to show the fun.

Girls @ Camp

The last week of June means camp for everyone. The two older girls went to YW girl's camp up in the Poconos this year. Julia is a 4th year and Anna, 3rd. So hard to believe!! As usual, they came home spiritually uplifted and physically exhausted.

Since the two older girls (my babysitters) were at camp, Eliza went to a tennis and swimming camp. She was as happy as could be, too. She loved learning tennis, and getting individual time with mom and dad at the end of the day. She even made the proclamation, "I could get used to this only child thing." LOL.

Madrid!

This year we promised the girls that they could each go to a destination of their choice-especially since we are still able to fly free for the next couple of years.

Julia, having three years of Spanish classes under her belt, decided that she wanted to go to Spain. So right after she took her two last finals, I picked her up from school and off she and Austin went.

Road trip to Avila & Escorial

Flamenco Friday

Julia's drink of choice...Orange Fanta

El parque de retiro

Typical street scene

Bocadillos

Chocolate & Churros

Waiting for the metro

It was the experience of a lifetime for her. She came home with a huge smile on her face and thoroughly enjoyed the five days experiencing a different culture.

A day at the Spa

These two crack me up. They often have their spa days together. Today it was a foot bath and nachos on the deck.

Eliza & Me

Eliza and I had a fun little outing a few Saturdays ago. A lady in our church is an excellent photographer and had a photo shoot with all the moms and daughters in Eliza's activity group at a local park. Then before Mother's day they had a wonderful program, dinner, and video of all the girls with their moms. The picture below is my favorite of us! Kudos to the leaders who put everything together.