Ross Reflections. . .

We leave tomorrow so we spent a couple hours at the beach before dinner today.  Isaiah took a 3 hour nap, my kids are exhausted from all our activity.  We look forward to getting home and back to friends but we have enjoyed each and every day and loved the weather.   Loggy is singing and Isaiah is joining in.  I think she was making up a surfing the waves song.  I love this picture.  It sums up our week here in Florida, I am digging in the sand with Isaiah, Noah is near the water doing his own thing, and Logan is singing, dancing and loving her time at the beach. Noah is looking so sweet just sitting here but really he is longing to  have his daddy back here to play in the water.  Logan spent her last few times at the beach with a stick and would write her ABC's A to Z in the sand.  I just never want to forget how much she loved to do this.

We woke up to rain but the weather report said it would all clear up later in the day.  After an "incident" with our Garmin,( look to a future post about that), we meet Dan, Luci, Ally and Jack at Panera and started our day with breakfast and coffee.  The rain did stop and we headed to Siesta Key Beach.  It was a wonderful morning at the beach, kinda cold for this girl but everyone else was in the water, jumping waves and having a blast.   I again, hung back on the beach and dug holes.  Ally just loves Logan to pieces and Logan looks up to everything Ally does.  Noah and Jack are two peas in a pod and we hardly hear from them because they are off playing together.  

Gary arrived in the middle of the night so we were all excited to take him to the beach.   We filled up on doughnuts and bagels at the "Bloody Mary" goodbye party for all the snowbirds who are now heading back up north in the next few weeks. (Who drinks Vodka at 9:30 AM, I opted for the bagel and cream cheese) I can't believe all the activities my mom is involved in. I went line dancing, joined "coctail cuties" her 4pm drinking group at the bay, and we had to miss Bunco night due the three kids that followed me onto the plane.  It has been fun to see another social group my parents are involved in, it really is keeping them healthy and young. Noah is over pictures and purposely sabotaging every picture we ask him to pose for, nice crossed eyes buddy! My surfer dude, Isaiah.

What another gorgeous day, My dad and Noah walked to a near by pier, rented poles and fished for hours.  Noah had a blast and came home with fish stories and a sunburn.  Thank you Dad for taking Noah, he will always remember this time with you. 

Pictures from the first three days here with Auntie and Uncle Jay.  Gary arrives tonight and Auntie and Uncle Jay leave tomorrow afternoon.  My kids have LOVED their time with my sister and Jamison.  It has been a time of bonding for all of them.  Uncle Jay was so great to play with Noah in the pool, surf boarding, handstand contests and being Noah's personal dolphin.  Auntie was always up for reading to the younger two, walked on the beach to the Moose for cheeseburgers and even got her hair wet in the pool.  (something I haven't done quite yet.)  We will miss them!!

I am a women of few talents or skills but top on my list of talent if you ask my kids is hole digging.  I am not an ocean swimmer, a toe wader more like it, jellyfish and the unknown freak me out and I have no need to be in "there" because Gary loves it.  Well, he isn't here yet, so I resorted to my bag of tricks, hole digging.  Who doesn't love to be buried?   These are pictures of my efforts from today.

Dear Daddy, we miss you and can't wait for you to come to Florida to be with us.  We keep asking mommy how long it will be until you come here.  We went to say good morning to the beach before we walked to the library to check out books.   The beach was too tempting and mommy kept saying don't get wet, but we did.  We can't wait to play in the water with you!!! Auntie and Uncle Jay joined us when we went back to the beach to really play in our bathing suits.   Daddy, I was lucky that Uncle Jay played in the water with me because mommy is a whimp.  Uncle Jay went running fast into the water just like you do.  This is the first thing I want to do with you on Friday morning! Daddy, you know how much I love the sand.  I made a lot of sand castles today and some cake too. Daddy, the water kept trying to get me.  I would run fast to get away and then say "na, na, na, boo, boo" to the ocean.  Once the ocean really got me wet and I had to take my favorite soccer ball shir...

OK, I will rework this post once I get back to MY computer which isn't a MAC!!!  I can't move my pictures to the correct order so I figured something is better that nothing.  Our flight to Florida was not Logan and Isaiah's first plane "ride" but it was the first to them because they don't remember the other trips.  They both did wonderfully, Logan thinking it was so much fun!!!  Isaiah was great but a little busy! We arrived at our gate right as our plane was pulling in.  It was so fun for the kids to watch it pull up, unload the luggage, gas up the plane and more.  Our waiting time seemed so short because it was so interesting to watch all the action and other planes taking off.  The picture below is my absolute favorite of the day!!!  Watching Isaiah playing with his planes while waiting to go up, up into the sky. Our bags our checked and we are ready to go!!. Sunshine state, here we come!!

Escapades What is better than friends, balls, tunnels and slides for 5 active boys? I can't come up with anything either. Yesterday we picked up a few of Noah's friends and headed to Muncie to play, and they played hard. This is the exact place Noah chose to go for his 7th birthday but hadn't been back for a year. The funny thing was when he asked me if he could have his party there this year, he asked if the man who played tag and chased them last year would be there again. (Gary wasn't willing to take off work to play tag, even though Noah asked him to.) The boys had hours of fun playing tag themselves and everyone had a wonderful time. This morning Noah woke up and had chocolate chip pancakes, a real treat in our house!! On the birthday schedule was a movie with Dad, really he was the chauffeur because Conner and Bailey were going to be there. Dinner at Sonic, (Noah's choice) and home for a family party, just us. FYI: No one ordered the Double Patty Melts Ca...