Summer Vacay 2015: Ormond Beach, Part Three {Family Pics}

On our last night in Ormond, my mom requested a group shot of all us in white & khaki. The girls don't have anything khaki, so my mom said they could be our "pop of color" in the pictures. ;)  I think we ended up with some really great shots!

All nine of us!

Love this one! Emi wanted a cute photo of her & Chris walking along the beach & Clayton totally photo bombed them ;)

The original four :)

Grammy & Grampy with their grandbabies :)

Thank you to my parents for a fantastic week at the beach! It was so much fun having all of us together! It was no easy feat coordinating three families' schedules to make this vacation happen {especially with Emi/Chris/Clayton in the midst of a big move!!}, but I'm beyond grateful that we were able to make it happen! So many precious memories were made! The last time we went to Ormond, Shelby was only 1.5 {and I was just barely pregnant with Hadley}, so it really felt like we were at the beach with a baby..and here we were this time with two big girls! Such a huge difference! Already counting down till we can do it again!! :)

And lastly, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to my parents! Today they celebrate 34 years of marriage! We are so blessed to have the two of them as the foundation of our family! We love you!!

Summer Vacay 2015: Ormond Beach, Part Two {Real Camera Pictures}

LOTS more photos from our beach vacay earlier this month...this time the pictures are off the real camera, so the quality should be a bit better! :)

Waking Shelby up from a crazy long nap one afternoon. She went to sleep with her hood on ;)

Go Fish! :)
Sigh, look how tan I am in this picture! It's been raining and/or dreary every.single.day since we returned from our trip,
so any tan I might have had is long gone! ;)

Shelby woke up crazy early every single morning we were at the beach to watch the sun rise with Grammy & Grampy :)

We went to Hershey's one night for ice cream :)

Curled up on the balcony early one morning for another sunrise :)

Sunrise Buddies :)

After watching the sunrise one morning, my parents took Shelby down to the beach to check out a sea turtle nest & the turtle tracks. Here are my mom & Shelby posing with the tracks!

Next up, family pictures on the beach in white & khaki per Grammy's request! :)

Monday Musings: Weekend in Review, Knock Knock Jokes, Texts, & Dessert Recipe :)

--This past weekend was our first weekend home after being out of town for 2 weeks for our trip. It was so nice to have a normal weekend!!

--On Saturday morning, we hit up the brand-new children's museum in SA that opened while we were gone. It's amazing! We got our membership passes & can't wait to go back again soon!!
  

Hadley watching Shelby climbing.
This picture cracks me up b/c it's all Hadley. She had to go stand somewhere on her own and have
her hands in her pockets, she's obsessed with pockets!

Dressing up like a spy! :)

--After the museum, we stopped off at Jason's Deli for lunch. Shelby randomly insisted on a picture with Derek mid-way through our meal ;)

--We had a great lunch, but then as we walked out of the restaurant we could see stand-still traffic in every direction we looked. What normally would have taken us 10-15 minutes to get home turned into an HOUR LONG drive! We didn't know it at the time, but there was a wrong-way driver on the interstate that caused quite a few crashes on the highway and then all the resulting traffic that built up on side-streets. It was a long drive home with two tired, cranky kids (and Mommy too, if I'm being honest), but I'm very thankful that all we had to deal with was a long drive. We heard on the news the next day that there ended up being a total of six fatalities from all of the accidents, but only one of them was from the initial wrecks on the interstate from the wrong-way driver. Crazy!

--Because we got the girls down super late for their naps on Saturday b/c of the traffic, they ended up napping until 5:30ish that evening! It was raining out when they woke up, so we were brave/crazy and decided to have an early dinner and then go to the movie theatre to see the new Inside Out movie..it turned out to be the BEST night! We hadn't taken the girls to see a movie in the theatre since Frozen. We figured Shelby would love it, but we had a feeling one of us would be out in the lobby area with Hadley for the majority of the time. As it turned out, they both LOVED it! Hadley totally surprised us and watched the entire thing with barely a peep, just a few requests for snacks. ;)  She cracked me up throughout the entire movie, every time I would laugh she would look at me funny and say "Why you laughin' about?" ;)  Another funny story--Hadley loves popcorn, so we had told her we would get some while we were there. We strategically didn't get popcorn before the movie started b/c we wanted to use it as mid-movie break for her when she was starting to get antsy/losing interest in movie..but that never happened b/c she was totally engrossed in the movie. Well, as soon as we set foot out of the movie theatre, Hadley stopped dead in her tracks and said "Wait, where's my popcorn?" ;)

--Then because we weren't crazy enough for taking our small kids to a 7:15pm movie on opening weekend, we stopped off for Cold Stone afterward b/c it was right there, how could we not?! We were totally those parents that I always judge for having little ones out so late at night for no reason at all...but hey, it's summer! ;)  The girls had an absolute blast, but didn't get to bed until 10pm...oops! Of coruse as we were tucking Shelby in, she kept telling us how tired she was and asking why she had to go bed so late. ;)  Way to make us feel guilty, kid! ;)

--Sunday was a perfect low-key day for Father's Day! We just hung around the house, cut the yard, went for a run followed by a quick stop at our pool, and that was about it! It was the perfect relaxing day after our busy Saturday!

--Shelby is at such fun age right now! She is really into knock-knock jokes, so we picked her up a joke book from the library recently and she's been in heaven ever since! Every spare minute she has, she'll pick this book up and start reading. She loves it!

--I know I've mentioned this on the blog before, but Shelby loves to text Derek while he's at work. She also texted him once or twice a day while we were in GA & Derek was still in TX. Reading her texts is always hilarious!!

--Last but not least, we made a variation of {THESE) no-bake chocolate chip cookie dough truffles last week and they turned out really good! We have been all about chocolate & sea salt lately, and these did not disappoint!

Summer Vacay 2015: Ormond Beach, Part One {Phone Pictures}

On Saturday, June 6th, we headed to Ormond Beach with my family!! My mom, Hadley, and I were in one car, Shelby and my Dad were in another car, Emily/Chris/Clayton were in their car, and Derek was flying from San Antonio into Daytona. The four of us stayed in one condo with my parents, and then Emi/Chris/Clayton were in another condo on the same floor as us. The last time our entire family went to the beach, we didn't have Hadley, Chris, or Clayton in the mix yet...so this was our first time with a party of nine, and I think it was a raging success! The condo situation worked out PERFECTLY for us b/c we had a 4 bedroom condo, so the girls were each able to have their own room which makes nap/bedtime routines SO much easier!! Both of the girls napped/slept like CHAMPS while we were there!!

Driving to the beach!!
Don't let this picture fool you, she only slept for maybe 20 minutes of the entire 7 hour drive!

We made it!!!
My sister took this picture of the girls as soon as got them out of their carseats in Ormond Beach, I
thought it turned out so cute!!

As soon as got into our condo, we threw on our swimsuits & sunscreen and headed out to the beach as fast as we could!!

Watching the sunset from our balcony

It's hard to be two ;)

Our traditional trip to High Tide = Crab Legs!!

Making "drip drop castles" with Daddy!

This picture is perfection for me! This is all I wanted out of our trip--to see our girls playing together in the sand, check! :) Please also notice that Hadley's sunglasses are upside in this picture. ;)  For the majority of the week, Hadley had her sunglasses on upside down & her Crocs on the wrong feet. But she was putting them on independently, and she wasn't going to have it any other way!

Grampy showing off to everyone that he got Hadley to float in her puddle jumper independently--this was no small feat!
Before our beach trip, we'd only been to our neighborhood pool in San Antonio a handful of times since it opened for the season, and each time we went the water was FREEZING. So Hadley was perfectly content to sit on the edge of the steps with only her feet in the water. Thankfully, the temperature of the pool water in FL was delightful, but it still took Hadley a couple days at the beach to warm up to being completely immersed in the pool water. Wearing her puddle jumper is still a struggle, she constatly tells us "Me too big for floatie. It too small for Hadley!" ;)

Love this picture of Daddy-Boy & his girls! :)

Swimming with Auntie Em!!
Notice the upside down shades again ;)

One of Grammy's favorite pasttimes at the beach is "canoodling" in the pool, and she passed that love onto Shelby this year!

Grammy & Grampy hung back at the condo one night with Hadley, so Shelby could have a "Big Girl's Night Out" with Mommy, Daddy, Auntie Em, Uncle Chris & Clayton! We went down to Daytona for Cold Stone and walked around for a bit. It was such a fun night!

Frisbee!!

For the first couple of days we were there, Hadley was not a fan at all of the beach. She didn't like the waves, so she didn't want to go anywhere near the water. A lot of times, we would go down to the water to play/explore and Hadley would just sit in the beach chairs by herself until we came back. ;)  This time, Grammy hung back to keep her company. :)

Shelby LOVED exploring the beach early in the mornings with Grampy & Daddy. They found several sand dollars in GREAT shape, lots of "ooy gooeys" (aka snails), seashells, and other treasures! Here she is holding two snails.

This was taken on our last day when Hadley had really warmed up to the beach.
She was in heaven playing in the tide pools!

Napping hard!!

Watching the Women's World Cup! Shelby adores watching sports of any kind with
Derek. This summer, they've been all about the golf & Women's World Cup!

Hadley with her new BFF Clayton
From the time she was a baby, Hadley had the stink eye mastered. And she still loves to play hard to get to this day. Much to my dismay, she's not afraid to tell people "me no like you" or "you no see me" (aka she doesn't want you to look at her anymore), but Clayton was her buddy through & through!

These were the pictures that were taken from my phone while we were at the beach, next up pictures off the real camera! ;)