Molly spent the weekend with us and to help stave off boredom we took them to the Birmingham Zoo. It was a surprise and they were too excited! It was a nice day, weather wise, but we were worried that for that reason alone the zoo would be packed. Lucky for us, the crowds held off until after lunch and by then we were headed home for lunch and a nap. We knew we wanted to feed the giraffes, so we headed to the Savannah first to watch the animals near the giraffe exhibit until they opened. We saw lots of zebras, deer and tigers. While we were looking at the white tiger we kept hearing something roar. We laughed about how scary that would sound after dark. We walked around the corner and a male and female lion were laying around in the sun roaring at eat other. They were HUGE. Feeding ...
Nothing Fancy
Do you know about Dave Barnes? I've loved him for a long time. He's a Christian and has an amazing voice. One of my favorite DB songs is "Nothing Fancy." I haven't listened to it in a while, but tonight I was cleaning house to iTunes and it came on and reminded me of sitting in Ella's nursery humming the tune to her in the middle of the night. It perfectly describes how I feel about my family. "There's nothing fancy about the way I love you, It's nothing you could not find in any other man. Nothing fancy about the way I love you, but I love you as hard as I can. There's no good reason for the way you love me, 'cause your my walking dream come true. No good reason for the way you love me, but I thank God that you do. I don't know the perfect conversation, I don't know the ...
The Past Few Days
This adorable picture has absolutely nothing to do with this post. It's just that I haven't seen this sweet face today, so I'm waxing nostalgic. The princess in question is currently screaming to rival the latest horror flick from her bedroom. My headache is growing in proportion to the high-pitched squeal and Beemer is staring at me willing it all to end. Let me tell you about the past few days. Sunday, we left Pensacola Beach at 8:50. At approximately 9:30 something happened... an awful something. Ella began complaining about a tummy ache, which given her propensity for avoiding the bathroom, isn't altogether strange. I comforted her, encouraged her to drink a little apple juice to make her feel better and rubbed her face. Then she threw up all over my arm, and her blanket and her ...
Red, White & Blue… Angels
Nana & Cookie have been talking to us about the Pensacola Air Show for years. We never really thought it sounded fun, but wanted to take Ella the summer after she was born. She was nine months old and loved not only the beach, but the Blue Angels. We've been spending the week after Independence Day in Pensacola ever since. Although the Angels fly for a little while almost every day, the show is on Saturday afternoon. Ella really wanted her picture made with the planes, so when the stunt planes started flying mid-morning, we took this photo. She is so excited here; I love it. This photo was taken as the Blue Angels first came into view. They were still very hard to see with the naked eye, but we were watching for them with our binoculars and telephoto lenses. We could tell ...
Beach Bums
Well... I took way too many pictures today and have lots to share. We're tired. And hungry. So instead of uploading those and telling you about our day, I'll leave you with these instead. ...
Beach List
There aren't many things I need at the beach to keep me happy. Other than the sand and water, of course. 1. Sweet Daddy 2. Ella Dean 3. Books 4. Mountain Dew 5. Family & Friends 6. BBQ 7. Sunshine 8. Laughter 9. No Plans 10. Breeze Luckily today, we had them all. ...
A Day at the Beach
Today, we took a different approach to "the day at the beach." The daddies went to play golf this morning and Beth & I took Ella & Alston shopping and to lunch {Isabella was snoozing when we left!}. Ella wasn't thrilled about missing out on the beach, but I convinced her that the daddies would be sad if we left them. Once we finally made it to the beach, we were lucky to see a practice round from The Blue Angels and the kids were very excited. We stuffed their ears with plugs and watched the planes fly by. Ella ventured into the water today and Alston enjoyed rolling around in the sand. Isabella was fed up pretty quickly and headed in for an afternoon nap. After turning down a two hour wait at Peg Leg Pete's, we walked straight to a table at Flounders and ate LOTS of ...
Bedouins at the Beach
Do you ever see groups of people on the beach with lots of stuff? Rednecks? Whitetrash? Well... that was us today. We had three tents, ten chairs, a baby pool and stuff everywhere. We joked that the locals were probably making fun of us from the porch of their beach house. In any event, if you plan on spending more than thirty minutes at the beach with three littles under the age of three, you have to have LOTS of paraphernalia. Ella and I stayed out a little more than six hours. She didn't complain once. She merely requested a lunch of bologna sandwich, Doritos and apple juice served right there on the beach. I obliged and within fifteen minutes she was covered in sand again, happy as a lark. She is a girl after my own heart. Josh bought a hat this morning and I've been referring ...