Happy St. Patty's Day

Honestly, this isn't a holiday I particularly care about. But for once, I actually put the kids in the themed shirts my mother in law always sends for the holidays AND took a picture. I expect you to clap for me now of course :-)

And here is a sampling of the St. Patty's Day stuff they did at school last week:



We're on spring break this week. We haven't done much of anything. With gas prices as high as they are, our days have pretty much centered around NOT using our car. We did ride our bikes to a nearby park, which meant a 9 mile round trip ride. Garrett rode his own bike. That kids just loves to go!

We went to the zoo today with Leanne. I'd like to say we had a blast, but it was almost more work than it was worth. Summer was crabby as all get out, but the kids still had fun and it was nice catching up with Leanne.



Garrett filled his marble jar this morning and got a Superman book that I found at the dollar store. He keeps telling me how much he loves it, which is fabulous. Especially since he was helping me MOP THE FLOORS this morning in order to finish filling that jar. BEST IDEA EVER! This morning he was not interested in putting the book down during pictures, just as Summer was not interested in putting down "Bear" with his St. Patty's beads.

We've rounded off our week with a lot of time spent in the pool. Its getting warm here, and with the later sunsets, I've even been able to hit the pool twice for some laps, which has been nice and relaxing. Summer is just around the corner! Other than that, I'm re-reading the last few books in one of my favorite series in the anticipation of the newest book coming out on Monday. Rounding off the week with much needed adult time in the form of a dive trip with the neighbors and a drive to Fort Myers on Sunday for work.

Super Sunday

Super Bowl Sunday was awesome, but not because of the Super Bowl. In fact, I fell asleep after half time. It was awesome because we did something that is rare and wonderful-we spent the whole day as a family. The downside of our schedule arrangement with my work is that we very rarely get to have an ENTIRE day together. I usually work part or most of the weekends, and once Brad gets home in the evenings during the week the kids are headed to bed. Family time is rare and treasured.

The weather has been beautiful around here, so we headed to Key Biscayne to hit the beach. Rather than parking at the beach, we went to my office and parked there (I had to pick up some things anyway), then rode our bikes to Crandon Park. We've done this before, but both kids rode in the trailer. This time, Garrett rode his bike. Aside from one yucky place where you have to cross the main road, the bike trail between my office and Crandon park is peaceful and beautiful. Its also one of my favorite running routes, so I took pictures so you can see why its so easy to spend 2 hours on the pavement when I'm working weekends.

This is why I LOVE my truck and am so thankful we have it. How else would we pull this off?
As it turned out, we couldn't get in the water due to a large number of Man-O-War Jellies that had washed up onshore, but that didn't put a damper on our day. The kids played in the sand and at the playground and splashpad. Brad took a nice long nap while we played. We snacked, we hung out, and just had an all-around good time.

After all, you can play with boats in the sand too.
They even played nice.
Palm trees, sun and sand. In February. Days like this cancel out the rude people and crappy traffic.

Here's what the ride back to the car looked like. Again, this is one of my 2 running routes at work. You can see why it just isn't a chore to go.

Leaving Crandon park, entering Bear Cut Nature Preserve

Summer was totally out. She was so good!
Back to civilization-crossing the Bear Cut bridge. I was so proud of G, he had no problem riding up it. :-) Its not a big hill, but still . . .

Seriously, have I mentioned how much I love where I work? This is the view I can see with a 3 minute walk.A view of our campus from the bridge. And the boys pedaling merrily along.
Garrett ended up riding a total of 6 miles, with lots of playing in between. I'm so proud of him, and hope that we can schedule more fun rides like this in the future.