Monday Mayhem - What a weekend!

We had an INTERESTING weekend, to say the least. Nothing really went as planned. We started out with an impromptu date night on Friday - rock climbing again, which was AWESOME. Big thanks to Leanne for watching the kids so we could get away. Saturday morning I had a long run, which was miserable and shorter than I would have liked. Then we went boating/camping with our neighbors. This is where it got interesting of course.

Summer doesn't like boat rides. No idea how this happened, I swear she can't be our kid. We talked about it towards the end of the week (That we were going on a boat, that she liked boats, and that she WOULD NOT CRY). She still cried of course. Something about a little 2.5 year old saying "No thank you! I want out" as we're motoring away from the dock is hilarious. Once we got out of the marina, she was happy enough looking at birds and such. But the minute we started speeding up, she hid her little face and cried. Between this and the whole diva thing, I swear she can't be mine. Except that I was there when she was born!
Garrett, on the other hand, was on cloud nine the whole time. Boating, camping and Xander = Garrett's most favorite things. I find it endlessly awesome that these boys are best friends.


We arrived and everyone set up camp . . .
While they worked, I took the kids to play in the water. Really, really tough job let me tell you.

During the day, it was FABULOUS. Everyone was so happy playing together.

And when we were done playing the water we came to camp for some leisure time.
Summer played in X and Logan's doggie tent.
And did girlie things with Miss Jess.
Meanwhile, the boys alternated between eating and playing (as demonstrated by G and Logan)

When the sun went down, the bugs started coming out and that's when things got a little less fun. We got eaten alive, but I don't think we realized the EXTENT until today.

The boys getting ready for an evening boat ride (Summer and I stayed at camp in hopes of getting her to fall asleep. What a joke on me that turned out to be).


Afterward, it was smores by the fire. My family is so crazy. This picture sums them up perfectly - Brad is humoring me, Summer is being a goof ball, and Garrett is acting like a mini-teenager. Gotta love them!


Up to this point, things were fun. Bed time is where it started to get out of control. Garrett went to sleep, but Summer refused to. At 11pm, after various attempts and efforts to get her to sleep, we finally gave in and just took her back home. I remember going though this with Garrett and knowing he would fall asleep . . . with Summer, I really don't know that she would have. She was totally exhausted and on her way to staying up all night long. In the end, we didn't miss out on that much-Brad went back to stay with Garrett and the Shumans, and as soon as everyone was awake they came home due to the bugs.

Sunday was AWESOME. Brad took a nap after they got back. I put away the gear in less than 20 minutes--I love this new organized thing, it was so easy to clean up and put things away. I took the kids and our new little neighbor to fly kites, and then we headed to the playground in our community for a little while.



Then, as if that wasn't enough fun for one weekend, we had an impromptu movie date with our little neighbors Brady and Gracie. They were all engrossed by The Ant Bully--it was actually pretty cute!

After an evening picnic outside, the kids went to bed and I went next door to squish on my neighbor's new baby girl. She is quite possibly the cutest little baby girl I have seen in ohhh, 2.5 years, I could just eat her up. So that was fun. Unfortunately Summer then had to go and be up half the night again. Lets hope this isn't a habit.

Happy Monday--I'm quite glad its almost over!

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.