Beach Adventures #3

It's a new day and Andrew is ready to go! He's all packed up and ready to hit the beach...except that he wanted to go to the water park.
This is our own personal water park at the hotel. It was AWESOME! (and in the shade!!)
Every 30 seconds the big bucket at the top would dump all this water on those below.

And this was Andrew's reaction to the big "WHOOSH".....every time. It was priceless!

My only challenge of the day was keeping Andrew from DRINKING the water....eeew!

Once I convinced him to stop drinking the water, Andrew decided to go on the slide with Mommy.

Wheee!

Look at this face! Is he not the sweetest thing you've ever seen?

Later that afternoon, we decided to take some bread down to the beach and feed the "Sea-Eagles" as Andrew calls them. Apparently we waited a little too late. There were none to be found.

We waited, and waited....until finally Andrew gave up and just ate the bread himself.

That was the conclusion to our last day on the beach (minus one story about me nearly losing a finger to a crab, but that's another story). The next morning we managed to snap a few pictures on the balcony before heading home.


We had a great vacation. The only thing that would've made it better was if Drew had been there to enjoy it with us!

Beach Adventures #2

The next adventure we encountered was the infamous "white beach portraits." We've done them every year for as long as I can remember. Things started out well and Andrew smiled.
Mom wanted a picture of her 2 girls and Grand baby. After many attempts, this was as close as we got. Andrew would only pose if he had my flash diffuser in his hand.
This one cracks me up because Annah and I are both talking to Andrew through our teeth, bribing him to put down that diffuser!

Annah and Jefforey pose on the beach. Look at that awesome sunset. It looked like a watercolor.

Andrew was nice and smiled in one with me.

Most of the photo shoot consisted of Andrew running around in the sand.
I love this next picture. Andrew and I were trying to get a picture of the two of us, but he kept watching the water park back up at the hotel. Every 30 seconds, the bucket dumps a ton of water out and it makes a big "WHOOSH" sound. This was Andrew's reaction....every time!
After the photo shoot, we went to Pier Park, where we enjoyed some Marble Slab ice cream and a carousel ride. Andrew had a GREAT time!

Gracie and Uncle enjoyed themselves too!

Beach Adventures #1

You'll notice there's a #1 in the title of this post. That's because I have WAY too many pictures for one single post and WAY too little time to post them all right now. (After all tomorrow is the big 10 year reunion.)

Tuesday morning we started out at the beach. Andrew and Gracie were excited to try out the new sand toys. Here, Andrew works on a hole.
Somehow Andrew managed to get Paw-Paw involved...and Paw-Paw HATES the sand! I guess Grand babies have that affect on a person.
Andrew is hard at work on his castle. He has that look of total concentration.

Our time at the beach was as short-lived as a two year old's attention span, so next we headed to the pool. I couldn't resist posting this adorable face. (Andrew's...not mine) lol

For some reason he was all about my sunglasses today. He would run along the ledge playing keep away from me.

*Here I have to interject with a story: Andrew made a friend at the pool named Ryder. He kept coming over to talk to us and show us how well he could swim. He was 4 and probably reminded him of his friend, Trevor back in Hawaii. After a while Ryder left us as went to the other side of the pool. When he did, Andrew said, "Where my friend go?" So we had to travel across the pool to where Ryder was practicing his underwater skills. Andrew loved this kid. He had to copy everything Ryder would do. It was really cute. They played together until it was nap time for all.

Speaking of nap time. Andrew was still playing keep away with the glasses when we went up to get dried off for his nap! (and yes, he did go to sleep even though he looks WIDE OPEN in this picture)

Later that afternoon we were sitting on our balcony and we saw more stingrays swimming by. They were everywhere! We saw literally thousands throughout the week and I managed to get a few pictures of them.

They were really close to shore too! People were in the water and the rays would swim right by them. I can't believe I didn't run down and get in the water with them. (Stingrays are my FAVORITE sea creature!) Here's an idea of how close they were to shore...Can you see them?

What was even more exciting than the rays....the day before (you know, when my camera battery was on the charger) we saw a SHARK! It was unreal! We were on the balcony watching the stingrays in the water and we saw a shark swim by east to west parallel to the shore. He was probably about 6 ft. long. There was a man in the water and we yelled "SHARK" from the 8th floor balcony. He got out rather quickly. In all my years of vacations to the Emerald Coast, I have NEVER seen a shark! It was pretty exciting stuff. I just wish I had a picture!

Beach Week!

This week my family decided to take a much needed beach vacation to Panama City Beach, Florida.  Andrew and I were seriously starting to have beach withdrawals, so we hit the road.  We're staying at a place called SPLASH!  It's the perfect destination for families.  They have 4 pools, a lazy river, a mini water park, and a lily pad pool for babies.  They also have a "Dive-In theatre" where you can swim up at sunset and watch a movie.  There's also a world class gym and an arcade.  The place is nice!  I took a few pictures of our view yesterday.  It was pretty hazy so you can't see very far down the beach.  Here's our view to the East.
Here's a view from the 8th floor of the "Lily Pad."  Andrew LOVES to hang out here!
I managed to sneak a picture of Andrew eating Cheetos on the balcony.  
I took several pictures today and then....you guessed it....my battery died, so the camera is on the charger as we speak.  I'll try and update some pictures tomorrow.  

We're having a blast!!  I got to hear from Drew this morning, so that was nice.  He called to say hello!  I told him about all of our adventures.  He's coping, but still not liking Afghanistan, and REALLY ready to come home.  We're more than ready for him to come home too!!

4 Month Mark

We've hit another milestone date on the deployment: Drew has been gone for 4 months. I don't know what it is about this deployment, but I HATE it! This one is really dragging, especially since communication has been slim due to all the moving around and lack of computers. Being in Alabama helps and I've got PLENTY going on to keep me busy (this is the first time I've sat down all day)...but I miss him so much and I'm ready for him to come home. Andrew misses him to. He was playing with his Daddy Doll last night "fighting the bad guys." Then he'd stop and say "My Daddy misses me." And then when he finished playing he told Daddy Doll, "I love you."

The MAG and our Family Readiness Officer held an Afghanistan brief for all the spouses. Since I wasn't there, I got the cliff notes version from my friend, Kim. She wrote about it on her blog today. So go HERE to read about what Drew is doing in their new location.

Looking Back

This time last year Drew was doing some training work in Arizona, so we had the opportunity to spend some time in Albertville.  Mom took this picture of Andrew watching the cows.  Looking at this picture, it's hard to remember him that little.  He has grown so much since this picture was taken.  My sweet lil man is growing up before my very eyes.  (and he's only 2)
Mom had him outside the other day and thought she'd try and re-create the picture above to see how much he has grown.  This time around, he's a little taller, a little more independent, and a lot more active.  So this is what we got...

Just like a ladder, he has moved up the fence from the ground up to the first step.  We're going to try and make it a tradition to take a similar picture each year when we come to visit. 

Weekend at Grammy and Granddad's

Last weekend Andrew and I headed down to Mississippi to see Grammy and Granddad one last time.  When we arrived Grammy had a nice surprise...she made cotton candy for the boys!   Andrew was so excited. Yum...
Here's Andrew enjoying his cotton candy while Alex waits patiently for him to finish so they can play light sabers.  
Alex posing for the camera.
After the cotton candy, Andrew had some fun playing in the bouncy house.  He looks like he's ready to take on the world in this picture.
Weee!
The next two days were spent at Uncle Kevin's pond.  We caught lots of fish and fried them up for dinner Sunday night.  Yummy!  Here are Andrew and Alex having a picnic lunch in the boat.
Row row row your boat...
One time it came a total downpour for about 30 minutes.  Uncle Adam was way out in the boat when it started raining and by the time he made it to shore he was already soaked so he decided to just stay out in the rain.  Since he was already soaked, why not just sit in the pond?
It was a fun weekend.  We'll see you guys in November!

Paw-Paw's Little Buddy

We've had some stormy weather around here lately, which means that Paw-Paw has to work a lot.   With all the overtime, working storm trouble Andrew hasn't spent as much time with his Paw-Paw as he would like.  One night, he came home from work around 10:30 and Andrew was still awake.  He was so excited and wanted to play with Paw-Paw, so he did.  Then Paw-Paw decided it was time to go take a shower.  (After all, he had been working for 36 hours straight)  When he left the room, Andrew lost it!  His little face turned to a frown and he began to cry.  This in turn broke Paw-Paw's heart, so he turned around, came back into the room, and picked Andrew up.  Andrew put his head on Paw-Paw's shoulder and fell asleep about 30 seconds later! This made  Paw-Paw's night!