Stickers, Smiles, and Sassiness

Life is never dull with three girls in the house. Sticker Girls! While cleaning out the school room the girls found a sheet of stickers and decided to decorate themselves. The picture really needs audio to hear the way they were walking around talking and calling themselves "Sticker Girls."

I took the kids to the creek with some friends of ours and when we said that it was time for lunch, I looked over and saw all these beautiful smiles just sitting and waiting to be fed.

Amber at the creek. I love how the August humidity makes her hair curly.

Clarissa got a new dress and couldn't wait to show it off, with a little attitude.

Never to be left out, here is Krystal in her new dress sporting some sassiness too.

We sure do love these girls! But it's great that we have Jared to balance things out a little.

Vacation to Florida in a Coconut Shell (a nut shell is too small)

Clarissa and Amber are ready to go to the beach with their new bags, and sunglasses. We started for Florida early on Saturday the 25th, Amber took three naps in the car, we got to Fort Lauderdale around 9pm. Sunday we went to church, then spent the day hanging out with Chris' family at his sister Kara's house. Kara dressed the girls up in her things while we were playing a card game.

In the afternoon, the kids watched "The Tale of Despereaux" while the adults watched the movie with our eyes shut.

Family photo: Chris, Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Eric, Uncle Mike, Aunt Kara, Uncle Dan, Mom with Amber asleep, Clarissa, Jared, Krystal, Aunt Sarah with Cousin Kaden.

Clarissa LOVES Aunt Kara, we all think she looks so much like her.

Jared really enjoyed playing with Uncle Dan and his cool toys.

Monday we went to the beach in Fort Lauderdale. The water was so perfect, not too deep, clear and warm. We didn't take many pictures, we just had so much fun playing in the water. But, the kids did play in the sand for a little while as we were packing up to leave.

Monday afternoon, Chris and I boarded the Bahamas Celebration for our cruise to the island of Nassau.

We enjoyed a really nice dinner in the Crystal Room, then watched the sunset over Fort Lauderdale as the ship headed out to sea.

After a late night of dancing, we were awakened Tuesday morning by the rocking of the boat, so we decided to go watch the sunrise. We landed in Nassau around 8am. From there, we got on a boat that took us out to the sea gardens for some snorkeling. It was so much fun.

After a huge buffet lunch complete with conch chowder, grouper, and jerked chicken, we spent the rest of the afternoon swimming at the beach in Nassau.

Tuesday evening we dressed up for dinner and the evening show. We also spent some quality time relaxing on the upper deck as the ship headed back to Fort Lauderdale.

On Wednesday, when we got back, we heard all about how much fun the kids had at the beach and on the slip-n-slide with their Aunts and Uncles.

Here are the kids with their cousin Kaden. They really enjoyed playing with Kaden and making him laugh. Unfortunately we had to say bye to the rest of the family as they all had to go back home. We spent the rest of the day relaxing with books, video games, and feeding ducks.

Krystal and Amber feeding the ducks in Aunt Kara's backyard.

Thursday we headed back to the beach, but this time we went to Key Biscayne (south of Miami).

This beach had more wind, but we found that there were lots of fish to be seen by snorkeling by the lighthouse and the water was really shallow so the kids did a lot of sea shell finding and swimming.

Jared, relaxing in The Millenium Falcon float that Uncle Dan gave him.




For dinner we ate at a local place called The Calypso Restaurant. It was a mix of Bahamian and Jamaican food and it was good.

Friday morning we started for home. Here are the girls having a snack at a gas station. That night we went to Tybee Island near Savannah, Georgia for dinner at The Crab Shack.

This place was great, they had a pool of alligators outside and lots of fun places to take pictures.

But best of all, we got a ton of food. This platter had mussels, crawfish, snow crab, jona crab, shrimp, potatoes, corn, and sausage. No, I did not eat this all myself, I shared it! We got home around 5am on Saturday in time to unpack, do laundry, mow the lawn, and work in the garden. But, like we always say...The best way to make your garden grown is to go on vacation.

Not only was it a wonderful vacation, but we came home to this bounteous harvest.