Ft. Lauderdale Trip

Wednesday the 6th was Brent's birthday and we spent the day just hanging out, running last minute errands and getting packed for our trip. That evening we went to Brent's parents house to eat dinner to celebrate his and his dad's birthday's. Cristi and Cassidi stayed the night at our house so they could take the kids to school the next morning because our flight left at 8:30am. We had a long day of flying on Thursday and after several stops we made it to Ft. Lauderdale around 5:00 there time. We drove around and got the lay of the land, we went to dinner at a Seafood place that is right across from the beach. We had the most delicious crab quesadilla's and calamari. On Friday we ate at the Original Pancake House and then drove down to Miami/South Beach. It was so... busy down there and everything was extremely over priced. We pd to park walked down to the beach and were there for two minutes when it started thundering and lightning and then came the rain so we had to leave. We spent the rest of the day at the largest outlet mall I have ever been to. It's called Sawgrass Mills Mall and we were there from 4-9:30 and we still didn't get to see everything. Saturday we got up early and hit the beach because we knew it was going to rain again so we wanted to get some sun time in. We spent the day at the beach and had the most delicious pizza ever at this Italian place, yummy!! Later we prepared our bags to head home on Sunday. We woke up Sunday early and left on the first flight out of Ft. Lauderdale with a stop in N'Orleans, we got bumped there and were basically told that we wouldn't be getting a flight out that day or if we did it would be like 7pm. So we went and spoke with a friendlier SW agent who thanks to her helped us get on a flight to Houston at 12pm and then we changed planes there and went on to Dallas. We were thankful to have the buddy passes because we would have not been able to take a vacation with out them but you have to be prepared to get bumped. We counted a total of 12 take offs and landings so I think I have had enough flying for a while, Brent and I pretended like we were on the Amazing Race! LOL!! The other thing we became all to familiar with was the lovely TSA because we were non rev passenger's we would get "randomly selected" to be individually searched. That was so not fun! In all we had a blast and the time flew by. Thanks to all of our family who helped take care of Brayden, Peyton and of course Berkley otherwise we wouldn't have been able to go and enjoy ourselves! We love ya'll!!

Our rental a convertible PT Cruiser.

One of many palm trees!

Our hotel lobby at the Sheraton.

Turtles at the hotel.

Thursday night dinner, by the beach.

Miami/South Beach

Tons of money in South Beach, this was one of the smaller Yacht's

The Miami Herald

Leaving Miami because of the rain.

The main road off the beach in Ft. Lauderdale.

The water was very clear and calm.

My birdie friend.

Ham's Orchards

On Sunday with the temperature reaching 107 and scares of Crypto in public pools everywhere we decided to stay close to home and cool off in our own backyard. We had not been to our favorite ice cream place in a while and it seemed like the right time to go. We love Ham's Orchards they have the best homemade peach and strawberry ice cream. They also have a wonderful selection of fresh fruits which the kids love and homemade breads and cobblers. You can even pick your own fruit if you would like to. It is just a neat place to visit.

First lick off of mommy's ice cream.

Their own baby ice cream.

Spaghetti Dinner

On Saturday we had a Spaghetti dinner fund raiser to attend. Three girls from the Terrell HS drill team were selected to go and perform at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and they have to come up with the money themselves. One of the girls, Brittany, is the daughter of the PDO director where the kids go to school and I am now a board member so we thought it was important to help support the girls. Brittany is a sweet girl and has spent most of the summer at the school volunteering as well as the other two girls, so I hope she and the other girls are able to attend the parade in NY! Good Luck to ya'll!

Leaving for the dinner.

He loves meatballs!

Peyton would not sit still, she was so excited!

Brayden and Autumn

Peyton's turn for loving!

East Burns Run

On Sunday we were going to go to Eisenhower State Park at Lake Texoma and we ended up at East Burns Run. With the temperature rising well above 100 we knew we had to get some relief and have fun playing in the water and making sand castle's on the beach. The place we went to was great because they had a great beach area and there were not a ton of people. The kids had a blast and so did we!

Entering the water for the first time that day.

Swimming with his Nemo ring.

Peyton's duck ring, she was fearless in the water.

Brayden was pushing Peyton around in the water.

Brayden was swimming out to daddy.

Brent twirling Brayden around.

Destroying the sand castle.

Sweet girl.

Running around.

The price we paid for gas in Oklahoma, we couldn't believe it!

Looking back at where we were swimming, the beach area in front of the tree line.

The spillway.

Denison DAM.

Coming back home!

Best of both worlds

On Saturday the kids and I watched the Hannah Montana best of both worlds concert in 3D. I figured they would have fun wearing the glasses and dancing to the music which they did. They were too silly!

Sporting their 3D glasses.

Dancing and being silly.