St. Augustine

We took a much needed family trip up north to St. Augustine at the end of June. It was a 4 hour ride and the kids got a little restless but it wasn't to bad. We had a blast, there are so many things to do in this historic town. It is the oldest city in the nation that is still in its original state. They have just made the place into this huge (yet quite) tourist town. Most popular are the forts that still stand today. We hit up Castillo De San Marcos first. Huge fort and very interesting all sorts of rooms and hidden rooms inside rooms.

This picture makes the fort look so small, but it is hidden by a hill which made it very hard to be hit by enemy targets. One time while under attack the whole city lived within these walls for 100 something days.

Girl loves her some guns!

This was one of the small draw bridges. The place was once surrounded by a river of water for protection.

One of the many look out spots.

A hidden room, kinda creepy!!! OOOOOO!

Check out that gun show.

Can you tell how hot it is? Even though you kinda get used to the heat, you still sweat like mad.

They had an old school cannon demonstration. Hayden freaked out a little after they shot it off, so the rest of the trip I teased him about it. He would just say "yeah mom, I cried."

Another fort was kinda fun trip where you get to ride a boat across the river to this tiny little fort and only 4 soldiers lived there. You had to use ladders to get up to the top. Kinda a quite place. In 80 years of service only 2 warning shots were fired.

Everything is so historic, look how gorgeous this place is. They have an old gigantic hotel that is now a college.

We took a city walk tour at night, it was nice and relaxing the guy in the green was our tour guide. He keep us entertained!

And the stroller kept the kids entertained.

The pirate museum is a must do for kids. Disney had there hand in helping putting it together. You can't take pictures inside, but was very well put together.

Someone went to the naughty chair! :)

Lots of yummy food and treats. If you head out there you must hit up this Popsicle place called hippo. Oh I am still craving there yummy pina colda Popsicle. We also ate some unbelievable gyros and burrito joint.

Touch a Truck

At the end of June one of the city's close to us had a touch a truck day. I swear most weekends we can find something fun to do at one of our surrounding city's! We got there early but it still got hot fast. It was pretty awesome, they pretty much let the kids have free range of all sorts of cars. There was an Ambulance, fire trucks, cop cars, tractors, jeeps, semi trucks, garbage trucks, cranes, buses and military vehicles of all sorts. They helped you jump on in and honk the horn and explore around. The whole family enjoyed it.

Aren't all little boys overly fascinated with garage trucks?

So this was Hayden first time on a bus, it was kinda rough getting him to move on to the other wondrous things because he was pretty stoked.

Chill-lax-in for 5 seconds, this girl does not slow down for very long.

Driving the bus

Sitting in the ambulance. It was so warm that they actually had the fire hose running on the fire truck to let the kids run in to cool off.

A couple of the tractors you could actually have a guide help you navigate the controls. This is Hayden on the crane, putting the big ball into a garbage can. As you can tell pretty serious stuff!

This is the back of one of the Military trucks. I was so glad we went early not only because it was a tad bit cooler but it also got really busy. By the time we left the place was swamped. But we will totally hit this up again next year.

More Utah

So I have not been doing much of ANYTHING lately. I have been so blaa with this pregnancy. But the last two days I have felt kinda normal. So things are getting done around the house, I have done a little exercise I am just praying that I can keep this feeling for a few months! But anyhoo.. I still have not posted about much of the things that we did on our trip to Utah. It was pretty chilly for my kiddos and all I had was pretty much long pants for them. We don't wear coats in Florida people!

This was our quick trip to Antelope Island. It is just a few miles from the inlaws house but we never go. There was some cowboy party going on that made it kinda fun. But it was cold. We did find some hot chocolate.

Thanksgiving point. We went with Stacey, grandma and grandpa and Travis and Christa. Hayden loved the dinosaurs but was hard to get him to come out of that dang stroller! He is a little lazy and hates to walk. But he had fun and loved watching the "dinosaur show"

They had this fun little sand area where kids could get messy and play with little plastic dinos in the sand and water. Hayden actually got out of the stroller and really enjoyed it.

I loved that Hadley got to spend some time getting to know her cousin Shaylee a little better this trip. Hads kinda had a hard time with her other cousin Luke before she meet Shaylee so they had a rocky start. Hadley is beyond drama queen, but she realized how friendly and nice Shaylee was and they did pretty good with each other.

OOOOOO... this is something I want to remember forever! My first pedicure! Cindy treated Christa and I to a pedicure with the Walmart gals, oh they did wonderful. So relaxing, I wanted to spend the entire day there.

Christa brought over her kites and the kiddos loved it. Hayden got a spider man all to himself and did really well flying it if someone helped him get it up in the air.

Hadley pretty much ran around screaming at everyone to give her the kite they were flying. She had a lot of fun with Stacey.

Oh the zoo. We made these big plans for the Zoo after the "men" went fishing. Everyone was very excited. It was an adjustment for us to tag along with the whole crew. We are kinda used to doing our own thing on our own time, but it turned out pretty fun following the older girls around. Hadley was freaking out at every animal she saw, it was hilarious. But after a while she was a lot to handle! She got a little too excited and had to be held to see everything. The stroller is not for her!

THe weather for once turned out perfect. Not to chilly. The SLC Zoo had a lot to see and I, myself really enjoyed it. But I do have to say that it is nothing like the Columbus Zoo.

The train at the zoo was a pure delight for Hayden all 75 seconds of it! Your kidding me right!? We stood in line and listened to hayden freak out about the train for a 2 minute ride? Oh my gosh it was more than heck getting that kid off that thing and the tantrum that followed! I am trying to block my memory and remember the good times! We meet at the in-laws after for pizza and A&W root beer. Travis took a million pics and gave them to Dan, but they are on his laptop. I am sure one day I will get them and do a little more blogging. Do ever forget what you did on vacation until you look at pictures? Well I have a few more posts to make about the fun back in Florida!

Girls night out

Jam put together a fun night for just us gals. Lets just say it went way to fast. The ride in it self was a little crazy, try putting together 5 girls! 4 sisters and Lou, yeah it was wild. First thing we did was eat, because girls love to eat. We went to a fancy little place, where Keen and Mom fought over which finally to watch on TV (dancing with the stars or biggest loser) Thank goodness when we got back to the room we had two tv's. I totally thought we were going to have a throw down.

After Jam and keen pigged out on licorice while they were watching biggest loser, the 3 of us hit the pool. Lou and Lori equals LAME. Lets not talk about while they didn't join us.

I wish I had a better picture of me in my swim suit, I got this new top that I put under my old swim tops, lets just say it lifts and separates! Isn't that what every woman who has ever had a child wants? The girls were quite jealous. After a our dip we started cooking in the kitchen. We made these absolutely to die for fruit nachos! Check out or recipe blog if you want to indulge your taste buds.


Most of us stayed up Way to late, and woke up early to begin our party. After keen and I tried to go for a run (it was pretty sad, I blame it on the altitude) We started primping each other. I always tease Keen that she makes everyone look like a hooker, so she started working her magic on anyone that she could grab.

This was after all our fun with makeups and hair brushes and I do have to admit that I don't think any of us really pass as hookers!

The main event was getting mom all refreshed! check out this before picture. Keen went to town on her make up and we took her to a salon near our shopping and got her all dolled up.

This is the after! Two different women right!? She looked amazing and she loved her new little hair dresser friend. It took a lot of convincing to cut her hair but in the end she really liked her new look. While mom was at the salon the girls went to the outlets. It was a blast and I wish we had more time, or even another day. It's just trouble to get us all together, but I wish we could do it more often without all the kiddos and hubbies that can sometimes be a distraction from our girl fun!

Ogden Half marathon 2011

This half was thee funnest run I have had in a long time! The Fordham fam, Lori and myself decided to run this race a LONG time ago. The race filled up in 5 days! Jam took her part by staying the night at Keens and totally taking care of the kiddos! She did awesome, she getting up in the wee hours of the morning and got 3 little kiddos out the door signs made and all to root on the runners!

Jam showing off her hard work! Everyone is happy!

Of course Keen was the first to cross the finish line 1 hr 42 min. 5th in her age group. We were all pretty excited for her.

EJ came next. Just over 2 hours. This guy is such a punk, he made me think all morning that he was gonna run right by my side. Nope he was gone within 2 mins after we started! I can't say I blame him he whooped my butt, but I do blame him, I do blame you EJ!

Here I am 3 potty stops later and a VERY rough last mile coming in at 2 hrs 17 min.

Here we are waiting for Lori, we saw Lori cross the finish line and than we lost her the rest of the day. You notice something in the pic?? Maybe an expanding belly? Yep I ran 13.1 miles pregnant AND beat my last years time by 23 minutes. I found out just a few weeks before the race and realized I wouldn't be able to give it my all, but I still had a blast and knew there will be many more races in the future. Everyone that I talked to were pretty sore the next few days. We looked like a bunch of old people walking around. The down grade hills is what I think made it so fun running along a river most the way, but I also think that is what caused all the pain. I never get that sore!

Home made planter

I put my boys to work. I want so badly my home grown tomatoes, the neighbors' make me drool every time I walk outside. Dan said "Done deal, what else you want?" We all went to home depot and the boys loaded up the cart while hads and I wandered.

Dan is just so good with his hands (hence the dentist, Orthodontic career) He put this baby together so fast. Hayden and I just held a board here and there. He bought some fence post, cut them up, put in a few screws and BAM! He whipped out a plantar box!

Kiddo turned this project into his bridge.

Painting. Go Holly, I picked out this paint on the "Oops" isle for ONE DOLLAR.

After we let it dry we added dirt, tomatoes, squash and a few pea. Cilantro and basil in pots.
Ten days later my tomates are a foot tall, squash(seeds) are 4 inches, peas(seeds) 1 inch and cilantro and basil have sprouted. Can't believe how fast they took off. I will have my tomates in no time!

Another little project. My super sweet neighbor gave me his son's old sand box. So we filled it up with sand. Of course it's a hit. I love it. Even though it so FREAKING hot here that the kids can only play in the wee hours of the morning or evening when the bugs are out. Which no amount of bug spray can stop them from drinking Hayden's sweet blood. It's a lot of fun doing simple fun projects as a family!

regress

HELP! What do I do?? Hayden was doing SO good at potty training. He was accident free (#1) for two weeks and than we had an accident, next day 3 accidents! I am pulling my hair out! This kid was doing amazing, I even stopped putting pull ups on him for his naps and he would stay dry! It's like he thinks the potty is a punishment or something!! Advice or tips PLEASE!