couples weekend

Last weekend we traveled to the beach.... sans children. The boys went down Thursday night to fish the last day of snapper season on Friday. We got down there later Friday afternoon just in time for the second trip out. The weather on Friday was really nice and pretty. The seas were clam and just perfect for a short trip out.

The boys had already brought back their limit of snapper from earlier and a whole lot of other fish. This was the girls catch. Claire caught that big red snapper and I got the king mackeral (and the little trigger too...).

Friday night we had a good dinner at Live Bait at the Wharf, but the boys were so tired from fishing all day to go do anything else. Saturday we waited and waited for the sun, but it was pretty much a lost cause. Saturday night we enjoyed fresh catch with "hook em and cook em." It was soooo good! We then ventured out to Rum Runners. I was so excited to see it at the Wharf because the one in Sandestin is so fun, but the crowd was a lot older and not near as fun. Half of us went on to Live Bait and had a great time.

We had a fun weekend and of course we missed our babies. But I have to admit it was so nice to relax and not worry about being on a schedule for meals, naps and bedtime! I wish we could have stayed longer, but there's always next time!!

oh my goodness!

I just got the image gallery link from Lori for Tripp's 2 year pictures.... Wow! They are soooo good!! I don't know how we are going to decide, I love them all! If you haven't gone to her website yet, click above. She has an incredible gift and does amazing work.

Click Slideshow for all the images.

sneak peek

How cute are these? And how precious is that sweet little boy?? I may be a little prejudice, but even if he wasn't mine, I would still be gushing over them. Lori Mercer did these, and I am SO pleased. I think they turned out fantastic. She just sent 5 to me as a sneak peek. I can't wait to see the whole gallery. We had such a fun morning and I know she got a lot of great shots. She does great work at reasonable rates, definitely check out her blog linked above. Thanks Lori!

hotside!

It's definitely August! We were outside yesterday after school at 5:30 playing and poor Tripp was just a sweating!! (I wonder where he gets that from... definitely not his momma!) I wish we could bypass this August heat because this little man loves to be outside. He loves riding his little trike, kicking the ball and he's gotten very good at driving his gator around. We did find the best place to be in this heat is the pool with a water hose! I hate I didn't get pictures of that because he was having the best time filling the pool up.

We spent Monday morning getting Tripp's two year pictures made. I can't wait to share the sneak peek when they are posted....

welcome sis!

My sister Alisa has joined the blogging world! Her and Richard have just celebrated their first anniversary and bought their first house! Here's the link - Mr. Jones & Me

New post below...

big 3-0

Lee's 30th birthday was last week. He thought our little trip to aquarium the weekend before and dinner on his birthday were it. Little did he know what was in store!

Surprise!

After scheming all day, we pulled it off! I was so worried he was going to find out or catch me in a lie, but he really was surprised! Saturday morning we "made plans" to go eat with friends. I left the house twice during the day. I made up different reasons to leave and do things for the party. He believed me both times. We had a great plan and it was very well executed -resulting in a big surprise! A big thanks to his mom, his brother Will and Margaret for helping get everything ready. We had a great time and he still can't believe we actually surprised him. Thanks to all our friends and family who helped make his big 3-0 birthday fun!

Andrea & Joey brought their little friend Jack to play with Tripp.

They had fun playing with choo-choos and trucks.

My child loves singing, sorry, hearing people sing Happy Birthday.
He thinks it's for him every single time!

He also loves chocolate icing!

Happy 30th Birthday Lee! We love you!

big big fish

We (Tripp and I) surprised Lee with a last minute mini vacation to Atlanta on Saturday. He has a big birthday tomorrow, and we thought it was the perfect occassion to get away. Thursday afternoon I told Tripp we were going to take Daddy to see the big fish. Well as soon as Lee gets home about 45 minutes later, Tripp starts saying big fish daddy, big fish. Well Lee wasn't catching what he was saying. Eventually he figured it out. With a sweet friend's connection, we got tickets to the Georgia Aquarium and I got a nice hotel room cheap via priceline.com. So Saturday morning we headed east. We checked into our room at the Renaissance Atlanta Downtown and then made our way to the Marta station. Tripp loved riding the "choo-choo." Once we got over to the aquarium, I was a little worried it would take us a while to get in, the place was packed. Apparently it's like that every weekend. But we went straight through the will call line and made our way in pretty quickly.

Waiting paitently to go inside...

It was hard to get him to look at the camera, all he wanted to look at were the fish. We even tried to pick him up away from the glass. I tried hard to get a smile, but no such luck...

Coming down the giant mouth slide in the children's area.

The aquarium is really neat and huge! It's divided up into different areas and we made our way through them all. Tripp would run straight up to the windows, and point out the big fish. Even though it was crowded, we still got to see everything. I think we all loved the Ocean Voyager area the best. You first walk through a tunnel with the fish/sharks swimming all around you, and then you end up in front of a gigantic viewing window. They have whale sharks there, and they are massive. After our visit, we made our way to dinner. After a long day, we just stopped at the Varsity by the hotel. Lee had never been, and we didn't have to worry about bringing a toddler there so it worked. We enjoyed some hot dogs and ice cream.

We had a great short visit. The Aquarium was a lot of fun and we enjoyed it very much. Hopefully next time we visit Atlanta, we can do more. I also highly suggest priceline.com. Definitely the way to go getting a cheap nice hotel room. We'll try it again soon!