The beach continued...

I sorted through some more beach pictures.  Here are just a few more! :o)

 

Today was such a crazy day!  As I was running (literally!) errands today, I kept thinking how much I would have loved to be laying on the beach again!

Mariah wore goggles and looked at fish for hours!  The water was so clear  you could see things that I would rather have not been able to see!

McKenzie and Matt took off on a kayak.  They had fun.  All I thought about while they were gone was sharks!

McKenzie was our cook when we ate in.

Spending time with his big "Bubbie".

                                    Such a beautiful place!

We went out on the pier.  It was so cool to see huge fish swimming around.  We even got to see HUGE sea turtles in the ocean.   Things we didn't think about as we swam during the day!

We spent one day at the Gulfarium.  That was lots of fun!

He was amazed during one of the shows! :o)

                                           It's Flipper!

Every time we would move him he would run back towards the water.  FEARLESS!

 

I have more I will post later.  There are just so many that I want to have stored on my blog! :o)

The Beach

We spent last week down in Florida for a family vacation.  It was a much needed rest for all of us!

 

We found the perfect park on the way to stop and eat, let the kids play AND it had clean bathrooms! :o)

                                                  "Mama, please don't!"

Sweet little fellow at the top of the slide.

                                    The big "kids" played too! :o)

                            I sure love this little guy!

And........... we finally got there!  The gulf is such a beautiful beach!

Macheus loved the water when we went to the beach back in July.  This time he got even braver!  He scared me to death several times!

The water was even more gorgeous in person!

I was so glad when we got there to see the place we were staying.  We had a really hard time trying to nail down our reservation.  The criteria I told Marc was that we had to be on the beach, have a pool, two bathrooms and a washer and dryer IN our condo.

He always does such a good job searching things out.  Our condo was really big, had two bathrooms, a huge well stocked kitchen AND a laundry room! :o)  These are important things when you are a big family!

We had a beautiful balcony overlooking the water.  It was a very nice week!

My kids patiently letting me take the "line up" picture again. (I think Myles was wanting to do a jumping picture!)

We took turns hanging onto Macheus.  He would literally dive into the water and would float with his face under until we grabbed him!

We got to see some neat things while we were there.  I'll post more pictures later!

Keepin' our cool

It all started with me watering my ferns.

 

Why is it so much fun to chase someone with a hose? :o)

                                                      Mouth full of water.

Trying to figure out how to do it too.

                                          I love his chunky little legs!

I looked up and saw Mariah peaking out her bedroom window. :o)

First Day of School

This is my 17th time having a "first day of homeschool".  Wow!  Time sure does fly!  I'll never forget my first day of school with McKenzie.  Bless her heart..... she has always had to be the guinea pig.  My mom made us both school aprons and I had alphabet charts and calendar stuff hanging everywhere.  We both wore dresses for our first day!  What a contrast that was to this morning!

 

Today Macheus and I were the first to rise (after Marc of course.) I changed Macheus' diaper and put him in his playroom with a bowl of his "Purely O's" :o) I went back to my room and had my quiet time and then........... I hit the ground running. McKenzie got up and fixed breakfast, Mariah headed out to chore, Madeline and the two little boys started milling about. Matthew is taking advantage of his last few days of "freedom" (well, he has had to get up at 4:00 AM most of the summer!) and slept in until he had a phone call from a college at 8:15.

 

Everyone ate, I mopped the floors and started the laundry.  Matthew chored and then he took Myles and headed out to get on the mower.  That was SO nice to have him occupied for some quiet school time with Malachi!

McKenzie had to take a stack of wedding invitations to the post office (we finally got them finished over the weekend!)  I got most of Malachi's school work done and then passed him off to McKenzie to do math.  While they did math, Macheus napped and I did some work with Mariah. 

Macheus decided the first day of school was the perfect day to take only half a nap!

I am doing an Apologia Science curriculum with Mariah and Malachi.  I closed the door and tried to get that done with several interruptions from my oldest two.  Matthew had something about his college stuff to tell me and McKenzie had wedding stuff.  I huffed in the moment but then later thought about the fact that they will both be gone soon!  Wow, the years sure have flown by!!!!

As we were taking the annual "first day of school" pictures it was sad that these are my younger five.  Madeline is in 10th grade!!!!!!!  When did that happen!?  And Mariah.......... middle school?  She should still be that round-faced, raspy voiced little girl.

Memories come flooding back when you have a day like today.

 

Next week Matthew starts college classes and next month McKenzie will be married and gone.  While I have heard others say, "Where has the summer gone?"  I'm thinking........."Where have the years gone!?"

Wedding planning

McKenzie and I were able to get away the other day for an overnight trip to do some wedding preparation.  We got lots of shopping done and started working on the invitations. It was a lot of fun and I know it will be a sweet memory for both of us.

 

                                             (Hotel bed.... invitations and chocolate!)

I didn't have a clue how much goes into planning a wedding.  I was so young when I got married that I am sure I was no help at all!  I wish my mom was still here for me to tell her how much I appreciate all that she did!  If she was still alive she would be having a ball helping us plan. 

The wedding will be here before we know it, and I am sure there will be sadness when McKenzie leaves.  However, I do look forward to waking up and not having "wedding" on my mind!