Ode To Florida

Okay, so this has to be one of the world's longest posts....sorry. We have finally come up with a "game plan" of sorts, and Wednesday will be our last day here in Florida. My parents have moved from Sandy to Logan, and have left a vacant house, which they have consented to let us live in until it sells. Last Thursday, I hopped on a plane at 5:30 a.m. with the kids and flew out to Utah to leave them with Nana and Grandpa Kent. Then, I hopped onto another plane that left SLC at 11:30 p.m. and flew into Atlanta at 5:30 a.m. I caught another flight to Orlando at 7:30 a.m. and was home on Friday morning at 10:30 a.m. It was a LONG day. With the kids taken care of, Ben and I have been packing up the house, and we have just about finished it up. The moving truck was dropped off this morning, and we're loading everything into it tomorrow. On Wednesday morning, Ben and I going to start the drive back to Utah, and we hope to be there by Friday. Then, the kids and I are going to move into the Sandy house, and Ben is off to Minneapolis on Monday to start his six-week training. We don't know where he will be based after that, and for the time being with the free rent and all (thanks mom & dad!), Ben will just continue commuting back and forth between Minneapolis and Sandy whenever he can. It's a new chapter in our lives, and although in some respects it is going to be very difficult to adjust to, I feel confident that we are ready. That being said, I am very nostalgic tonight thinking about all of the WONDERFUL memories that we have created here in Florida. I started putting together some of my favorite pictures, and I just couldn't stop. There are too many. We will always treasure the time that we were able to spend here.

Getting good at the tagging game..

Here comes another tag compliments of Shelley....
What was I doing 10 years ago?
My freshman year at BYU with Mindy as my roommate, living in Heritage Halls, and enjoying college life!
What are 5 things on my to-do list today?
1. Go for a walk (wards off depression)
2. Take Jacy for her nine-month checkup (a month or so late)
3. Work
4. Take Daxton for a bike ride
5. Figure out what to have for dinner.......sigh
Five snacks that I enjoy?
1. Roasted red pepper and tomato soup (organic) with pretzel sourdough nibblers in it.
2. Low-carb sandwich wraps.
3. Lifesavers wintergreen mints and sugar-free jolly ranchers.
4. Sour patch kids and sweedish fish
5. Chocolaty-chip teddy grahams
Places I've lived
Utah (Sandy and Logan), Nebraska, Florida, London
5 things I would do if I were a billionaire
1. Pay off debts
2. Buy a house
3. Buy Ben a plane
4. Further my education
5. Try to live my life like I WASN'T a billionaire
(oh yeah, and give to charity and all that good stuff...)
Now I'm going to vary from the tag format and create one of my own:
5 of my Quirks/pet peeves
1. Milk carton expiration dates. I love to buy milk cartons with meaningful expiration dates on them, i.e., my birthday, anyone in my family's birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, etc.
2. Dirty microwaves. Gross. Admitedly, my microwave is currently not up to par, but seriously, how gross is it to open one up and see gunk all over from past microexplosions?
3. Syrup-smelling children. It completely grosses me out when little kids eat syrup for breakfast and then smell like maple for the rest of the day. Granted, eggo waffles are a favorite of my kids, and Jacy is the queen of getting syrup all over her hands and then rubbing it into her hair. I do my best to wipe her down and get it all off, but the end result is usually that she smells like maple, and it grosses me out.
4. Children with dirty fingernails. Gross. Having a calling in the nursery, I see a lot of these. I know it's not easy to get your kids to sit still enough to clip their fingernails, and I know there comes a point where something like this gets put low on the priority list, but I guess, for me currently, that's just one of those battles that I choose to fight. Well, in all honesty, it's a designated responsibility of Ben's currently, so I guess I should say it's a battle that I choose to have him fight. Regardless, I just want to vomit when I look at a kids' fingers and see a thick layer of dirt in each nailbed. Yikes!
5. Smelling gasoline. I really like the smell of gas. I like filling up the car and standing outside at the pump breathing in the air full of gasoline fumes. Weird? Yeah, I guess so.

The End of an Era

So, Ben got the "magic" phone call this morning. He was offered a job (WITH A CLASS DATE!!!!!!)at Mesaba Airlines! We are very excited about moving on from Delta Connection Academy and beginning the process of paying off the debt that we incurred coming out here. The airline is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and that is where Ben will do his six-week training course. After that, they should give him a line somewhere, possibly in Memphis, Tennessee? It's scary to think of leaving here. In our almost-five-years of marriage, we have moved multiple times, and our sojourn here in Florida has been the longest. It has been WONDERFUL! I am crying buckets just thinking about moving away. I have a new-found appreciation for warm weather that I never had before. I wanted to attach a picture taken of me when I was little that expresses exactly how I feel about the cold. Unfortunately, wherever we go from here is bound to be colder, maybe much, much colder. :(
So, stay tuned for more details as they unfold. We know very little ourselves. What we do know is that, in keeping with our tradition thus far, you will probably be looking at our blog next week and find that we have moved across the country, bought a new home, and had another kid (okay, probably not the kid part). We just like to make huge, life-changing decisions all at once, so that we can have the most stress possible in the least amount of time. I guess that's just how we roll! Cheers!

Jacy's first steps

One of my favorite stages in my children's development is when they start taking their first steps. I think it's so adorable! Jacy started taking her very first steps on my birthday. What a wonderful birthday present! Here's a video documenting the occasion. Yes, my hair is back to brown (the economy made me do it!). I left a few blonde streaks in just to remind me that someday I can go back to blonde :(

Happy Birthday Daxton!!!

Happy birthday Daxton! We were going to celebrate Dax's birthday this weekend with a neighborhood party, but we had a pleasant, unexpected, drop-in visit from Nana and Grandpa Kent, so we decided to have Dax's party last night instead. We had a great time! I think Dax's favorite present this year was his Nana. Those two are in love with eachother! We had a nice little party, and I have to admit, I'm a very proud of myself for the cake this year. Check it out.....Lightning McQueen in all his glory on a white cake with raspberry filling. It turned out better than I had expected it to, and I'm not gonna lie....I'm patting myself on the back over this one. I love decorating cakes! It is one of those things that I can do where I can get totally and completely lost and forget about time, myself, and the 700 billion dollar bailout plan........pure bliss! Anyway, thanks Nana and Grandpa Kent for the fun visit! We're still thinking we'll do a neighborhood party this weekend, just on a smaller scale and without presents or another stellar cake (due to time constraints). We love our Daxton, and we can't believe he is already 3 years old! Oh, and thanks Tiffany and Amy for the suggestion on the letter factory video. We gave it to him at his party, and he's already watched it twice and seems to really enjoy it.

Trick-or-Treating in Sea World!

We had a fabulous time trick-or-treating in Sea World today!! Originally, we were going to try to do the Disney trick-or-treat thing this year, but they start their celebration from 7pm to 12am, and we decided that the kids wouldn't hold up too well that late, so it wasn't going to be worth the extra money. Sea World, on the other hand, didn't charge any additional fee, and started their party from 11am to 7pm, which is the perfect time of day for our kids to play. Needless to say, Daxton was THRILLED at the whole event (so was I, as a matter of fact)! It was a candy-lover's dream. I was afraid that maybe they would be giving out cheap, crappy candy, but no.....sour patch kids, air heads, M&Ms, twizzlers, sweedish fish, and the coolest thing.......mini bananas! They were giving out entire bunches of mini bananas to people, which I thought was about the coolest thing ever (see picture below!). It was perfect for Jacy, and she muched through a bunch all on her own. Who ever knew that there was such a thing as a mini banana?
So, enjoy the pictures! The party goes on for the next several weekends, so if anyone wants to come on out here and join the party, you're always welcome! We love any reason to go out and celebrate the joy of sugar!

ON THE CAROUSEL

PLAYING WITH THE PUMPKINS

CUTEST GIRL

STUFFING FACES

EVERYTHING IS SO MUCH CUTER WHEN ITS MINI

TRICK-OR-TREAT!

ON A MISSION.......A MISSION FOR SUGAR!

DAXTON WITH THE WITCHES (A NERVOUS SMILE)

Happy Birthday to Us!

It's coming up on "birthday season" around here with a plethora of birthdays in October in both families, starting off with my cutest sister-in-law Laura today, then me on the 5th, then Rich on the 9th, then Daxton on the 11th, then Darren on the 12th, and last (but certainly not least!), Dootie on the 13th! Phew! That's a lot of birthdays! So, happy birthday to everyone! We played around with the idea of coming out to Utah to celebrate, but when we heard that you guys were going to get SNOW!?!#@! this weekend, we decided to "stick it out" here in our 80 degree, sunny, paradise! So, as I sat today musing on what we might want to get for Daxton this year on his third birthday, I dediced to "poll the audience" a little bit and ask around to see if anyone has any really good suggestions for toys for kids these days? Right now, Daxton LOVES to do puzzles, and I LOVE it when he does them because he can absorb himself in one for a good 15 minutes, and I think it's a good neuron-building activity. Honestly, these little floor puzzels that I got for him have been worth their weight in gold. You know, one of those toys that he asks for nearly everyday, takes up a good deal of time, and he never gets tired of them. Does anyone else have any experiences with toys/activities like that that their kids absolutely love that are somewhat brain-stimulating and relatively inexpensive? If anyone has stumbled onto any kind of "gem" I would LOVE the tips!