Morning conversation

This morning Charlie woke up early so he asked if he could play on the computer before breakfast. Since we had plenty of time I said sure. Well at 7:00 I put his breakfast out for him - his standard Waffles. After 25 minutes I was prodding him to hurry. I told him if he was going to dawdle eating breakfast he couldn't play on the computer. Straight faced he looked at me and said "mom, 25 minutes is how long it takes me to eat 4 waffles". John and I just looked at each other and started laughing.

When did he get big enough to back talk with his own ideas?

Today the kids watched ET for the first time. Annie was so scared for most of the movie then at the end both kids were so excited that he lived. After the movie, Annie came up to me and asked if we could have an alien like that come live at our house.

It is so fun to show the kids movies from when we were kids and have them love them. I remember seeing ET in the Theater, I was 7, Charlie's age when it came out!

Glove!!

So I was walking Annie up to her first practice for T-ball today and she looked up at me and said "mom, What is my glove for?" I tried so hard not to laugh. She was so cute at practice and is on a team of 12 4 year old girls - nothing could be cuter!!!

Last day!

Last night we drove back to Orlando for our flight home today. We booked the perfect hotel for the night - it was IN the Airport terminal. How great was it that the bell hop took all the luggage straight the to check in gate for us!!! It couldn't have worked out better.

We actually got up this morning and John took Annie & Charlie back to Universal Studios while I packed up the room and entertained Audrey. Around 11:30 I took Audrey over to the park and we stayed until the last minute! We left Universal at 2:00 to make it to the airport for a 4:00 flight. If we hadn't stayed at the airport it wouldn't have been possible at all.

We had a great morning at the park. They kids all got to go on their favorite rides again and we saw two more shows once Audrey & I got there.

Our flight home was uneventful and the kids did great on it! All in all we had a WONDERFUL vacation!!! We couldn't have asked for more or had a better time.

Jaxsons

After breakfast and our morning at the beach we went and picked up John's Nana and took her to Jaxson's. It a great old Ice Cream Parlor - it has even been on the Food Network as a featured restaurant. The decor is covered in funny licence plates and old antiques, you cram into packed tables and booths and the waitresses still wear striped uniforms.

We had a great lunch and afternoon with Nana. After lunch Nana wanted to get the kids a souvenir to take home and so they went to a shop near the beach and each picked out some great shells to take home. We spent a few hours visiting with Nana after that and she told the kids stories about when she was a kid. The kids loved hearing about it and how she used to take Nan and Uncle John to the beach when they were kids.








I had to post this picture of Annie and Charlie in front of the tree in Nana's front yard. Nana said she has lived in her house for around 54 years now and when they moved into the house the tree was just a little thing in the yard!

Hollywood Beach!

One of my favorite things to do when we lived in Florida and would visit Hollywood was go to Hollywood Beach for breakfast. This was something John remembers doing even as a very young kid on his vacations to Florida. There is something amazing about sitting at the open air boardwalk and watching people. There are lots of families, there are even more old men, all leathery walking around with way to little clothing. The thing that always fascinated me were the groups of old Italian men sitting at the restaurants early in the morning smoking their cigars and playing cards. They remind me of retired mobsters, just relaxing away the morning.

We took the kids down to the Hollywood board walk and had pancakes. Then we took the kids down to the beach. Again, they loved the water but there were jellyfish every where - they were manowar jelly fish washed ashore, it looked like the beach had been littered with blue balloons.

Hollywood!

This morning we packed up and headed out on the road. We drove down to Hollywood to see John's Nana and his Uncle John and family.

It was so great to get spend the afternoon with them. We really wish we lived closer and got to spend more time with this side of John's family. At Nana's the kids were amazed to see all the pictures of them and their cousins, Nan & Pop and Uncle Brett. They were confused at first but it soon sunk in that Nana was all of their Nana's. Nana has a bird, Sonny, that the kids loved!

We went over to Uncle John & Aunt Kelly's house for dinner. They were so kind to have us, especially with their family being so under the weather. Uncle John was so kind to all the kids. He has a pond with tons of turtles in it that Annie was facinated with. He let her feed them and touch them. John played some catch with his cousins. Caylin who was only 6 when I meet her is graduating from High School this year. Kelby who is just adorable had the same crazy hair Audrey has - maybe she gets it from that side of the family. John has always said Audrey reminds him of Uncle John.