Camping Take 2

 She's very serious about sand castle building!

 She brought her friend Bella a present and was so excited for days before to give it to her.

 Dirty, dirty, dirty.

 We wiped them out every day.

 Seriously, must you lie in the dirt? By the end of the trip I had enough dirt to last me a year.

 SO cute! She's a bird!

 Catching fishies.

 A little down time on the beach.

 Mario and Bret were taking everything down the morning we were leaving and he had told Aubrey a bunch of times to get up and bring their stuff out of the tent. Finally they just picked up the poles and collapsed the tent. We were wishing we had got it on video. It was quite funny.

 Really, have you ever seen dirtier shoes? Does she look like she minds? Nope, not at all.

Aubrey and her friend Mariah.

So I think it's safe to say camping is not my "thing".  Our trip last year was quite eventful so I thought maybe this time it would grow on me more if there were no hurricane or collapsing tents in the middle of the night. Nope. The funny thing is that we went camping every summer when I was growing up. It's a lot of work for a "vacation" and I don't think I have felt dirtier in my entire life, even after taking a warm shower. The second night we had a raccoon try to scale our tent. I kid you not. Now Stella, she had an absolute blast. I think Aubrey had fun too although we didn't see her and her friend all that much as they tried to stay as far away from us at all times. Well, except when we pulled out the s'mores. It was really beautiful though and is the island we got married on. It was nice to visit with our friends also and the kids had so much fun getting dirty, playing and hanging at the beach. It's safe to say Momma prefers a nice clean pool, hotel room or boat and she's as happy as a clam...and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that fact. :)

Busy Bees

 Doesn't that look just say "Trouble".

 Not quite sure...

 Big girl

 She looks like she is about to bust out in a break dancing move!

 Loving her pool!

 Silly girl!

We've been busy lately. Nothing too exciting. Just life. Spring break just passed for Aubrey and we went camping for a few days. Aubrey brought a friend and our friends met us on the island with their kids so we had 9 total. Chalk that up to a week. It takes a few days of prep and packing, 4 days of camping then 2 days of recovery, unpacking, laundry and cleaning and there's over a week right there! I'll post those pictures soon!

Stella is getting to be quite the entertainer. Sunday afternoon we were out to lunch. As we were walking out a man at a table stopped me to say what a beautiful smile Stella had. What a sweet man and a sweet compliment! He was sitting at a table of about 20 people. They all started waving to her. She threw her hand up in the air and enthusiastically was waving to everyone. Suddenly she burst into some dance moves. As everyone started to laugh she was encouraged and I guess decided to pull out her special move. The downward dog. Yep, she bent over with her little behind in the air. When this produced even more laughter from the crowd she raised up as high as she could go on to her tippy toes. Then stayed there, as I explained that they did yoga moves at the end of her library class. She finally stood back up and with a few final waves and smiling ear to ear she walked out. It was hysterical!!!

The next few months should be fairly busy. A lot of stuff with Aubrey going on. We think my Mom is making a trip out the end of April or so and we are trying to maybe fit a cruise in somewhere either April or May but we'll see. Scheduling is making it a little difficult but hopefully we can work something out. Summer will be here before we know it. Crazy.

J'aime la France

So I spent a few months with the Lusks in the South of France a few years back.  I had stored my approx. 1000 photos from the trip somewhere on our computer when I transferred them from an online photo sharing website. Occasionally I think about the photos and wanted to print them out and make an album. Last weekend I set out to find them on our computer. Which I did, Yay! Now I am going through them, doing some editing, deleting, etc.  Now I like a heavy edit, for prosperity sake if I'm printing out physical copies or making a book I leave them pretty true but I pulled some out and did some playing around. We actually have a few of these blown up in frames around the house along with some I had taken in Hawaii also. The quality could be much better as these were just taken with a small point and shoot.  It was amazing to be immersed in the French culture not to mention, it is absolutely gorgeous! We lived in Juan Les Pins which is a little town by Nice, Cannes & Monte Carlo. During the time we were there they had both the Cannes Film Festival and the Grand Prix. Beautiful!

View from our patio





I found myself a nice French boyfriend...Just Kidding! We couldn't resist getting this hubba hubba on film.

Cannes

Antibes, a small fishing village with GREAT restaurants and even better ambiance. Best Thai food EVER.

The neighborhood restaurant we ate at all the time.

Fort in Antibes

In Biot, a glassblowing village.

Monte Carlo

Casino in Monte Carlo

View of Monte Carlo built into the hill...breathtaking!

This is a view of Monaco. Where the palace is located straight ahead is it's own city of Monaco but it really is pretty much part of Monte Carlo. If you panned right in this picture you would see the view of the picture above.

View the other direction

More glassblowing.

Kams birthday!