Home Turf

Saturday it was back to our "home turf".  We had a great but busy weekend.  Friday my friend Jenny and I took the kids to the children's museum.  Saturday we headed down to our beach, then Sunday we had a Birthday party for Mario's dad. Stella built sandcastles and Mario threw out the cast net and came up with some bait fish that could have entertained Stella for hours.  She had so much fun seeing them jump around and throwing them back.  She wasn't scared of them AT ALL!

Ewwww!

She actually still has a fish in her hand. Bleck.

Boy does this girl love the beach.  She sat in this hole and dug for probably an hour straight. Sometimes when I go get her in the morning her first words are, "Beach Mama"! The weather was gorgeous and we were talking about how we probably only have a few more weekends to be able to go and actually wear swimsuits.  I always wish for the heat and humidity to go away but once this weather gets here I wish it would just stay forever but all too soon it's gone and the cold is here.  For now though, we will enjoy it.

On another note I have a Mammogram this week.  To much information for this blog, I know.  There are 2 reasons I am bringing it up.  1 is to throw it out there to the universe for positive energy. 2 because it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and I want to say if you are saposed to go and have been putting it off GO.  If you have never had one and have been putting it off please GO! If you have them every year and are just procrastinating GO! Early detection in anything health related is so important.  If you have a family history they recommend starting them at 35, but there is also something to do with the age of diagnosis so ask your Dr. what they recommend. This is close to home though.  Mom will be done with her 33 radiation sessions next week.  Her treatment will be done and hopefully she can head down the road to recovery.  There have been a lot of health scares/issues with family this year. Mom included.  I think for this reason I am scared. Irrational most likely, I know.  You can't help how you feel though.  I think if it were a gall bladder test or something that wasn't so close to home I wouldn't sweat it.  This though is heavy on my heart this week. I also hate tests that don't give immediate results, you have to wait for the Dr. to call you. Cruel and unusual punishment. So for now I am going to soak up my most wonderful baby girl and enjoy every moment. 

Recovering from the Mouse





They have all sorts of activities for adults and kids at the condos we stayed at.  The last morning they brought down ice cubes with little plastic bugs frozen in them and released them in the kids pool.  Stella had a great time trying to catch them.  What a great idea and I'm going to copy it, well probably NEXT summer! They filled up water balloons and then put the bugs in the balloons and froze them. After they were frozen they took the balloon off the ice cube which left a ball of ice with the bug frozen inside.  The ice cubes floated around and melted fairly quickly but the kids had a great time finding the "bugs"!

Stella loves the beach chair Nana got her! Perfect size!

We were wiped out after Disney and spend the last 2 days at the Beach and Pool!  Lots of relaxing going on and recovering from our Disney hangover.

There was an air show that weekend so we got to see them practicing out over the water most of the afternoon. Other then being a tad loud at times it was so cool to watch!

Stella surprised us the last night, as she figured out how to get out the pack and play.  She has yet to try with her crib at home but the only place we could put it in the room was right next to the bed. She had been "asleep" or quiet for about half an hour and we were sitting watching TV in the living room.  She got out of the pack and play, opened the door and walked right out into the living room. She was quite proud of herself.  This led to a 3 hour stand off between her and I. I tried laying down with her and she just wanted to play.  I put her in the pack and play and she would just get in and out. She thought it was a game. Finally I just had to put her in and sit there on the bed Super Nanny style, putting her back in if she tried to get out. She even outlasted her Dad who fell asleep on the couch while all the fun was going on in the bedroom. Poor girl was probably funned out and overtired but Mom was pooped after she finally was out.  There went our last relaxing evening from 8-11.  Phew.

There was a lot of fun to be had by all on this trip but not a lot of sleep.  Mario is a morning person and would get up at 6ish every morning. He does this at home on weekends. Are you kidding me? Anyways, I have a hard time sleeping once I'm woken up so up with the sun it was.  The plus side was getting to see some amazing sunrises.

Seriously breathtaking...

All in all a great trip to end the summer.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming shortly...

Disney World!

OK, this is probably going to be a tad long. Like I had said we took a ton of pictures! I grew up going to Disneyland and I was excited to get to finally go to Disney World. It was the first time for both of us (Stella & I)! Mario, of course, had been there before but it had been quite a while since he had been to the Magic Kingdom park.  It was similar but different compared to Disneyland. I can't wait to check out the other parks sometime down the road.  It is a HUGE area that encompasses Disney, Universal, Sea World & a few others.  We're talking probably 7-8 exits off the Freeway. Disney World was all decorated for Fall/Halloween. Of course they do everything over the top and it was beautiful and SO colorful. 

You have to take the tram then monorail to get to the parks.  Stella didn't seem to excited until we walked into the park.  Her eyes lit up and were as big as saucers. She was just looking all around at everything. It was so cute.

The longest line we waited in all day was for the Fairies.  There was no way we were going to miss that though so we waited in the hour long line.  Luckily since it was a weekday in off season there wasn't much of a wait for anything.  I think the most we waited for a ride was 15 min and some had no wait at all. 

The second we walked into "Pixie Hollow" Stella tried to run up to Tinky.  Mario had to stop her and she was yelling, "Tinky, Tinky" across the room! Although when we got up to talk to her I explained to Tinkerbell that Stella called her "Tinky".  She told me that she preferred Tink or Tinker. Oh, oops. OK, Sorry Tinky. :)

After the Fairies we visited Mickey and Minnie's houses.

It's a Small World & the Teacups were closed temporarily so we missed those. Stunk because those were two I was looking forward to. The Teacups was always my sisters favorite.  It's OK though, I think we did more then enough rides for her. We went on about 4 or 5.  She enjoyed looking at everything more.  I think her favorite rides were Aladdin's carpet ride and the Winnie the Pooh ride. We saw a parade and a show and she LOVED those!

I have some great video of them dancing I may post later. SO cute!

Aladdin's Carpet Ride!

Stella was really good all day.  We kept seeing kids crying and screaming and she didn't have a meltdown once.  All in all it was a GREAT day! Very special & so many great memories.  She's still talking about it. :)

We took the rest of the time just relaxing.  I'll finish up the trip soon but right now I need to corral the toddler and catch up around here!

Daytona Beach!

This was the view from our balcony! Ahhhh!

I didn't really know what to expect from Daytona Beach. I of course knew that it was popular for spring break and the races but other then that I wasn't sure. It was beautiful.  We got off the freeway a few hours before Daytona at St Augustine and took A1A up the coast.  It was a pretty drive and even though it took about 2 hours longer it was worth it.  It usually is about 4 hours from here to Daytona but it took us about 6 going the longer way.  I want to thank Mario's mom and step-dad for letting us use the time share.  They weren't able to use the whole week so they graciously gave us the 2nd half.  The view was beautiful and right on the beach.  At night we would sit out on the patio and listen to the waves.  Stella is such a beach baby.  If we are inside she says, "Mama...I wanna go beach, I wanna go poo! (Pool)" :)
She loves chasing birds, playing in the sand or just running around. The first day we took a long walk, built a "sandcastle", ate dinner in and crashed early. 

We had planned on driving over to Orlando to check out the area but right before we left Mario threw out the idea of Disney.  So he told me we would have to choose. Duh! That's an easy one! We've been thinking about a Disney trip off and on for the last few months and this just seemed to be the perfect opportunity.  We were only 45-60 min away from Orlando.  Aubrey couldn't make this trip because it was in the middle of the week so we wouldn't have to juggle teen vs toddler rides etc and could just enjoy Stella's first Disney experience.  Aubrey gets pretty annoyed doing "little kid" stuff and Stella loses her patience doing "big kid" stuff.  Sometimes it gets tiring trying to juggle.  We are still talking about doing a family trip but it would be longer and multiple parks.  So we called the Disney Vacation Line the night before to get our Florida resident tickets.  I didn't think I was going to be able to sleep I was so excited...I love the memories I have of Disneyland from when I was a kid.  Mario said it was like going with two 2 year olds!  Part 2/Disney World pics to come!