Seattle

Cousins

Uncle Craig

Just try to keep her still. I dare ya!

Hudson

She also steals toys. Working on that. Poor Hudson!

Kissing bandit. She kisses everything.

A swiftly tilting planet

Sometimes things happen in life that make you feel like someone picked up your world and shook it. Hard. Then set it back down, but not in the right way. It was tilted. Not quite right.
I haven't been updating lately. I haven't even really been taking many pictures. I haven't wanted to sit down and post some pictures and pretend like everything is flowers, hearts and rainbows. I just didn't know what to say. The day we got back from Boca I got a phone call.

My mom has breast cancer.

It hurts.

Things have been moving so quickly since that evening. SO much has happened. Stella and I went to Seattle to be with family and try to provide some support.

My mom is fighting. It hurts.

Even though things like this change the world you live in, and how you exist in the day to day, it cannot define you. It cannot define a family. Yet, it still takes up a lot of room in the corners of your mind.

The last month or so have been a blur. My mom deserves some privacy walking this road, I just couldn't write or update without acknowledging it.

Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers. She has been down this road before and come out on the other end. That doesn't make the race any easier. Each road has it's own terrain.

She started chemo when we were in Seattle and will continue through that during the next few months. Again, please keep sending positive energy in her direction. We appreciate all the love, support and help everyone has given to her and us.

Stella and I were in Seattle just about 2 weeks. We didn't really spend time visiting with anyone except family, but that was what the trip was about. Tried to spend as much time possible with my mom and fit in some time with everyone else also. We split up time between staying with Carrie and Hill. An 18 month old doesn't really allow for rest so thankfully Stella got to spend some time with family while I helped mom out and then she also got to spend a little time with her too. Pictures to follow from the trip.

I love her.

Origin at Seahaven

Smelling the flowers
"Bawl" as Stella would say.

So after we checked in to our hotel it was a whole new weekend! We immediately took showers and relaxed on our patio. It made us enjoy it oh so much more. We did a little shopping at Pier Park and then went to dinner at Reggae J's. I had crab and Mario had a jerk platter. It was so good! After dinner we sat in the hot tub for a few minutes then got a great nights sleep in an amazingly comfy bed! Ahhh civilization! Beach time, then more shopping before heading home. Seriously one night there feels like a whole weekend. LOVE it!

***P.S.***

To further support my retirement from camping, when we got home I discovered I had a hijacker. A tick!!! Oh. My. God. GROSS! Mario got him, but this was my first and hopefully my last. Bleck.

Sugar High

Stella doesn't eat sugar. Of course there's no way to keep it completely away from her diet. The juice at restaurants, granola bars, natural sugars in real fruit etc. For the most part though she doesn't have any. No candy, cake, ice cream, fruit snacks, cereal well you get the idea. That being said this is just another reason why. Seriously this is not her normal behavior. I think it obviously affects her even more since she doesn't have it. She gets spastic when she's tired and she is VERY squirmy but this is like a poster video as to what it does to kids...I was shocked at how a few bites of s'mores could cause her to be SO spastic. Sorry Stella it's back to healthy eating for you kid!

Retired Camper

Setting up camp

This is what the tent is "supposed" to look like!

Campers!
Stella had her own little area with her pack and play, blankets and toys.
Playing in the sand

Look at all the kites!!!
It was very windy on the beach so there were a ton of kiteboarders. Who ignored the airplane that kept flying by with the sign to "Stay out of the Gulf"!
Lots of birds and wildlife

Stella roasted s'mores for the first (and last for a while) time.
Mario gave her 2 to 3 bites. More on that later. See subsequent video to come.
After the storm.

So we went camping last weekend with some friends of ours at the state park in Panama City. The state park is beautiful and the beach white sand, pretty water and some of the most amazing shells. The weather looked like it could be iffy. 40% chance of rain. Here that means nothing. They could say that and we won't see a drop or it could have torrential thunderstorms. Unfortunately in this case it was the latter.

Friday was fine, we got all set up, had dinner, hung out then around 10 the rain started. Fine, time for bed anyways. There was rain, wind and thunder pretty much all night. A tad overcast in the morning and pretty windy but the rain was gone. We headed down to the beach for a few hours but then just went back to our campsite and did "camping" stuff. A friend of ours that lives in Panama City came by and said a storm was coming in around 8, we got the same call from Mario's mom. They said there was another one behind it in the Gulf but that one would most likely miss us. We hurried and made dinner, roasted march mellows and put as much stuff away in the trucks as we could. Mario even called a few hotels. We debated just going and checking in but by almost 10 pm we hadn't even had a drop of rain. We figured it may have just missed us because it should have been there by now. We went to sleep and little did we know the 1st storm missed us BUT the 2nd hit us dead on.

Now mind you this is the storm that caused all the tornado's in Mississippi. We were right where it came ashore. About 1 AM it started, very very very windy. If you have ever been to Florida you know how hard it rains, imagine the hardest rain you have ever seen in Seattle. Now if you have ever been to the south you know how crazy the thunder is. When I first moved to Nashville I would sit on my front door step and just watch, it was like 4th of July. Kinda scary sometimes but you get used to it. Sideways thunder across the sky and SO loud the ground shakes. So about 3 am I grabbed Stella and brought her in with us. She was about 3 ft away sleeping soundly though all of this in her pack and play. The tent was blowing back and forth and it felt like the only thing keeping it down was us. Mario and I kept saying, should we get in the car? Well, 10 min after I grabbed her a tent pole snapped and the tent collapsed on our side. Mario held it up and grabbed his keys. I followed him to the car and sat out the storm. From 3 am til 7:30 we only had about an hours sleep. Luckily Stella slept more but we were all tired in the morning to say the least.
We were leaving that morning anyways so as soon as it was light we packed up the tent. We had already grabbed all our bags which I had had ready in case. All we had to do was wait a few hours until we checked in to our hotel. Which was pre planned. Sunday was our Anniversary and we had already planned to stay and check into our fave hotel that we like to go to every few months. This was the BEST idea. That drive home would have been miserable with how tired and dirty we were. Not to mention all our stuff was basically just thrown in the back of the car in no particular order. Part 2 coming soon....

Grounded for life

I have a feeling little Miss Stella Sassy pants is going to spend quite a bit of time in time outs.
She really is VERY sweet I swear. But when she is tired, watch out!