30A

  Because we enjoyed going to 30A so much, when my brother and sister-in-law asked if we wanted to join them again the following week, I happily agreed.  It was the day before my brother departed on a business trip that would take him far away to a different kind of sandy place, so we were happy to spend the time with him.   And this time Andrew could come with us.  Yay!
  We met up at the same cute toy shop and had lunch right after.  Once done with lunch we went and rented our bikes, that way we could get an earlier start on our journey.  We went with the plan of going farther than we had gone the week prior, so an earlier start was key.

  Timing worked out well.  We were able to bike all the way down to Alys Beach.  It was nice, but not as nice as the beach in 30A.  We waded the beach for 10 minutes and then got back on our bikes to head back.
  The rest of our time was enjoyed at the beach.  We saw lots of jellyfish and sand dollars.  The girls had fun playing in the ocean and Ellie enjoyed digging in the sand.

  We headed out to grab dinner on the way home so my brother and sister-in-law could enjoy the evening alone together before he left the next day.
  Once home it was bath time for everyone to wash out all the sand.  If it weren't for the sand I'd send them straight to bed, but sand everywhere messes with my ocd.

Uncle Spencer's visit

  Uncle Spencer came back to visit us last month and it was great having him here. Kate and Abby totally adored him.  He stayed with Jared and Kristen the first 3 nights he was here and upon hearing that he was not sleeping in our guest bedroom, Kate was on the brink of tears. And since he has been gone Kate has asked for him a few times.  The last time he was brought up, Kate told Abby, "It's okay.  We'll see Uncle Spencer at Christmas."  After I told her Spencer would not be here for Christmas she asked, "Why not?  I want him to come though. I thought he loved us."  Haha!
  The timing was off a bit because Andrew was tdy the entire time.  He left three days before Spencer arrived and returned the day after Spencer left. The silver lining was that the girls were distracted from Daddy being gone a week and a half.
  The first 3 days Spencer was in town we went to a different beach each day.  It was a nice treat for me too because I had never been to these beaches either.
  The first beach that we went to was on the sound side of Hurlburt Field.  It was right next to Outdoor Rec and had beach chairs set up for free use as well as a sort of bouncy-castle-water-thing.  It was great.  There's a much larger bouncy-castle-water-thing set up that is closer to our house but I've heard it costs anywhere from $30-50 per person, for two hours.  Sounds like a rip off to me, but, if you wanna spend your money that way, go for it.  I will gladly relax at the beach for free.  And now that I know about Hurlburt's sound side, I can go there instead too!

Ellie really enjoyed playing in the water and it was nice that there weren't too many waves.

  The second beach that we went to was Oakaloosa Island. This was in a cool location with lots of places nearby at which to eat.  Ellie was quite entertained by the seagulls. 

  The third beach that we went to was down in 30A.  It was a 80 minute drive for me and the girls, something I would NEVER have done if the plans were up to me.  In my family's defense, the plans were passed by me and I agreed.  And I'm so glad that I did because it was my favorite beach and place by far.  There were so many cool shops and places to eat near by.  What totally won me over was the bike ride that we all went on.  There are bike paths all along the roads there so it was easy to travel by bike.  I haven't been on a bike in years and I quickly realized that biking is a happy place for me.  It was totally wonderful.

One of the shops that we found had a ton of cool, fun toys but because everything cost its weight in gold, we could not afford to buy anything.  This fluffy llama that Abby is holding up is the *softest* stuffed animal I have ever felt in my entire life.  It felt like a fluffy puppy.  If it didn't cost $65 I would've bought it. 

Like I said, cool and fun  :)

Kate went on a tag along bike with Uncle Spencer and loved it just as much as I did.

Right before heading out

The first few second of our magical ride:

Abby and Ellie were in a trailer attached to my bike

It was HOT but Abby told me afterwards, "Mom, that was fun."  Made my day that much better.

We got rained on while on our bike ride and because I hadn't sufficiently prepared, my phone got wet.  I didn't realize it until it was too late and was only able to snap this picture of the beach we went to and no more pictures of Spencer's visit.  :(  The beach was SO wonderful though.  When walking out to the ocean, there was a good 20-30 feet of water that was only 1-3 inches deep before it dropped off a bit.  Perfect for Ellie to be sat in to play and not worried about.  I'm telling you, it was perfect.  And to top off this wonderful day, I bought a "stuffed" snow cone to share with my girls. "Stuffed" in that it had a scoop of frozen custard at the bottom of the cup.  Amazing! 

  Like I said, I have no other pictures of Spencer's visit, however, we did have lots more fun even though it was undocumented.

  We went to Pensacola on Monday and walked around a very old cemetery.  The oldest headstone we found was in the late 1700s.  Afterwards, we grabbed some delicious lunch from The Tin Cow and headed to a nearby park.  We ate lunch as we waited for the solar eclipse to happen.  We tried viewing it from the pin hole viewers I'd made out of cereal boxes.  We didn't realize how bad they worked till someone offered us to look through her homemade craft.  It was a piece of glass that she'd held a flame to to smoke it up.  And it worked great.  The whole time Kate and Abby were running around the big trees and having a blast together.  After the eclipse passed we headed home.
  We went to the neighborhood rec center on Tuesday with Jared and Kristen and got to play a bunch of table games while we waited out a storm.  We were hoping to use the pool but had no luck that morning.  It wasn't what was planned but ended up being a good time together.  We successfully went to the pool that afternoon and then dropped Spencer off at the airport the following day.  

  I'm so glad we could have Spencer visit us and look forward to next time!

Butterflies

  I started a garden this year and not long after the plants were growing I noticed the beans and tomatoes not doing so well. Their leaves had lots of holes in them and the plants were withering. I looked around a bit and found this monster on the tomato plant:

  And these little guys EVERYWHERE on my bean plants:

  I looked them up and found out that the big one was a tomato hornworm which turns into a 5-spotted hawkmoth. The little one is a long tailed skipper caterpillar which turns into a long tailed skipper butterfly.  I decided it would be cool for the girls to watch them turn into butterflies (and a moth) so we put them into their various containers with some leaves and waited. The tomato hornworm made a cocoon fairly quickly and the other little caterpillars soon followed after.

  A few weeks passed and a huge mouth emerged from the cocoon that the hornworm had made.

  All the while, I continued to pick caterpillars off of my bean plants and add them to my container. We had quite a few butterflies emerge from the cocoons the skipper caterpillars made and the girls had so much fun setting them free outside.

  My bean plants are still suffering from the skipper caterpillars.  There seems to be a new batch of teeny tiny caterpillars every week that I just cannot keep up with.  I have stopped keeping the little ones when picking them off of the leaves but whenever I find a big caterpillar, I put it in a container in hopes that it will form a cocoon in a couple of days.  Next year I think I might just be growing flowers in my garden.

Where's my baby?!

  My baby has disappeared and in her place a walking toddler has formed. Ellie is walking everywhere. Like, everywhere! This baby doesn't crawl anymore! I still can't believe it. Last week she was crawling, this week she's walking. Something clicked on Sunday afternoon and she hasn't stopped since.
  And I don't know if I should pity Ellie or her older sisters. Every time she walks towards them they shriek in fear that their toys are going to be swiped or they gather their things up real quick and run away. So, should I pity them or poor Ellie who just wants to be with her big sisters but can't because they're constantly running from her? 
  I guess I shouldn't cast gloomy clouds over everything. There are rays of sweet, sweet sunshine. Like, when Abby is so happy and proud of Ellie for walking everywhere and beams from ear to ear as she tells me. Or when Kate "helps" Ellie walk by holding her hand. Or when they both rush to help Ellie up when she falls.  They all love each other so much, which makes my heart grow every time I witness their kindness. I'm one lucky momma.

Beach day

  The girls and I went to the beach today. It's been FOREVER since we had last gone. Like 2 1/2 months ish. Maybe more. Kate has been wanting to go for a while now, as have I, so even though it wasn't great beach weather we packed up and went anyways. 
  Kate and Abby spent 90% of the time splashing around in the waves. Ellie and I just hung out in the sand, digging. It was all going great till a nice little wave knocked Kate down and then another wave came up and washed right over her. Man, was she so not happy.
  After wiping away the tears and sand from her eyes she ran right back to the water. Twice more a wave knocked her down. These two times she screamed for me to help her. I would start running at her but she would jump right back up by herself, as fast as she could. She was so scared of being taken over by the waves again, she wanted all the help she could get. Poor thing.
  The last time this happened Kate was done and wanted to go home. I asked Abby if she wanted to go home and it was like she'd been having an awful time the whole time! Her bottom lip started to quiver and she whimpered, "yes! I want to go home, too."
  So we packed it all up, barely an hour later, and went home. Ellie did have fun playing in the sand but I guess we'll be going to the pool for the vast majority of the rest of the summer. Doesn't bother me too much though. It is a ton easier cleaning up after a day at the pool verses an hour at those sandy beaches.

Alligator Alley

  After talking to a new friend who has been here in Navarre for all of 5 minutes, I realized I need to get out and do more. If not for my sake, then for my family's. So we went to Alligator Alley up in Summerdale, Alabama this past Saturday. 

  The girls were looking forward to it very much, as were Andrew and I. Abby always talks about the alligators at the zoo here in gulf breeze and how the babies are "so cute!".  After looking at pictures online and seeing that you can hold a baby alligator, I knew we had to go to Alligator Alley.

  We arrived right as the feeding for the big gators was starting. The big ones are anywhere from 6-13 feet long. Pretty dang big. After the feeding we continued down the path where they had a pit of 1-2 year old gators and another pit of 4-5 year old gators. When throwing in a food pellet they crawled all over each other to get it, just like they do in the movies. It was cool. 

  They also had a lady set up at a picnic table with a one year old gator for anyone to hold if they wanted to. Of course, I was all about that and knew my girls would be too. ... Wrong! They were quite intimated by all the onlookers and just a little bit nervous about that baby gator. Andrew held the baby gator for a family picture and then I held it after him to show Kate and Abby that they had nothing to be afraid of. They weren't fooled, so we moved on. 

   The end of the cement path led to a bridge that went up onto a wooden path/bridge so you could walk "safely" around and above the gator infested swamp. The gators didn't bother me one tiny bit. It was the SPIDERS that terrified me. Like, massive spiders, everywhere! The size of your entire hand. It was awful. Right out of jarasic park. Like, this is where nightmares come true. 

  We noticed the spiders, like how could you not?, all the way back in the parking lot when we arrived. There were a few dozen spun up in between the tree tops. And once in the park, they were in the bushes and trees along the path. But when we were on the wooden walk way over the swamp, they seemed so in your face, it was terrifying. I told Kate and Abby that they were to stay in the middle of the path because the spiders were only a couple inches on the other side of the chain linked fence. So, absolutely NO touching the fence. 

   When rounding a corner Abby started to let her arm hang a bit too freely and she came within an INCH to touching a spider that happened to be on our side of the fence! Gaahhhh! I kinda freaked out and jumped back a few feet. I told Abby and Kate that if a spider got on them I'd run the other way so they'd better not get one on them, as my previous reaction had attested. Andrew believed me. 

  One minute after that encounter I was done. Too many monstrous spiders for me to handle. We headed back to solid ground.  

  On the way back to the car we stopped by the lady with the baby gator for the girls' second chance to hold it. Abby decided to give it a go. And she fell in love. 20 seconds after giving it back to the nice lady, she started to ask to hold it again. The lady was kind enough to oblige our 3 year old. 

  A second holding wasn't enough for Abby. She was sad the whole way back to the car because she wanted to hold the gator yet again. She cheered up after a bit and was proud she held the gator all by herself.  All in all, a great experience for our family.

CPR classes anyone?

  I got the scare of my life this week.  Probably THE scariest day of my life.  Little Ellie Mae turned blue.
  Wednesday was our last day of swim lessons. Ellie usually has somewhat of a rough time at swim lessons. They start at 10:15 and go till 11:40 so we're there from about 10-12. Ellie's nap time is usually at 11 so she's tired right when we get there. Once we get home it's a little after 12 so into bed goes Ellie.
  She got a good nap in on Wednesday. Once she woke up, I put her in her highchair for an afternoon snack and then down onto the floor to wander about once she was done.
  I started to cut up the watermelon that had been sitting in our fridge for a few days when Ellie crawled over to me. She loves watermelon so I gave her a piece. And another. And another. She was standing up next to me, clinging to my legs and wanting me to hold her so I yelled for Kate to come get her sister. She did and took Ellie into the toy room. 5 minutes later Ellie was back.
  I popped another piece of watermelon into Ellie's mouth to pacify her for the moment. It didn't work. I yelled for Kate again. She started coming but Ellie was choking on the watermelon in her mouth so I rinsed my hands, shook them off and picked up Ellie. By now I can tell she's choking on the watermelon pretty good. I lean her over the sink and wack her back a few times. She's turning purple and still hasn't taken a breath yet so I wack her back harder. Still nothing. All of a sudden she is as stiff as a board and blue. I put her right side up and I scream twice, really loud. I'm hysterical but trying to not totally loose my mind so I can help my baby.
  In my head I'm trying to remember how to do the heimlich and remembering if you don't do it right you can break ribs. It all happened in just a few seconds, from me turning Ellie right side up, the screaming, and all those thoughts running through my head. As this was going on, I hear the door to our garage open.  It's gotta be Andrew. I yell his name and he runs to me, takes blue Ellie, holds her so that her head is down at a 45 degree angle and wacks her back hard, about 7 times.
  Ellie coughs and then starts crying. Oh, thank you God!! Andrew tries to comfort Ellie and I cry. I cannot believe what just happened. All I want to do is hold my baby, so I take my Ellie Mae from Andrew and calm her down.
  The world is okay again.
  Talking about what happened with Andrew that night, I realized I need to be better prepared for emergencies, especially when it has to do with my kids' well being. My world would shatter if something happened to one of them.
  So onto CPR classes I go. And forever will I praise God for all the miracles, big and small, he has seen fit to bless me and my family with. With God and some extra learning on my side, I hope to be better prepared for the future.