It has been my goal to get the blog updated from our trip down to FL before we left for CR, so that is really the point of this entry, so I will attempt to update you on the 10days we spent in Florida.
Before we went to Florida, celebrated Valentine's Day eating lunch with Pam and Dave. We enjoyed a Pesto Chicken Sandwich ring which Matt cleverly thought of making into the shape of a heart!
We had a blizzard, my first one ever, the day before we headed out and Matt took a picture of all of the snow that had drifted up on the road from our house.
One of Noah's favorite past times is exploring things in the kitchen cabinets and this was one of his discoveries.
He has also discovered that he can wear our shoes! This is him in my snow boots.
My gramma picked us up at the airport in her new (to her) little car and we were off to her house to spend the night at her house. The next day we headed to Gainesville to visit with all of the friends we have up there and this time we had the pleasure of staying in the Searby Inn. It was such a nice setup for us because Noah was able to sleep in Evan's packnplay in the closet which was practically sound proof and very dark which made for nice long nights for Matt and I. He has never slept better away from home. We headed to Harvest that night and enjoyed Family Fellowship Dinner with all of our friends from Church in Gainesville. Then we headed over to meet little Isaac who was born to our friends Jimmy and Katie. It was so good to get to share in the joys, and trials, of parent hood with our friends.
We spent the next day hanging out with Jen and Evan.
Evan and Noah enjoying baby einstein together.
Matt and Noah stayed home after lunch to give Noah is nap and the rest of us made a trip to Publix to gather the rest of the items for the Pampered Chef Party Jen was hosting for me that night. It was so nice to get to go back to Publix again and they even had our favorite limited addition ice cream back in stock, Coffee Toffee! That evening the Boys all headed out to the mall to hang out and Jen and I had lots of fun at a Pampered Chef show.
Friday we went to the Cyto lab and visited with everyone there, except Marbella wasn't there:( That evening, we went to the Bat House with some of our friends.
The bats all took a very strange pattern out of the house so we couldn't really get very good pictures of them, but we all had lots of fun anyway! I did however, capture a hawk on camera which had just grabbed a bat in its talons. The hawks had come for a feast that night, and a feast is what they got!
Jess having a peek-a-boo session with Noah
Noah pretending a bat just bit him!
All of us after seeing the bats fly...
Then we all, minus Jess since she was fasting, headed over to Jen and Joel's and enjoyed Jerk Chicken Nachos and Joel's famous Jambalaya, but not before I broke a pizza stone, melted a spatula and singed nacho chips on the stove. If you want more to that story just ask sometime...
The next morning Jen and I headed to Mother Earth to find a neti-pot and our quest was successful, especially since we also found Girl Scout cookies on the way home. That afternoon we attempted to take every out to Satchel's but the wait was long and we didn't know if the kids would make it so we opted to get take out and go back to the Searby's to enjoy it with our friends.
Evan and Noah trying on the bowl...
Jimmy felt left out, so we let him do it too...
These are all of our boys with our boys...and Krystle who could be having a boy, and since her boy Josh was already out of town, we had her stand in for him.
All of the girls...
We had a great time catching up on life and afterwards play a hilarious game of What if. So once again I have some questions to post...but first you have to understand the context of two breast feeding mommies, one finished breast feeding mommy and one mommy-to-be that plans to breastfeed so that was definitely a big topic... so read if you dare...
I am going to have to post this a little later because I have run out of time!!!
Q:
We left Gainesville and headed back to my gramma's house so that we could make it to church in the morning. We had a lot of fun being there on celebration Sunday and were there for the potluck until about 1pm. Then we headed down to JoAnns to meet up with my mom and Amy. Amy headed off to work at TGH and the rest of us went back to my mom's. Brilei and Noah had the most fun playing together, Noah chasing Brilei, then Brilei chasing Noah.
They laughed and we all laughed too.
The following day we headed to St. Pete and met up with Jen and Evan. We headed down to Ft. Desoto State Park and had a great time on the beach. It wasn't too windy or hot so I was actually able to stay out on the beach for the hour that we were there. We also took a picnic lunch along and ate together. It was one of the best days I have ever had at the beach. If you want to see some pictures, head over to Jen's blog. I haven't had the chance to get any pictures from her, but when we get back maybe I can. That night, my mom and I headed down to downtown Tampa to feed the homeless.
Tuesday we headed over to hang out with Amy and Brilei. We took a stroll around the block, played baseball in the yard, ate Cuban Sandwiches at Silver Ring and talked about the future. We really enjoyed getting to spend that extra time with my sis. When we left Amy's we took Brilei with us and headed to see Mema and Papa. We chatted for a while, took the kids out to swing, and then a storm rolled in so we went ahead and headed over to Leigh Anne and David's to visit with them. Shay and Noah had a great time playing house and Noah especially enjoyed vacuuming with Shay's vacuum. It is so cool to see our kids playing together considering, that is what we used to do.
Gramma came to my moms the next day and we hung out with her. Barby came over after my mom got home and we ate a wonderful meal of jambalaya, this time prepared by Matt. It was good too, and even Brilei liked it! When Amy got off of work, she came to pick up Brilei and joyed jambalaya and everyone enjoyed the 9min Pampered Chef cake I made the previous day.
Thursday we headed off to the Strawberry Festival. My gramma came with us and we met Amy and Brilei there. We had a good time hanging out and Brilei and Amy even went down the giant slide 2 times. Matt, Brilei and Noah rode the Merry Go Round and that was more of an adventure. That evening, we ate dinner with my mom teriyaki chicken salad, said our goodbyes and headed to Beth's and saw her for a brief moment, then up to gramma's to spend the night before leaving in the morning.
We made it back to Minneapolis safe and sound. Marque picked us up in our car, took the light rail back home and we headed to the Mall of America to eat, let Noah run around, and change our phone plan since we aggregeously went over on our minutes. We made it back to Clarksville in time to make an appearance at the Youth Center fundraiser. Then we headed down to Cedar Falls to a convention we attended at our church.
We had an amazing time there and were prayed over for blessings at the youth center. It was so nice to be lifted up in prayer especially when it can be so draining to work with the youth in Clarksville. One of the people who prayed over us felt that there would be another young couple joining forces with us to help minister to the kids in Clarksville and we are excited over this prospect and cannot wait to have them join us, so please help pray for that couple to come and join with us so we can help build upon what has been started.
Last night we had the pleasure of Dan and Lynn joining us for dinner and we had a great time sharing with them what we felt God doing in our lives and they were great to offer suggestions for things we may want to try. It is such a blessing to have a another sister now;) Wish all us sisters, Amy, Lynn, and soon to be Nicole could get together more often. Girl talk time is really essential at certain points...
As I finish this, it is drawing near time for us to load up and head out to Dan and Lynn's for the night and closer to when we leave for Costa Rica. Please remember to keep us in your prayers.
Ashley
1 comment:
It was so good to see you guys and we were glad you got to meet Isaac while he was still little. Have a great time in Costa Rica. We will be praying for you.
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