Swimming Lessons

Well this is the first time that the boys have done the "big kid" swimming lessons. If you remember correctly the parent classes were a disaster last year (lots of crying) and after Mason fell out of the boat last summer and was traumatized I held little hope that swimming lessons would be any more joyful this year. Sometimes God takes pity on you and life brings a pleasant surprise....they LOVE swimming lessons this year! They climbed right into the pool with the rest of the class and have a blast every week....whew! The Hamilton's signed Carson up for lessons at the same time without us knowing so we even get to visit with them two times a week...pleasant surprise #2!

The Trouble With Trees

The trouble with trees is they don't ever move out of your way. No matter how much he yelled and cursed at the tree, the tree was still there and Brock was still stuck on top of it. He was very mad that he had to wait for us to take pictures before we would pull him down off the tree....poor tree.

Vacation 2012-Part 2: Caribbean Cruise

One week of warm weather and sunshine is just never enough. This year James's parents joined us on a Caribbean cruise. The boys really enjoyed their week with grandma and grandpa and of course all of the free ice-cream cones!
We took a 4 hour snorkeling excursion during our time in Grand Caymen. They stopped at the sting ray city sand bar and two different snorkeling spots. The boys didn't want anything to do with the sting rays but we got pics of James kissing one.
In Cozumel Mexico we just hung out in port and took advantage of the crazy photo ops while Jim & Ann took a tour of the Mayan ruins in Tulum.
Belize City was sort of the same story. We wandered around the touirist area for a little while then spent most of the day playing in the pool and enjoying an empty ship.
Rotan Honduras was our favorite stop. They have an amazing beach so we just played in the sun and surf all day. The boys did way better in the water this year. We rented a couple of floaties and even grandpa was relaxing in the ocean.

Vacation 2012-Part 1: Busch Gardens

We had a perfect fight down Friday and even arrived in Florida with energy so we decided to hit the town for dinner. We ended up at Whiskey Joe's which had awesome food and would have been perfect if it wasn't so cold outside. Grandma and Brock totally rocked the Tampa club scene that night :)We decided to spend an extra day in Tampa so that we could take the boys to Busch Gardens. This turned out our to be money very well spent and most definitely of of the highlights of our vacation. It was a bit cold while we were there and even got down to 33 degrees one night. We got to Busch Gardens at 9am and didn't leave until 4pm. The boys went on every they were allowed to go on and they even rode "Air Grover" twice. This was a good sized roller coaster for such small kiddos. They had a whole Sesame Street area there so the boys got the hug all the characters and even got to tickle Elmo! They also loved all the zoo animals and the endless play structures. Another bonus for staying the extra say was we got to see James's cousin Cindy who lives in Tampa. Jim and Ann spent the day with her at the Florida state fair while we were at Busch Gardens and we just went out to dinner with Cindy and her family that night.

Puzzle Mania

The boys have been really into putting puzzles together lately, especially Mason. They can put together a 36 piece puzzle in under 5 minutes! Even if it's a brand new one out of the box. I guess we need to get bigger puzzles.

Shiny Teeth!

The boys had their first cleaning at the dentist. After watching daddy get his teeth cleaned a few weeks ago they have been very excited to get their teeth shined up too. They went to school afterwards and ran up to every single person on the playground to show off their "shiny teeth".