Dolphin Cruise

Last year we booked a Dolphin Cruise, and not once but twice it was rained out. We ended up leaving the tickets for my brother and sister in law to use after we left. This year I almost booked that same cruise but I am so glad I didn't. We found a better price and what I think was the friendliest and family oriented places in Orange Beach. We paid $12 bucks and spent close to 2.5 hours on the water. The staff was friendly, yet reminded our kiddos when to sit :). They would motion to the kids about which side to get on and they loved telling us all about the dolphins. They played family friendly music the whole time and helped kiddos and mommas with life jackets and getting in and out of the boat. It was super laid back and I would highly recommend "Surfs Up" Dolpn Cruises in Orange Beach, right beside Cobalts.

Super excited  to finally go on our dolphin cruise!!!

It was hard to get a picture of Goober as he ran from one side of the boat to  the other. He loved standing up on the bow and then hanging onto the metal railing. 

They followed us for 10 solid minutes TWICE jumping in and out of our wake. 

There were baby dolphins as well and most of them had pink bellies!

Family selfie and as usual Ribbit is in her own world. 

Apparently riding in a boats wake is like bodyboarding for a dolphin, requires very little energy and is a lot of fun!

Afterwards we went and ate lunch with Uncle Paul and Mason and then headed to the beach for some kite flying and frisbee throwing. What an awesome day!!

More Vacay-forgotten post!!!

Saved this as a draft and never published it....WOOPS!!!

The day that we left Fairhope we decided to head down to the pier so that the kids could see some fish and the bay.

The kids got to see people crabbing and fishing. They also got to help pick up the fish that were caught in nets and put them in a bucket. They found treasure in the water and fed the birds with bread that a sweet worker from our hotel saved for the kiddos.

Getting smooches down by the bay!!

We found this awesome painted wall in downtown and took several pictures. Here are some of my favorites!! Christmas card maybe?

On the very first morning of the beach part of our vacation the sun was brightly shining and we jumped at the chance to eat outdoors....most of our meals were eaten outside :). Check out those morning curls!

MOM!..its way to bright and early for a picture!

My mom and dad stayed at the beach with us for the first two days and last night. They loved getting out in the water with CC and Papa. The littles wore their floaties at all times at the beach but took turns taking them off when an adult was in the pool beside them. By the end of our vacation Baby Boy was swimming underwater with goggles on and Ribbit was jumping in and taking her time walking around the shallow in....BIG STEPS FOR BOTH OF THEM!

Beautiful weather. Only 3 of us got stung by jellyfish all week long, other than that just lots of sand burns from the waves :).

This little thing could play in the sand all day long!! She loved making drip castles and "polka dot castles".

Baby Boy out on a boogie board with CC and our friend Emma.

We made friends very easily on the beach, as I am sure most people do. We found some families who were there for the same time as us and our kids played together on most days. They loved catching the small fishies and keeping them in a bucket..poor little fish didn't stand a chance.

One is silver and the other gold

Make new friends, but keep the old....one is silver and the other gold.

It's such a blessing to have old friends, as in from childhood, definitely not old as in age..girls we are not old :)!

 I love that anytime I am within 100 miles of my hometown I am getting bombarded by invites to come meet up, hang out, make play dates, go to dinner, get coffee or just hug a neck real quick. These friendships don't take any time to get right back where we left off. I love that we rush up, hug necks, and normally pick up on our last conversation or immediately begin to retell our FUNNY, EMBARRASSING, AWKWARD middle/high or college stories.

As if that wasn't PURE GOLD, now we all have kiddos that we get to watch play together, declare best friendships over (after 10 minutes), pull off of one another in a wrestling match (after 10 minutes) and compare to their mommas :).

While we were at the beach we invited over Allison and Sarah and their kids for a beach day. Unfortunately that was the one day that we had awful, stay inside all day weather which meant that we had 6 kids inside the condo. It would have been 8 but they both left their youngest with grandparents. As the ladies caught up on life and continuously yelled things like "don't hit your sister, stop running, don't aim the gun at peoples faces, stop jumping on the beds" our kids ran circles around the condo squealing in pure delight...and poor Adam was official referee.

At one point they were running laps around the condo through two sets of glass doors shooting guns and screaming like banshees. Well, one glass door got shut and poor Sophie ran smack into it as all the adults watched and quickly tried to cover our laughter. Adam yelled at her to let him know when she planned on doing that again so he could film it and get rich ;). Poor girl, but as her mom quickly reminded us of her own grill+hamburger+youthtrip+glass door fiasco it all made sense. Sophie quickly rebounded and was back to herself in 2 minutes flat.

It was also super adorable that Charlie and Baby Boy showed up in the same exact same Ninja Turtle swimsuit...which meant that they were instantly connected at the hip. Baby Boy never left his side and cuddled up to Charlie's momma when he did to watch a movie.

Eventually the rain stopped long enough for the kids to jump in the pool ....they were shivering and poor Caroline had blue lips but they didn't let that stop them from SWIMMING. We also got to walk down to the beach and collect some stellar shells.

It was a wonderful day spent watching our kids and talking to them about our times together as little girls. Its amazing how much food they went through too..I made a huge stack of blueberry pancakes and bacon and let me tell you that not one adult got to eat pancakes or bacon. We all got pretzels and edamame...boring adult food :).

I'm so thankful for the blessings of friends I have in both TX and AL.

Watching the storm roll in...sweet little things.

Super best buds already.

Finally swimming time!!

Putting down some grub out on the balcony!! Caroline has on Ribbit's dress as "dress up time" had just ended. They also found a tampon in my purse and asked how it worked :).

Cuddles with Charlie and his momma.

This picture reminds me of another picture of the three of us running on the beach during our spring break of our senior year. We had a blast with 5 other girls in a beach house that year. Who knew that 12 years later we would be on the same beach with 6 of our 8 kiddos enjoying life and still loving on and encouraging one another. LOVE YOU BOTH!!!!

Great Wolf Lodge

An attempt to get us all in front of the lodge sign!

We sure do love GROUPON!!! Seriously, I have been so impressed with all of the local deals we get through Groupon and Living Social. I get them for DFW and both of our parents cities so that when we are visiting them we can get good deals as well.

I was able to book the WOLF DEN for a great price with Groupon!! The kids were thrilled that they had their own little room and wait for it..THEIR OWN TV(i bet they watched 20 mins top..and that was to let mom and dad sleep in a little longer!!!

I bought the Great Wolf Lodge Groupon knowing that the kids would have a blast and planning it as our "SCHOOLS OUT FOR SUMMER CELEBRATION!!". They had no clue where we were going until we drove up the lodge, and even then I had to point to a sign and get Goober to read it out loud...then all the commercials came flooding into the minds and they were ready to go!!!

We booked it for a Thursday night, knowing that weekends are probably super crowded..and we were right...as we left Friday night the crowds started rolling in.

The two littles LOVED their slides! They would sneak past the lifeguards and ride them together, even stopping mid slide to turn around backwards. Adam and I were always right there in the pool with them but we would just laugh and laugh at the teenage boy who kept trying to make them mind with whistle blows and throwing his hands up :). Don't worry we disciplined but only after we chuckled and got a picture!

Some of my favorite memories from the weekend was listening to Ribbit talk about how she felt like Jesus in the wave pool? "mommy, remember when Jesus calmed the storm, well every time the waves stop its like he is calming the storm again". Another was Goober running up to me on Friday morning (we were back in the waterpark the minute it opened) and said " I MADE A FRIEND"..its honestly something he tends to struggle with..he doesn't like to ask others if he can play with them, he wants to be invited. To make things even better, HE KNEW THE KIDS NAME!!! I mean we have gone to the same church for 3 years now and he still refers to some kids by their looks or by their hair do...its ridiculous. Anyways, he and BRANDON were instant best buds and bonded over their love of riding the slides back to back to back and then jumping in the lazy river to "rest". Baby Boy LOVED that everywhere you went you heard wolf howls...I MEAN EVERYWHERE, everyone does it and eventually you do it too. The wolf howling is also everyone's signal that the wave pool is getting started again and so everyone listens for it and then makes a mass run to the pool!

Mom and Dad got to enjoy some hot tub time..with the kiddos of course. They would play Zombie in there and fall over backwards like they were dead so they didn't splash the other adults in the hottub. Don't worry, we only stayed in for 10-15 mins at a time!

Yup, shooting water at their butts brought loads of laughs!

Apparently this is how wolf mommies and babies give kisses. You can see my fantastic meal in front of me. Grilled lamb wrap with roasted potatoes...YUMMY, we will definitely be going back to Tazikis again...about 10 minutes from the Lodge.

We couldn't have picked a better time to go, it was 55-65 degrees and rainy the whole time we were there and we just watched it pour as we sat in the indoor waterpark in our bathing suits playing in the pools, jumping in and out of the hot tubs, exploring the water huts and relaxing in the lazy river. 

They wanted to take a picture with EVERY SINGLE STATUE!

I love the "stinker" face Baby Boy is making, totally him!

These two could LIVE in the wave pool. They loved it when we would hold their hands and let them jump the waves or just hold them from being pushed around..MY ABS were SORE to the touch the next day from having 40 lbs on either side and lifting at every wave...YEAH!

You can see Adam and the kids waiting for the waves to begin in the distance. I got cold and decided to snuggle up with my towel and some summer reading...you can see that I got super far since Page #1 is folded down to mark my place ...hehee.

This was the only way I could get pics of Goober..chase him from slide to slide and try to catch him as he came out of the tubes. You can see his silhouette and his buddy leaning over. I bet they rode this 10 times in a row but I never knew which tunnel they were coming out of and when!

Mission accomplished!!! You know that the fun level is high when your 3 year old asked to take a nap. This was Friday around 1. We only made it about another 1.5 hours before heading home. We spent a total of 8 hours in the waterpark between Thursday afternoon and Friday so all 3 kids were out before we got home...a 20 min drive :)

My favorite!

Ending kisses with my sweet wolf cub.

Chris and Micah

I've mentioned that my brother is getting married this summer on June 5th a few times. I'm not sure that words will give justice though to how excited I am to gain a new sister in law, especially this one. She and my brother love each other deeply, enjoy one anothers strengths, challenge each other to grow in their weaknesses and want to honor the Lord with their lives.

My parents, maternal grandmother, me and the happy couple.

The story behind their meeting is a God story as well. They met through church, while both are living in Alabama going to school. However, I had already met her family back in Texas as her little sister had recently began attending the school where I teach. It was a crazy connection between our two families and I felt like God was in a very strange way answering my constant prayer of "give us family in Texas please!".

Micah's sisters, parents and the happy couple. I made their sign a long time ago after seeing one on pinterest.

It was evident that after a few months of dating that Micah was the one for Chris, they both knew it. However, as dating usually goes, they needed to wait to get engaged until schooling was done and they had things in place financially.

Ummm, can you say cutest picture ever. My mom knew that Micah loves doughnuts so she ordered those instead of a cake for the shower. Their shower invitation is framed in front of a white and dark chocolate with sprinkles doughnut and they are their normal model looking selves in the background. This is THE PERFECT PICTURE!!

Chris proposed in a very intimate sweet way to Micah last August and then immediately drove her 10 hours out to Texas so she could show off her ring to her family ..and us ;). We threw them their first wedding shower this past weekend and I love that so many friends and family showed up to support them and pray blessings over them.

One of the personal touches at the shower were M&Ms with their names, I Do and one of their engagement pictures on them;).

Happy couple with the hostesses, my mom, our family friend Lani who had it at her home (THANK YOU LANI AND WES!!!), me and my beautiful Aunt Robin (my dad's little sister).

We had both families well represented with cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, nieces and nephews :). They also had several friends from church, work and school there ...as well as a surprise visit from one of Micah's bridesmaids from NY.

A vacuum from my parents, I think they were laughing at the fact that Chris probably has no clue how one of these contraptions work :).

Opening monogrammed kitchen towels from Micah's parents.

Another sweet monogrammed gift from Micah's parents...Eat Pray Love Apron.

I was a tad worried about how my kids would behave during the shower...but, they were fantastic. They played with the other kiddos there, entertained themselves with skillets :) and made sure that the M&Ms and doughnuts weren't wasted!

Their love story!

We all had so much fun watching them open gifts and hearing their comments about how this would help them establish a home together. The grandparents and parents were all smiles as they watched them love each other and mingle with their guests. I was just giddy that I was able to help them celebrate as I thought it would be virtually impossible living 10 hours away. I am so happy for the addition of Micah to our family and for the aunt my kids are getting and the sisters I'm getting (I'm totally claiming Trin and MB too....MB and I have been claiming each other as family since she was in my 9th grade art class two years ago!!!).

A set of knives!

Micah's grandparents

My families gift to them, a drill and interchangeable screwdriver.

A gift from Lani and Wes, a key to their heart pillow :).

The doughnuts really did steal the show...Along with my cute boy and sweet aunt!!

The happy couple with the "bride and groom" sprinkle doughnuts.

I'll end this post with my sweet sweet girls picture. This was her 2nd doughnut of the day..but it was not her last :). She was the perfect little hostess and made quick friends. She has been on cloud 9 since we got here and as usual has been narrating her life as well as everyone else around.