Top 10 From the Last Month

We have had a busy month and a half since our last post.  To catch you up here are our top 10 (or so) in chronological order:

1.     Sept 11: Blue Angels Practice on the Naval Base in Pensacola.  Bobby and I didn’t know what to expect, but we both couldn’t stop smiling.  It was AMAZING!  The pilots performed so many cool tricks and maneuvers.  At the beginning of the show they made a ribbon in the air out for remembrance of 9/11. Amelie and Liam were also entertained with the nearness of the planes and the loudness of the engines. In speaking with some of the locals afterwards, we were surprised by some very critical reviews.  Since we were novices, we didn’t know all of the technical distances the planes had to be or their exact routine. I guess you could say that we were easily amused.  However, others were disappointed by the lack of discipline of the pilots in performing an accurate routine.  I couldn’t help but make an analogy out of this. Thinking this served as just another reminder that perspective in life is important…both for focusing on what is important in life and for making sure you are focusing on the right things. It is easy to become so pin holed in your focus that you miss the greater picture and the awe of all that is surrounding you. 

2.     Sept 14 – 19: Nanny Visit. It was a treat for everyone in the family to have Nanny around. She spoiled Amelie and Liam with lots of attention. She also spoiled us by treating us to a couple of eating out experiences.  We had a take out shrimp feast on the porch one night and Bahama Bob’s another night.  We were able to explore Fairhope, which is a coastal city about 30 minutes from us.  It was nice to have family around to be able to show off our day to day.

3.     Sept 23 – 26: Aunt Sarah Visit.  A huge highlight from Sarah’s visit was that she and Amelie had a lemur experience at our zoo.  They sat in a cage with around 5 lemurs who were playing and jumping around and on them for around 30 minutes. The zookeepers allowed Liam to be apart of the fun for a couple of minutes near the end.  Both kids enjoyed being able to touch and let the lemurs climb all around them.  Another highlight of Sarah’s visit was meeting up with some of her friends who now live in Gulf Shores. It was fun hanging out with another family in the area and learning the ins and outs of the area.

4.     Sept 27-29: Daddy-daughter adventure to St. George’s.  Bobby’s brother, Daniel rented a house on St. George’s island and invited us to come.  Bobby was looking forward to having some quality time with his brothers (Daniel and Stephen), Sarah, his dad, and Karen. However, on the way to St. George’s island our cars transmission decided to go out.  Amelie was a great sport and Bobby was able to push through and not let irritating car problems dampen the entire trip.  Amelie enjoyed the required frequent breaks to let the transmission cool down. She ate lots of icecream (chick-fil-a and dairy queen), shopped at Bass Pro Shop and got a Mickey Mouse fishing pole, and other fun eating out stops. She also had her first experience with bubble gum (it was a positive one).  While Bobby and Amelie were away, Liam and I enjoyed a lot of quiet. We spent time on the beach and on long walks.  We were very happy when they arrived home safely!  

5.     Fishing:  Amelie is quite the fisherwoman (she must learn her skills from her dad!).  She catches a lot of pinfish off the peir in the lagoon.  We now have a fishing pole for Bobby, Amelie, and myself.  Bobby’s new official hobby is fishing.  Like all hobbies, Bobby is learning everything he can about fishing in the Gulf.  His research and quest for knowledge has paid off as he recently caught 38 Whiting.  We are enjoying his hard work with delicious meals of fish tacos. 

6.     Crabs:  Bobby has worked at mastering the art of crabbing as well.  He caught so many crabs and was excited about his first crab dinner.  However, it took a little longer to prepare the meal that he ended up polishing off the crabs on his own.  

7.     Park:  There is a really nice, shaded wooden park near us.  Liam teeters around the park while Amelie likes to pretend to be a princess in the castle towers.  With the beautiful weather, we have spent many hours enjoying the park.  

8.     Trash: This is silly, but taking the trash down to the dumpster is always fun. Both kids get on their bikes as we dispose of our trash. We usually make a couple trips down each day as dirty diapers are better kept out of the house. We stop and look at the peir…birds, water, etc. I wonder how we will take the trash out in Paris…

9.     Zoo time:  Like I mentioned before, the weather has been great!  We will often stop by for an hour or so to watch the animals. We have a season pass so it’s an easy thing to do.  We love the tigers.  There are 3 cages of tigers and they are beautiful. You can stand 5 feet away from them with just a chain-linked fence keeping you apart.  We push Liam on his bike which sounds like the wagons that the zookeepers bring the food on.  One day Amelie, Liam, and I were standing watching one of the tigers pace back and forth in front of us when all of a sudden it stood up on it’s back legs and roared at us! Scared me to death, so we kept walking.  Liam now likes to roar.  We also like the 1000 lb alligator, Chucky.  We like to make sure he is in his cage as he escaped in one of the hurricanes years ago.  We feed the animals zoo treats as well.  They have baby tigers to interact with for extra money so we enjoy watching other people play with the baby tigers. Overall, each visit is fun.

10. Bikes: We recently have acquired 2 bikes for Bobby and I to ride and we have a trailer for the kiddos.  We have enjoyed our rides!  Again, this is perfect weather and the roads are flat so it’s pretty enjoyable.  It gets difficult only when there is a strong head wind!

11. Shrimp Festival: The Shrimp Festival was a fun experience of live music, lots of fried food, interesting art, and good people watching.  There was also a great kids area with free popcorn and slushies and art projects.  We had fun going a couple days in a row.

      Amelie wanted me to mention that her favorite things have been the following:  going to her new school, attending story time at the library, painting (shells, pictures, etc), jumping in the jump house at Octoberfest, building sandcastles in the beach, digging big holes in the sand to play in, playing play dough, and making sticker pictures.  She is so grown up!

Fortunately, Amelie did not turn THIS hose on anyone!  She has had up-close interactions with firemen at the library during story time and at her school after they learned about community service personnel.

Liam's 1st Birthday

        

 

How has it already been a year since Liam entered our lives?  Isn’t that the reflection of most parents for their children’s 1^st birthday?   Since having kids it’s hard for me not to ask the questions like: where has the year gone, how are they SO big now, and will you please slow down on growing so fast? This birthday has been no different in my book. Every time I turn around Liam seems to be learning a new skill.  I loved this stage with Amelie and am loving this stage of life with Liam as well. It’s hard to keep up with his newest cute thing and I find myself watching and giggling at him all day. To give you a clearer picture of Liam here are a couple of fun things to know:

·      He started taking a couple of steps a week before his birthday. After a week or so he was walking everywhere with little assistance.  He toddles on the sand, which is adorable.  His cuteness is made evident by the crowd of people he attracts that enjoy watching him and marveling in his ability to walk in the soft sand. His walking skills have advanced so much so that he will walk straight into the ocean with little regard to any waves.  At the Shrimp Festival he liked to walk in the opposite direction of us and go exploring.  He also loves the game of us chasing him. As he continues to be more and more mobile, he is going to keep us running! 

·      He loves to cuddle.  He can hardly contain himself when it comes to soft things: soft blankets, soft stuffed animals, soft real animals…you get the picture anything soft.   He strokes his face as he is going to sleep with the bunny ears on his beloved stuffed animal, the bear in a bunny costume. 

·      He follows his sister everywhere and wants to be involved with whatever she is doing. It is fun to see them playing together and entertaining themselves even if it is only for short periods of time. Their newest thing is to take turns screaming.  Amelie will scream a high pitch scream and then Liam will follow suit…it is fun how they match each other’s pitch…well, fun for us (sometimes) but not for our neighbors. (Luckily we have not had neighbors in many months…we do try to be considerate.) 

·      He enjoys rough housing with Bobby and Amelie.  In the evenings the three of them spend time wrestling with each other on the bed.  This is something we have to keep an eye on because a couple of times we have seen him charge Amelie out of nowhere and knock her down.  We are using this as leverage right now with Amelie to encourage her to make wise choices as to how she interacts with him because we warn her that one day he will be bigger than she is.

·      He loves to eat.  He often eats more food than Amelie. Fortunately, we do not frequent dining establishments very often because he screams at you until you put something in his mouth.  I’m hoping this is a phase.  We taught him the sign language for more so how he screams while signing that he wants more.

·      He loves dogs.  He will point and scream “Dogh, Dogh!” at the sight of every dog. He also likes all the birds around the beach (seagulls, pelicans, cranes, etc.)

·      He waves feverishly at all planes and helicopters.  This has also turned into waving vigorously at boats and cars too.  It’s a whole arm motion across his entire body.

·      He is watching and mimicking social cues now. If we are laughing, he has to join in as well.  If Amelie is crying/whining, he will do a sad but fake cry too.

·      He is very content and pretty patient.  There have been times where he will sit in his bike and watch Bobby and Amelie fish (or clean fish) without getting upset.  He loves his bike!

·      For weeks Liam would carry his Mickey birthday balloon around the house.  He also loved the Mickey card  the Lums gave him. He would open it and “read it”.  I would sing Happy Birthday to him when he would get it and he would crack up.

·      He loves books.  Right now his favorites are Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb and Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do you See?  He loves to turn the pages himself. 

So, to celebrate him on his birthday we threw a beach party. Amelie helped me bake and decorate cupcakes and cake into a beach scene.  Although our party was small and the food not elaborate, we had a lot of fun together. The weather was absolutely perfect…warm, good breeze, and calm clear ocean water.  We spent time swimming together in the ocean because it was so calm and clear.  Being able to see dolphins, manta rays, electric stingrays, crabs, and little fish was also a huge highlight.  We missed not having our friends and family around to celebrate with us, but we enjoyed the phone calls and face time with grandparents to have others apart of the big day.

We are incredibly thankful for our little guy and look forward to the memories the next year will hold!  I am sure this time next year I will be asking the same questions of how quickly time has flown by.  I am determined to cherish and treasure each moment along the way.

New Norms

Since our move to the beach, there have been things we have done that we could have done back in Athens but just didn't. For instance, bathing (in my bathing suit) with the kids.  They love it when I get into the bathtub with them.  Now, I could have done this while living in GA, but putting on my bathing suit and getting all wet never seemed very practical nor fun.  However, coming in straight from the beach or pool can be very chilly.  I often don't have time to grab myself a dry change of clothes so the best solution to staying warm has been to get into the tub too.  Last night we added bubbles to the mix and had so much fun playing together before getting down to the business of getting clean.  Luckily, the bathtubs at our townhouse are jacuzzi tubs so they are plenty large enough for the 3 of us to sit in comfortably.  For those wondering, Bobby was actually the person to initiate this practice.

I have been told that parenting baby #2 is often more laid back and less obsessive, and for the most part I am experiencing that to be true for myself.  I am glad to have a dynamic backyard with LOTS of room and soft sand to allow Liam the freedom his little boy heart desires to explore and roam. I can't imagine sitting him on wood chips at a playground and letting him go, but at the beach it seems very natural.  Who knows, he's heavy enough that I might have gotten over myself really quickly and not worried about bugs/germs/splinters/etc and let him go on the playgrounds back home too.
I am thankful for our beach backyard.  Liam goes in all directions.  He loves chasing (very slowly) after the seagulls.  He points and talks to the birds all day.  He loves them so much and desperately wants to get his hands on one.  He also loves crawling in and out of the water.  Thankfully, he somehow knows not to go in too deep and crawls out before big waves get a hold of him.  When the bank down to the ocean water gets steep enough he likes to scoot on his booty like a slide down to the water.  He's very silly.  Amelie also loves the beach.  There are so many things to do we have yet to be bored of it. We spend our days building castles and collecting seashells, as well as playing (and reinventing) games.  We changed red light/green light to red shovel/green shovel.  We have to hold up the color of the shovel instead of shouting the words because the distance and wind often makes it difficult to hear. 
 Recently, we started playing a form of ski-ball in which we dig tennis ball sized holes in the sand and try to roll/toss the ball into the holes, all of which are different point values.  The list of endless possibilities of things to do at the beach could go on!  We love having the beach as our backyard!

Daddy and Amelie helping Liam chase the seagulls.

I'm not sure if it was the move itself or a shift in our mindset (or the combination of both), but we have really slowed the pace of our family down.  It has been so refreshing to enjoy the little things throughout our day that we can do together.  Whether that be building a tent in the middle of the living room or designing a log house out of popsicle sticks, the time is there for us to do those things and not be rushed by the next event or thing we have to do.  If ever I've wanted to stop time from ticking it's now.  I know that's not possible, and am continually reminded at how fast time flies (I can't believe we have been here over a month!), but I'm trying to truly cherish these days and these memories.

-Kelly :)

The Days Are Just Packed

As a kid, I used to love Calvin and Hobbes.  I had almost every book and anthology and looked forward to Sunday mornings when I could see them in a new adventure in full color. I related (relate) well to the precocious troublemaker with a healthy imagination. Even with my own kids, I've often hoped they turn out to be the half-genius half-rascal that is Calvin. One of my favorite covers was on a collection titled The Days Are Just Packed. On it Calvin multitasks by waiting for an unsuspecting neighbor girl on which to drop a water balloon while napping and chatting with his best bud, Hobbes. To us they are doing a whole lot of nothing, but to them, they are very busy indeed.

I start this post talking about Calvin and Hobbes for one reason; as an excuse for our drought in blog posts. You see, our days are just packed. We have done a lot of nothing and a lot of everything, which has left us very busy.  Kelly and I are still working, and have to inject a dose of fiscal and occupational reality in to our lives every now and then.  However, for the most part we remain without specific duties and schedules that might endanger our fun.

We've had a few visitors in the past weeks, which has been nice as we've begun to miss our friends.  Our honorary first visitors, Albert, Anisa, and their son, Van, were able to swing by for a few hours on their way to a family holiday in Orange Beach.  Although their visit was brief, we made the most of it by making sure the kids got nice and sandy at the beach before they had to meet grandparents for dinner.  Hopefully they can come back and stay longer next time (at least enough that Albert and I can get a few rounds of golf in).

Next to visit were our long time friends and vacation buddies, the Greens.  We've been to many a beach with Katie, Chris, Bella, and Farrah, so it was only appropriate that they were one of the first to visit.  Also headed to a family vacation with Katie's family, the Greens took a long detour to stay a few nights with us and give us some company.  We spent the days at the beach with the kids, building castles, jumping the surf, hunting for shells, and having hermit crab races (which we decided are really boring).  Chris broke out his camera and photo skills once sunlight hit the "magic hour" and took some great pics of the kids.  Nights were nice once the kids were in bed as we sat on the porch, listened to the waves, and reminisced with great friends until the wee hours of the morning.

A big disruption to our lives came in the form of Hurricane Isaac.  We knew that living on the Gulf Coast during hurricane season might get interesting.  Nonetheless, we would never have predicted a mandatory evacuation by the police a day before landfall.  A large part of me wanted to stick it out and encounter the weather.  How bad could a non-direct hit by a category one hurricane be?  However, my appetite for adventure was trumped by my innate desire for the survival of my children.  Luckily, Kelly has a cousin a few hours north in Montgomery, and they were more than gracious in providing a few days of asylum to us refugees. After the hurricane made a hard westward turn, we hurried back in order to still experience what was left of the storm.  Constant 30 mph winds howling through the night and bouts of power failure let me know we made the wise choice leaving for a few days.  The landscape of our beach was changed greatly by the hurricane, as we lost more than a 100 feet of beach front (luckily it was pretty big already) and the squeaky clean, sugar-like sand has been replaced with hard packed grey sand.  Also, our private dock to the lagoon was all but destroyed.  In spite of it all, the city is cleaning up and rebuilding quickly.  Plus, the ebb and flow (literally) of nature is amazing. Except for a bit of trash and dead flora and fauna here and there, the beach is already almost back to normal.

We've stayed busy in so many other ways, of which I won't go in to elaborate detail on this post because it is already lengthy.  I'll have to update more frequently in order to talk about some of our other fun.  I'll just skip the stories for now and include some pics with brief descriptions below.  The days are just packed!

She's a bit rough, but he never seems to mind.

The Pensacola Naval Museum was awesome! Probably only rivaled by the Smithsonian, it was great.  Daddy had the most fun, but the kids seemed pretty enthralled too.

 First day of preschool! More info for that in future post.

Exploring an old wooden ship that washed up after Isaac.  Love this pic.

 You can't beat these skies.  The sun is actually behind me and the clouds are reflecting that bright light.  Made my top five most beautiful nature scenes I've ever seen.

 Same night.  So great.

 Amelie and I can do some serious crab catching at night.

Running through fountains. Very easy fun.