Vacation in Florida

Well, this post will have a ton of pictures because I just couldn't decide which ones to put up. (there are still many more!)

We headed out on the rainy fourth of July to spend the night down at Chad's grandma's in southern Illinois. It was Emily's first visit there and she liked being at Grandma-Great's house. It also got us a couple hour head start on our trip.

Emily did great in the car..thanks to the DVD player and her love of Dora and Elmo! We made pretty good time and arrived in Destin on Monday to a cloudy, rainy day.

Since our condo wasn't ready yet, we went straight to the beach to let Emily get her first look at the ocean. She ran right down the boardwalk, took her shoes off and dug her feet right in. She loved the big sandbox, but wasn't all that big of fan of the ocean....it's scary :)

The sun came out for us the rest of our trip and we were big beach and pool bums! We spent at least part of every day at the beach or the pool. We spent some time by ourselves but also had our friends Tami and Mike down there with their family so Emily had playmates a couple of the days! She had so much fun.

Every day we ate lunch out on our balcony that overlooked the bay so emily could watch the boats and the balloons (parasailing) in the air. She loved eating outside everyday!

We took a couple of trips off our resort and went to a fun park where Emily rode the kiddie rides all by herself. It totally freaked us out when she got on the ferris wheel, but she just jumped right in and sat down and started waving! She's getting to be such a big girl.

This is Emma and Emily making their scary faces before watching the fireworks on Emma's balcony the night before they left.

We actually made it through a game of miniature golf too. Emily did more rolling the ball than using her club, but she had a good time. Chad beat me, of course, by two strokes :) Emily was hillarious on the 18th hole when her ball disappeared. She just couldn't figure out where it went! She got over it though and was all smiles for this picture

And this is our last night when we strolled down to the beach for sunset pictures. As you can tell we were a little late for the sunset! Emily is waving bye to the beach :(

She is already asking when we're going back!

More Backyard Fun!

Well we went out and got a pool big enough for Em to at least sit in :) She picked out this one with the elephant slide. Emma came over this morning for some fun outside before it got too unbearably hot! Amy came over to play with the girls too so mom could get a couple of things done! Thanks Amy!

The girls had a great time in the pool! And as you can see below, they have the same reaction to hitting the water at the bottom of the slide.

Father's Day Weekend!

Well, we made the rounds this year for Father's Day weekend. We started on Friday down in Springfield to visit my dad. We spent a nice couple of days relaxing at Momo and Popo's house

Saturday evening, it was off to visit Em's other grandparents in Springfield. We all took our annual trip out to New Berlin to the county fair! Emily had so much fun. She is a lucky little girl to have such a good daddy!! Here they are watching the elephant show.

She didn't sit with dad for long though. She let us know real quick she's a big girl now and headed straight to the fence to get as close to the elephants as possible :)

Since Kristy and Adam are pretzels now, they only had to take a short walk up the road to join us in our county fun. Em had tons of fun since they were into playing games and riding the rides with her!

Even Ma-Ma braved her weak stomach to ride the wiggly worm!

Emily loved every single ride (except the big slide). She wanted to keep riding them again and again!

Sunday we headed to Sullivan to visit Chad's parents for father's day and the annual family reunion. Unfortunately it was sooo hot, our camera didn't even make it out for pictures there.

Em had lots of fun, but got a little hot and crabby at nap time so we headed home.

Where we cooled off in our huge backyard pool :)

HA...I don't even think Emily barely fits in this little froggy pool anymore!

But she still had TONS OF FUN!

Happy Father's Day to all of you Dad's out there!!

Summer fun has begun!

Well I haven't even been off of school for a week yet, but we have been BUSY, BUSY!! This is going to be kind of a long post :) We started our first day off of school with Emily's friend Emma's 2nd birthday party at the Discovery Museum. Emily was into the party thing. She even wore the hat, blew the horn and ate a cupcake :) It was lots of fun!

We spent a lot of time outside this weekend...I have a feeling she's going to live on the swingset this summer!

We also have already taken our first trip of the summer. We went down to St. Louis on Monday and Tuesday with Tami, Mike, Emma and Brayden. We went to a Cardinal game and then to the St. Louis Zoo the next day. The Cardinal game was pretty hot so we spent a lot of time playing in the family pavillion. It was a little different ballgame experience then we're used to, but we had lots of fun. The girls LOVED all the animals at the zoo.The kids were troopers for not having naps (unless you count the little snooze on the choo-choo train!) We had lots of fun and can't wait for our big trip later this summer to Florida!