Wacky Wizzle Dolphin Cruise

Instead of giving birthday gifts to all the kids during the year, we decided to do something at the beach to celebrate altogether. We enjoy the Shannon Tanner kids' show and thought his Wacky Wizzle Dolphin Cruise might be just the thing...turns out it was :).

Getting ready to leave the harbor...

(Greer found a new mommy at the beach...completely attached to Heather the whole time :)).

We saw lots of dolphins and learned much about the island, but the kids' especially loved still having a Shannon Tanner show on the boat. :) They all kept trying to do magic afterwards...so cute.

Sweetness catching a nap...

Families...

When we got back to the harbor, the kids had a treasure hunt that was really fun and Garner got some good suggies from her daddy...

The big kids with Shannon Tanner...

Lunch at an HHI staple...San Miggies

And more evidence of Greer changing her last name to Dorman...

All in all, a super fun birthday celebration morning :)

The Fastest Week of the Year

On night 6 of our beach trip, B commented to me as we got ready for bed, "I feel like we just got here." Our week at the beach with our buddies always flies. It is so relaxing and fun and easy and we're always sad to see Saturday come!

At our annual outing to Frankie Bones...how we all began (with no kiddos :))...

And now!

Gehrig and Chaney...a pic for the rehearsal dinner one day :)

And beautiful Geer-Geer...

Family pics on the beach after dinner :)

My lovey-love...he gets cuter as the years go by!

Add to these pics the sound of the evening waves and yep, it's pretty much perfect...Van Morrison playing a little "These Are the Days" in my mind :)

Our Bug

Dressed-up version of our traditional kid pic...with 2 more this year! (For the record, I think the number will remain the same from here on out. :))

And the way it happens...thanks to B's ingenuity.

After everyone else got up to play some more...

And the whole crew!

There will be a few more beach posts...too many pics and activities to cram into one. :) Hopefully, they'll be coming soon along with July's full album!

Vegas Vacation...Kinda :)

So we went to Vegas. Although stay-at-home-mom is my main gig, I work a little on the side for some friends and a big annual work thing was there this year. Since B and I also really needed to get away after the crazy last few months, we tacked a 2-day vacation onto the 3-day trade show. We could have been anywhere and enjoyed 2 days together by ourselves. Even Vegas...not really somewhere we fit in. :)

I love him so. Wish we had more time like this to focus on each other...it's really fun. :)

Our hotel looked like Venice inside...

Waiting for the fountains at the Bellagio. It was the prettiest hotel to me...just clean and calm with a beautiful plant conservatory and amazing mosaic tile work everywhere. And the fountain show was amazing.

Otherwise, I am ok not to go there again...it just felt really worldly and materialistic and not so much focused on anything eternal. It made me long for my earthly and heavenly homes!

The last 3 days were super busy with work stuff...it was great to meet a lot of the people I've only known over the phone for the past several months and to learn more about the business in general. Although I enjoyed it and am so thankful for God's provision through a great flexible, work-from-home job, I definitely confirmed that my old corporate life with travel and business is not where I am supposed to be right now. I missed my babies SO much.

With Kelley in front of one of our displays...

MEANwhile...the kids were in GREAT hands! I got emotional more than once while I was gone, missing them and being overwhelmed with gratefulness for such amazing friends and an absolutely incredible husband. They loved on them so well that I'm not sure I was really missed. :)

Jenn and Matt's mom came to stay for the first couple of days while both Bryce and I were gone. It made it super easy for our kids to stay in their routine and be with the friends that know them best. It is impossible to thank them appropriately for the peace that comes with not having to worry about the kids at all.

Now Gehrig reads to Madi for real :)

Babies!

Gehrig loves his new Sorry game...

Excuse me, please stop growing! You guys are supposed to be the BABIES.

Jenn and the big girls went to see the new Winnie the Pooh movie one afternoon...such a fun treat!

And Grama...she is just like Jenn in that she treats our kids like they're her own grandchildren. So thankful for her traveling and spending those days here. The kids loved it :)

Grama's market...making money and things to buy out of playdough. Fun!

And if I didn't feel blessed enough by their sacrifice for our family, other friends joined in the care of the Gs. The Ruckers picked Gehrig up one morning to go to a cool animal event (loved hearing Gehr's report on it over the phone :)) at the library and then to get smoothies. Perfect.

Maymay and fam kept Garner one night and loved on her so well. Her first sleepover...sigh. She had fun too :)

And Mandy and Chandler came to keep the kids the last few hours until B got home from the airport. Seriously overwhelmed with everyone's love. It made being gone so much easier for sure...

And finally, the BEST husband ever. He came home after our quick getaway to take over all 3 kids, pack us all up for the beach, leave early to visit Mammaw on the way and get the fam and all our beach stuff to the beach for our annual vacation. UH-mazing.

I missed Garner's transition to her big girl carseat on the ride to the beach...thankfully, Daddy took a pic for me:

I flew all night to meet them there the next morning and was so giddy to see them, I barely noticed missing a night of sleep. The whole thing went amazingly well thanks to everyone's help and it was great to have QT with B and good work time. BUT. I'm not sure that I ever want to be away for that long again...I just love being a mama. :)