Memorial Day Weekend

Last weekend, we headed to Anna Maria Island to spend Memorial Day with most of Josh's extended family. It was a wonderful weekend. I hadn't seen most of them since Jasmine was a baby or even longer!

There were 4 kids close to the age of 4, plus Bekah and Jasmine. The girls all thought Jasmine was the best ever! Hudson was the only boy, but he's very comfortable playing with girls. He probably preferred it!



We watched the sunset two nights, since we were one block from the beach. It was so perfect!

(I'm printing this one HUGE for the wall!)

Saturday morning we took a sightseeing cruise that included time to get out on a sandbar to snorkel/look for sand dollars. Jasmine found a sand dollar, and the boat driver found this guy!

(I think it's hilarious that Bekah was willing to hold him, but Bekah would barely pet his back!)






We spent Sunday with dear friends. We usually see them in Orlando, so it was awesome that we could see them in their neck of the woods this time!
The kids get along perfectly. The moms are total kindred spirits, and the guys are two peas in a pod. Too bad we live 2 hours away, or we'd be inseparable!

And we spent a lot of time in the pool. Well, by "we" I mean the 4 of them. I did actually bring my suit, but I stayed out of the water. I'm starting to suspect I'm part-cat.

Jasmine, on the other hand, is part dolphin. She spends more time swimming underwater than she does on the surface. Incredible.

Came across this intersection on the way to our friends' church on Sunday. I'm printing this for his wall!!

101 in 1001, completed

http://joshandcharlene.blogspot.com/2010/08/101-in-1001-101.html
It's been almost 3 years since I wrote up that list. (how is that even possible?!)
How did I do?

70: completely done
24: not done at all
7: done in part

Not too shabby! I've actually started up yet a new list, but I'm thinking it will be a couple months before I finish creating it ;)

A couple pictures of life:

Mud Run

Josh's sister Charity is in town for the week, which has been wonderful. The kids are loving getting time with their Auntie Chairty!!
One of the things we planned for her trip was a Mud Run, the FL ROC. (Florida Run Obstacle Challenge). She doesn't like to get dirty, so you know just how much she loves her brother that she'd do it with him!
(not only do I not like getting dirty, I don't like the thought of the obstacles! I do still want to get back into running, yet again, and try a 5K. That's about as daring as I get ;) )

They had a fantastic time. It was 86 and humid, with the first mile being solid (?) mud to trudge/climb through.
We didn't get to see them until the last little bit, when they ran, swam, climbed three things, and went under a net. We were very impressed!
Two obstacles couldn't be done because there was a 2-foot aligator in that pond. They said it was small enough that it wouldn't have hurt anyone ("100 people running towards it and it's not going to attack") but knowing that where there's a baby means there's a mama not too far away...yeah. It was good that they didn't do that part of the challenge! Josh is rather attached to his legs.
They ran 4 miles and completed 30 obstacles in 1:28. The fastest person was 36 minutes, and most people did it in about 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Josh just found the rankings!!
They finished 574th and 575th out of 2000+ participants! Josh was about halfway through his age bracket for guys, and Charity was in the top 1/3 of hers!!
Congratulations, Josh and Charity!!

Confessions

Our family loves Carousel of Progress at Magic Kingdom.
It's pretty silly and very dated, but we love it. 

I'm never going to have my wrapped presents pictured on Pinterest.
I'm okay with that. I get it done in about 1/3 of the time of Josh (because his actually look nice!).

Sometimes I wish I were still 7. (yes, she's jumping over the cone!)

But then I couldn't be her mommy, and that would be a tragedy.

I get as excited about going to Disney as my kids do.

Maybe more.

Designing Anniversary!

I've now been a designer at TDC for a year!! It's my first anniversary, and that's really awesome!!
I'm in a fun "parade" with a ton of other designers. For the month, you can go around and collect little pieces of a really awesome (and huge) scrapbooking kit. Most of the links are on Facebook Fan Pages (so just like the page to get to the link), but a few are on blogs.
Here's my piece!

If you've never used actions, it's like a little program that Photoshop and Elements can read to change the look of a photo. This one softens the photos and makes them a little more dated-looking.
Click on the photo to go to my Facebook Fan Page and get to the download link!!