They Moved our Play Area

We have our list of activities we do everytime we go to Pensacola.  One of those things is a visit to the T.T. Wentworth Museum.  It's free and they have had this really great play area on the top floor with a colonial fort, house, Indain camp, store and ship complete with cannons and dress up clothes.  I was disappointed to learn they've moved the free stuff from the top floor of the T.T. Wentworth to a Children's Museum across the street that costs $3 a person to get in.  I'm sorry to say, it wasn't worth the cost of admission.  They moved the "city" (minus the fort) to the ground floor. The upstairs was more museum-y with displays and long written explanations for everything.  The dress-up clothes were upstairs in one room and weren't supposed to be taken out.  Part of what made the fort and houses so much fun to play in was the dress-up.

The kids still had fun, but it wasn't long before some of the natives were restless and ready to move on.  While we waited out rain, my friend remembered that the Museum of Art, right around the corner, had a surfing exhibit and was free on Tuesdays.  I wouldn't have paid to get all of us in, but since it was free...

Caden's favorite piece of art



I love Jaelyn's perspecive of it

This was my favorite piece - Rosie the Riveter from WWII posters

Jaelyn liked this one, while it looks like pottery or glass, it's actually pine turned super thin on a lathe.

My Beach

There's just something about the beach that makes you relax and breathe a little easier.  It has such a calming effect.  Even though we lived 30 minutes from the beach, I didn't grow up going there.  My mom wasn't a good swimmer and she was scared to take us.  I started going when I could drive myself.  The beach is one of the things I miss.  Being landlocked is hard, I tell you.  I always look forward to our beach days when we are planning Pensacola trips and this one was no exception.

Me and Jen

My Dad isn't into the beating sun, but my mom decided she could be happy in a condo.

The girls hunting for shells

Caden loves playing in the surf

Great shot of Jaelyn and her hover boogie board

Just overall great days!!!!

In an Effort to Catch Up

I had planned to spend today catching up this silly little blog I love so much.  Instead, I slept in till after 9:30 (thank you Dan!), took Gracie to the dog park, went to lunch at Panera with the family, meandered through the library, and wasted an hour watching mindless TV before making grilled pizzas for dinner.  Overall a nice day, but not productive.

So here I am, at the end of the day, not going to bed until I have it done.

Cousin Caleb got a golfcart for his birthday (don't ask) and the kids were eager to drive it.  Daddy took them each for a spin.  From all reports, I have good little drivers, but that still doesn't mean I'll teach Allie to drive a car when she turns 15.

Update Your Blog, He Says

Last night, Dan says "You don't need to watch TV.  You need to update your blog."  Am I behind?  It's only been 2 or 3 weeks, right?  Instead, I'm much rather be on the couch with my iphone in one hand and my remote control in the other.  I was out of town for two weeks.  My DVR is not going to watch itself and erase all that must see TV :).

Seriously though, we had a great three weeks, between the visit with the Beatles at our house and our two weeks in Florida at my parents house.  We visited with family and friends, we played at the beach many times (sigh), we shopped and we ate AND I even snuck off to Destin with Jen for some time at Serenity.  I'll work on posting pictures next week.

We have 5+ more weeks of summer.  There's an issue with a new sixth grade building; so our district will be delaying our start date until after Labor Day.  Yea!  I have two weeks of swim lessons planned for the kids, but other than that, we are free to veg out and enjoy the end of our summer doing whatever we feel like every day.  I have a feeling there will be a lot of laying by the pool.

Kelly not updating her blog

Tissue Box Surprise

Yesterday, Allie and I picked Dan up from the airport.  We've been waiting for him so we could celebrate Jaelyn's birthday.

First we blindfolded her, with her cooperation of course.  Jared envisioned kidnapping and blindfolding her by force, crazy teenager.  But he wasn't here; so we modified his plan a little.

We unblindfolded Jaelyn at Ruby Tuesdays where Grandmother and Granddaddy were waiting with Nana.  Jaelyn loves Ruby Tuesdays.  She always begs to go there and it's one of the only place where she'll actually eat and fill herself up.

After we filled our tummies with things like shrimp fondue, guacamole, salads, steaks, and ribs, it was time to open presents. 

I saved the present from me, Dan and my parents for last.  My mom did crazy things with presents when I was growing up.  I truly learned from the best.  Jaelyn wanted money for an Ipod touch instead of a party. I got $100 in one dollar bills from the bank.  My mom threw in her $50.  We stapled the bills end to end and rolled them up into a huge roll.  We finished it off by stuffing the roll into a wrapped tissue box, leaving one dollar sticking up out of the hole.

Jaelyn started pulling...

and pulling...

and pulling...

and pulling...

Until finally she reached the end and had a huge pile of money on the table in front of her.  It was truly awesome and she loved it as did the other patrons in the restaurant.

If the picutres aren't enough...here's a video.  It was a definite memory making dinner!

The Beach...Again

We've been rained out of beach trips for a few days, so we got up early yesterday and headed to Pickens before any storms could dampen our plans.  It was also our last day with my nephews.  I hope they've had fun with us.  We sure have had fun with them!

We got a show as we drove through Ft. Pickens and parked at Langdon Beach.  The Blue Angels were practicing over NAS.  They were a little far away, but it was still fun to watch them.

BTW, did you notice my hat?  I said I was going to get one.  Unfortunately, the only one in the store was black (hot in the sun).  I bought it anyway and my mom was nice enough to trade me because she wears hers when it's cooler to walk in the mornings, not in the sun to the swimming pool.  I did throw in a shirt to sweeten the deal. Score!

It was out of character for Jared, but he suggested that Caden bury him in the sound.  That was fun.

But turn-about is fair play and Jared had a great laugh turning Caden into a Mer'maid' instead of a mer'man.' 

The water was a little bit calmer this time.  The boogie boards were pretty useless for anything except floating on. 

Dan says we have at least two more beach trips to make!  Yea!

The Big Kid Cooks Scones

I'm not quite sure what prompted the baking flurry that went on this morning, but someone decided to try a new scone recipe and Jaelyn took charge.  She made Cinnamon-Sugar Scones out of the Taste of Home magazine.

Mix 3 cups biscuit baking mix and 1/4 cup sugar.  Whist together 1/2 cup vanilla yogurt, 1/3 cup 2% milk, and 1 tbsp vanilla extra; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened.  Stir in 1 cup cinnamon chips or semisweet chocolate chips (we obviously went the chocolate route).  On lightly floured surface, knead dough gently 10 times.  Pat into 9-in. circle.  Sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar.  Cut into 8 wedges; place on ungreased baking sheet.  Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes or until golden.  Makes 8 scones. 

They topped them with an icing drizzle, but I have no idea what the recipe was so you'll have to come up with that on your own :).

Little Red Jaelinghood packed up her scones to deliver them to her family (down the hall and through the door to the living room I go).

Apparently pretzels were also made, but salt was dumped into the yeast while it was proofing...let's just say they didn't turn out right and leave it at that.

Birthday Girl

How did she get so big?  It seems like just yesterday I was meeting a little girl with a big pink and white bow in her hair and trading her cheerios for hugs.  Two days ago, Jaelyn turned 10.  Double digits...that's a big deal for my big girl.

We celebrated with a blueberry birthday pie and a few small presents.

We'll celebrate for real tonight with everyone now that Daddy is in Florida with us.

Zero to 14,345 ft

Blanca Peak is the highest peak of the Sierra Blanca Massif at the southern tip of the Sangre de Christo Range in Colorado. It is the fourth highest peak of the Rocky Mountains, and the eighth highest peak in the contiguous United States (according to Wikipedia) at 14,345 ft.  Pictures by Ian.

     Rich B. asked me to join him on a little hike last week in Colorado. As a personal quest Rich wanted to summit a 14,000 ft peak and invited me to join him on this little adventure. So the clan drove from Pensacola to FLW on Tuesday. We did a little local sightseeing on Wednesday the 4th, and drove to Alamosa, CO on Thursday. Everything was going to plan until we started up "The Long Hard Road" on Friday.

This is me, Rich, John, and Ian. Kelly, Jen and the kids stayed at FLW and had fun in the sun.  It's a 5 mile hike to Lake Como, where we were going to camp this day...7 hours later we got there. This was a 3,500ft elevation gain from 8,000ft to 11,500ft.

It was a struggle just to set up camp and filter water at this point. For those of you that have been to this elevation you know...for everyone else its like holding your breath for as long as you can...those last few seconds before you have to take a breath is what you feel like just bending over to put a tent stake in the ground.  The plan was to wake at five and be on our way at six to summit Blanca and Ellingwood peaks. Right on schedule Saturday morning at six we left camp. Basically it took longer to do everything...including the 2 mile hike to the base of Blanca, but the views were awesome.

I gave myself a safety timeout at the ridgeline at about 13,500ft...Rich and John continued on up, and Ian was probably up at the top by then waiting. As you can see Rich made it to the top right as the weather took a turn for the worse.  I took a couple spills getting off the mountain, but escaped with just a bruised knee. I was just about to the bottom when it started to rain and hail.  I made it back to the tents about two in the afternoon...soaked and limping, but worried about Ian, John, and Rich that had to come all the way down in the rain and hail. At around four a fellow hiker stopped by and let me know that everyone had made it down and they should be to the camp soon.

This is Rich. I wanted to show the terrain we had to navigate once we started up Blanca proper. We were picking our way up through these rocks...not what we had expected.

We hiked out the next morning (Sunday). We were basically done...all of gear was water logged, our visions of summitting two additional peaks were put down quickly and humanely.

We drove to Colorado Springs and visited the Garden of the Gods... but we had had enough rocks for a while. We had an awesome dinner at Rudy's BBQ and stayed overnight at a hotel before driving back to FLW on Monday.  We did see some bighorn sheep, marmots, and a plethora of chipmunks, but much to John's dismay no bear.