Some picture highights - Part Five

All of us with Hollis and her mom Jackie Orr.

The five of us with Padgett, Drew and Sloane, Aunt DeLene, Uncle Bob and Mama T.

My mom and step-dad honored us with a party at the club so we could catch up with many of our Florida (and Georgia) friends one evening. It was a casual swim and barbeque party and it was such fun - there was a band for dancing, burgers and hot dogs on the grill, two pools for swimming, and ice cream and cupcakes at the end thanks to Jackie and Hollis Orr making the yummy cupcakes and my dad bringing his awesome Good Humor ice-cream truck and passing out treats.

I have tons of photos, it was hard deciding which ones to post. Sadly Daddy was on swimming duty with Ellie and I didn't get one picture of him! Not one! My mom took the two at the top before he hit the pool, but he really was there.

Ron and Gay Lancaster, Big Daddy, Anders and me.

Celia Kottemeier, her mom Maggie (who made us our pillow for the ring bearer to carry in our wedding), the girls and my grandmother.

The girls and Big Daddy.

Linda Parker with her grandson, and my nephew, Anders.

The girls with our good friends the Woodroffes.

My sweet Georgia friends - Lisa Hill and Amy Sharon.

Chris and Lisa Hill

Madelyn and Emily Hill

Josie and Ellie with the cupcakes.

My brother Brian with his children Chris and Samantha with Mama and Papa.

Lindsey, Ali and baby Mari on the dance floor.

Uncle Bob and his granddaughter Sloane.

My nephews Will and Josh Crown.

Several of my high school friends were at the party and it was so much fun to catch up. This is my friend Kristin with her family (minus one son who was swimming).

Papa and Uncle Stacy help Ellie get her ice cream.

The Haysletts, Amy and Michael Sharon, and me.

Cousins in the pool at the end of the party.

Mama and Papa and the ice cream truck.

Katie, Meggie, Lilly and Ellie eating popsicles in the pool.

Some picture highights - Part Four

Happy Birthday America!!

We had a fun-filled 4th of July - it was a stunning day and we were happily surprised the night before by our dear friends Chris and Lisa who drove down from Atlanta with their two girls to spend the weekend with us.

We spent the day at Carlouel enjoying swimming, snow cones, cotton candy, air slides and coin dives. Here are some pics:

Our girls with their cousins Lilly and Anna and Chris and Lisa's girls Madelyn and Emily - we decided to eat inside the lifeguard room because the tables outside were way too full, it doesn't make for such cute photos but we were a lot more comfortable in the air conditioning!

After lunch it was back to the pool -
This shot is from later that day when we went over to Aunt Delene's and Uncle Bob's for dinner and fireworks, I accidently put it here in the middle of the swimming pics and can't seem to move it. In this picture are me and the girls, Lindsey and Mari, Ali with Lilly and Anna and my mom with her girls:
Dugald and Chris at the pool.
Josie going down the slide - unfortunately a bit after this photo was taken a little girl got hurt on the slide so the lifeguards called the paramedics. Thankfully she's fine, but the "funny" thing was that when the paramedics arrived we knew them, it was the same crew that had been at our false alarm the day before. Speaking of which, Katie and Josie did take letters of apology and cupcakes down to the men at the fire station and the firemen were very gracious. Lesson learned I hope!
Later that night watching fireworks:

The girls with some of their cousins and second cousins:
Mom and Aunt Delene:
Bill and Lindsey with our cousin Padgett and her husband Drew:
Meggie with baby Mari:

Some picture highights - Part Three

I'm so disappointed - I've somehow managed to delete many of our Texas photos from my camera! Grr.....

Anyhoo - we had a great night at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants in Tyler, Don Juan's. We invited people to come by and were so excited to see so many of our sweet Tyler friends. The whole visit in Texas was bittersweet, in some ways we felt like we'd never left.

Josie and Heidi:

Avery, Ainsley, Katie and Ann-Elizabeth:
Gracie, Hope and Samuel:
Josie, Mary Ella and Abigail:
Sarah, Meggie and Micah:
The group having fun and some GOOD food!
Ann-Terese and moi:
Josie greeting "Uncle" Donnie:
Ellie and Miss Sarah:
Donnie and Dugald:
Meggie and Sarah:
Laura and me:
The Cottons with the girls and me:
Samuel, Ellie, Abbie and Michael:

Some picture highights - Part Two

We're going back to Texas y'all - at least in pictures! I'm going to back track with the photos and start at the beginning of our trip.

We arrived in Dallas late on the 25th of June and spent the night at the airport Hyatt. We all went to bed at 11:30 pm and Dugald had to work hard to rouse us at 11:30 am to go meet our dear friends the Knights for lunch at one of my all-time favorite restaurants, Houstons. The amazing Josh Knight organized a car for us so we were all set and off we went to meet Lori, Ann-Elizabeth, Hunter and Preston.

Here is the kids' table - Meggie, Ellie, Hunter, Josie, Ann-Elizabeth and Katie.

Me and sweet Lori and our delicious salads:
After lunch we hopped on over to one of my favorite malls ever - Northpark - to pick up a few necessities from Sephora. Lori and I rode together with Preston (not pictured) and Ellie, while Dugald took Hunter, Meggie, Ann-Elizabeth and Katie for the ride back to Tyler. It felt like old times and was so good to have two hours of road time to catch up with one another, thank you honey!!

A few days later Josh and Dugald took the big kids out in the boat to go tubing - they had a blast.

Here's Josie watching the action - thanks Hunter for taking these photos for me.
Then Ann-Elizabeth, Josie and Meggie all took a turn together.

We had such a great time with the sweet Knight family. Lori is definitely a hostess with the most-ess. She made us feel so loved and welcomed and the entire family was so kind and generous with their time, talents, things - everything. We felt very loved.

More pictures and highlights from the week to follow. . .

Some picture highights - Part One

I got a USB cord and borrowed a card reader and managed to upload all my photos and my mom's to my new computer - yay!! My friend Chris put Photoshop on my laptop but I haven't had time in all of our vacation fun to actually edit these yet. We had a ball in Texas and I'll post pictures from there soon, we've also had a 4th of July party and a Welcome Home party here in Florida and I'll post those separately too. As I type Katie is busy writing to the firemen, we're off to the station this morning with cupcakes and apologies. In the meantime though here are glimpses of some of the fun we've already had:

Ellie, Josie and Anna on Uncle Stacy

Emily (friends from Atlanta), Ellie, Meggie, Madelyn (Our goddaughter, Emily's big sis), Josie and Katie outside Frenchy's, one of our favorite places to eat in Clearwater.
Meggie, Lilly and Katie in their matching pj's that Lilly gave them.
Anna and Josie on Clearwater Beach
The waves were great our first afternoon - Meggie takes out her boogie board:
Meg and Lilly try to catch a wave:
Charlie's Angels - Meggie, Katie and Lilly running down the beach:
Lindsey and baby Mari:
Ellie with her sandcastles:
Lilly and Ellie:
I kind of can't believe I'm posting this, but after the beach we went to rinse off in the pool and my sisters and I decided on a swim race for old time's sake, here we are about to start:
Cousins being silly:
The girls with Papa after they got ice cream out of his ice cream truck:
The girls with my grandmother, their G.G., on the 4th.
Ice cream in the pool at the end of our Welcome Home party:

Oops I did it again

I am SO excited to have new laptop - yay!! This is my first blog post on my fun new MacBook Pro. Love it, love it, love it, thank you Dad and Jayne.

Unfortunately I forgot my USB cable and therefore I still can't post pictures. I hope to remedy the situation soon as my memory cards are quickly filling up, but in the meantime I thought I'd just check-in and let you all know that we are in Florida and loving it.

We flew to Florida on our American Airlines miles and Dugald surprised us by upgrading us for this portion so we had a very comfy flight and were the first off the plane in Tampa. Of course as soon as we landed we had to take all four girls to the bathroom, but once that was accomplished we headed down to baggage claim. Since we had taken a bit of time to get downstairs the girls and I went straight outside to see if anyone had been waiting to pick us up. In order to avoid the high cost of parking and the difficulties involved with getting luggage to the parking garage, the standard operating procedure for family picking up family in Tampa is to circle around the baggage claim area until the people you are picking up emerge. There are always security people out there trying to hurry you along - and don't even think about leaving a bag or car unattended or you will be told in no uncertain terms that you cannot do that.

I was outside with the girls less than a minute when my sister Ali pulled up in one car and her husband arrived right behind her. Dugald was inside waiting for the bags and we were trying to hug everyone while staying close to both cars when a security guard came and told us to move the cars. We explained that Dugald was coming right out with the luggage and we would move soon. Anyway, long story short, the guy was insistent and I just thought he was being extremely rude but then we looked around and noticed lots of police sirens and that what had been a VERY crowded area was suddenly empty. The guard insisted we leave right away so we jumped in the car and left - leaving Dugald in the baggage claim area which was now locked. Ali decided to drive us on home and Stacy, her husband, stayed nearby to collect Dugald and all of our luggage once the crisis passed. Needless to say it was all a little disconcerting and I made the mistake of saying out loud to Ali that I wondered if it was a bomb scare - that comment aged Meggie about 10 years in one second and caused her no small amount of stress, I am a bad mother! I was kind of freaking out myself and just hadn't thought it all through. Thankfully all is well - Stacy was able to finally collect Dugald and the bags and they even got to sneak in a beer before coming home seeing as nobody knew exactly what was going on and when to expect them. It turns out it was indeed a bomb scare, you can read about it here if you are interested. That was the beginning of our first day.

Today, our second day, we had even more excitement. We are in a rented house down on the beach this week and last night the girls and their cousins were all playing with a phone that looks like a cadillac. They said it wasn't working and that they were just playing - all the cousins were involved and we didn't think much of it. This morning they were apparently at it again, this time just my girls since the cousins are staying next door, when I heard Josie talking to someone on the line. I was a bit confused as I thought the phone was unplugged but when I took the phone from her the man on the line said he was from the fire department and that there were EIGHT fire engines on the way to our house. I totally thought it was a joke and said something along the lines of "Cut it out Stacy". He said something like "Maam I can assure you I am not joking - is your address _____?" When I then realized he was serious I assured him there wasn't a fire and asked him to cancel all the engines but at that point they were at the door unloading - at least one ambulance and one fire truck were here, and the police were on their way.

Turns out the phone was real and Josie had called a few times pretending to be a damsel in distress - she actually said there was a fire! And not just once. She and Katie, who was also involved, got a stern talking to from the fireman, from us, and soon after from the police that arrived. It was no small amount of excitement and their poor cousin Lilly next door started crying when she saw the ambulance at our house thinking something terrible had happened. I still cannot believe they did it and we will spend tomorrow morning making cookies and delivering them to the fire station. It was a BIG deal let me tell you and we may even get a bill in the mail to cover it which we totally deserve. I'm hoping tomorrow is a lot more uneventful.

Should be able to post pictures tomorrow if I can find someplace open that sells a USB, it's a holiday weekend here so it may take a day or two.

More later. . .