Happy, Happy Birthday Meesh!

One more birthday and then we get a break for a few weeks.

My sister is celebrating her big 3-0 today and that is also the reason we get to go cruise around the Caribbean for the next week, to help her celebrate.

I think as far as younger sisters go, I may have lucked out with one of the best ones ever. (Well, Emma may argue that she got the best one ever – at least I hope she will say that when they are older!)

It kills me to be so far from her and some days I just wish we could live down the street from one another so I could see her every day. Of course, I think we would never get anything productive done if we could play together all day, and it only makes our time together much more special, so maybe it is all for the best?

But I just want her to know that she is very special to me as a sister, and most special to the girls as an Aunt. We hope that this will be your best year ever – and we are going to make sure it is your best birthday ever!

We love you! Happy Birthday, Meesh.

All The Girls

Flowering ~ Theme Thursday

We are in Michigan – I didn’t go out and shoot any “flowering” this week, but I had this on my laptop from a few weeks ago before Addie picked all of them for her hair.

Everything is in bloom here though, so I may find a few things to photograph this week…including my nieces we get to see tonight!

Check out more flowering over at Stacy’s today.

Love Thursday

While we were on the beach last week a photographer was shooting some engagement photos (I’m totally assuming, here) and the couple had drawn this big heart in the sand. As soon as they moved down the beach and the girls realized it was a *heart!* they started drawing “baby hearts” inside of it. I realized as I took this that it was a perfect shot for Love Thursday.

We are on a 2 day break from vacationing

We got back from our mini-vacation on Sunday, and we are leaving again for a trip to Michigan on Wednesday. The girls are starting to think their entire lives are just one big vacation!

Our San Diego trip was a little spontaneous but we managed to snag a good “last minute” deal at a pretty nice resort on Coronado, which is also called Coronado Island, but I think is technically an isthmus…it is connected to San Diego by a little bit of land. At any rate, very cool little downtown. Pretty nice resort. This was the view from our window…

…of course just to the left was the parking lot, so it is all about selective viewing, here.

We found a bagel shop and had our Saturday morning bagel ritual and headed out to the San Diego Zoo. Which, if the animals have to be caged up and on display, the SD Zoo does a pretty good job of it.

The zoo had just started a program on Friday where you can pay to feed the giraffes, which happens to be my favorite animal at the zoo. Nice timing on our part, totally not planned, but we did get to feed them, which was really cool. Let me tell you, they are very, very TALL.

J. makes fun of me when I said that, “Um, what a profound statement: giraffes are tall!” But although they are very gentle, it is slightly intimidating to have this animal literally towering over the top of you and reach down to take a “biscuit” out of your hand.

Em did great and really loved it, Ad acted all tough until she looked up and the giraffe started down towards her, then she quickly handed her biscuit to me and said, “Dohwanna, Mama!”

These little guys gave the giraffes a run for their money in my book, though. I could watch the meerkats all day (and yes, I’ve been known to watch Meerkat Manor mesmerized for hours as well).

Addie’s favorite was the flamingos, or “mingos”…

Em’s favorite was the Reptile House. Yes, you read that correctly. She drove us crazy with her “are we going to see the reptiles, yet?” We stupidly made it the last stop. Will not make that mistake again. She kept asking Daddy to take her picture with the snakes. Addie thought we were talking about “snacks” and got antsy, so she and I only made it halfway through before we went out for some snacks.

I think Daddy’s favorite was probably the monkeys. Here are my two monkeys watching the monkeys in the cages…

After the zoo we tried the pool (too cold!), Em got her hair braided (took forever and ‘Nise does a much better job) and tried to rest in the room (most unsuccessfully), but the light through our balcony was very pretty so I got to practice taking photos of the girls.

Then we had ice cream for dinner!

Granted we had a very late lunch, so it wasn’t like we only had ice cream in our bellies when we went to bed. But the ice cream and a romp on the beach, plus all of the ocean-fresh air helped everyone sleep very soundly that night.

Tomorrow, I’ll fill you in on our experience at Legoland…and the second day of our San Diego excursion. In the meantime I have a few more hundred photos to go through…

Following In My Footsteps ~ Best Shot Monday

We had thunderstorms (THUNDERSTORMS!!) on Thursday and Friday here. Now, I love me a good thunderstorm, but they are a pretty rare occurrence around here, unfortunately.

J. had an extra long weekend so we took off for a little R&R in San Diego. The rain followed us down on Friday, but it cleared up for most of Saturday and Sunday and allowed us to happily trek to the zoo and Legoland (more on those later!). And even though it was pretty cold, (Ok, ok! – So we had to wear sweaters with our flip-flops!) not really beach weather at all, we couldn’t resist the call of the ocean.

The girls are definitely following in my footsteps. The beach is my all-time favorite place to be. When I put Addie to bed tonight I asked her what her favorite part of the weekend was and she looked up sleepily and smiled when she exclaimed, “The Beach! I like the beach. We got all wet, didn’t we, Mama?”

l have hundreds of photos to get through but this is one of my favorites. It was a lovely relaxing, fun and family-filled weekend. Thanks, my sweet family!

Be sure to stop over to Tracey’s and see her beach-y photo and what is making everyone else smile this Memorial Day.

Film Friday

J. was gifted one of the cute little Flip video recorders and has allowed Em to use it to film her very own “show.”

I think she has potential – maybe she will be the next Scorcese?

It is a little bit reality show (A Day in the Life of Gracie), a little bit comedy, and a little bit Blair Witch Project. (Have to work on the camera control and extreme closeups!)

At any rate…it cracks me up every time I watch it. I had to edit over 50 little videos…so we have more (oh, yes we do!)…stay tuned for the next installment of the Emma Grace Show – coming soon to a theater blog near you.

And I give you, Emma Grace’s first film making attempt…

We are off on a little family get-away to celebrate and spend some time together! Hope you all have a great weekend.