July Family Vacation to the Keys

In the beginning of July, we went with Valerie's family to the Florida Keys for a week long vacation. It wasn't the most ideal time for a vacation for us because we were moving to Michigan less than a week after returning, but the vacation had been planned prior to knowing about our move. It was good to get away nonetheless, and it was great spending time with family. The group included Valerie's mom, dad, sister Christie, brother-in-law Andy, nephew Drew, and his friend Harrison. We rented a house on Marathon and also a fishing boat that could be docked on the canal behind our house.

Brandon loved playing on the boat.

Here are some pictures of a boat trip we took with the whole group:

Brandon and his Mimi.

Brandon and Uncle Andy.

We also spent time in the pool at our rental house.

Brandon's birthday was just a week later than this trip, so we celebrated his birthday there.

He loved the emergency vehicles on his cake!

There was another special thing about this cake. We found out the sex of our baby a few days before leaving for the vacation and decided to use Brandon's cake to reveal the news. I had them put either pink or blue icing in the middle of the cake. We skyped with Krzysztof's parents during the cake cutting and revealed that we are having...

a little girl to the extreme delight of the grandmas!

Brandon enjoyed the cake.

He got a little messy, but didn't get too crazy with it.

Fishing was definitely one of the most important activities of the trip.

Most of the fishing was done in the deep sea with just the men aboard due to the rough seas out there. I got to go fishing twice closer to shore, and it was so fun! I was catching fish within 1-2 minutes of throwing my line every time, which makes me very happy because I'm not a very patient fisherman (fisherwoman?). I also was the only one to catch a grouper. It was unfortunately not quite big enough to keep (and that's not the grouper in the picture by the way!)

Like I said, the men did all the deep sea fishing, and the first few days they didn't have too much luck. Two days before we left, however, they struck gold. They came back with 5 tuna, 1 mahi mahi, and they also caught a big barracuda (which they didn't keep).

Needless to say, we ate well that night and everyone except us went home with enough fish to fill the freezer. (Everyone else could drive home, and we didn't think it was smart to risk arriving home to find all of our clothes smelling like fish.)

Here are the proud fishermen!

Cleaning fish was another activity that took up a lot of the men's time, especially after that big catch!

One of the days when most of the boys went fishing, the rest of us went to the beach.

The second time I went fishing, Krzysztof took Brandon to the 7-mile bridge for a walk.

One of the most memorable things we did was a swim with the dolphins experience. Well most of us, anyway. Apparently dolphins are a risk to pregnant women, so they didn't let me near them, and my dad opted out of the experience since he did it in Mexico a few years ago.

It was still fun to watch everyone. There is my sister Christie going for a pull with the dolphin.

And here is Krzysztof giving their dolphin a massage.

During downtime at the house, Papa's iPad was a great entertainer for Brandon. It's amazing how well someone who's not even 2 can operate that thing.

Here's another cute picture of our happy boy at the house! Not much entertains him more than wearing someone else's shoes.

After we finished our week on Marathon, the 3 of us went with my parents to Miami for the night. We stopped to feed the tarpins before leaving the keys.

We also stopped near the Everglades. This was at an awesome fruit market called Robert's Not Here. They had great tropical fruit smoothies and all kinds of fruit you've never heard of or seen before.

Then we went to an Alligator Farm. Touristy as it was, it was pretty neat to see so many alligators and crocodiles in the various exhibits and to see an alligator wrestling show. An interesting fact we learned is that the everglades are the only place in the world where both alligators and crocodiles live in the same habitat.

The highlight of the Alligator Farm was going on an Airboat tour, which is really why we went there in the first place. It was so much better than we even expected. We had to wear earphones because the boat is propelled by a really loud exposed automotive engine.

The scenery of the everglades was beautiful, and the driver did several fast 360 degree turns which made it fun.

In Miami we went to dinner at a really good Cuban food restaurant with my dad's cousins. (Even Jimmy Buffet knows that everybody has a cousin in Miami!) We stayed at a beautiful hotel on the harbor.

The next day we went to the Miami Seaquarium before our flight back to Kansas City.

It was a great week, and we are so thankful for that time with our family.

Spring 2011 (catch up part 1)

Has it really been 5 months since I made a Blog post? Life has thrown us a few curve balls in the past few months, so this will be the first in a series of posts to catch everyone up!

Curve Ball #1: In March, we found out we are expecting our 2nd baby! We are really excited yet completely terrified at the thought of having 2 kids. Most of our friends with more than one child have assured us that it can be done, but then again, they don't have a Brandon at their house. We're hoping for a much calmer, laid back child to offset the spirited and often strong willed (yet fun and lovable) one we already have.

Here's one thing we did this spring in Kansas City:

For Mother's Day we went on a fun walk and picnic at Shawnee Mission Park. Sometimes Brandon is so good at playing by himself and reading books...

But this devious smile should assure you that it usually doesn't last long before he takes off in the other direction.

While Valerie's mom was in town, we went to the best children's farmstead ever, Deanna Rose. One of the best activities they have there is the chance to bottle feed baby goats. The first time Brandon did this, he was not a big fan. The goats are pretty competitive with each other for those bottles, and they like to jump up on little kids. You have to use some strength to keep the bottle in the goats mouth as they can pull it out of your hands easily. This was Brandon's second time doing the bottle feeding, so he was now all pro.

The 2-handed technique works the best.

Curve Ball #2 came to us on May 31st. We got a call from the landlords of our house. They informed us that they had decided to move back into the house and try to sell it, and we were to be out in 30 days. 30 days! After much debate, they extended it to 45 days. It was a long few weeks as we figured out what to do. Should we buy a house in Kansas? Should we find a temporary place to rent? Everything was so uncertain because we were supposed to already know Ford's plans for Krzysztof's job at that point, but they had not made any decisions. We didn't know how much longer we would even need to be in Kansas. And where was this baby going to be born? With some pressuring, and after several weeks of waiting and waiting, Ford finally decided to go ahead initiate a move to Michigan. If the process had gotten delayed any longer, we would not have been able to get out of our house in time! We had very little time for packing and organizing, but luckily Ford provides packers and movers, so there isn't too much prior preparations that had to be done. We just had to separate out what we needed for a temporary apartment in Michigan and what we wanted for storage.

We started the process of getting together with friends for one last time, and stupidly we didn't take pictures at most of those gatherings. Here's one picture we did take from a dinner at our house with some of our "Brewing Friends." The funny thing about this group is that out of the 4 couples, 3 of us were moving away from Kansas City in the coming weeks! Ed and Kristin were moving to Iowa and Ken and Stephanie were moving to Seattle. Warren and Kristin are staying in KC.

This is your first glimpse of my growing baby belly by the way.

And here is a picture of Brandon with the best babysitter that he loves - Julia (or JuJu as he calls her). She was so helpful to watch Brandon a lot during the moving process.

More to come in the next post!

Easter in Michigan (Part 2)

Here is what else we did in Michigan over Easter weekend!

Trevor loves books too! It was fun having Daddy read to both of us!

On Easter morning we got to take a bath together! Trevor has really fun bath toys.

Hey! Stop splashing me! Actually, I don't really mind.

All of us little guys got so many Easter baskets! We each got 4 because all of the parents got one for each of us! Here is Trevor opening some of his!

Here I am opening up one of mine. Don't we look cute all dressed up, by the way?

I got this really cool phone that counts! I love numbers and counting!

Hello? Mimi?

(I am always trying to talk to Mimi on everything I pretend is a phone...I think it's because that's who Mommy talks to the most often.)

Trevor got these funny glasses. I liked wearing them!

In the afternoon I got to ride with Trevor in his wagon! This was my first time in a wagon, and it was so fun!

Weeeeee!

We played at a park after the wagon ride. It was so fun to have someone to play with!

I got to spend the next day playing with Christian and Tobey at their house, but Mommy didn't take any pictures. I had a blast playing with Christian's trains and cars!

Thanks for looking at my pictures!

Easter Trip to Michigan (Part 1)

Hi friends! Let me tell you about my first trip to Michigan! It started a little rough, but ended up great.

Daddy was working in Indiana all week and was driving to Michigan. Mommy and I were supposed to fly to Michigan on Good Friday. We got to the airport in the morning and found out that the flight was delayed. When the plane did get there, they announced mechanical issues and eventually cancelled the flight. We could fly out that evening, but I made it very clear that I was already not happy about being in the airport as long as we'd been there! I was told I would be getting on a plane! So, Mommy and I drove all the way back home and spent the night and then did the whole airport thing again the next morning! At least I got to ride the bus to the Economy parking lot several times! That was fun! Mommy was not a happy Mommy on Friday, but it turned out fine when we finally got there.

On Saturday afternoon, our friends Blain and Sarah threw a party at their house so we could see some of our friends. I had so much fun playing with their son Trevor, who is about 6 weeks younger than me, and I loved playing with Christian and Tobey too (Big Brandon and Stephanie's kids).

They had an Easter egg hunt for the kids! Here are some pictures:

I developed a great strategy for getting tons of eggs! I would run out and get a few eggs and then bring them back to my basket! Who needs to carry around that bulky basket? That just slows you down!

The only problem with that strategy is this: Trevor sees a full basket and thinks, "Hey! Look at all those eggs!"

and while I was distracted posing for a picture for my Mama...

he grabs it!

And off he goes!

So long basket! I wish I had someplace to put this ball...

Here is Tobey! He's the littlest one. Big brother Christian is helping him with the Easter egg hunt.

Here's Trevor and his mama Sarah. They were so nice to let Mommy and me stay with them for 3 nights! It was like having a brother!

Here I am looking cute in one of my classic poses on top of a slide.

Trevor has this awesome sand table! I played out there for so long! I have to get one of these!

Here are all of us boys getting fed by our daddies!

We also dyed eggs! Well the kids weren't so into it, and there were LOT of eggs to be dyed, so all the grown ups had to help. Mostly the ladies did the dying, but they made the guys have a turn.

Hmmm...Should I share my snack with Bailey? I don't think so.

More pictures in the next post from Easter Sunday!

Easter Egg Hunt at the Winery

The winery near our house has fun events for kids periodically. They had an Easter Egg Hunt and free pictures with the Easter Bunny the weekend before Easter. It was so fun!

I'll let Brandon tell you about it.

This was my first time meeting the Easter Bunny! Mommy and Daddy were positive that I would hate sitting on his lap and freak out like I did with Santa, but I just looked at him and smiled. You can't be afraid of this poor bunny. He doesn't look like the smartest Easter Bunny around.

This was also my first Easter Egg hunt! No one needed to tell me what to do! I am a natural egg hunter - and a fast one too!

Check it out! A pink egg!

All you kids back there better stay out of my way! These are my eggs!

Hey Mommy, why did you bring me such a tiny basket? There are still more eggs to find, and I'm out of room!

Victorious with my full basket!