Forever Young: June 2007

The Birthday Boy

In honor of my mother-in-law who can always tell the tales of her 4 children's births......" I remember 7 years ago today...." I was induced for labor around 7 or 8 am and Brandon was born at 5:18 pm and I became a mother! What an awesome day. I still remember smelling that "baby smell" on my hands and realizing that I now had my very own baby! Time has flown, but it's been 7 years since that wonderful day. We always try to make our kids feel special on their special day. Here is the story of Brandon's day!

Brandon awoke on his birthday and had to "unwrap" his day! He said that he thought he was in jail when he woke up.

He was excited to find balloons and streamers decorating the house.

Of course, the best part is always the presents!

Brandon's Grandmom and Grandpa got him a Leapster for his birthday, so he was very happy to get a new game for it.

Brandon could not decide what he wanted for breakfast....either donuts or his Daddy's french toast. He finally settled on the french toast and picked out some cinnamon raisin bread to make it with.

Then his buddy, Asa, came over for his birthday.

We took everyone to Holiday World for a fun-filled birthday!

There were lots of rides....so many that we didn't have time to do all that we wanted to.

Look out! A 7 year old is behind the wheel!

I'm not sure who had more fun on the bumper boats....Todd or the 2 boys!

This roller coaster was one of their favorites. Bekah wasn't too crazy about it though.

One of the best parts about Holiday World is the water park. Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures because our camera isn't waterproof. We kept it locked up in a locker while we were in the water park.

Everyone enjoyed a break for some ice cream!

We stayed until the parked closed and did as much as we could squeeze in. We didn't even stop for supper until almost 10:30 when we spotted a McDonalds on the way home. After a very fun day, the boys finally crashed at just a few minutes before midnight. Brandon had invited Asa to sleepover. (And because Brandon only has one sleeping bag, he slept in Bekah's Cinderella sleeping bag. Bekah was not very excited about this and she told him it had "girl germs" on it!)

When they awoke the next morning, our neighbors, the Russells, came over for breakfast.

Brandon got his 2nd breakfast choice...donuts! I know I'm terrible for not making a cake, but he was happy to have a birthday donut with a candle!

Although Brandon did not have a typical "birthday party" this year, I would say he had a great birthday!

A dangerous week!

This week both of my kids had accidents. No, not in their pants, accidents that could have caused them harm. But, thankfully, everyone is fine.
On Wednesday, we were invited to swim with some friends at their pool. So, we went and had a great time. Then, we were leaving the pool to go inside and have some lunch. We got all dried off and covered up and were walking out, and Bekah fell into the deep end of the pool. She had no flotation devices on as we were leaving the pool. Of course, I jumped in and scooped her out. She coughed up some water, and she was dazed for a few moments, but she recovered quickly. I was only a couple of steps behind her when she fell, but I didn't actually see her fall. She said she was looking off to the side, and I assume her foot just got too close to the pool when she took a step. Thankfully, she's fine, and maybe she'll remember to pay more attention when she's walking around a pool!
Then, last night all 4 of us were enjoying jumping on the trampoline together. Todd had gotten off, and Brandon and I were having a contest to see who could bounce on their bottom and pop up to their feet the most times without stopping. I had just started bouncing and evidently Brandon was too close to the edge, and he popped right off of the trampoline. I saw him flying through the air, but there was nothing I could do to stop him. He landed on his bottom and back and banged his head on the ground. He cried for a little while, but seemed to recover pretty quickly also. He was ready to jump on the trampoline some more.
I am thankful that we trust in a sovereign God to take care of our children (and ourselves!). I know that if things were left completely up to me, my kids would be in bad shape! I need to remember more often to trust God completely and not to work in my own strength. God loves Brandon and Bekah more than I do and he is more than able to protect them from any accidents!

More pictures from Florida

We returned for a second day at SeaWorld.

We got to see the dolphins playing fetch and acting silly!

These are my hands petting a dolphin! It was great!!

The Sea Lion show was funny and very entertaining.

A diving sea lion!

Baby alligators

Todd watching the killer whales swim.

This was the rental car that we drove all week.

We enjoyed lots of nice dinners while we were there. This one was at Vito's Chop House.

No trip to Florida would be complete without a round of putt-putt golf.

I always win at putt-putt! The most points wins, right?!?!?

Just a few shots from our plane ride home.

We landed in Nashville, TN on Sunday June 10th and got to see our kids! The vacation was great, but now it is back to "real life!"

Pictures from SeaWorld

We spent 2 days at SeaWorld while we were in Orlando. The first day we went over about 3 in the afternoon after Todd finished up his conference.

We ate dinner at the Shark Underwater Grill. It was kind of like the Aquarium restaurant.

If you look closely you can see a cage with 2 divers who are having an up close experience with the sharks!

Welcome to Shamu's stadium!

The show was very cool! We opted not to sit in the "Soak Zone" and those who did sit there were definitely soaked!!

It's amazing what they can train these huge killer whales to do!

There is a person standing on the nose of this whale!

After the Shamu show was over, they let us stay in the stadium to watch the space shuttle launch.

Then we could actually see the shuttle in the sky!

This was the smoke trail that lingered in the air for quite a while after the shuttle launched.

We ended our day at SeaWorld by watching the fireworks/water show. They used a spray of water as a screen to display images from under the sea. We were tired, but had a great day at SeaWorld.

Pictures from Florida

Well, here are a few of the promised photos! This covers about half of our week, so I'll put more pictures on here later!

This is us killing time in the Nashville airport. We are ready for an adventure!

This was the interior of our hotel. Our room was on the 5th floor out of 14 floors.

We drove over to Cocoa Beach one day. Unfortunately, it was cloudy and a storm blew in. But at least we made it to the ocean! And we got to eat some good seafood!