Beach Trip 2010!

See! I told you I would get some pictures up this week!

Ok. No unnecessary babbling. Lets just dive right on in, shall we?

This is the view from the living room in our condo. If I could walk into my living room at home and see this every day I think my life would be complete. This view did not get old!

And we didn't just stare at the beach from the balcony. Our first full day there we ventured down and parked it in the sand for a while. Now, the ocean was NASTY. And by nasty I mean there was nothing but seaweed in sight. So we stayed out of that grossness, but Z really, really enjoyed playing in the sand!

And this is what happened when I asked him to look in my general direction and smile. Yeah. Not so much.

And no, I have NO clue what Daniel is talking about in the background.

And here is Zachariah's favorite cousin, Collin! See Zachariah, Collin smiles for the camera!

*sigh* We will have to see if Collin can help Zachariah out with the whole posing for the camera thing. :)

And what did we do after we were done playing in the sand? Hit the pool of course!

I'm not going to lie... this pool was pretty great. Half of it was in the shade and half was in the sun. I LOVED that I could choose to bake or not to bake. It was great. And grand. And lovely.

Oh, and we don't know that couple there in the sunny part of the pool. Our crew was in the shade at that point and these people creeped into my picture.

Rude.

Each afternoon when we would come back to the condo from our fun activities this is what Zachariah would do. He did not take a nap the whole time we were there, but he would definitely come close resting on the couch waiting for lunch to be fixed!

Ok folks. Hold onto your hats, because this was one of Zachariah's favorite part of the whole trip.

The skywalk. The convenient covered walkway that connects the condo to the parking garage. It can be called a skyway, catwalk, skybridge or skywalk. But in reality, it doesn't matter what you call it because Zachariah will only yell at you and insist it is a spaceship. That's right. A spaceship.

And this kid LOVED going in the spaceship. It was the highlight of every day. Anytime we need to go to the car (rain or shine) he would beg to walk in the spaceship. It was pretty much the cutest thing ever.

Yes, we could have just walked across the street to get to our car. And yes, it would have only taken about 30 seconds to do it that way. But we very rarely did that. We decided to take the extra 2-3 minutes to ride the elevator up, walk through the spaceship, ride the elevator down and THEN walk through the parking garage to our car.

Because, lets face it, there is no way on earth we could refuse such an adorable and giddy boy the experience of walking through a spaceship several times a day. :)

And seeing him walk through the spaceship may have been one of my favorite parts of the trip too.

No, wait. This was definitely up on the favorite part of the trip list as well. We went down to the beach to take a group family picture and seagulls were flying EVERYWHERE! Zachariah was basically in heaven.

Every morning Z and I would take a walk on the beach before breakfast, and every morning he would chase the seagulls in hopes that he would be able to hold one. He never got upset when he couldn't catch one, but he was a little discouraged that he couldn't even get close to them. So you can imagine how giddy he was when they started flying very low and very close to him!

Watching this kid run with/towards/away from the seagulls was probably one of the cutest things ever. I mean, EVER. He loved every second of it. :)

And just in case you were wondering, here is our Titus Family group picture. :)

The morning after the seagull fun we started packing up to leave. It was a sad moment when Zachariah realized we were leaving the condo and heading home. We had packed everything up in the car and came back into the condo for one last look around to see if we had left anything. We decided nothing was left behind and started heading out and he quietly said, "I don't wanna go home. I need to stay in condo." and from there it was just downhill. For the first 20 minutes of the drive he cried about not wanting to leave the beach. It wasn't a bratty cry. He wasn't pitching a fit. It was a genuinely sad cry.

And that made me cry. I wont go into how long I cried, but lets just say that Z dried it up well before I did. Darn these pregnancy hormones!

And here he was, about half and hour into the ride home. My sweet baby was exhausted.

So yeah. We had a blast. And while it wasn't his first beach vacation, it was the first one where he was able to soak in and enjoy the wonder of the beach. It just made my year to experience this trip with him! And I owe that all to my wonderful in-laws. This yearly family beach trip is a fabulous tradition they started and it is because of their hard work planning this trip that we were able to have such a great time!

I guess that about wraps it up! Well, not really. I still have a post about going to Gulf World while we were in Panama City, but you will all have to wait for that one. I am beat! :)

Until next year...

Well, ok. Until the next post...

Sibling Love

I am the oldest of four children. My mom had three kids in three years, had a seven year break and then had my youngest brother. So yeah. Me and my brother and sister are all VERY close in age. And I love that. The only bummer is that both of them have moved off.

My sister is working in Alabama and I only get to see her twice a year.

My brother is in the air force and last week he he left for Japan and will be there for two years. So unless I come into a lot of money that will allow me to go visit him in Japan, it will be quite a while before I see him again.

These pictures were taken a couple weeks ago when ALL of us siblings were in town together. I am super glad that we were able to spend some time together, but it really made me miss the good ole' days. You know, when we weren't grown ups living our separate lives. *sigh*

That being said... if anyone wants to start donating to the "Japanese Sibling Reunion" fund, that would be greatly appreciated. :)

Easter Fun

I am trying to get a sneak peek together from a photo shoot I did last week, so while I am getting that ready, I wanted to share with you a few pictures from our Easter weekend. We went to Daniel's parents house for lunch and an egg hunt Sunday afternoon. And let me just say that Zachariah really got into egg hunting this year and he scored some serious loot. The only thing that could have made it better was if Zachariah had actually cooperated with our family picture.

But he did not have time for that. :)

Without further adieu... here are a few pictures from our lovely day.

I hope everyone had a great Easter! :)

Love Them

My siblings and I were in the same town... at the same time... for three whole days.





I love when that happens. :)

From Our Family To Yours

Merry Christmas everyone!

Love Them

These two people make me so incredibly happy.




Just thought you should know.

:)

Our Thanksgiving

Whew! The past four days have been insanely busy. Its been a good busy, but busy nonetheless. Wanna know what we did? Good, cause I have some pictures to go along with my babblings. :)


We started our Thanksgiving morning on the couch watching A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving,


then we went to Mimi and Poppie's for lunch and played all afternoon in the backyard.


Daniel and I got a picture together, which happens about twice a year. So this was an added bonus to our week/weekend!


Then we successfully got a group picture with Daniel's family,


and a couple days later we almost got a successful picture with the my family...


and then, as soon as the picture was taken, my son ran off.


We got to spend time with most of my cousins on my mom's side of the family,


and Zachariah met his adorable second cousin (or something like that).


We got to spend time with my Auntie Jan (who we adore),


and Zachariah took a ride in the golf cart with Pops...

Whew! I told you we were busy. But a good kind of busy. Throw in a couple of photoshoots, me making my first pumpkin pie, deviled eggs, broccoli casserole, swirled cream cheese pumpkin bars and that concludes our weekend! We had so much fun spending time with our family and eating the most delicious food on the face of the planet! Seriously. It was such a great weekend.


What did you and your family do for Thanksgiving?

Birthday Post

Happy Birthday to my favorite brother!!!

Oops. I probably shouldn't say that. My other brother might get mad at me. Sorry, Dustin! It was just a slip of the fingers. :)




So yeah, my airman brother turned 23 today! It kindof stinks that I cant see him on his birthday, but he will be home for Christmas, so I can give him his imaginary birthday gift then. Hee hee.

Hope you had a great day of birth, Wesley! I cant wait to see you in a few weeks!!

What we have been up to

While most of this post is going to be dedicated to what Zachariah has been up to, I thought I would give a few updates on what Daniel and I have been up to as well.

Daniel has been working at his new job for almost two months now. We are both loving this job SO much more than his old one. He is loving the people he works with and he is able to design a lot more, which is what he enjoys. And Zachariah and I are loving his flexible schedule! So this job gets two thumbs up from everyone in the family. :)


I have been practicing my photography butt off. I have had at least one, sometimes two practice sessions a week for the past month and I have three more coming up. And I am still loving it. I am so glad to find something that I enjoy doing! Being a stay at home mom is very trying on my sanity and patience, so I am very grateful for this outlet. It makes me feel a little more normal when I am able to interact with people that are over the age of two.


Oh, and on a little bit of a random note... I cleaned out my pantry the other day. Besides the countless number of canned goods, chicken stock, cans of peanuts and bags of muffin mix, I found these...


As you can tell, we love pasta. We eat at least two pasta meals a week. But most of these boxes of pasta have been in my pantry for 6 months or so. Why does a family of three need this many boxes of pasta?? I don't even know why I have some of that stuff.



Ok, enough about pasta. Lets move on to what Zachariah has been up to, shall we?



This is our entertainment center. Well, some of it anyway. The only time I really take pictures of our entertainment center is when Zachariah is playing peek-a-boo inside of it, so you will have to work with this incomplete picture.

Take note of the doors. If you look closely you will see that there are two. One of the left and one on the right. Has everyone counted the doors?


Good. Now take a look at this picture of our entertainment center that was taken this morning.


Alright class, can anyone guess what is missing? Yes, you there. Little girl on the front row.

What? You say a door is missing? Why yes. I think you are right!

That would be the handiwork of my son. He decided to use the door as a springboard while watching TV and split the door in half, leaving nothing but the hinges. Fabulous.



When Zachariah is not destroying furniture, he has lately be found "fixing" his bus,



or taking care of his baby.


He has had an attachment with this thing for a few months now, and it is ADORABLE. He will randomly ask to change baby's diaper, he will share his toys with baby and he has even started sharing his paci's! I must admit, it has been very cute watching him interact with this baby doll. :)


Alright, that concludes my rambling updates. What have you guys been up to? Anything new or exciting? I would love to hear what has been going on in the lives of my very few readers. :)

Happy Labor Day!

Is that something that is actually said? Does anyone walk down the street and shout "HAPPY LABOR DAY!" to passersby? I don't imagine that it is a real phrase, so lets just pretend I didn't say it, ok? Thanks.

Our labor day weekend was both exhausting and relaxing. While we had nothing pressing to do, we sure did wear ourselves out with the few activities that we had in store for the weekend. So since I am exhausted and in desperate need of a nap, I am going to end this post with a few pictures from our day.


Here is my adorably cute cousin. She was making sure to take good care of Zachariah today. It was nice knowing that someone was following him around everywhere. It allowed me to sit on the couch for a few minutes and have some actual adult conversation.



Zachariah got to explore my grandfathers garden for the first time today! This was actually a major highlight of my day. I hadn't been down there in years, so that was a nice walk down memory lane for me. I plan to go back down there to try and get some good pictures of Z next time we are over. There were some places that were just screaming to have their picture taken. :)



And then Nana played a little peek-a-boo with Zachariah in the butter beans! How cute is that?!



Oh, and did I mention that I made lemon bars? Yeah. I did. And they are delicious. A recipe will be coming in a week or two, so keep your eyes peeled!


Ok. That is all the randomness you will get for now. If I feel so inclined, I may post a few more pics of our day later on in the week. But you get the gist. We ate, explored, ate again, played pool, sat around so the food would digest, then ate some more.

Hope you gained as much weight as I did this weekend! :)