Florida Keys - January 2010

Since baby girl #2 is giving me more time, I might as well take advantage of it and keep updating our blog! This will most likely be the longest blog post of the year since it covers our family vacation to Florida in January. I tried to narrow down the pictures as best as possible, but there were still a lot of winners!

Our trip was during the first week in January and included Al, Taylor, me, my mom, dad and sister Katrina. It was supposed to be our warm weather getaway from Minnesota (except for K who lives in Tucson now), but ended up being a lot cooler than we anticipated. Even though we were missing -15 degree weather in MN, 55 degrees in Florida did not feel too nice. Next time we'll opt for Mexico to play it safe!

The trip began a little rocky with some frozen pipes in the plane we were supposed to fly in. For those not in MN, this should normally not be an issue. We are used to sub-freezing temperatures and planes fly all the time after some defrosting. We were a bit puzzled that they hadn't begun the defrosting process a lot sooner. Of course, it was a 6am flight, so that was probably the problem. After all, other flights were able to fly out...
After sitting on the plane for awhile, they let us all get off to stretch until they found alternatives. We (the MN travelers) were supposed to have a connection in Atlanta on our way to Miami, but it was evident that we were missing that flight. We were lucky though, the plane we were on was supposed to be routed to Fort Lauderdale via Atlanta. So we just changed our tickets and got back on when the plane was ready. Always the trooper, Taylor did great with the delays and changes. She is such a great traveler!
Katrina was still arriving in Miami and waited for us there while we figured out the best way to get ourselves to Miami once we arrived in Fort Lauderdale (about 30 miles away). It all worked out and the next step was to get our rental car (in Miami) and wait for our luggage to arrive (arriving around 11pm). It was a VERY long day, but luckily didn't interfere with our travel plans since we had slotted that day for travel anyway. The next morning our vacation would truly begin as we made our way to the Keys.

On to the pictures!

Al and Taylor hung out in the hotel room while my mom and I went to get one of the cars and luggage. Since she needed to get ready for bedtime long before our luggage arrived, she got to wear daddy's t-shirt as pajamas. She thought that was pretty great. This is her practicing some ballet moves to some music on the TV.

The next morning we got going and Al, Taylor, Katrina and I made our way to Monkey Jungle while mom and dad went to grab a second rental car at the airport.
This place was really neat. The monkeys are all around you as you walk under netting and through the man-made jungle. Taylor was excited to see all the little monkeys running around.

Feeding time!

Taylor practicing her monkey face:

This part was a lot of fun. You could buy berries and nuts and put them in these metal bowls. If there was a monkey nearby, they would pull the bowl up and eat all the food and drop it back down for you to fill again. Lots of quarters spent on feeding monkeys!!

After we had our time at monkey jungle (Al could've stayed there forever, he was in heaven), we all caravaned our way to Tavernier to check into our rental house. Since this was our Christmas, we also planned on doing our family gift exchange that first evening too.

While mom, K and I went grocery shopping, Al, dad and Tay had some fun exploring the property. This is one of my favorite all time pictures. It looks fake, but this is the outside of the house near the dock at sunset. Taylor loved this new place!

Time for Christmas!

This was our make-shift Christmas tree before we did our gift exchange. :)

The following morning. All the ladies having breakfast and planning out the day:

We decided to have a low-key day and stay nearby. We ventured out to the Dolphin Research Center in Grassy Key. My mom, Taylor and I decided to sign up for "touch a dolphin". I had originally wanted to swim with the dolphins but a) it was way too cold to consider getting in the water and b) you can't do it when pregnant.

Some fun before seeing some dolphins:

Some great close shots of the dolphins, Taylor was in awe. Unfortunately, when it came down to the reality of getting on the platform to touch the dolphins, she had a panic attack and was NOT ok with it. So that was $20 down the drain. ;)

Great shot of mom shaking flippers with one of the dolphins:

Taylor and Al staying warm while they watch us play with dolphins. My jeans were SOAKED afterwards. I couldn't wait to get back to the house to warm up. So glad we did it though.

Back at the ranch, Taylor amusing herself with some dominoes she found. Hmmm, a little Type A??

On the warmest day of the week (I think it reached 60), Al, Taylor, Katrina, mom and I ventured out to go on a glass-bottom boat ride.

Taylor loved this little look-out area on the front of the boat:

Picnic on the upper deck of the boat:

A family tradition, puzzles! Growing up, we always did a lot of puzzles and many times during Christmas break. Mom brought one with and Taylor got to help put in the final pieces:

One of our last days of the week, we took the long drive all the way to Key West to spend a day there. The weather was mostly sunny, but very windy and could get chilly again when that sun hid behind the clouds. We will definitely have to go back and see KW again under better weather circumstances!

Taylor getting ready for some lunch at Blue Heaven:

Had to take a family photo at the southermost point!

A photo of just Al and I! It's amazing how few of these we get nowadays. :)

Despite the cooler weather, we still saw an amazing sunset in KW:

Everyone say, "Hoodies"!

Dinner before we head back to Tavernier. Taylor chowing on a jumbo shrimp. She liked it!

One morning, Al, Taylor and dad headed to a nearby beach and park. Unfortunately, this is the only beach time Taylor had. No swimsuit!

Al caught some great shots of sunrise at the same park the next morning with mom and Katrina.

One more excursion of the week. We went to another place to see dolphins, sea turtles, sea lions, etc. It was pretty neat!
Boat ride with dolphins riding along with us. They would actually jump through the gap in the middle of the boat too.

My little funny-face girl:

During the sea lion show, Katrina was one of the handful that got to get a kiss from the star:

Some views of our beautiful rental house. We never used the pool or tiki bar hut so we definitely need to go back during warmer weather and check it out again. Beautiful place!

View from the second floor deck:

View of the back of the house. We had the top floor which was 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. The bottom level was mostly garage, laundry and a small apartment.

Al couldn't leave our place without taking advantage of the kayaks. He actually made his way out to the ocean by himself. Then he came back and took Taylor for a short ride around the marina.

She was pretty ok with it, but was fine with being done too.

Overall a great trip despite the weather and not being able to wear the shorts, t-shirts and swimsuits that we packed! It was a great location and a great house to get away. We are all agreeing that next family trip may have to be in Mexico though to get a better chance at warmer weather.

December 2009 (Part 2) - Christmas

Hello again blog followers! If there are any left anyway. I know, I know, I was supposed to be better once school was over, but for some reason, we are consumed with prepping for baby #2. Which includes moving Taylor to her new big girl room. There has been painting, carpet installation, purging of stuff, rearranging, etc. Not sure where all my free time was supposed to come from!
Anyway, I am now up to Christmas and not sure how I will squeeze in the next 5 months before baby girl arrives in the next week or two! All in time though. Need to make sure we document what we can.

So without further delay, onto Christmas in Kansas! Yes, it does feel weird to blog about Christmas when the lilacs are blooming...oh well!

Taylor making herself at home with all the fun toys at Nana and Papa's house:

Having some grub with cousin Tavaris:

Christmas morning! Taylor was able to open Santa gifts at Nana and Papa's house, how fun!

Mommy and Tay-Tay:

Taylor loving her cousin Caleb. She was so doting to him and always wanted to give him hugs. Big sister in training!

Christmas lunch with cousins Tavaris and Baily!

Story time with Nana:

Taylor and Caleb checking out some new goods:

Playing the organ at Great Grandpa Voigt's house. This has been an attraction since Al and his sisters were little kids.

Grandpa Voigt with his grandkids (Kelly, Al and DeeDee) and great-grandkids (Tavaris, Baily, Caleb, Taylor, Logan - one of the cousins, Deidric)

We are so blessed to have been able to see Grandpa Voigt over Christmas. Sadly, we lost him on St. Patricks' Day this year. He will be greatly missed.

Taylor tuckered out from all the action and too cool for school:

It was another wonderful visit to Kansas to see Al's family. Taylor loves to see her cousins, Nana, Papa and Mimi. Just wish we could make it happen more!

Coming up, our chilly trip to Florida in January!

December 2009 (Part 1)

December! I had to break up the month because Christmas alone is worth a separate posting. That will be coming soon.

For now, here are some other tid-bits from our winter wonderland month.

This was/is a common sight at our house. Both the dogs and Taylor love to check out the action in our front yard. Taylor was also very helpful in putting up all of the window stickies for Christmas. Every time I would give her one to put up, she would say "thank you mommy!". EVERY single time. It was very sweet.

It has been fun to get Taylor to help out with what she can. She loves to watch/help us cook and bake. This was us preparing for our annual Christmas cookie baking session that we have at my godparent's house (Joan and Bryan). I make a quadruple batch and so does my mom and then we have a little factory going at Joan and Bryan's. They have a great kitchen with two convection ovens so it works out perfectly!

Fun miscellaneous shot of Taylor hanging out with Lobo. He and Chewy are so good and patient with her. Taylor loves to help herself to Lobo's bed and he is very tolerant of her. I think right now he is pleading with us to help him out though.

Waiting for Santa! We weren't sure how Tay would do this year because she tends to be wary of anyone dressed up...especially mascots. We did some prep work for this outting though. We were at a different mall the night before and I let her watch the process with other kids. We then asked her if she wanted to do it and she replied, "maybe later". So we told her we would go the next morning. That following morning we talked about it the whole time and had about 30 minutes to wait in line before it got started. All in all, it went pretty well! We didn't get a smile out of her, but she sat on Santa's lap and didn't cry, success! I think she even told him what she wanted for Christmas, a dinasour puzzle. It's so great at this age when the "big" present is a $7 puzzle from Target. ;)

Christmas Cookies!

Here are some pictures from this year's christmas cookie baking session.

Grandpa helping Taylor decorate with sprinkes. It went pretty well!

Taylor testing out some of the goods:

My mom and I were the ones rolling and cutting and getting the cookies ready for the sprinling crew!

Uncle/Godfather Bryan showing off some of his work:

Mommy taking a break with Tay and trying out some decorating:

Tree Decorating!

We took some fun pictures of Taylor taking part in decorating our two trees. We have a small, artificial one in the family room that we put little ornaments on. She really liked helping with that one.

Our little tree:

Now we started decorating the bigger, real tree in the living room. She was such a great helper!

Taylor really engrossed in her work. She loved helping decorate this year!

Birthday Parties!

During the month we also had Taylor's friend, Rowan's, 3rd birthday party. We went to a fun place called Pump It Up with giant inflatable toys. This first slide was a bit intimidating and it took Taylor quite awhile to work up the courage to go down. Of course she needed one of us to go with her. I think I was more scared than she was!

Fun with daddy trying to stick velcro strips on the colored squares. It looked tough!

Not really sure what this face was about, she probably just didn't want to be interrupted to take a picture!

Another fun game, a big inflatable house with balls to toss around. I think the parents got more into it than the kids. We were definitely over-capacity!

An attempt at getting all the kids together for a photo. Somehow Taylor managed to get front and center with her other daycare buddies while Rowan, the birthday girl, barely made it in the picture. I think we have one pink leg of hers at the top of the picture.

Last but not least, cake time! Look at all of them practically trembling with anticipation!

Coming up next, Christmas in Kansas!

November 2009

We are slowly catching up, two posts in three weeks! By the time baby girl is here, we will be caught up to February. ;)

I'll make this post short and sweet.

Here are some fun miscellaneous pictures of our hammy Miss Tay.

Loving her Minnesota Vikings jumpsuit:

Our sweet baby with all of her favorite animals and babies. Their names? "Big Baby", "Purple Rabbit" (which is actually a kangaroo), "Hippo", and "Little Baby". She's not big on giving her animals and babies names yet.

She loves being surrounded with her stuffed animals!

Cutie patootie. Love those pig-tails!

Raking Leaves - November 7, 2009

It wouldn't be Fall without a good leaf-raking session. This was Taylor's first time really being able to jump around in some leaf piles. I think overall she enjoyed it, but she wasn't keen on having the leaves on her when she would get dumped in the pile. Silly runt.

Loving the leaves being tossed around.

Christmas Lights - November 22, 2009

Taylor had a fun time helping daddy with sorting the Christmas lights this year!

Our little Christmas tree. :)

Trip to Ohio - November 26-28, 2009

The day after Thanksgiving, Taylor, Joni and Grandma & Grandpa traveled out to Akron/Barberton, Ohio to visit with Grandpa's family. Growing up, we never made it out there on holidays, but we found out about a surprise 69th birthday party for my aunt Judie and thought it would be fun to go out, see some family and introduce Taylor.

It was a great trip and so fun to catch up with family that we don't get to see too often. I realize I only have pictures of Taylor for the most part since she was a little too shy to pose with anyone.

Excited for the plane ride. Sitting with grandpa on the shuttle to the airport.

While mommy had to do some studying in the hotel room, Taylor got to spend some pool time with grandma and grandpa at the hotel.

I was impressed that she even got in, she hasn't shown much interest in swimming yet.

Drying off with Grandpa.

One of the big family outings was a trip to the bowling alley. It was cute to see the kids play with the big "kids". Taylor hanging out with some of Joni's cousin's daughters.

Taylor learning the rules from Joni's cousin Stefanie.

Such a great trip visiting with my dad's side of the family. So wonderful to see everyone!