Weekend trip to Florida - Mother's Day

Ahhhh...vacation is so awesome.  It's so nice to not stress about work and "to-do's" and other things.  It's great to have someone else cook for you and make your bed.  :)  It's so nice to be able to sleep in....

....NOT... When you have a toddler, there's no such thing as sleeping in.  Max wakes up at the same time whether it's a weekday, weekend, or we're on vacation.  Joy.  It did ensure that we were able to make the most of our days and get going much earlier than we would have normally.

Breakfast at the hotel.  He was super cute.  I think everyone around us was entertained.

Our hotel room and pack n play provided by the hotel.

View out our window.  WOO HOO - right on Cocoa Beach!

Max all covered up, sunscreened, and ready to hit the beach!

I was hopeful things would be different this morning but he still freaked out when we tried to set up down to walk on the sand.  So Dad carried him down towards the water.

It took a little bit but eventually he wanted to play with the shovel and bucket

Once again freaking out about walking on the sand but we made him walk this time.

When we were done at the beach, we enjoyed lunch outside on the patio.  It was great except for all the flies.  GROSS.

I enjoyed my vacation drink - a pina colada!  (Picture courtesy of Max.  We were trying to keep him entertained while we waited forever for our food.)

This is how you know it's been a great day - you have a bathtub with lots of sand.

After naps, we visited world's largest surf shop and bought some trinkets.

That night we went to dinner at a restaurant right on the water with my dear friend, Colleen. Colleen used to be my boss but moved onto another team which allowed us to move our relationship into a great friendship.  This restaurant is known for having great views of the sunset.  However, there was a huge rain storm tonight so that meant that not only did we not get to enjoy the sunset but that we had to sit inside too.  The food was good though - we ordered fish (risky for us!).  I thought my grouper was great and Peter thought his mahi was edible.  :)  We also had some coconut shrimp.  We were very adventurous, ha!

Colleen spoiled Max by buying some fish food so he could feed the fish.

Me, Max, and Colleen.

The next morning is was overcast and humid.  We still went to the beach though because this was our last chance!  We had to check out of the hotel at noon.  But first, we hit the restaurant for breakfast so mom could get a great, cooked-by-someone-else breakfast on Mother's Day!

Video - Max telling me "Happy Mother's Day"

Max still didn't want to walk on the sand.  He was okay where it was firmer out by the ocean but further up the beach where it wasn't as compacted, he really didn't like.  BUT at this point he had fully warmed up to playing in the sand and the ocean and was loving it.  We took him out in the waves a few times.  Peter took him further out than I did...it made me nervous. And after one big wave came that required Peter to lift Max over his head to ensure he stayed above water, Peter decided to move closer to the shore.  

Cloudy day meant mom loosened up and didn't make Max wear his shirt.  Although, it cleared up more towards noon.

Silly kid wanted to wear his hat like this for awhile.

Do you see the black dots on the sand?  Those are bugs.  Apparently they are called "love bugs" which is a good name because they were mating all over the place.  They were EVERYWHERE.  It was really gross.  By the edge of the water it looked dark like seaweed but when you get close you realized it was tons of dead love bugs.  They were all over the sand, all over your towel, all over your stuff.  I had to work hard to not think about it or I wouldn't have been able to stick it out at the beach.  I don't like bugs.

We bought a (if I use the wrong term - sorry...totally not an expert) boogie board for body surfing at the surf shop yesterday.  We both gave it a try but never really were successfully.

Me, sort of catching a wave.

We stayed as long as we possible could at the beach and then quickly went back to the room, cleaned up, and checked out.  Because the boys had an early flight home in the morning, we decided to stay closer to the airport on the last night.

While driving around looking for food, we found an Outlet mall.  Guess what was one of the stores!?  Happy Mother's Day to me, I went shopping for clothes for Max.  :)

While I was shopping, Peter stayed in the car with Max since he had fallen asleep and found a place for us to go for lunch.  He did a great job choosing - Tommy Bahama's.  The food was FANTASTIC!!!

Kisses from dad

Trying to give Max more kisses

Ha!  Dad always wins.  :)

This was their "kids" spaghetti.  I was really appalled with the portion size.  I mean, come on.  Too bad I can't order off the kids menu.

After lunch we got checked in at our hotel and got ready to go downstairs and hit the pool.  We were the only ones at the pool but it was FREEZING!  Not fun at all.  :(  Bummer.

For dinner we went to Tony Roma's.  It's been forever since I have been and it sounded soooo good.  Their onion loaf, their BBQ sauce, their ribs...   Yeah, it sounded much better than it was.  Especially after the great lunch we had eaten, this was pretty bad.  They got our order messed up, forgot some of Max's food, etc.  And the ribs weren't even good.  No more Tony Roma's for me.

Again, we entertained with the iPhone.  Keep in mind this isn't our first chain of defense.  First we colored, then we played with cars, but eventually he's not interested in any of that.  So, out comes the iPhone.  We certainly love the awesome servers that will bring out Max's food first because usually he's so done by the time our food comes that the meal isn't very enjoyable.  

Our quick weekend trip came to an end far too soon.  :(  On Monday morning, I took my boys to the airport and dropped them off for a early flight back home before I drove on to my work meetings.  Peter was a trooper and handled it all himself - the suitcase, the diaper bag, the stroller, Max, and the car seat.

Right before I said goodbye.  It was AWFUL saying goodbye.  :(

Peter took this picture to show me how his flight was going back.  

No middle seats were open on the way back, the flight attendants weren't nice, and Max was wiggly.  He said he'd never do it again.  Sorry, Peter - thanks for doing it though!!! 

It was such a great vacation because #1 - we were at the beach #2 - we did some fun things we've never done before #3 - we were able to spend time with some great friends #4 - we also were able to spend time alone as a family without daily distractions.  So glad we we did it!

A Trip to Austin aka Eating My Way into a Food Coma

I needed to go to Austin for work and since I had family that were going to be in town visiting my cousin, I decided that Max and Peter needed to come too!

Max was a great traveler on the way down (see his cute crossed feet?)

We went straight to Michelle's house so we could spend a little time with my Aunt Leanne and Uncle Clay since they would be leaving the next day when Peter and I had to work.  Max was super shy and only wanted Peter to hold him the entire time we were there.  That worried me a little bit because I was going to be leaving Max over there the next day while Peter and I had to work.  I was hoping he would have started to warm up, but no.

I was really glad I got to spend time with Clay and Leanne.  I sure love them!

We got to the hotel room late but Max still wanted to check out this new place.

What's in here?

In the morning, I nervously dropped Max off at Michelle's with her and Ashlee (I knew he'd be well taken care of, I just worried that he'd cry a ton or not take a nap or not show off his cute, fun personality and basically be a pain to take care of.)

For work, I went around with the local supervisor in the area collecting information about areas that were considered "cool" and also making purchases so they could learn about the POS system for each location.  So we were trying to buy something small from every place.  It was a really fun project for my team to do!  We were working an area that had a lot of food trucks and fun little stores.  It ended up being quite cold until later in the afternoon and I didn't bring a jacket - brrrr...

We saw this sign in a store...pretty fitting for me.  :)

Our first purchases - we split a sub sandwich, a shwarma (didn't like it), and some gumbo.  We were going for warm food and trying to warm up.  We also got some cupcakes and a water.

Here's the row of food trucks we were visiting at this location.  We got there right as they were opening.   By the time we left, this place was packed!

Next group of purchases - soda, pot stickers, and sweet potato fries

I sent Peter a picture of my lunch so he sent me a picture of his.  I win.

We continued working our way down the street (we were starting to get loaded down with bags from all the purchases)... and then hit another food truck area.  This was some sort of pizza - it was really yummy.

More food trucks

When we wrapped up, I went back to the hotel room to share the food leftovers with Peter.  There was no way I could eat everything and was sooo stuffed.  I had basically been eating my way through Austin.  Additional things pictured that I haven't mentioned yet - a sausage dog, a cactus planted in an armadillo, an amazing turkey sandwich (mouth waters just thinking about it), candy sticks, finger puppet, brownie, more water (we did lots of water because in some places it was the cheapest thing), and a canvas protector bag for a pair of shoes.  It was a crazy haul!  And the fun thing was this was WORK!  It's nice to get a fun project every once in a while.

When Peter and I were done working Michelle, Ashlee, and their families and MAX! met us at the hotel to go swimming.  Max had survived the day and even had a little fun playing with all those girls.  Unfortunately the hotel didn't heat the indoor pool (CRAZY!).  The kids braved the cold water for a few minutes but eventually couldn't take it. 

For dinner, we all went to - - - -yup, another food truck park.  You would think the thought of another food truck would make me sick at this point but NOPE.  The food trucks are all so very unique and I found that most of them had really good food.  So, I was looking forward to trying some more!  We went to one that served street tacos for dinner and then went to another one for dessert.

Waiting for dessert

The place we got dessert

It was really cold so we were grateful for a fire to stand around while we waited.

Ta-da!  Our dessert.  You can't tell, but there is a doughnut under all those toppings and it's HUGE.  It was a really yummy dessert but was super rich and so big I think I only had like a 1/4 of mine.  I enjoyed the one with chocolate and strawberries.  Peter's had chocolate, whip cream, and heath bar.

After getting the doughnuts, we took them back to Michelle's and enjoyed some good visiting for the rest of the night.

The next morning we headed back over.  The sun was shining right in Max's eyes so he must have shut them to keep it out and ended up falling asleep.  Don't you just want to kiss those soft baby eyelashes, chubby cheeks, and sweet lips?

Max enjoyed playing with this car while we enjoyed being outside in the sun!

Konrad, Kimber, Richard, Kenna, and Alli

NERTS!  Ash and I have been playing this together for over 20 years (holy cow, that makes me sound and feel old).  It really made me feel old because one of Ashlee's kids could now play with us - Sam!  Even Michelle played which made this a ton of fun.

Max would NOT stay in the wagon so we ended up handing him an iphone to play with.  He loved it and forgot about the outside world.

We walked to the park.  Max enjoyed doing his own thing on the playground.

I loved being able to spend time with my cousins and their families.  I was really pleased that the timing could work out with me needed to be in town for work.