Weekend Surfing

Caleb and I got to go surfing this past weekend. It was unusually overcast and windy that day so the waves weren't great. We still had a blast and we were both exhausted by the end of the morning. Unfortunately both us ended up getting rolled by a wave at one point which was not fun. Poor Caleb got hit on the head with his surfboard so he took a breather for a few minutes. I was very proud of him when he decided to get back on the board and ride some more waves. The ocean temp is finally starting to cool down a bit so we were both thankful for our wetsuits.

Practicing on the balance board before heading to the beach.

Visit with Santa

Over the Thanksgiving holiday we took the kids to see Santa. Myah was reluctant at first but Santa finally won her over with a candy cane. Funny thing is, she doesn't even like candy canes! She lasted about 10 seconds on his lap - just long enough for a picture.

It's a big difference from last year's encounter.

Christmas Program 2009

The first and second grades at Caleb's school recently put on a Christmas program. Caleb had a line to say during the show and he practiced it over and over. While the children were singing, Rob and I noticed how serious Caleb was looking. After the show we asked him if anything was wrong and he said, "No, I was just concentrating really hard". And of course, he had to do a little bow after each song was over which Myah noticed and now she bows whenever we clap for her. Monkey-see, Monkey-do. lol

Caleb and his teacher

Yellow Belt (Again)

Caleb recently tested for his yellow belt in karate. He was already a yellow belt from when we lived in Arizona, but because of our move and switching teachers, he had to start over from a white belt. Here he is with his instructors shortly after he received his new yellow belt. He's doing really well with his lessons and he's developed one heck of a side kick.

An Illinois Thanksgiving & Christmas

Sorry that it's been a little while since my last post. In my defense I spent a week in Atlanta on business and then a week in Illinois for Thanksgiving - plus it's the holidays and things always seem to get a bit crazy around this time of year. With that being said, below are some pictures from our trip to Illinois to visit Rob's side of the family. We also celebrate Christmas with them while we are out there, so Caleb and Myah were very happy to open some early Christmas presents. The weather was actually really nice for Illinois in November so we were very happy and the kids got to play with their cousins a lot. Overall it was a very nice trip - with the exception of having to sit right in front of an extremely sick family on the airplane ride home. Yuck!

Surf's Up!

Caleb had his first surfing lesson today and he totally rocked it! This was his first time trying to surf ever and he did so good - I was super proud of him. Especially after I gave it a try too - and wiped out a couple of times. Surfing looks pretty easy, but man, is it tough! The hardest part for me was battling the waves - they completely tired me out. The kids surf closer to the shore but the adults have to go out further to the bigger waves. It was a ton of fun but what a workout! Caleb has already changed his Christmas list - he wants a surfboard! Make sure you watch the movie at the bottom - it was Caleb's best ride of the day.

Super Kids

Yesterday was one of those really good brother-sister days. You can translate that to mean they spent more time playing together nicely than they did fighting. lol Caleb even drew some pictures to commemorate their afternoon of catching 'bad guys' and protecting the house.

Here they are dressed up as cowboys and kept everyone safe. Caleb kept saying stuff like, "Come on lil' lady, we've got bad guys to catch" or "Howdy Pardner, grab your gun and let's go get some grub to eat". What a little goof! I guess he watched too many episodes of Bonanza with his Pop-pop!

I don't think I'd mess with these two - they threw Daddy in jail as soon as he came in the door. Of course 'jail' was the guest bedroom so Daddy didn't mind it too much - he tried to even squeeze in a five minute nap!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from our little kitty and Commander Cody (Star Wars/Clone Wars character)! Earlier in the day we went to a fall festival at Caleb's school and he got his face painted like a lizard. He thought he was pretty cool! Have I said how much I love south Florida recently? We trick or treated in shorts! Awesome!!!

Deep Sea Fishing with my Dad

Yesterday my mom sent my dad out on an off shore fishing trip with a local charter captain for his birthday. The captain invited me to go along for free so I jumped at the chance. I've never truly gone deep sea fishing before so I was really excited. We were out on the ocean for eight hours and we only caught one fish. I was the one who hooked it and, even though I wanted my dad to bring it in (it was his birthday trip) he insisted that it was mine. With that being said, I landed my very first Sailfish! It was incredible and we fought for about 20-25 minutes before I got her along side the boat. We got a leader touch (technically means you landed the fish) and then turned her loose. Even though it was a trophy catch, we chose to catch and release her. She was a good fighter and the captain estimated her at 5-6 feet and 35 -40 lbs. We took some video (boring parts removed) and pictures which are below. While I was excited about catching my Sailfish, I was bummed that my dad didn't catch anything. We both know that there are days like that with fishing, it just stank that it was on his birthday trip. Regardless of the lack of action, we had fun together and any day spent on the ocean in 85+ degree weather is a great day.

Fishing with Pop-Pop

Caleb & Myah's Pop-Pop is down for a little while to celebrate a big birthday (I won't say which one since I don't want to get in trouble). My mom decided to surprise my dad with a trip to Florida to do some fishing. Later this week he's going to go deep-sea fishing but tonight we took Caleb out for a little action on the inter-coastal. We didn't see much action, but we did manage to hook two little fish, so Caleb was very happy. I caught a little rock fish and Caleb caught a little grunt all by himself. He was very proud.

Sanibel Island

Last weekend, Caleb and I finally made it to Sanibel Island. Rob and Myah had some 'Daddy/Daughter' time at home because he couldn't get away from work for both days.

Sanibel Island sits just off the west coast of Florida in the Gulf of Mexico. Because of how the island is angled, it is has tons of beautiful shells wash up onto it's beaches. In fact it's considered one of the top five shelling beaches in the world. We got there on Friday afternoon and headed out to the beaches so we could explore before low-tide (best time to look for shells). We found some nice shells, but nothing spectacular. There were other people out looking too, so finding the nice ones was rare. The rough surf, jellyfish and signs warning of recent shark sitings also kept us out of the water. We did have a lizard ride on our car while we drove and a crane that followed us along the beach, so that was interesting.

I love these pictures of Caleb on the beach at sunset

Our stowaway lizard and our stalking crane

The next morning we woke up at 5:30am so we could be out on the island before low tide at 7am. The only catch was that it was pitch black (no street lights on the island) and there were severe thunderstorms. We had a little breakfast and then hung out in a parking lot waiting for the storms to take a break and the sun to come up. We finally managed to get on the beach at 8am and were just about the only people out - the weather was still a little rainy and the storms were hovering close by. Lucky for us, the overnight storms had stirred up some shells and washed them up on the beach. We found a lot of nice shells including several conchs that were in good shape. We probably could have found a lot more but the surf was too rough to go in and the thunderstorms came back after a hour and a half. After Caleb declared that he was 'too young to die by lightning' we decided to call it a (very early) day. We ended up at a seashell store and they had large bags of shells for $8 so I let Caleb pick one out for a souvenir. I had to laugh because it was cheaper to buy a bag of shells than it was to pay for the parking and hunt for them on the beach!

Caleb was thrilled to find this big conch on the beach, even if it was pretty beat up.

Caleb examines each of the shells that were in his bag.

These are the shells we found - we separated the nicer ones (on the left) from the ones that were chipped or cracked (on the right)