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)

Outdoor Fun

The other day after church Myah and I hung out in the backyard. We blew bubbles, played with the dog and overall had a very nice time.

For some reason Myah got a serious case of the giggles while blowing bubbles. Every time she would try and blow the bubbles, she'd crack herself up which, in turn, cracked me up.

Birthday Girl!

Here are a few pictures from Myah's birthday.


Myah with her balloons and her favorite birthday present - a cash register


Playing with her new toy before her birthday dinner- she picked mac-n-cheese and corn on the cob.


Waiting for dessert


Birthday cupcake (she picked it out by herself - it's cookies & cream)


Yummy cupcake!! It looks like she's puckering up for a kiss!


Celebrating with friends on Saturday - she blew out the candles without spitting on the cake! Yeah!


The Birthday Girl and her big brother!


I love cake!


Concentrating really hard so she doesn't miss a single crumb!

Happy 2nd Birthday Myah!

Baby girl turns two today! I can't believe how quickly she's growing up! Here's the birthday girl in all her glory - doing a little dance, playing with her stroller and most of all, just being silly. I think my favorite video is when I tell her we have to go to the store and get her a birthday balloon. You can see the wheels in her little mind turning and all of a sudden she's off to the front door. The girl loves a balloon!

Happy birthday sweetheart - we all love you so much!

Last Day as a One-year Old

My baby turns two tomorrow! I can't believe she's growing up so quickly - it seems like we just had her first birthday party! Here's a sneak peak at what two will probably bring - running in circles, wearing jewelry and pouting when things don't go her way. It's a tough life baby. lol

A Day Off of School

Caleb had Monday off of school this past week. We were planning on going to Sanibel Island for a little getaway but in the end, it didn't work out. Instead, we decided to meet some friends at the beach here and ended up having a blast. Of course the kids decided to play 'dress-up' before we headed out.