Farewell to Florida.

So if you have ever tried to blog, you know that a major part of getting what you want out of it, is making the page look nice.  The most difficult part by far is loading the pictures which is why my poor Florida blog suffered so.  Therefore, in my attempts to bid Florida farewell and the welcome in the New Year, I am throwing a ton of pictures that we took in Florida on this page with as little description as possible.     This was a day that was just gorgeous in our little neighborhood in Florida.  We walked across the street and the girls posed for many pictures and then turned the camera on me.    

Isabelle is a total poser! 

I think I will really love to look back on these pictures of my babies when they are all grown up.  Mom never seems to get into many of the pictures, so I'm sure I'll cherish these few. 

You can always expect this kind of bear hug out of Isabelle.

Sarah is such a nut!  She has a look like she could be thinking of a thousand other things she would rather be doing. 

                                          This was the play set across the street at the little park.  When it wasn't a million degrees out, it actually provided a good amount of entertainment. 

This was such a beautiful park, I didn't want to forget it. 

We had heard of purple potatoes, but we only discovered them for ourselves while in Florida.  This was one of our favorite dinner side dishes. 

Check out the color of the mail trucks in Florida.  I was surprised at first, but then I realized that all of the public transportation had loud and colorful paint jobs, so why should the post office be left out?

 The girls and I took a day and visited Hollywood studios where we got to see our good friend Mr. Hanks play in the Indiana Jones stage show at the park.  He rotates roles between Indiana Jones and some of the other stunt type roles.  It was a blast watching this fun show while realizing we actually knew one of the actors! 

 I'm sure that I mentioned this in previous blogs, but while we spent a lot of time doing things in Florida that we can't do in San Diego, we also tried to have a sense of routine and normalcy.  One of the activities that made it feel more like home was the weekly gymnastic class the girls participated in.

We were fortunate in that there was an AWANA chapter at the church that we attended, so the girls began attending in late August.  It has been such a huge blessing in our family.  They not only are writing the Lord's word on their hearts, they have made some amazing friends. 











We had a Wednesday night weekly tradition of meeting Daddy at Chick-fil-A for some super yummy chicken sandwiches and waffle fries! 

 Here are the sweet T'n'T girls.  Jayden, Macky, Mia, and Hallie.  Talk about being on fire for the Lord, look out world, these girls are burning!

Isabelle got two pictures on the page because we couldn't leave anyone out!  Especially our favorite friends.  To the left is Elle Grace, Isa, Sarah, and ?.  Below is Emma, Isa and ?.  Can you see the energy just flowing around them.  They were a wild bunch of Sparkies! 

Then sweet Sarah and her friend Mia.  Sarah talks about Mia all the time and wishes she could come out to California and visit her. 

The weekend just before Halloween, the Dobbins came up and stayed with us for a few nights.  We had a blast running around a few of the parks with our best friends.  Check out their handsome boys! 

I had to blow this picture up just so you could see what a grump Sarah was.  She wouldn't even look at the camera.  But, if you get to go to the Magic Kingdom, you've got to get a family shot in front of the castle! 

This is just a great shot of Daddy and Sarah on Prince Charming's Carousal.  Mike didn't work every hour in Florida, only most hours. 

I kicked off the fall season with some chocolate cupcakes and coffee for breakfast. 

Sarah the sweet ballerina. 

Lookout super-villains, Wonder Woman to the rescue!

And my beautiful snow princess, Mackenzie. 

The gang headed over to the church for a little trunk-or-treat action.  We got a bunch of candy with a few of our favorite friends. 

The last week of our time in Florida we wanted to be sure to get as much Disney park adventure completed, so here a few shots of some of our favorite characters in one of the parades. 

This was our final field trip with the homeschooling group that we were blessed enough to be a part of.  We went to the Tibet-Butler Preserve and made our own paper! You can see by Isabelle's face that this was a stretch for her.  She doesn't like to touch anything that is wet or cold or messy, so this was quite an accomplishment for her. 

So we say farewell to Florida.  We are so glad that we went on such a wonderful adventure.  We returned home to San Diego on November 5th and hit the ground running.  We missed home so much and are so happy to return, but we were so blessed to meet all the wonderful people that made our adventure so memorable.  Thank you.