Spring Break - Sea World Style!

Living in Florida and having all of these amazing entertainment choices has been pretty fun.  The only down side is we can't afford most of the fun things - so when they offer amazing deals we jump at the chance!  Sea World has a deal for Florida Residence where you can pay for a day and come back all year for free!  It is pretty sweet!  Shaef LOVES animals (as you can tell from past posts) and LOVES the ocean (as you can tell from past posts) so Sea World was the best of both worlds!  It was a beautiful day and we had so much fun! We can't wait to go back!

The dolphin show was definitely the highlight of the day!  They are amazing animals and it was so fun to see them interact with the trainers and do all sorts of crazy tricks!!

As you can see both of my boys are completely amazed and can't pull their eyes away!

Shaef spent most of the day "riding" on Daddy's shoulders!  He thought it was fun to trade Dad hats!

This picture is taken outside the Arctic Wildlife area.  In here we saw Beluga Whales, a Walrus, and Polar Bears.  Shaef was standing right up next to the glass of the underwater viewing tank for the Beluga Whales and the whale looked straight at him and swam right toward him.  Right when it got to the tank it swam down so it's whole body was just a piece of glass away from Shaef!  He turned and looked at me and said "Mom - it got me!"  It was so funny!  As you can tell by his face...he is still excited!

There were a bunch of tanks with fish in them and at each one Shaef identified some sea animal that he knew. I was amazed at his underwater animal identification skills!

He did not really like this penguin.....he wouldn't even give him a high five!

Shaef loved the seals.  They were making their "barking" noise and he was loving it!

This is the only ride we took him on the whole day...and he was fine with it!

However - we had to make sure that he was riding a dolphin....he was not content until we found a dolphin and he was strapped on.

We were also able to see the Killer Whale Show "Believe".  It was also fun to watch the whales.

This is the best picture of the day - my camera doesn't work as fast as the animals do their tricks so I often caught the splash of the water instead of the actual trick.  There was a baby killer whale born at this Sea World just a few weeks before we got there so we were able to see the HUGE baby!

This is the sign of a successful day!!

Scary Dinos and Scary Messes!

I still need to blog about our fun spring break, but currently those pictures are on our other computer who is having it's operating system upgraded so I can't access them.   So in an attempt to be better about posting more often - here are some pics from the past week.

Shaef loves the zoo and loves any type of animal.  He also LOVES Dinos.  So when Jacksonville Zoo opened up their Dinoalive exhibit, I knew Shaef needed to see it!  Kacey and Brooklyn took us on their buddy pass and we had a fun day!  When we got to the Dinos.  Shaef was in Heaven...until the Dino growled (or whatever noise Dinos make).  He started crying and tried to get out of his stroller - he was a little frightened.  The only reason I got the picture below was because he didn't know that Dino was behind him yet!  I held him through the rest and we made it - he still thought they were cool, just didn't want to get close to them.  I didn't realize how real he thought the dino's were until we got home and were telling Dad about what we saw and Shaef said "Dino's Scary!  Dino's outside!"  I realized that the animals at the zoo are in cages but the Dino's weren't so he thought they were going to get him...and he thought they were just "outside".  We didn't scare him away from Dino's forever though because he still loves to play with his little Dino figurines and watch dino's on TV.

I Love doing puzzles! Until this last week, I have never done a puzzle that I didn't like.  This puzzle below was only 1,000 pieces....but it was sooooooooooo hard!  It took me (and a few friends) a week to complete this puzzle when I can usually do one in several hours.  I was so proud of our hard work and was trying to decide if I was going to put it away to attempt at a later date - or if I was going to glue it together and keep for a Valentines Decoration.

Shaef made the decision for me......I came down to find this "mess" and a few pieces chewed up.  You can't do a puzzle with missing pieces so it made it's way to the trash!  At least I have proof that it was completed!!

Trip to Arizona!

Two days after my parents left, Shaef and I got on a plane and flew to Arizona!  All the girl cousins on Anson's mom's side got together for a "cousins reunion".  Some "secret" person in the family made it possible for us to fly out there and it was a great experience!!  While I was hanging out with all the girls Shaef got to hang out with Grandma Ann and his cousin Brighty!  They had so much fun together!! 

It was nice to be able to have some "girl time"!  We watched movies, made a flower broach, went shopping, took pictures,  and even went to a women's conference and got spiritually fed!!  It was so much fun!!

Grandpa Tom and Grandma Clark visit Jacksonville!

In the middle of February we had some special visitors come visit us in Florida! My parents came to visit us!!! We had so much fun showing them how we do life here in Jacksonville! When they first got here Grandma opened her suitcase and pulled out a Buzz Lightyear toy and Shaef was soo excited! A second later - he started searching her suitcase for Woody....he is a little spoiled! Grandpa and Grandma bought him a woody a few days later and continued to spoil him for the rest of the week.

We went for a walk on the beach and Shaef was in heaven.  There was a lady feeding the seagulls so there were tonz of birds everywhere!!

The lady gave Shaef a cracker to feed them and he found one bird he wanted to feed and chased him straight into the ocean!!

Shaef loves to explore things and see how they work - I love this picture....and would love to know what is going on in his head!

Here are my cute parents!!!

Checking out more shells!

We also were able to go to the Zoo!  Shaef was so happy to show Grandpa and Grandma all of his favorite animals.  Here they are standing in front of the elephants!

Here we are!!

Shaef was so happy to ride the animal carousel with Grandpa and Grandma!!

We also walked around St. Augustine.  We walked around the fort and St. George Street and then ate at a yummy pizza place!! Shaef loved wearing Grandpas hat and glasses!

The highlight of having them here was having them share in experiencing Heather's Baptism!!!  Here are all the girls!  I sure do love the women that we have met here!!

Here is Heather "glowing" before her baptism with her son Tripp.

A few other highlights of the trip were: eating at Bahama Breeze, Shaef and Grandpa looking for lizzards outside and Shaef saying "lizards sleeping", Grandpa and Shaef wrestling and jumping on the air mattress right before bed, Grandma and Shaef playing with zoo animals for hours, and many laughs!

Thanks Grandpa and Grandma for coming to visit us!!!!  We had so much fun spending time with them and feel so blessed to have such amazing family!!!