Easter

Easter was awesome with O'lena this year. She was so much fun!! Last year she was little and had no idea what was going on.

Here are some pictures. I got a lot of video too, but it would like forever to upload.

Here are daddy and O'lena at her school's egg hunt. She was just getting the idea. It took a while but she finally got it. She kept wanting to eat her eggs.


Saturday night we colored eggs at Oma and Opa's house. It was alot of fun too. She was covered with dye by the time we were done, but we all got to show off our artistic talent.
Derick and Kevyn were shrink wrapping the eggs with decorations.
Here is all of our talent on display. I thought we did a good job and it looked cool with all the bright colors.

This is Easter morning and O'lena finding her Easter basket. I decided to get her a wagon with toys that cost just as much as a basket did and she would use it more. She still is pulling it around the house. We are still picking up the grass though. That stuff is awful!
O'lena enjoying her bubbles. She now says "bubbles!" It is so adorable. Easter pictures at church. I LOVE this picture of Cookie! She looks so happy.
Bryan and his girlfriend.
The Bryants.
The whole lot of us.

Pictures of O'lena hunting for eggs at Oma and Opa's house. She is naked again because all the eggs we dyed got all gooey and she got it all over her. Some how we ended up hiding 36 eggs for one little girl to find. She did a good job. She was game for most of the time.





O'lena checking out her basket at Oma's house. I loved the pearls! She wore them all day!

Trip #3 Disney

So my sister in law Jessica called us up a few weeks back and was like "You want to go to Disney?" We were like..."Okay!" We had an awesome time! There was a bunch of us. Jessica's brother in laws were in town visiting them and that got the whole thing started. So there were 4 families. 8 Adults and 6 kids. It really was an awesome experience because everyone just kept track of everyone else. Everybody pitched in and worked together. If someone brought snacks they gave everyone one. It was awesome. There was no bickering, everything just kind of flowed. I really enjoyed myself. I know Derick did too. O'lena just kind of dealt with it. She wasn't really old enough yet for Disney. It was in the stroller, out the stroller, wait in line, boat, in the stroller, out the stroller, wait in line, boat, back in stroller. I kind of went like that most of the day.

Here are some pictures...of course they are backwards because blogger just loves putting them in backwards and i don't feel like correcting them.

We took the ferry back to the car. I think liked this ride the most! She just LOVES the wind in her face.
Daddy and O'leney sticking their heads out far!

Mommy and O'leneey waiting in line at "It's a Small World." She did like all the rides. We did all the kid ones for the kids. They enjoyed it. I have never been to Disney with it so crowed. It was amazing. Lines weren't that bad for how many people were there but like I said. We just did the kid ones. We did see one that was like a 2 hour wait, but I don't remember what that was.The family on the Jungle Book cruse. We got in trouble because we changed her diaper on the boat. They weren't too happy about that.
When we first got there they had the Mr. and Mrs. Easter bunny out for everyone to meet. O'lena wasn't having that. She didn't like the characters.
Here is Jessica, Larry and their family with the bunnies. The older girls were awesome to have around. They just LOVED every bit of being there.
Here is Larry's brother Kent guarding the strollers while we took pictures with the bunnies. There were so many strollers you wouldn't believe it! They had stroller parking EVERYWHERE! I have a whole new perspective of Disney now having a kid and a stroller.
This is my favorite picture!!!!!!! She is sucking on some apple juice and she would not let go of it! She kept her glasses on for a while too. I just love her little finger on the straw!!
These are some picts from the hotel pool. We got to do some swimming waiting for everyone to get there. O'lena was giving me kisses. Her kisses are open mouthed "baaaa"s, where she eats your top lip. They are cute but wet.

O'lena and daddy at the kiddy pool. She had a blast swimming, but I think it is times for floaties.
Great trip! Can't wait to go again!!

Trip #2 Hospital

So after our awesome trip camping, we come home and get a very sick O'lena. Come to find out...after a lot of poking, prodding, an enema, and an overnight stay in the hospital, we originally water intoxicated her. Meaning: we gave her too much water and not enough electrologists so she crashed. She became hyperglycemic and because of the enema (the dr originally thought it had something to do with her bowels...it's a long story) she became extremely dehydrated. It got pretty scary there for a minute because she was becoming unresponsive. In the end was got a bill and the advice "just give her some Gatorade." Soooooooooooooooooooooooooo when the pediatrician says "Oh they just need milk and water, they dont need any juice." I kind of classify Gatorade as juice!!! I wish they would have said..."Hey, you know they are like little athletes and need some electrolyte help once in a while." But some lessons you learn the hard way. By time we left she had received several bags of fluids, bag of sugar water, some antibiotics, and she was back to her normal self. Probably better because all her levels were up and regulated.

Here are some pictures of the whole ordeal. They gave her a teddy and blanket for comfort. The staff at The Children's Hospital were awesome! I have never had a better experience there. The chairs Derick and I slept in leave little to be talked about but everything else was great.
Daddy and O'lena watching Elmo. Daddy eating him M&Ms and O'lena eating her gold fish. Yeah, that would be the "comfortable" chair. Here she is in the heaven sent play room. By the morning of the next day she was feeling better enough to not be in the bed any more so they allowed us to go to the playroom. She was so excited to see all the toys she goes "oooooooooo...ooooooo..oooooooo!!!!"
Here she is riding in the wagon a bit before we got discharged. She got really bored towards the end and we walked her around a bit. She was having a good old time in it with her bear.
Yeah, I have decided that even though the staff was great, I don't like having my baby in the hospital. I remember walking around while laboring and seeing the baby beds that they have (the look like medal cages) and thinking to myself "I hope I never have to see my baby in there." I dont want to see it again. It was awful as I imagined it would be. Thank God I have an awesome mother and husband. I wouldn't been able to deal with out them. She get gatoraid now at least once every couple of days. Probably more than is necessary, but hey....

Trip #1 Camping

So back in....ummm...when was this again? It has been so long that I can't even remember. Not in April...No wait it was the first week in April! Anyways, Derick O'lena and I went camping with our friends "The Popples." I tease them and call them the Umpoppables like that TLC show. Yeah I watch alot of TLC. I think it is the only channel I really watch. I enjoy their programming. Derick sometimes gets sick of "Say yes to the dress" and he thinks "Sister Wives" are nuts but I think they are fun. But I digress...

So we went camping with the Pobbles...They have become our new camping buddies when we are not with the family. They are good camping people. I am excited because we have already planned our next trip to St. Augustine and we are camping on the beach! That will be a new experience.

This time we went to Hillsbrough River State Park. It was BEAUTIFUL! I really like this place. And come to find out it was only like 10 miles from my apt in Tampa. I spent 4 years there and never knew it existed. This park had so much to do. A lot of hiking, a fort, hiking, bridges, fishing, hiking. They had this massive pool, the biggest pool I have ever seen outside of a water park. It was amazing, but it was out of order because they were doing maintenance on it.

Here are some pictures from our trip.
I say some...i mean a lot. Chrissy takes more (and better) pictures than I do.

There is where O'lena eats her meals. I'm not quite sure if she likes it or not. She just kind of deals.
Yes, this is where we put her while we were setting up. Yeah she dealt with that too.
On morning we were up before our camping buddies (this is a switch from last time because we were sleeping sleepertons before) and Derick REALLY wanted to go fishing so O'lena fell asleep and daddy fished and mommy got to hold her baby.
This is daddy try to have O'lena fish. Again O'lena dealing with her parents.
This is my favorite picture from this trip! This is what we did instead of being able to go into the ginormous pool. It was a bit cold but once she got in she was fine. Quinton, the Popple's son, was not so into it. She looks like a model striking a pose here. She is so stinking adorable.
This picture shows how long her hair is getting. We have to put it up everyday because it gets into her eyes and nose and mouth and food and anything else. Dealing yet again.
This is our friend Chrissy and I on one of the trails there. They had a bunch, but alot of them where closed because they were flooded because of all the rain they were having then. We were lucky too because they just had tornadoes a few days before knocked out some power lines and they had no power for three days prior to our arrival. They had just got it back on a couple hours before we got there. They guy when I was checking in was like..."Yeah every one was primitive camping even if they wanted too or not." There was no running water. I think i might have went home. I don't mind camping but I dont like primitive camping.
Here are Chrissy, Quinton, O'leeny, and I on the bridge in front of the fort. You can see it in the background there. That was really cool. We had to jump some fences to get to it, but it was well worth it. Maybe next time we can go while it is open and actually see inside.
The kidos on one of our hikes. Yeah, we all love her car.
O'lena bike riding.
Derick and I posing in front of the Hillsbrough River. It was running so fast, but the scenery was amazing! Like I said it was beautiful!
Derick, O'lena and I on one of the bridges. I think this picture is cool.
O'lena and mommy swinging. We like to swing.It was a great trip. We cant wait for St. Augustine!

toooooo much

There is too much to add!!!! There has been so much happening. I AM going to finish posting all of it this week. Look forward to seeing about all of our trips!

Babcock Ranch just 4 weeks later

The family went to the closet real ranch near us for a fun fill quick trip. It was totally awesome, beautiful, peaceful, exciting and fun. We got to stay the night in the Cypress Lodge which was the home of Mr. Babcock before he died. It was very nice in the ranchy kind of way. They fed us dinner Friday night and then went on a tour of the property the next day. O'lean had a blast because it was new and she could just run around and play.

Here she is knocking on the door. She just learned how to do it and was practicing. She knocks on all the closed doors now expecting someone to open.
So this lodge was pretty much on an island surrounded by a swamp. And what animal happens to lives in swamps? Yep-er-roony alligators. The Lodge had a wraparound porch that look down onto the swamp and there were two adult alligators and i think 5 or 6 babies. It was really neat. They just hung out until one of the boys would catch a fish the babies wanted or even catch the babies. Yeah, big momma didn't like that one. Here is a picture of one of the babies. I could have watched them all day. I think i pretty much did.
So the boys thought it would be fun to fish of the balcony until Bryan caught an owl. Well actually the owl caught Bryan. He grab his bate and flew into a tree and proceeded to get the hook out. It took him about 10 minutes but he got and then took off. I tried to take a picture but it was too dark.
Here is the fam sitting down and eating dinner. Just wait until you see what we had....
Did I mention it was a cattle ranch????!!!
Beat steaks ever!
Like I said we got to go on a tour of the property on Saturday. It was really nice. It was torture for O'lena because she just had to sit there but it was nice for the big kids. Did you know that the Babcock Ranch has the largest herd of Cracker Cattle in Florida? I was paying attention!

They even let us touch a baby alligator. It was pretty cool. O'lena was like, "giveme that alligator." Yes, O'lena is wearing camo. We are on a ranch!
I think everyone can agree we had a nice time. I would defiantly go again, just to hang out with the gators.