Fall Fun!

Yea my favorite season is here....FALL!!!! Love this time of year, just don't like what's after it. After the 1st or 2nd snowfall I'm done with Winter but that's life :) Josh threatens we are moving but really that's all they are threats ;) Our October is already getting filled-up with Fall activities gotta try to get everything in before our little Butterball arrives in November!


I've been helping out with Natalie, watching her 2 hrs in the morning then dropping the hooligans off at school and picking them up after work and watching her another 2 hours. It's been working out very well, the girls have grown up together and really do play well together! It's actually nice to have some "free" time while they play together. They are ready to go to Pre School in this picture.

I saw in the paper Walnut Creek was having a Fall Festival so we invited Mimi to come along. Just wasting time waiting on her :)

They had animals from The Farm at Walnut Creek and that was all Avery wanted to do was pet and feed them! She LOVES animals!

Cute baby giraffe.

She did take time to get her face painted.

and time to eat ice cream....thanks Mimi!

Then we stopped and visited Mabel/Mom/Gma/Great Gm at the Nursing Home.

The next day we headed to Akron to the Zoo. Avery was suppose to go May 5th with her Pre School class but that was our 1st week back from driving to and from Utah, being gone 2 weeks and that week was BUSY with Dr. appts, catching up on things and Dad was home for a visit. SOOOO we could still purchase discounted tickets and use them later and well that was today!

Having fun waiting for our friends to get there.

Girls loving the carousel ride. I told Josh to take our picture, ya this is what I got.....cute but all you can see is part of my legs and feet...haha!

Having fun on the rock climbing wall, thanks to Carrie.

The girls loved to touch the sea creatures.

Play Time!

Wheeeeeeeeee!

Oh Riley ;) She was yelling "hi" to us!

We also let them ride the choo-choo train!

Checking out the flamingos.

Garden City, SC 2011!

A month ago we decided to plan our last vacation before we become a family of 4. We went to our go to beach...Garden City, SC. This year it was only us and we took my mom along. We left on Friday Sept. 2nd at 4:30 pm and planned on driving half way. We like to do this b/c then we have ALL day Saturday to enjoy the beach and Josh isn't dead tired from driving. We encountered 10 plus miles of traffic that took us an hour to get through (looked like someone went over the a guard rail) and then tried the next 3 exits to get a room only to be told they are booked due to a Flea Market Convention....what?! So we drove to High Point, NC and got a room FINALLY, at this point it was after 11pm.

I HAVE NO IDEA WHY WHEN I HIT PUBLISH POST IT SPACES MY PICTURES SO FAR APART (SOME OF THEM!) DRIVES ME NUTS!


Miss Avery ready to be at the beach!


We got to Garden City on Saturday at 11:30 am, checked into Dunes Realty and our condo wasn't ready so we ate lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant, gave mom the GRAND tour of GC (heehee) and at 1pm we got into our condo and by 1:30ish in our suits and hit the beach!

Miss A's is double fisted and she's ready to DIG in!

Avery having the time of her life!

Our night life activities :)

Lots of walks on the beach in the morning.

A nice fisherman let Avery touch a fish he caught.

We met a nice family that owned one of the units in the condo we stayed in and he had dug a huge, deep hole for the kids to swim in but as you know it quickly fills in, Avery still had a blast.

Avery just loves going in the ocean with her Daddy.....and her Daddy loves it too. The water was warm.

That evening we venture to GC so Avery could do some fun things since they close down after Labor Day. Last year she LOVED this trampoline jump.

And loved it this year............

Till the guy helped her since she wasn't jumping up & down she was jumping more front to back and he made her go really high then she got scared (no tears) but she was DONE.....oh no I hope she doesn't have the Proper's fear of heights! Kinda made my mad that the guy did that to her, b/c we had to pay $8.00 & she only jumped less then 3 mins & her time wasn't up but like I said she was DONE!

Still smiling though when done.

Having fun in the Mickey Mouse Bouncy House

Mommy and Avery

GC arcade


GC Pier Arcade became a morning ritual of walking to the Pier, eating breakfast then playing in the arcade. Avery liked to play games at first then what she liked even more was being the Cheerleader, collecting the tickets, putting them in the machine & collecting her prizes :)

STUCK!

The pier was 1.3 miles each way and Avery usually did VERY good walking/running the entire way but sometimes she just needed a lift :)

She loved chasing the birds!

29 weeks. It was SOOO windy on Tues. but that was our only "bad" weather we had. The rest of the time it was mid 80's sunny with a nice breeze. So thankful! We love to go to the beach on Labor Day weekend since it's off season and after Labor Day we practically have the beach to ourselves & no waiting at any restaurants!

Trying to fly the kite Mimi got Avery - tried SEVERAL times couldn't get it to fly. Avery was so disappointed!

After eating at Bubba's Fish Shack in Surf Side!


One cool girl!

She loved this puppy and thought it was silly wearing a "shirt".

We found lots of conk shells on the beach this year, 1st time ever we've seen those on the beach. Think it was from the hurricanes stirring up the ocean.

Waiting on our breakfast at the Pier.

Avery thought this was so funny and wanted to take a picture....so this was her first "professional" photo. She did a good job just needed to edit it a bit :)

Our one and only jelly fish we saw

Chillaxin!

Raise your hands if you LOVE the beach!

Playing in the ocean with Nana and Mommy!

Avery's favorite thing to do was to cover herself with sand b/c she said it was so warm.

FINALLY on Wed. she swam in the pool! The water was a bit chilly since Hurricane Irene had dumped a lot of sand in the pool and the Tues before we came they had just got the pool cleaned out plus it wasn't heated. And WHY she is holding her nose is beyond me......she saw her new friend do it so monkey see monkey do :)

Murrell's Inlet

This crane was on the boat dock right by where we walk and had caught a fish and swallowed it whole, by the time I got my camera out I missed it :(

Daddy trying to show Avery the cranes and the goats. It's like the blind leading the blind with those two lol!

Some guy was making roses out of palm leaves and said it will last forver. So we got her one.

We finally ate ate one of the many restuarants in Murrell's Inlet. On Emilie Rickly's recommendation we ate at Dead Dog Saloon. Avery didn't want to eat her b/c she didn't want to eat a Dead Dog...haha! Em also recommended was Bubba's which we ate at earlier.

Sunset

Our annual fort we build

Another fort we built which Avery just LOVED!

Daredevils!

Avery did get hit by some waves and thought for sure she'd want to come back to shore but she didn't.

Mmmmmm Painter's ice cream!

"twins"

She just LOVES the beach!


3 generations

This was our last day on the beach and the tide stayed out forever and you could walk a long ways with the water still only being to your ankles/calves.

The mermaid fort we built. That was the best $4.00 we spent on those 4 mermaids!

She danced and sang and played so well in the ocean.




The fort got washed away.

YUCK...sand everywhere!

Another day she swam in the pool for a bit

Thought this was a cool picture with the full moon

Hanging out on the pier watching a band set up....of course Avery wanted to stay and dance. We also saw lots of fireworks on the beach that week.

Last morning I got up and took pictures of the sunrise.....just beautiful!

Avery who rarely sleeps in the car slept over 2 hours on the way home :)

We left at 7:50 am with only 2 stops made it home by 6:15pm.