Family Pictures

We hadn't had my whole family all together since 2008!  So, it was time for a family picture!  Here's all 13 of us!

 The grandkids - Kayleigh, Takiah, Derek, Samuel, Tyler and Brenalee:

 My sister Stephanie and her little girl Takiah - or as we all like to call her Tiki

 My sister Kimberly, her hubby Patrick and their kids:

 Us!

 My two baby sisters!  Love them to death!

 My grandparents - our kids' great grandparents aka Gigi and Gpa.  The kids adore their Gigi - she is the best grandma ever!

I love family time!

Colorado Camping Trip

 We flew to Colorado for a summer vacation this year.  The kids and I hadn't been back for over a year and TJ hadn't been back in over 2 years - so it was time!  We went camping over the July 4th holiday.  My entire family went.  We had a blast.  It was so much fun to sit and play cards with my sisters, watch the boys fish and shoot guns, and watch the girls play in the dirt until they were black.  The only downside: no showers - for 4 days!  We were pretty ripe when we finally made it home!

I love the mountains - nice and cool and so incredibly beautiful.  I really, really miss those mountains.

 Papa and Tyler played a lot of chess - Tyler loves playing chess with Papa.  My dad was always playing chess with us when we were younger.  He's carried that tradition on with the grand kids - well Tyler anyways!

We ate really well up there!  My brother-in-law Pat did a lot of the dinners and desserts and they were fabulous!  We had a good time eating :)

 The three little girls who were always very, very dirty!

 The boys shot - a lot.

 All the boys shot...a lot!

Some of the gorgeous scenery - the pictures just don't do it justice.

 The lake was freezing, but it was pretty warm in the middle of the afternoon - so some of us decided to swim...

not Kayleigh though - she's not too fond of water - but Bella (the dog) is!

 Silly Samuel - he was a little cold after his dip in the lake.

 We were camping on the 4th of July so the kids did some sparklers.  Tyler was too tired to stay up for that, so he went and put himself to bed in the tent.

 What a great time we had!

Brenalee's dance recital

Brenalee had her jazz/tumble dance recital this past weekend.  Her class did the Conga.  It was really cute.  You are only allowed to take pictures during the rehearsal, not the actual recital.  The rehersal was on Friday morning and then the recital was on Saturday afternoon. 

Here she is waiting for her turn to go on stage:

 Getting ready to start!

 Shakin' it!

These were pictures the day of the recital, right be fore we left to go to the UNF campus.

 Last year after her recital we forgot to bring flowers.  Well, all I've heard about for THE ENTIRE PAST YEAR was how we forgot her flowers and not to forget them this time.  I remembered :)

Tyler was funny - after her dance I asked him "didn't she do so good?"  He said "yeah, but her legs are too long."  Ha ha!  That made me laugh - she did have the longest legs in the class.

Last day of school!!

Last day of school?!  What?!  I can't believe how fast that year went! 

Poor Brenalee - she missed her kindergarten graduation.  She woke up that morning with some serious tummy issues.  I knew she was probably ok - but I couldn't bring myself to send her to school and worry the entire time throughout the ceremony that she might have a problem.  I think I was more upset than she was about missing it.  It is my last child graduating from kindergarten - and we missed it!  I'm still not over it...

 Tyler made his graduation.

 Getting all his awards.

 His class

 His good friend and our old neighbor Taylor who lived in the house right next to ours when we first moved to Jax.

 The best teacher I've ever had - Ms. Murphy.  Tyler and I are both crying that she can't move on to every grade with Tyler.  She restored my faith in public education.  Although, I am sure it is short lived.

These kids are just growing up way too fast.  It's funny, I remember when they were small I thought I couldn't wait for them to grow up and be in school so I could have some time to myself.  Now that they are in school all day and I'm home all day - I miss them terribly and wish they were home with me!  I definitely learned a lesson there.

Much needed getaway

Life hasn't been easy for about 2 years now.  TJ's schedule is insane.  We can never plan anything.  I've never seen anyone work so much!  And it's not like he has a choice in the matter either.  The military isn't like a normal job with normal hours.  I don't know how he is still functioning - I would have thrown in the towel long ago.  But, we did find out at the last minute that he would have Memorial Weekend off - wahoo!!  He had been flying so many weekends, I don't really remember when he had a day off, so it was just so exciting to know he had 3 WHOLE DAYS OFF! 

We decided we wanted to go to Destin for the weekend.  I've never seen more beautiful beaches than on the Gulf Coast.  The only problem was everything was booked.  But, we found a steal of a deal that only cost us an arm and a leg and we were off!  It was worth it.  The kids had a blast and we did too.

The first jump into the gulf - we didn't waste anytime.  As soon as we arrived we threw on our swimsuits and off we went.  The waves were a little rough.

 We spent 2 glorious days laying on the sand and playing in the water.  The last day was spent at the pool trying to get all the salt off us.

 Isn't that turquoise water exquisite??!!

 We let the kids do any activity they wanted.  This was the European bungee jump thingy.

 Then they decided they wanted to do the zip line.  I was a little nervous as I watched my two most precious possessions climb all the way to the top and jump off a building...but they had a blast.

 Brena kickin' back enjoying her post zip line treat - I can't get over those long legs of hers!  I wonder where she gets those from??!!

 My sweet boy who is happiest on vacation.

 The firework show!

What a glorious weekend it was!  It's sad to think that next Memorial weekend we will be without our daddy once again.