Mary Payton's Miracle

Here is one of the reasons I haven't been blogging very much... Mary Payton's benefit is this Friday. I know I have mentioned it before, but wanted to show ya'll a clip that was on the news the other night....... HERE

If you would like to buy tickets PLEASE let me know! Also you can make donations by clicking on the website Mary Paytons Miracle on the top right of my blog. Mary Payton and her family are such wonderful sweet people. Remember you can make miracles happen!!!

Dance Recital

Ok after numerous emails from all of you out in blogging world and me REALLY missing the blogging world...I am back! I promise to play catch up this week. It's just been so nuts here I can't even begin to tell you.

I want these moments on here for my girls so even though this was quite a long time ago...I want it on here!

At the end of each dance session the girls have a class celebration where all the parents, grandparents etc. are invited to come take pictures and video of class. Since this session was princess ballet they got to pick their FAVORITE princess. Guess what they both picked... ARIEL! (And you will see this costume again at the end of the month for halloween.... They are both SET on being her for Halloween!)

All the costumes to choose from!

AWW cute feet!

They did a stretch at the beginning of class that was to a song that had all the princesses in it. Here is them yawning being sleeping beauty.

Their bff since birth Lilly Kate also choose to be a mermaid!

Sweet moment!

A princess curtsey.

My other princess doing a curtsey.

I don't remember them hodling hands at all...but here they are! They have been doing this more often on there own.

The whole class! Could they be any cuter?

At the end of each class they got a prize once they turned in their costumes out of the treausre box. They got their tiaras...Now they are REALLY a princess.. But we all know they didn't need a crown to think that! They always think that they are the princesses of the house. I try to remind them that mommy was the first princess here!

Insectarium

Ok REALLY far behind, but want to get these things on the blog. It's been sooo wild here with evacuation and vacation, and sign ups for photo shoots!

On my birthday (almost 2 months ago)... we went to the Insectarium. It's new and this was the first time we went. We all LOVED it. Amelia was a little skeptical about all the bugs, but she still had alot of fun! They had some really neat things there!

Checking out some kind of bug.

This was GROOSE! They had a place where you could go under and stick your head in this bubble to see all the ROACHES!!!!!

A big worm!

Abigail riding on an Aligator she said was Claude from the Cajun Three Little Pigs.

Riding in a Pirogue.

You could touch some of the bugs...we mainly just looked! :)

Amelia listening to termites.

The groovy bug!

This was our FAVORITE part. They had a Butterfly garden!!! We are HUGE fans of Fancy Nancy and her new book Bonjour Butterfly , so the girls went NUTS in there with all of the butterflies flying around.

Check out this face!

We then went to Bubba Gumps to eat.

The girls and daddy had made me a birthday cake the night before as a suprise while I was gone to a meeting!

The girls showing me my birthday present outside!

It was a bird bath! We feed the birds and every morning we love watching the birds during breakfast.

Amelia made the birds a bed and chair with the rocks.

Thanks Brian I had a WONDERFUL birthday!!!! Ya'll all made the day so much fun and memorable! I love ya!

Letters for bows

Alot of people have asked where we got these? It is a pony tail holder that you can wrap around the bows. It is GREAT, bc you can move it to whatever bow you want! You can also just use it as a ponytail holder. A friend of a friends sells these to help raise money to adopt a little girl from china. They are only $6.00!!!! What great birthday and Christmas presents. Check it out and help her out!

Click HERE

LOOK WHO LOVED THE BEACH!

Ike is ICKY!!!!!

We were at the beach this past week. We were supposed to be there for the ENTIRE week, BUT Ike had a little different plan for us. First let me say that this trip was by far the BEST we have had except for the ending. The girls were AMAZING and were sooo easy. Brian and I actually got to sit and enjoy the beach some this year.

We go to Fort Morgan Alabama.... Which if you look on this map is the very bottom far left...that penisula that shoots out. That VERY THIN penisula....

Well we stay almost at the VERY end of this tip...so our condo is pretty much the very far left bottom.
I borrowed this pic from a website...this is what our condo normally looks like, and we stay in the line that goes back from the beach.


At 3:30 AM on Thursday morning I heard a HUGE THUD....... I thought Abigail had fallen out of the big bed so I asked Brian to go check on her. He came back and told me that I must be hearing things bc they were both sound asleep. He crawled back in bed and then jumps back out saying he is hearing someone screaming. He runs out and this is what he is greeted by......

Mind you Ike is THREE HUNDRED MILES AWAY FROM US AT THIS POINT!!!!!!

SCARY!!!!!!! Can I tell you how scared I was???

Those are our steps and this is where we normally park! I asked Brian to move our car the night before just in case. He thought I was CRAZY...thank god we did, bc we wouldn't have gotten it out of the sand. The surge was rushing up sooooo much sand and just leaving it behind. The ladies next to us the car was sinking by the second. I had to go wake up some friends we had made to let them know that they needed to move their car too! Nice wake up call at 3:30 in the morning. (most of these pics are well after day break and I woke up enough to think about documenting this experience)

This is the boardwalk for the condo next to us...there is usually a TON of beach before the water.

It was CRAZY-- the surge would come RUSHING in up to our knees at times and then there would be nothing...except the getting higher sand. That swing is sitting on the sand. Definitely not where it was the day before.

This is what the surges would look like...it was so scary and at times if you were off of the steps you had to hold onto something it was so rough. This is up to our third step. It was sooooooo loud too!

These were our chairs..that stayed...we couldn't get them out!

This is under our condo...the water was just rushing under it......

The front condos at many times were surronded completely by water. There were two couples staying in one of these and they lost there ladder. The fire department had to come get them out.

This was the dogs in all the excitement....


After things calmed some I got a little brave and went out to get this pic..that is pieces of concrete piled up..it was the parking slab!!!
Did I tell you that the hurricane was 300 miles away and NOONE knew or warned us that this was even a posssibility!!!!

Part of the boardwalk that is no longer there!

Brian caught this pic... YIKES!! I would have been running!
This was on the back side of our condo..nice lake hunh?

The waves were scary looking....that is the end of the boardwalk on the far left.

This is what originally woke me up! Nice...it was BANGING into our condo!

This is next to our condo..this is usually just sand and sea grass.

This was inbetween the front two sections.

This is how much sand was drug in.....
It was up to our third step.

So to tell you more about why we were still there. WE decided VERY early on we wanted OUT! So you remember that penisula? WEll there is only one way out ......and there was THREE feet of water on the road. So no such luck for a mini van.

I was maintaining compsure pretty good until we lost power..... AND WATER! Then I was a wreck. We were told that trucks with trailers were coming to get us..pack up your car imediately. We were flying packing things up....mind you Brian had to walk to where our car was moved up on the hill....It was terrible!

Then we were told that NOONE was coming to get us. I was DEVASTATED!! What was I to do with 2 kids, and 2 dogs with no power and now no water? It's pretty secluded out there and many people had left with big trucks. Our new friends down the way went and checked it out in their big truck! They came back and told us they would lead the way. One of them had a huge truck and then one had a four runner so we all followed each other. It was SCARY... All I could do is hold my breath.

This is while we were drving.

The water was pretty deep in places.... We drove through FOUR miles of flooded road.

A silly pic...to end the trip. Many more fun pics from the trip later. Video also to come!

I can now say I think these people are NUTS who ride out the storms who live on the beach ! Ike was no where near us and was causing this craziness. We were so scared we wern't going to get out on Thursday.

Tonight my prayers are with those who were directly hit by Ike. Our experience I am sure was NOTHING compared to there's!

My dear friend Hope who moved to Houston recently..."hope" you are all ok!