End of the Year Wrap Up #1

I realize that I failed to cover a large part of the end of this past year. As third year Au.D. students you come to quickly realize that Comprehensive Exams are right around the corner. This past semester was a pure killer for me. However, I just PASSED all of my exams and am well on my way to more free time! With that being said, I have a lot of catching up to do! Over the next few days/weeks I am going to be giving you some of the highlights that I missed giving you starting with last summer. So, grab a warm cup of cocoa and settle in-there are A LOT of pictures to show and sweet stories to tell. Wrap Up #1 is from this past summer's Florida vacation:

On August the 8th my family and Daniel and I set out for Fort Walton Beach. If you know anything about my family you know that we left for the beach at 3 a.m. Yes, that's right, 3 a.m. Joellen and Matt were not able to go with us because they were on a mission trip outside of the country. We missed them terribly, but we are so glad that they had a great time! About halfway through the trip down we met up with Lynne and James and the kids.
This is one of the places that we stopped to eat at on the way down.........I AM TOTALLY KIDDING! I just thought the name was funny so I made mom and Daniel strike for a pose. Chitlins and a long car ride don't seem to mix for some reason.

We finally made it to our rental house and Crockett and Holly immediately wanted to swim in the pool. I could seriously eat these little kiddos up. They are just too cute.

Holly had her first experience on the beach:

And her first Chicken Bone:


Daniel and I had never been on a double date with Lynne and James, so one night the four of us went to a restaurant called The Fisherman's Wharf to have dinner. Mom, Dad, and Mimi stayed at home with the kids so we could have a date night together. Thanks Mom and Dad!

Dad bought us all tickets onto the fishing pier for several different days. We all had high hopes of catching "the big one" but it just wasn't meant to be. A couple of years ago Dad took Daniel and I fishing off of this same pier and it was like nature's bounty of fish. We caught the most amazing fish with beautiful colors-and a lot of teeth! Dad tried to get a hook out of one's mouth and it turned out that the fish had 5 different rows of teeth! I caught a huge pompano that year, and as soon as I caught it a little Korean lady came and asked me for it. She chucked the poor fish into a cooler and strolled it away. It actually made me really sad because I realized that she was going to eat him. Poor little guy. Sometimes I have a bit of a naive spirit. Anyways, this year did not produce such a harvest of fish. I couldn't wait to see what we were going to catch this year! After many bait fish, James caught our only fish over the size of 5". Can you guess what it was?!?



A Catfish...... Out of all of the amazing fish to catch in the ocean, we caught.... a catfish.
Oh well, we had a great time anyways:





It was really H.O.T. HOT, can you tell???

We had some wonderful meals at the beach. One night I made enchiladas...one of Daniel's favorites:
Happy Husband:
For our last night at the beach Mom and Dad treated us all to one of our favorite restaurants in Destin called The Lighthouse. My family has eaten at this restaurant for years. The kiddos were not in the best mood during our dinner so the pictures didn't turn out as we had wished:

(Don't be fooled...Mom WAS at the restaurant with us, she is just somewhere behind Dad and James in the picture-again, not the best time for pictures)


After our dinner we decided to go to Henderson Beach State Park in Destin. You have to pay when entering the State Park. For this reason the beachfront is practically empty! Lynne and James wanted to get some nice pictures of the kids in their little white frocks on the beach. Here are some of Holly:


And here is what we got when we added Mr. Crockett into the equation:




Priceless.

It truly was a beautiful part of the beach. I felt as if I was on a private beach just for our family because no one else was there.







After we left the beach, Mimi treated us all to ice cream at Bruster's to wrap up our last night in Florida:
It truly was a great trip! I hadn't been on a week long vacation in such a long time and it was so great to get some much needed R&R and family time. Have a great day everyone! Are you excited for Wrap Up #2?