Dixie World Series

We left for Dothan, Alabama early Saturday morning to see my brother, Quentin, play in the Dixie World Series. Grace was SO excited to see her "Uncle Q" again!

It was unbelievably HOT! For those of you who don't live down south and are not famliar with what sweltering heat is like, let me show you...

The complex we were at was very, very nice and had a tent with water misters so that helped, along with lots and lots of water to drink. I felt so bad for the guys playing!

Grace was so good despite the heat!

Team Florida beat Virginia, and Florida is in the Final 4 tonight.

I did not get any pictures of Grace and Q!! Hopefully it won't be long before we see him again.

Tampa Bay

On Saturday we headed to Tampa for my youngest brother, Quentin's (aka Precious Angel) baseball tournament. His coach invited us to stay at his beautiful water house on the bay and of course, we jumped at this opportunity!

Grace loved being in the water! As soon as her Daddy got in the pool with her she said "I like it! I like it!" at least 100 times.

Grace jumped on a trampoline for the first time! She loved it!! Great practice for gymnastics which starts in a couple of weeks.

Quentin's tournament lasted two days.

I could be partial, but he is REALLY good at baseball and it is so much fun to watch him play.

He usually pitches and stikes guys out left and right!! (By the way, going to a sporting event and a graduation has definitely told me that I need to purchase a lense for my Nikon ASAP!)

Quentin's team won the tournament!!

Way to go Hurricanes!

Quentin won the "Team Ball" for Sunday night and being the sweet Uncle that he is, he gave it to Grace! Here we are in all of our ballpark glory - I totally wanted a shower at this moment! We didn't get back to Orlando until midnight and had our big day at Disney the very next morning but I must say, it was totally worth it.

Orlando Trip Part 1

We're back!! Our trip was wonderful! I don't think I've ever packed so much into 5 days! The drive down only took 9 1/2 hours and that was a few less than I expected. We stopped just twice and Grace was a perfect angel the entire way. I don't think she cried the entire time and this was a blessing to her Momma who was fearing the worst! Friday afternoon we arranged for Grace to be the Honorary Duck Master at The Peabody Hotel.

We had planned to take her just to see the ducks walk back to their penthouse. My stepmom said that you could call few months ahead of time and be the Honorary Duck Master and walk right beside the "real" duck master and help him. Wishfully, I called the hotel and to my delight they did not have a child to help them that evening!! So we quickly got dressed and headed to The Peabody!

Grace LOVED the fountains, the water and of course, the DUCKS!


The Duck Master was so nice! He went out of his way to make this an over-the-top event for us.

Here we go!!

It was hard to get pictures of Grace because the hotel guests crowd the red carpet as if the President was coming through! You can tell Grace is taking this job very seriously.

We then got on the "Duck-evator" to take them to their home.



The ducks speed up BIG TIME once they get off the elevator because they know they are getting close to dinner.


Good night, duckies!!


The duck master gave Grace a big, nice certificate and an official Peabody Hotel rubber duckie. This was so much fun!!!

Mini Vaca.

I was never a racing fan until I got my first (and only) teaching job. Although I still would not call myself a NASCAR fan, I sure do love the three days we get off from school each time the race comes to town in April and October!
Jon's mother called Thursday night to see if we wanted to join them at the beach in Perdido Key this weekend. At first we said no, because Jon had a full plate of work to do this weekend, but it's not everyday that we get an offer for a free beach trip, so he swapped some things around (and most likely crammed it all into this week!) and Friday morning we were off! We knew going down that the weather would not be pretty on Saturday. We went for a walk on the beach that morning but had to stay in the rest of the day.

*After reviewing this post, I see that my baby has a mullet. Not just a little one, a full blown, out of control mullet!! I've noticed this developing for a while, but didn't want to take her for a hair cut because it's taken so long just to get this much hair. However, after seeing a still picture of the mullet in all its glory, I'm thinking it may be time for a trim after all! HA!
Grace LOVED feeling the sand between her fingers!


Grace and I were getting cabin fever by 3:00 so we headed out in the rain to find a little store I saw an ad for in the newspaper. The shop is called "Geez Louise" and it's located in the boardwalk with The Original Oyster House in Gulf Shores. I could have spent so much money in this store but I just bought the one thing I loved the most, a swimsuit cover up. If you love Christmas or Easter village-ish stuff then you will love this place. I can't find a website for this store but the next time you are down on the gulf coast, you've got to go in there!

Sunday morning, we woke up to much better weather! We were on the beach by 9:00. It was really windy so we only stayed out for about an hour but we had a blast!

Grace was way more into playing with beach toys than she was at our last beach trip in September.



I hope you are loving this hair! Like I said, it was windy!

We had lunch at this neat place on the bay


Jon, Grace & GiGi

Lunch was delicious!! Grace discovered ketchup which means lots of wipes and napkins.

After lunch it was time to get on the road and head home! Overall, Grace did really, really well riding there and back. Jon said this was our "spring training" for our road trip to Orlando coming up in June! Although we've been on several long car trips with Grace before, I did find a few things I need to tweak before we head to meet Mickey and Minnie. One of those being a seatbelt cover for her car seat. Tonight in the bath tub I noticed a bright red mark where her seatbelt comes together. I'll be on the look out for one of those - let me know if you know where to get them!
Thanks GiGi and Papa Charlie for a fun weekend!

Just a funny story: last night Jon and I went down to the hot tub. We had been there for about 10 minutes when two sorority girls (yes, I can call them with one glance!) showed up and asked if we would mind if they joined us. We, of course, told them to come on in. The hot tub was small but it was just two more people and besides that, it wasn't "our's" to begin with. Not 5 minutes later, two of their friends come bee-bopping along and say something like "Sorry for crashing your hot tub!" Of course, again we told them it was not a problem and Jon and I just scooted a little bit closer to each other. Within two minutes, another "sister" showed up and got in. The girls were very friendly. They were from Mississippi State and all in different sororities (no AOII chapter there, too bad!). Two minutes had not gone by and THREE more girls walked up and hopped right on in, not at all worried about the fact that there was not really room for even one of them. By this time I was nearly sitting on Jon and we looked at each other and both knew our hot tub time was over! The girls did apologize and said they hoped they hadn't run us off.... what would have given them that idea?!?!?!?!!!