Happy Birthday

I loved having my birthday on a Sunday!  Garrett didn't have to work, and we got to spend the day together as a family.  It was so nice.  After church, a couple girlfriends and I went to the Parade of Homes around Gainesville.  It's a free event, which is awesome, and some of the homes are SO beautiful!  It's so fun to walk around and dream about future homes.  I don't think I will ever have a "parade"-worthy home, and I also don't want a huge home, but it's cool to see different features and get ideas.  Probably my favorite "feature" that we saw was a big kitchen cabinet next to a fridge... you know, one with tall doors that you would expect to maybe have brooms and mops and other cleaning supplies.  But, when you opened the cabinet it was actually a door to a huge walk-in pantry with a second fridge (just after I had remarked that the fridge in the kitchen seemed a little small considering the size of the house...).  It was awesome.

After spending a few hours at the Parade of Homes, I went home and then we went to my friend's house for dinner.  She made me Cafe Rio, which was delicious as always.  We had cheesecake for dessert.

And of course, no birthday is complete without sushi.  Garrett and I went out the night before my birthday and had amazing sushi at a place downtown.  Then, the week after my birthday, we had a girls' night and of course I chose sushi again (this time a place closer to home).  Thankfully I'm not the only one who loves sushi, so we got some rolls to share:

My friend Kate made these cookies for me!  She is so sweet.  It was such a fun night.

All in all, a great birthday.  Here's hoping my 32nd year is as great as the last!

Here and there

Garrett and I met Ellie for lunch one day, while Garrett was taking his vacation days.  Ellie has lunch at 9:30 every day!!  Isn't that crazy?  The elementary school is so over-crowded, that's the only time slot for the kindergartners. 

My friend Kristin's husband (a resident in another specialty) randomly had a day off that week also, so we left the husbands at home with the kids and spent the day in Orlando.  This is the only picture I got!!  We went to Shake Shack for lunch.  I have missed Shake Shack so much, ever since Garrett and I went in D.C. a couple years ago.  It did not disappoint!  We also spent a few hours shopping at the outlets, out for dinner, and then met up with a few other friends for a RS Temple night at the Orlando temple.  Then we went out for "second dinner" with everyone after the session.  It was a great day!

I'm working on a custom twin-sized ombre quilt... it's going to look so pretty!  Love the gold dots for the backing.

Ellie's kindergarten play was last week.  They did "How Does Your Garden Grow", which is the same one that Abbie did in kindergarten.  It was so cute!  Ellie was a farmer.

We went out for ice cream afterwards, a fun family tradition after the girls' performances.

 Olivia & Abbie, reading before bed:

I made some doll quilts with the ombre scraps... here's Olivia modeling one of them for me:

Beach Day

Garrett had a few vacation days in April, so we took the kids out of school one day and went to Clearwater Beach

Olivia was not impressed at first.  She walked down to the water and stood there at the surf, staring at the ocean,

Then she turned around and stared at the sand.  And said, "I want to go to the pool."

She didn't like the sand, or the salty water. Haha.

She was pretty happy a few minutes later, though, eating pizza under the shade of the umbrella.

Garrett can't go to the beach without bringing his casting net.

He caught some fun little bait fish, which the girls loved playing with:

I love our day trips as a family.  I love doing things with friends, but I've noticed that when we go places with friends, our kids go off and play with their buddies while Garrett and I chat with our friends.  That's great, but we don't really spend time with our kids!  I really like our family days when we do things with just us.  We made some great memories that day.

But, it was also nice at the end of the day to let the kids put on their headphones and watch a movie on the way home, giving Garrett and me some time to talk and listen to our 90's jams up front. Ha.

Rainbow Springs

Ever since our Disney passes expired in February, we've been spending some time exploring other fun parts of Florida before we move.  A few weeks ago, we took a short drive down to Rainbow Springs.

The girls loved swimming in the cool, refreshing water.  It was so beautiful and clear!  And water is always 72 degrees, year round.  On the day we went, the weather wasn't super hot, so the water felt quite cool.  I would imagine that it would feel very refreshing in the middle of a Florida summer!

We rented a canoe and did some exploring around the Springs.  Saw lots of really cool fish:

 They also have a large dock and swimming area, which we enjoyed before we headed home.  I hadn't planned to go in, but I ended up swimming around for about 10 minutes and it was so fun!  After getting over the initial cold, it was really refreshing.  The water was gorgeous from underneath, with goggles.

On the way home, we stopped to have dinner at a roadside BBQ place (and by "BBQ place", I mean - a pickup truck had pulled over on the side of the road, pulling a huge smoker, and there was a cardboard sign that said "ribs").  It was delicious, and none of us got food poisoning, which was a bonus. I wish I had gotten a picture.

 It's always fun to spend a day with friends, checking out new places!