Weekend in St. Augustine/Jacksonville

Preston took Friday off work and we left in the morning for the zoo.  It was fun and both boys enjoyed seeing the animals.  They liked the otter, who was swimming around right by the glass and doing backward dives off the rocks.  The giraffes are always one of Brayden's favorites too.  You can feed the giraffes there if you pay (which we didn't) but even if you don't, the giraffes come right up to the deck you're standing on.  The monkeys were another big hit and we watched them for a while.  There were two little babies who were so cute!  The last favorite were the bobcats.  It was sleeping when we got there and Brayden said "Bobcat, wake up."  Haha.  It did actually wake up when it heard a bike coming because it knew its food was on the way.  Brayden called him the "big cat" and he LOVES cats.

Preston's mission Presidents were incredibly generous and offered to let us stay with them that night and they even showed us around St. Augustine a bit the next day.  Brayden loved the toys at the Warner's and made himself right at home.  I think they liked having the little boys around.  They were very sweet.  St. Augustine was a beautiful city and the Fort there was free due to it being National Park week.  Perfect!   They did a cannon shot and Brayden talked about it as a loud boom like fireworks. :)  If I remember right, St. Augustine is the oldest city in North America that has been consistently inhabited.  So it has a little English and Spanish influences.  It also is home to the oldest wooden schoolhouse in the US.  We didn't pay to go inside, but we walked by.

On our way home Saturday night we stopped by a friend's house because the Rick's were in town for graduation even though they moved last summer.  It was really fun to see them and their new baby!!  The boys were exhausted and we kept them up late partying, but they were very good sports.  Plus, they did sleep the whole way home (nearly 3 hours).

watching elephants

Swimming otter

pure joy while watching the otter play

a bright orange frog. they had blue ones and striped green ones too.

the worlds largest rodent.  Looks like my Mom's worst nightmare:)

The turtle coming in for it's portrait shot.  Notice all the moss on his shell.

Brayden loved the peacocks.  We might have pulled a fry
out of the trash for him to feed it....  Maybe :)

Zander was ready for a nap

Eating his own squeezable applesauce. He ate the whole thing.

The bird nest

Brayden crawling across the rope bridge

cute monkeys

the bald eagles. Majestic :)

A fountain at St. Augustine.

Atop the fort. The cannon that was shot is in the top left corner.

Entering the fort.

The world's oldest schoolhouse.

The Warners with the boys.

Brayden checking out a little shop.  He wouldn't try any on that were his size.

Playing Rockband at the Porters.

Brothers

I just like this video of the boys.  Brayden hitching a ride on the walker.  My favorite part is when Brayden takes a yogurt bite and notices there's only one left, so he hurries and grabs that one too.  What a sneaky boy. Right after I finished videoing, Brayden clapped and said "Yay. All gone."

Sunday Update

We've been doing well and have some pictures to share.  They're all just random glimpses into our lives.  Since our last update, Zander has had a few firsts.

1. Zander ate his first pretzel stick successfully and now eats basically any kind of cracker.  Goldfish usually make him throw up later for whatever reason. 

2. Zander had his first bath without his baby seat and sat like a champ.

3. Zander brushed his teeth for the first time and actually let me brush them without resisting.

4. Zander sat in a car cart with Brayden at Publix.  As soon as I put him in Brayden cried "No! Zander out!" haha. But, as soon as Zander was in he started driving the wheel like he knew what it was! So, I told Brayden that Zan had been watching him to learn how to do it.  Brayden would occasionally reach over to Zander's steering wheel and say "teach Zan how." haha. 

5.  It seems like a while ago now, but Zander also had his first wagon ride. He loved it.

Other updates include, our garage door broke (thankfully the part is only $15), we have a moth/worm problem in our laundry room that is finally on it's way out (I hope!), my Dad came to visit for a day because he had a meeting about a job in Orlando (wouldn't that be cool?), and Preston and I have decided to go back to the CES: seminaries and institutes plan. 

Yep.

We'll finish the PhD here, but then we just feel like this was a scenic route to where we knew we needed to be all along. But, this was definitely part of the plan for us.  It has felt right to be in Tallahassee so we couldn't figure out why Preston still wasn't really feeling settled about his future career as a professor.  After talking about maybe going back to seminary it became clear pretty quickly that that's where we want to be and need to be.  We both still kinda feel like we won't be teaching seminary forever, but that's where we need to start. Who knows where the road may lead us.  Just a little FYI.   

Haha. The bath pictures are just random from when I was trying to get pictures. These are about the best ones I could get of them. Haha. No cooperation sometimes.

First wagon ride!

Random cuteness outside. We often come out on the deck
when Zander gets fussy or restless during Brayden's nap.
He calms right down.

The only picture I managed the day my dad was visiting.

First time brushing his teeth!

Easter Festivities in Pictures

Kind of a late Easter post, but for some reason my iPhoto saved my pictures to a different place than normal and I finally sat down to figure out why I couldn't find them.  Anyway, we had fun and did more for Easter this year than we have any other year since we've been married. I think Brayden's at the age where we need to start more traditions.  So, we died 4 dozen eggs on Saturday (yes, a lot) and put together a few little gift buckets for our friends here and delivered a few Saturday night and a few Sunday afternoon.  Brayden really liked giving them to his friends :)

 On actual Easter, I assisted Preston in making out first Turkey.  According to Preston, it was the best turkey ever.  I don't know why, but ever since being pregnant with Brayden, meats just aren't as yummy to me, so even thought it was really good, it was still just meat to me. Haha. So sad.  Anyway, we had a couple people over last minute and they participated in our egg hunt around the house.  I thought it was a success! Brayden definitely had fun and shouted "yeah!" everytime he spotted an egg.  He found more than I expected without any help!

mixing the dye

Our lovely eggs

The gift buckets (or bowls. . . haha)
This is what we had left for Sunday deliveries.

the Easter goods. The baskets just had empty eggs
in them until the next afternoon after naps.
The black file cabinet came from our neighbors
 curb when they were moving a while ago
 and we painted it with chalkboard paint.
It's great! A perfect place to keep coloring
stuff and also magnetic!

Brayden discovering his Easter basket with goodies
 from after-Easter sales last year and a bunch from Grandy.

Some egg chalk that we tried out on the cabinet!

showing Zander his pop-up egg.

new book!

Zander chilled happily on the rocking horse for the whole egg hunt.

looking for last few eggs no one found yet.

counting them up to make sure we got them all.  We didn't :)
Now it was out turn to hunt for our own hiding places.
haha. Short term memory?

Our Easter gang before we all parted for separate Easter Evenings.

Giggles

I was tidying up inside and heard my boys both laughing outside. Thought I'd share the happy giggles!

5 Years Ago

5 Years ago, Easter was on the same date - April 8th. It also happened to be the same April 8th Easter that Preston was taking me on a special Easter Egg hunt that led me to Bubba the Monkey.

Meet Bubba

You can't tell from the picture, but Bubba had a special message for me. It goes something like this (well, not something, it is exactly like this):

"Roses are red,
violets are blue,
but I couldn't imagine eternity
with anybody but you.

Will you marry me, Angie?"

To which a kneeling Preston responded "you'd be marrying me not the monkey." Haha.

Good times.

Good memories.

Good decisions.

I said yes.

Now here we are, 5 years later with a beautiful family to celebrate Easter with. I wouldn't want it any other way.

HAPPY EASTER!!

Easter Party in the Park

We go to the park every Wednesday morning with some ward friends and since it's Easter we decided to have a little Easter party while we were there. It was low key but tons of fun!  I should've taken pictures of the food, but you'll just have to picture it :) We had egg shaped PB&J sandwiches, bunny shaped egg salad sandwiches, celery with peanut butter and raisins, chips, fruit and little decorations on the table. After the kids played, we had a little egg hunt and there were puzzles pieces hidden in some of them, so they got to put the puzzle together too. Lots of fun! Thanks everyone for the planning!

Smiling at the bubbles

Getting ready to go hunting

Found one!

Going through eggs, looking for puzzle pieces

One piece was missing, but it's still obvious that the puzzle is
Christ.  What Easter's really all about!