sunny sunday

sunday was gorgeous... beautiful sunshine, blue skies, and plenty of warm weather. it just doesn't get much better than this!

the biggest decision of the day: pool or ocean?!

we brought lots of stuff!

mason & riley say "swimming makes us thirsty!"

strolling down the beach... and tasting a little sand.

checking out the sand

did i mention that the sand here is delicious?!

gimme those glasses!

destin fun!

the long road trip was uneventful and our plan to leave at 4 am from lumberton (where our friends kimberly & davon live) turned out to be a great one! all the littles slept peacefully in their carseats until normal wake-up time! we stopped just east of baton rouge for a quick breakfast at 7 am, then hit the road again. our lunch break was at the chick-fil-a in mobile and we arrived at our final destination at 2 pm. we had no major meltdowns and our newly-turned one year old enjoyed sitting forward in the carseat for the journey. he discovered, however, that it's really fun to chunk toys off the end of the seat because they now fall on the floor instead of just landing by his feet. oh the possibilities!

the view here is spectacular. when we opened the front door of the condo, the first thing we saw was the ocean!

day one was low-key as we unpacked what seemed to be more than the contents of my first apartment, grocery shopped, and generally settled in. we originally planned to cook hamburgers the first night, but we didn't make it to the grocery store in time and it was drizzling outside, which isn't exactly conducive to grilling. plan b was to try out a local seafood joint called stinky's... i know, sounds risky, but it came highly recommended by several folks. and honestly, the food was pretty good - it was just small. very small.

from our experience, any time you order a seafood platter, you can expect to have leftovers. with that in mind, we ordered 2 to share amongst 3 people. sounded reasonable to us. i ordered the gumbo. here's what we got:

and here's the gumbo. (mental note: floridians do not know how to make gumbo).

yes, that tiny container on top of the gumbo is rice. about six grains of it. i have no idea why they even bothered.

we followed up with bowls of cereal to supplement the meager grub. we now refer to stinky's as hungry's...

it was a slightly disappointing end to a long day, but one more peek at the ocean and the lull of the crashing waves made it all better.

an evacuation of a different sort

one year ago hurricane ike tormented the houston area and sent brad, me, and our 7 day old baby fleeing to austin. this year, we're planning an evacuation of a different sort - a vacation to florida!

we leave tomorrow and i haven't packed a thing. yep, turns out that planning a birthday party and a vacation within a week of each other isn't that great of a plan. my lists are ready, though, and tomorrow morning i will be dragging the suitcases out of the closet and preparing for a week on the beach. according to brad, all we really need are swimsuits and toothbrushes. i plan to pack a few more necessities than that.

we're going with our dear friends, the bledsoes, and all together we'll have 3 kids, 3 and under and 4 adults - at this point the adults still outnumber the kiddos which is reassuring! we plan to blog from the beach (our condo has wireless internet access), so be on the lookout for beach tales and sandy pictures.

i should probably stop procrastinating now and at least go find the suitcase... see ya later!

glowing grandparents

mason is blessed with grandparents that adore him. you can just see them light up every time they see him.

the evidence:

thanks for coming to visit this weekend! i love you! love, mason

monkey madness

the best part about your birthday falling on a saturday is that you get to P-A-R-T-Y on your actual birthday! mason invited all his monkeys friends over to celebrate and mommy and daddy made sure everything else was in order. first things first was the invitation.

all the monkeys played...

and played...

and played some more.
(shout out to tina for making my awesome party shirt!)

you can't invite a bunch of monkeys over without having food! so we served up brisket, my mom's potato salad and baked beans along with lots of other snacks... and our friend katie made fondant monkey toppers for the cupcakes. isn't she talented?!

she also made mason's cake...

that he then destroyed (in the cutest way)!

and we had to document it with the grandparents...

mason's friends (and family) gave him fabulous presents... that he loves. especially the bags, bows, and tissue paper!

we then played some more!

and took more pictures with family!

the end.

p.s. mommy had fun at the party instead of taking lots of pictures...

but you get the general idea -- we had a blast!

happy birthday!

to our birthday boy:

mason, we never knew what we were missing until you were born. thank you for the best year of our lives. we love you!

love, mommy & daddy

remembering...

as the days tick by leading up to mason's first birthday on saturday, i can't help but reminisce about this time last year. my due date had come and gone. i just knew that i would have my baby at 38 weeks and he would be a perfect 6.5 pounds. not so.

i was ginormous, with none of my maternity clothes fitting anymore and the loosest pair of flip-flops i owned now cutting off the circulation if i even attempted to squeeze my foot/cankle in them.

i was working from home, determined not to waste a single day of maternity leave on time when mason wasn't here, so i was getting lots of emails from clients, work friends, and others inquiring "are you still here?" in the subject line. my response was always the same... still here, still pregnant.

this year has been the most incredible one of my whole life, but i still miss some pregnancy moments - especially at work where i grew so accustomed to him kicking, rolling, and wiggling in my belly while i worked. i can check on him via the webcam during the day now, but having him INSIDE me for 9 months was such a special time. i was hosting a miracle.

my last doctor's appointment was on sept. 2 and we scheduled mason's eviction induction for sept. 4. we were packed and ready. no contractions. no other signs of labor. and no progress from week to week. but at 40+ weeks, we were certain he was fully cooked and i just couldn't wait for him to get here.

little did we know that we would wait some more once we were in the hospital. nineteen and a half hours after inducing labor, on september 5, mason finallly arrived via c-section. in addition to weighing 9 pounds and 14.7 ounces (so much for the 6.5 pounds!), our boy was crooked and didn't have room to straighten out. he was perfect in every way and the biggest blessing from God we'd ever received.

it's hard to believe it's been a year. but what a year it's been.