Darley Picnic

One of my favorite events of the summer has got to be the Darley Farms picnic! Maria's mom works for Darley and every year they host a picnic for all of their employees. It is over the top! Full of food, drinks, a rock wall, inflatables, music, etc... So much fun!

This year Mark (Maria's husband) had to work so he couldn't make it and of course Emily is in Colorado growing a baby so she was also absent. I got to be Maria's date for the evening :)

These two lovely people are Maria's parents, Laurette and Doug. I adore them! I mentioned it a few weeks ago in another post, but Doug recently has a nasty battle with pneumonia and we are so thankful that he is feeling back to normal! He was even recently released to go back to work. Such an answered prayer! They are both so special to me and I am so blessed to have them in my life.

The ever lovely Maria and me enjoying dinner. I think this is probably the only picture that you can see the beautiful lake that the picnic is next to. It is on a beautiful horse farm in Versailles.

This was the view from our seats. We arrived a little late, so by the time we sat down to dinner (and I took this picture) the majority of the people were done eating and up doing all of the activities. That explains all of those vacant seats.

It is no secret that our friend Emily (the one growing a baby in Colorado) LOVES snow cones. I mean, the girl really really loves a grape snow cone. In fact, at the Darley picnic a few summers ago, I lost track of how many she ate. It was so funny. She even thought about having a snow cone machine at her wedding! So these next two pictures are in honor of Emily, who we both miss so stinking bad!

Maria getting the snow cone!

Doug enjoying his snow cone. He really got into it! ;)

The "family" all together.

This is a great time to also mention something else...Maria's brother, Daniel, is getting ready to go on a mission trip for 11 months all around the world. He leaves for his trip on Saturday. We are all going to miss him so much, but I know God is going to do incredible things through this year. I can't wait to hear the stories! If you would like to read more about his trip and get updates throughout the next year, be sure to check out his blog here.

*On a completely vain and random note: yes, I am wearing the same dress I had on at the fathers day dinner. Ha! I guess thats a bloggy faux pas. I just didn't even think about it. So pardon the repetition. You can now go back to your regularly scheduled blogging.

Fathers Day

We had our fathers day celebration dinner on Monday night. It was a perfect night for swimming and just hanging out with one another. We had fried chicken, mac and cheese, baked beans, cole slaw, biscuits, and carrot cake! Yum!

Of course Breck was there and cute as ever! He went straight for the diving board and spent the majority of the night swimming. He is truly a water baby!

Kristin, Dut (my grandmother) and baby T

Mom and me

Sweet little Mary Keene (I think that hairbow is bigger than she is, I love it!)

Kristin and me

The cute little Hutchinson family. Bert, Markey and baby Wakefield.

"Mo-ise" (Louise) and Wakefield

Dad and Breck. They spent so much time swimming together. My dad has the best time swimming with him :)

Dad, Mary Keene and Mary Keene's hairbow

Bert, Mom and Kristin watching all the swimmers

Wakefield and his Aunt Missy

"Mo" (Morrie), Wakefield and Bert

It was a fun night celebrating all the fathers in our family!

The Diving Board

Last Thursday afternoon the fam got together at the pool to swim with Breck for a while. He has really learned how to use his floaties lately and in turn has gotten pretty brave in the water! One of his new tricks this summer is going off the diving board!

Breck and Aunt J

He started off mastering the smaller diving board.

This particular afternoon Kristin asked if he wanted to go off the larger board and he said yes!

Going...

Going...

Gone!

My family gives me a hard time for always having my camera on and filming, but I am so glad that I had it with me this particular day. I got some really cute footage of him jumping off the board. I edited the two videos together, so be sure to watch the whole thing. The first part is him jumping off the small dive and the second part is him going off the larger dive for the first time. As you can see by the video, he was a tad reluctant when he got to the end of that big board. But after he jumped off the first words out of his mouth were "again, again". Haha, he loved it! Enjoy the video!

Also, happy first day of summer!!

Happy Fathers Day!

Happy father's day Dad! I love you!

{photo credit}

I can't remember if I posted this video last year, but I am going to post it again just in case. I am a huge fan of Steven Curtis Chapman and his wife Mary Beth. I really started to follow their family's journey about 3 years ago after the unexpected passing of their daughter Maria. Ever since then I started reading their blogs and trying to keep up on things. Around May of last year they started asking for people to send in pictures of dad's with their children. All we knew was that they were going to put together some sort of video slideshow for father's day. I submitted my picture and really didn't expect for it even to be in the video, especially after they had to cut off submissions because they had gotten so many. Well, the video came out last year and sure enough, we made it! I was so excited. Here is the video. Pay attention to around the 1 minute mark.

side note here- I think it has to do with my blog formatting, but every time I post a youtube video on here, it cuts off the entire right side of the video. It even does it if I make the video smaller. So, if you have trouble, just double click on the video and you can view it on youtube.

Bryan, Erika and Brady Carter are a family in our church who also unexpectedly lost their daughter a few years ago. Bryan and Erika actually used to babysit me when I was little. The Carter family started the Natalie Wynn Carter Foundation in their daughter's memory after her death. They recently have partnered with Show Hope (the Chapman's foundation) to build a playground at Maria's Big House of Hope orphanage in China. You can read more about their efforts by clicking here.

Last Vacation Post!

We spent one of the last days of vacation enjoying the Watercolor beach club together. Kristin bought Breck these floaties and he was really starting to get the hang of swimming with them on. He is such a water bug! In fact, my next blog post is all about him jumping off the high diving board at Greenbrier this week! I'll try to get that up tomorrow (and I have video).

Breck and me in the pool together. Yes, I am wearing a Paula Deen hat. This shouldn't come as a shock if you have followed my blog for any amount of time. :)

G daddy and Breck. I am cracking up at his face in this picture. Apparently he needed to have his sunglasses on.

After the beach club, we came back to rest up and then headed to dinner. Mom reads a lot online about the best restaurants/events going on down there and had heard about a new mexican restaurant to try out.

Lee and mom

Mom and dad

Me, Kristin and Baby T

We discovered on vacation that Breck really loves puzzles. They would keep him entertained for a long time, so needless to say, we always had a puzzle handy! G daddy was helping Breck work his puzzle after dinner. They love each other so much!

So, 2 weeks after I got home from vacation, I am finally finished blogging about it. Better late than never I suppose.

I'm trying out posting larger pictures on the blog, do you like the bigger pictures?

Also, I have really been wanting to hire someone to give my blog a makeover, but couldn't justify paying someone around $75 to do it. So, I bought one of the digital scrapbook kits today (on sale for $3!) and am attempting to learn enough about html codes to make it over myself. Stay tuned for that, should be interesting ;)

Have a great weekend!

Water Bug

The Dinner Train

I am still trying to get through all my vacation pictures. I only have a few more pictures, so I will probably end up doing at least one more vacation post.

My dad actually had to fly back to Lexington for a day to go to an important meeting. He left on Thursday and was back by Friday night. We had originally planned on all going to dinner together on Friday night after dad got back, but his flight got delayed so we ended up heading to Pier Park for the night without him. We were sad that dad wasn't with us, but had a great time!

We tried to go to Jimmy Buffets Margaritaville for dinner, but it was packed. We decided to go next door to the Back Porch instead.

I really love this picture of Breck. I don't know why, but I think he looks so cute. But then again, I always think he looks cute! Ha, thats why I am his aunt. :)

Mom and me at dinner. We were actually on the rooftop deck and had a great view of the gulf.

The cute little Tatem family.

After dinner we took Breck on a train ride around Pier Park. He LOVED it! We told him during dinner that we would be going for a ride on the "choo-choo" and that is all he could think and talk about.

Boarding the train

Aunt J and "Go" on the train. Mom had always said that she wanted Breck to name her. Well, he apparently decided that "Go" would be a great choice and that is what he calls her. It's actually really funny to hear him say it. We have no idea where he got the name, but it seems to be sticking around.

Breck and Kristin

Doesn't Lee look thrilled? Ha! Lee decided not to ride the train, so he just sat off to the side and watched.

Breck was waving to people that we passed. So funny.

When we were waiting for our train ride we saw these huge trampolines. You put on a harness type thing and it would allow you to jump really high. We saw a little boy that looked to be about Breck's age get on it and love it, so we decided to see if Breck wanted to do it too. Sure enough, he shook his head yes and we decided to let him try it. I will be honest, I thought he would freak out, especially when they started to put the harness on him.

Getting ready to jump..

This next picture cracks me up! It pretty much sums up what he thought about it. Despite my worries, he did not freak out at all when they put the harness on! Kristin had told him what to expect and I think that helped. The whole time he just had this blank stare on his face, even when he started jumping. He did smile a few times, but for the most part, he just had a funny look. I don't think he loved it, but I also don't think that he hated it. I do have some video of it but the camera is moving up and down so much that it almost makes you sick to watch.

I think his favorite part was after they took off the harness. He immediately started jumping on the trampoline, and loved it!

We had a fun night and at this point I was just happy to be feeling better and finally spending time with my family!

Have a happy Monday.

Playgrounds and Fountains

One night before dinner we decided to take Breck over to Camp Watercolor to play on the playground and in the fountains. Camp Watercolor is where all of the kids activities are done and is really cute. They have a great playground and some really fun fountains that kids can play in.

He immediately went for the ladder. He got some help from his G-daddy.

Going across the bridge.

Mom & Kristin

Kristin & me

This picture is a little blurry and completely off center, but I couldn't resist sharing it. This is at the end of the slide and my buddy has such a big smile on his face.

After the playground we took him over to the fountains. He had all of his clothes on, but we didn't care. He was happy as a clam running around. At one point he stopped, looked down at himself and said "I'm wet"...ha! Yes, he got a little wet :)

These fountains each shoot water out at different times. He would run to one fountain just as it was turning off, then to another. There were a few times he would be looking down into a fountain right as it shot water out. He thought it was great!

Dad & me

I took this picture as we were walking back to the car. Ha! He obviously couldn't get back in the car in soaking wet clothes, so why not just take them off! Ahhh, to be a toddler :)

I've got a couple more vacation post's coming! Stay tuned.