Make New Friends

I didn't realize I had this one! Taken on Grandma Doris's cell phone:

The second verse was new to me. We haven't been able to convince the kids to sing this in a round yet, and that's the best part!

But Keep the Old

Can you tell he has a sister in Girl Scouts?

Last Vacation Post

There was a nice small splash pad in Ocean Springs right by the beach. Conveniently, it was shady.

They were doing the limbo.

We stayed at the Turtle House in Ocean Springs.

It was nice to be able to cook some meals and do laundry, and we got a ton more space than we would have been able to in a hotel.

Prior to driving down to Mississippi, we also went to a benefit run for my friend Nelvia, who's fighting cancer. This is a link to her blog: https://curablecontemplation.wordpress.com

As you can tell, it was a color run, and while James did not run, he certainly enjoyed every speck of the color.

Amelie was also enthusiastic about throwing it on people as the crossed the finish line.

James, budding photographer / future blogger?

We also went to my 15-year class reunion while we were still in the bootheel. My friend Shad rigged a speaker out of a paper towel roll, his iPhone, and some cups.

(A small sample of) The Class of 2001.

And my Grandma Doris took this picture of me and Sam when we got back:

Vacation (Alligator edition)

We went to an alligator farm one day in Mississippi. The kids got to pet an alligator. The man who held the alligator had such a thick accent that I couldn't understand him - so I'm left wondering if 1) the alligators on the farm are breeding, 2) if they know how many there are, and 3) who goes out to do maintenance on the property if it needs it.

We bought a $5 cup of alligator kibble - it smelled like fish food and the youngish alligators rushed up to eat it. Scary!

Sam made a video:

Ignore the wonky camerawork!

On the Beach

Amelie said her favorite part of the trip was the ocean.

I did have the kids wear their swim shirts, but we went to the beach mostly in the morning and stayed until about 11, and then we'd do something in the afternoon and come back to the beach after supper. We are a fair, delicate family (except Sam). (Also, almost all of these pictures are from the same day - I didn't take the camera out a ton.)

On one part of the beach close to us there were a lot of shells. As you can see, we had the beach to ourselves most of the time. I don't know if that's just because of when we were there (not in the middle of the day, during the week) or what, but it was nice. The kids liked playing in the sand and looking for shells as much as swimming.

Vacation, Part II

As I mentioned yesterday (and wouldn't stop talking about if I saw you in person), we went on vacation. The only bad thing about it is we went for 1 week and it should have been 2.

We ate a lot of seafood on the trip, but this was at a burger place. James said it was his very favorite part of the vacation. There was a pac-man machine that he pretended to play (I didn't give him any quarters) and they had good French fries.

Our first night in Ocean Springs was the 4th of July. We watched the big municipal display on the beach in Biloxi.

Can you see James and Amelie after they migrated off the mat to play in the sand?

One day we went to the children's museum, and we took a bunch of photos. Amelie pretended to drive a play boat. (Maybe we should get a boat?)

Shoveling coal in the play train:

This structure was pretty similar to the climbing structure at the magic house in St. Louis that they liked so much there, too.

There was an art room where we could paint. The theme for the day was "4" for the 4th.

James took a break in a nest of stuffed animals:

There was a tree house village:

My goodness with James and the superhero posing.

We watched The Secret Life of Pets in 3-D on the way home. The movie theater had a security guard who walked in (twice!) and yelled (seriously!) that he would escort anyone he caught on their phone off the premises.  

I have more to post later!

Vacation! (Shrimp Boat edition)

We went on vacation! We spent the week of the 4th of July in Ocean Springs, Mississippi (just over the bridge from Biloxi) and I would highly recommend it! We rented a house, so we could do laundry and cook some meals at home and have more space for the kids to hang out. We'd typically go to the beach in the morning and then again after dinner. We tried to find an excursion each day during the afternoon. One day we went on a shrimp boat tour, which was a lot of fun, and I took a lot of pictures of it, so I'll make a separate post and then put up some other vacation photos tomorrow.

James fell asleep during the short drive over the bridge and then slept through the first half of the tour. It was a good thing we didn't have to pay for him since he's 3.

They sent out a tri-line and caught some fish, squid, and shrimp. The kids were impressed by the squid letting out ink, and Amelie picked up a fish that flopped over and threw it back in the ocean.

We didn't get any pictures, but we saw a group of 3 dolphins out ahead of the boat first, and then they came back around behind the boat. The tour guide explained that they follow the boats to steal the shrimp and eat all of the non-shrimp seafood that gets thrown back in the water. There were also a lot of seagulls following the boat for the same reason.

Amelie got a turn driving the boat.

And so did James. James was very impressed that there was a big black dog sleeping on the boat during the tour.

This was also one of the only times I took the real camera out (I didn't want to leave it with our stuff on the beach or look like too much of a tourist) so most of the rest of the pictures are from our cell phones.