After a year's worth of fun Florida adventures for our family and one extremely trying, difficult, and stressful year of anesthesia school for Aaron, we now find ourselves faced with a rather sudden turn of events and are moving back to our little old cajun house in bayou country. To say we have mixed feelings about the move would be such an unbelievable understatement. I have to say that my hubby made outstanding grades over the past year and put so much of himself into trying to make this work out, but in the end it is very clear that God has other plans for us, and Aaron and anesthesia work just aren't meant for one another.

We will never forget all the amazing people we met here! We will always be reminded through hundreds and hundreds of photos that we had so much fun and experienced so much during our stay for which we are truly grateful. We learned so much about ourselves and our family and the strength of each of us, both individually and also as the little unit of 6 that we are.

And now we look forward with positive attitudes to moving back home and being surrounded by those we've missed so much over the past year.

Watching the Sun Go Down

More Friends and Fun

Our dear friend Sean brought his two children, Cameron and Caitlyn, to Panama City Beach for their vacation, and we all enjoyed spending time with them, catching up, and having some fun.

Just Cooling Off

Such a silly bunch of girlies!

She's a Level 1 Graduate

This summer Alaire took her very first official swimming lessons. Aside from one day when she slipped/jumped off the side while the teacher was working with another student and managed to dog-paddle her little way back to the side while Mommy went running to the rescue, she enjoyed them and did so great! That one particular day was pretty scary for her (and ME!), but luckily the very next day she went right back to it with no lasting fear. She graduated to the next level, and really, truly learned so much!

Flashback

Alaire's baptism 4 years ago today.

New Stunt

Froggie

We have frogs everywhere! If you went searching for a frog around our yard, within five minutes you'd probably find at least twenty. It's almost ridiculous!

A Birthday Surprise!

Thank you, Nanny Tee Tee and Parain Darren for the fun birthday surprise! Alaire (and Curran) had such a fun time ripping it open and finding all the great things inside! Look back soon for pics of them playing with the bubble blower and sprinkler you sent! Thanks again and hugs and kisses to each of you!!

Perdido Key Weekend

A very impromptu trip to Perdido Key to see Ben, Genie, Gabe, and Jordan for the day led to a really fun and relaxing weekend with them. I see I didn't get too many great photos of it, and I'm guessing that's because most of the time we were stuck indoors due to some serious storming. But through all of the chaos that is our life right now and the craziness which led to Ben and Genie being stuck there for the entire weekend, we sure did a lot of laughing and a whole lot of Pedro-playing! All the kids were amazingly good, so we took advantage of that by playing more cards than I've played in years! At one point even Aaron said "I think I might be about all Pedro'ed out," and if you know Aaron at all, you know that is most definitely a first! :)

VBS

At the very start of summer vacation our church held their Power Lab Vacation Bible School, and all three girls went and had a blast! Our church has this wonderful woman who photographs all the events that go on, and then she posts them all on the church's site. I went through all the pages and pages of pictures she posted from VBS and picked lots of the ones I loved to share here.

(That's Alaire in the giant bubble!)