5 Reasons Why I Love Living in the South

Tim and I pretty much love living in Florida, and we want to stay here for a long time. It appeals to both of us and it is such a great place to raise a family (actually, the city we live in was just picked as the Best place to raise a family in the state of Florida by some legit magazine:). So, here is why we love it:

1. THE BEACH...Tim's office is about 1/2 mile from the beach and we live about 15-20 minutes away. Yet, where we live is in the woods and feels more like the forest as opposed to the tropical beach environment. It's the best of both worlds to us.

2. There are places like this: This is called Turkey Creek and there is a mile and 1/2 "boardwalk" or "deck" walkway along some water. The kids love to run around and there is places that you can stop off and go swimming in the water.

3. Florida has FREE VPK (Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten). If you live in Florida and your child is 4 before the start of the year, you get a voucher and it is totally free. Andy goes Monday thru Friday, 8:14-11:45. I love it not only because I get a break (let's be honest here) but because he is learning like crazy and read his first word yesterday all by himself!! I love it.
4. I'm pretty sure my kids are developing a slight southern twang...out of the blue in the middle of a sentence it comes...bath = ba-ath...battery = baaat-tery...bag = ba-ag...weird, right?! It's real funny and I can't help but repeat it, which I'm sure they don't appreciate. Who knows what Ivy will sound like when she starts talking.
5. Florida Resident Discount Disneyworld Annual Passes...need I say more.

The downside to Florida...family. I miss my family more than I ever thought I would, but I know this is the right place for us to be and I am excited to be here. It's really hard to go back and say goodbye, so, everyone has to come here to visit instead, OK?! Funny story--The last time I was in AZ was Halloween and when I said good-bye to my sisters, I lost it. So, I get in the car and Minnie says, "What happened mom? Are you ok? Did Leah (my niece) hit you?" It made me laugh so hard, but then sad that my kids won't see their cousins for a while. On Monday for FHE we talked about LOVE (for Valentine's Day) and I asked Andy who he loved and his only response was, "Leah." I am glad they still love each other and miss each other and will make the extra effort to get my kids there often.

Minnie's Pink Birthday

Miss Minnie Lou turned 3 on Sunday~ that means the terrible twos are long gone, right? :) She insisted for months that her "February Pink Birthday" was coming which Anderson quickly responded with, "There is NO color birthday's Minnie". It was an ongoing conversation. Her pink birthday finally came and she loved it. We kick it old school at the Vandy House and we actually went to Goodwill and bought a VCR. For the price of 1 dvd, we can get like 20 VHS movies that the kids watch over and over...they aren't really into high def tv yet:) So she got Lady and the Tramp, I think the only movie they don't have of the classic Disney collection. The funny thing is, Minnie runs the VCR like nobody's business. Even Andy doesn't know how as good as she does.

Ivy LOVES a camera and never misses a photo opportunity.


So we decorated for Minnie's Pink Birthday with all things pink. The totally 80's fan in our kitchen was adorned with 10 cent beads left over for Christmas. Sometimes the kids get on the table and pull the fan cord without us knowing. They did this earlier and when Tim turned on the light switch, the fan (including the beads) whipped around like a freaking tornado. Beads fell and everything, including Tim's ear, got the wrath of the beads. It was like the fan weed-eated the kitchen. Oh how I wish I had a camera....it was so funny and made me laugh every time I thought about it.

We love living here, and this is one of the reasons why....taking a Sunday walk down at the beach. It is so great and the kids love it. They picked up shell after shell after shell until we couldn't hold anymore.




These were some older Christmas pictures I found that I put up for my parents to see. Minnie got her Minnie Mouse sweatshirt...I hope some day she won't hate me for naming her Minnie. I can't resist getting her Minnie Mouse stuff.
The kids and their Christmas PJ's from Memere (Tim's mom). If it wasn't for her, the kids would never have any new clothes!
Christmas cookies for Santa. My sister in law got us each these personalized plates with the kid's names on the stockings for Santa cookies. I had to write in Minnie and Ivy but it's so cute. I am pretty sure Santa's little helper (ME) ate a million of these cookies. In fact, I think Tim maybe got 1 of the second batch I made.
The loot!
One of their favorites...these sleeping bags attached to air mattresses...they love them and if anyone comes to visit, we now have 2 twins available to sleep in!

Family Pictures

After 3 years, we FINALLY got legit family pictures, and I LOVE them! A guy Tim works with is getting into Photography so he lent us his expertise and did a family session for us. We went to this really cool place called BayTowne Warf and there is tons of shops and restaurants and boats and a very nice resort. It's so nice down there and totally open to everyone. We went back the next week. I gotta admit I was kind of proud that I didn't have to buy anything new for the kids or us to wear. There were a lot of good ones and here is a few of them.

This one might be my favorite. It's that stuff on the bottom of the playground and just happened to be the same exact blue as Ivy's eyes.






This is a favorite too...Andy is so nice to his sisters. He told me he wanted another baby sister...jokes on him :)







Justy did a great job...too bad we already sent out Christmas cards:)

DisneyWorld

It only took as 5 weeks of living in Florida before we took our first trip to Disney World. Tim had to go to Orlando for work, we got a super cheap deal on a hotel through my sister's time share ($30/night) and if you are a Florida resident, you can pay for annual passes monthly. So we went for a week, while Tim was at work, I went with ALL 3 KIDS...kill me now. I went back to the hotel and let them nap, picked Tim up from work, then we went back at night. It just so happened that a long time friend I grew up with was there with her family the same week. We met up quite a bit and my kids loved having hers there too.

My camera definitely does not do the castle justice...it is huge and because we went after Thanksgiving, it was all decked out with lights. Disney does everything over the top, just how we like it.



Minnie LOVES Snow White, so when she met her, Snow White kissed Minnie on the cheek. She still talks about it now.

We met all of the characters...A LOT! And, surprisingly, the kids were fine and not afraid at all.
Then we saw the Princesses....Andy was mortified....seriously. Everyone in line was laughing and saying how cute it was when he hid the WHOLE time when we saw Belle, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.

This was the first one, he hid under Tim's jacket and REFUSED to look at the camera. Typical boy...
I think the kids may have loved riding the tram from the parking lot to the park just as much as the rides.
Phineas and Ferb is always a HIT!
For the record, we do have a little girl named Minnie. She is not named after Minnie Mouse, it is after my Great Grandma who was very close to me. And, for the record, I do feel a little weird yelling out, "Minnie" at Disney World or Disneyland. But, it is soo cute when Minnie walks up to Minnie Mouse and tells her what her name is. I love it and it never gets old.

Crazy eyes...
This was probably the most fun I had WITH the kids at Disney Parks ever. My kids have been to Disneyland A LOT and usually we have to have the "stop crying, we ARE HAVING FUN" here talk quite a bit. This time, they loved it. They loved the characters, the rides (for the most part) and the shows and parades. Ivy, the greatest baby of all time, was soooo great. But I must say there is something about Disneyland that you can't beat in my book. Maybe it's that I grew up going there. Maybe it's that everything is packed into one place. Maybe it's that the workers are OVERLY nice and I have my favorite food spots. Whatever it is, I don't know if it will be beat. But, I'll take Disney World any day!