Monday, July 28, 2008

St. Augustine Beach

We just got back from a wonderful trip to St. Augustine, Florida on Saturday. We had such a great time getting in some quality time with the family.We left our house a little too early for the little prince. He ended up getting carsick as soon as we pulled in the driveway at Grandma & Grandpap's. But he recouped fast and had a relatively peaceful drive down to Florida.
We had the three of us and Scott's brother, Sean, in our car. Sean was our D.J. with his Ipod. We rocked it out for nearly 8 hours!
Beckham took a little distracting here and there with sunglasses, cell phones, and various other items.
Of course there was Scrabble. What kind of Parker-family get together would it be without Scrabble? We also had LCR, Cranium, and RISK- the ultimate game of world domination (at which Scott & Amanda had to come to an agreement that Amanda rules the world).
We took our beach chairs and hit the sand first thing Sunday morning.
Uncle Walt & Aunt Janet couldn't wait to show off their sand shoes.
Beckham enjoyed some shade under the tent that Grandpap bought him.
And the beach bumming begins. . .
And the wave riding. . . Brandon ruled the waves on his board.
We visited one of our favorite restaurants in St. Augustine, The Reef, where the majority of us enjoyed delicious crabcakes. Beckham required a little attention from each of us, visiting the fish tank, standing on the back porch, and walking (which he can't get enough of).
Again, we hit the beach. Beckham discovered wet sand and exactly how delicious it is. He spent most of his time on the beach maxin and relaxin on our shoulders, listening to the waves. (Check out my awesome new bathing suit from Modbeclothing.com).
We hit up the Mini-Golf a couple of times. We had to split into two teams because we had so many people. Amanda & Scott won the first night.
This picture, though sweaty and hot, has sentimentality to it. We took a picture in the exact same spot last year when I was 4-1/2 months prego with Beckham.
We also visited The Conch House where Grandma Helen and I toasted with Electric Lemonades. The restaurant has and alligator viewing area (Brandon's favorite), Tiki men at the entrance of every cabana seating area outside, and sits on the water for your viewing pleasure.
Mom & Dad posed for a beautiful pic in their colorful shirts.
As did Uncle Walt & Aunt Janet.
Since entertaining Beckham on the beach was such a challenge, we resorted to sand castles etc. with a wagon full of toys we got from Alvin's Island (which, for those of you who didn't know, is also known as Wings).
Beckham walked in the surf some and enjoyed it until the water splashed above his knees.
We had a photo shoot on Wednesday night. We all wore white and khaki and hit the beach with our photographer, Allison. I can't wait to see how the pictures turned out. I'll post some when they come in. . .




Beckham enjoyed some down time on the back porch of the condo.

So, ultimately we had a great vacation. We ate at Amici's twice, The Reef twice, Oasis, The Conch House, and Longhorn's (where we met our new friend Teemus- the spelling of his name is debatable). Scott and I made it into town one afternoon for a lunch date at the Prince of Wales where we enjoyed a BBC (fish and chips sandwich style). We shopped a little on St. George Street and made it over to the San Sabastian Winery (for the most delicious muscadine wine). We got to visit with Uncle Walt & Aunt Janet who flew down from Pittsburgh from Saturday to Wednesday. We played a lot of games, watched some good t.v. (including the season finale of Deadliest Catch), ate some icecream, walked the beach (where we found tons of starfish), and just enjoyed spending time together. We made it home in one piece on Saturday, after many hours of traveling and rediculous road construction (or lack there of).

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Water, Water Everywhere

Okay, I'm finally up to date. My cousin, Molly, is in town and Jakob is at camp for the week, so my sister and I took advantage of the opportunity and took the kids to the water park. They had so much fun. We rode the lazy-river, sat in the "jaccuzzi" and played with all of the cool water toys. Annelies and Nico even braved it on the "big kid" slides. All in all it was a great day. Beckham didn't even cry!







Let Freedom Ring

My sister and her family have a tradition of going to the lake and celebrating Nico's birthday on the Fourth of July, and Scott and I were finally able to come along. We had so much fun!! We headed out of state to Lake Wedowe in Alabama for some good food, great music (courtesy of Rob and his 1980's upbringing), lot's of sun, a little wind and water, and some thunder and lightening (accompanied by a downpour just in time for us to drive home). Scott and I were so excited that we both got up on the wakeboard and land-locking board (and did mighty well, if we do say so ourselves). Needless to say, there were no fireworks, but we did have star-shaped candles on Nico's cake. Scott is in HEAVEN in this pic. He adores Annelies.
I swear we weren't torturing the boys. Oliver was mad that he wasn't attached to Shanna's side, so Beckham had to join in.




And this was how it was until naptime- Sofia and Oli couldn't hold on tight enough.

Nico and Jakob, on the other hand, couldn't wait to get in the water. Nico so much so that he fell off the back of the boat before we reached the dock and had to swim all the way in. Show-off!

This was the first time we met Joe and Mandy and their sweet little one, Sierra. Beckham was so excited he finally met a hot chick willing to teach him how to crawl.



Showin' some crack



Happy 4th of July!!

The Little Rascal

We've already established the fact that Beckham is really into trying to crawl (which he has almost mastered- he does sortof an army crawl) and trying to walk (as long as there are hands to hold onto). Here are some other things that our busy little bee is into. . .
Pulling down the basket of "clickers" to play with, after which Daddy always says "why won't this thing work?"

Beating on pots and pans, a never-ending tradition

Playing baseball (thanks Aunt Amy- he LOVES it). He can be across the room and crawl all the way over to his toys just to play baseball.

Giving himself kisses. Does that ever stop being cute?

Playing with "the doingy thing". I think this kept him entertained for a good 30 minutes the other day.

And playing with his shadow. "Oh, there you are, Peter!"