Never a Dull Moment

Since it’s been raining for what seems like FOREVER…we haven’t been out to the beach since January (we had a warm winter) and Ryan’s had school every weekend Jan. - June. So last weekend we were finally able to get out and enjoy the beach. It was a perfect day…no rain, no clouds, no wind. Although the weather report was 89° with 78% humidity making it feel like 99.2°! With all that being perfect, something was bound to happen. First Ryan, Brayden and I arrived at the beach about 11:30, no problems there. We got the jetski unloaded, again no problems – except I still can’t back the trailer in. I need to practice it one day.

We had a few friends meeting us out there. The first to arrive was one of the guys from the Ryan’s firestation. I don’t know if Ryan is bad at giving directions or what but 2 of the 3 people who came out ended up on the beach north of us (which is about 3-40 minutes drive). Ryan went to meet is friend at the boat ramp to help in unload his jetski, although the whole trip took about an hour everything else seems to go ok. While that was going on, Brayden patiently waited on our jetski. Can you imagine sitting in one spot for an hour. By the time Ryan got back my toes were like little prunes from standing out in the water next to the jetski since Brayden insisted on patiently waiting on the jetski for his dad. Everything was going good. Our next the next person arrived, a girl from the firestation and her two boys. After watching her chase around a 3 and 4 year old, I’m getting a little scared to consider having another kid. But it was fun watching Brayden play with the older boys. So, things are going good and then it happens…the other guy’s jetski sucked up his rope, anchor AND buoy! The beach was so packed that it was hard to maneuver in and out around all the people. So as he tried to maneuver around everyone….all off a sudden it stopped working, everything had gotten sucked in. (Note to self: when the beach is packed have someone push you out so you don’t run over your rope.) Because they were about to take Brayden out for a ride, I had to take Ryan’s place so Ryan could help his friend figure out what to do about the “little problem”. I don’t really like being out in the “big ocean” all that much, I’m more of a land-lover. Brayden on the other hand is a little fish. Brayden seemed a little irritated that I would only go 20-25 mph. He and his dad are little speed demons and they love going fast. Brayden has been out on the jetski since he was about 16 months old, so I guess he’s an old pro. Everyone is always so amazed about how serious he is on the jetski – you would think that he would be laughing and screaming, but I personally think he puts his “game-face” on when he gets out there! After propping the jetski up on it’s side, our group along with some friendly citizens helped cut the rope out of the propeller and I was able to come back and have Ryan take Brayden out. It took them about an hour to get it all out of the propeller. After a little flushing, the jetski started to run good again. Hopefully no internal damage was done. And then the diaper! I decided to take Brayden out of his regular diaper and put him into a swimmer diaper. I was hesitant at first, because if a kid has to go #2 in one of those things, it is really hard to get it all cleaned up and changed. But I figured we would be ok. HAH! Was I wrong, not more than 20 minutes after changing him it happened. Let’s just say, I should be relieved of diaper duty for a month! Let’s just leave it at that! I’ll save you and not go into the details.

The last of our friends arrived around 4:00 after getting lost on the northern beach again….Next time I’ll be the one to give directions. The guys jetskiied for about another 2 hours, until we finally left the beach around 7:00pm. Although we are all pretty sore the next day, the best part of it, NO SUNBURNS! After being out there for 8 hours, I was sure one of us would be a lobster. But after multiple coating of sunscreen we all have a nice tan going! I hope it nice again soon so we can go out again.

By the way since the sand gets on EVERYTHING…I only took the camera out once and got these pictures. Next time I’ll try to get some video of my little jetskier!

It’s been awhile since we took a weekend trip, so we headed over to Orlando a couple weekends ago. We stayed in a 2 bedroom condo next to Disney – Brayden was super excited to have his own bedroom and to sleep in his own big bed. We arrived Thursday night after I got off work. The next morning we took Brayden to Magic Kingdom for his birthday! He had a great time on all the rides. And he’s old enough now that he recognizes most of the characters. When we first got there Mickey and friends had just started performing in front of the castle. He instantly recognized Mickey Mouse!! We then started going on some of the rides. The lines for everything were soooo long, but Brayden was a trooper. The average wait time was about 30 minutes and it was HOT! But there was enough going on around us that he was able to stay pretty entertained. We didn’t go up and let him stand next to any of the character – he was still a little unsure about it. As we were leaving for the day we stopped to watch one of the little short parades. And we were right about the characters. Brayden was watching Pluto from about 20 feet away and didn’t notice Clarabell Cow come up to him. He turned and he screamed the most petrified scream I have ever heard. It took him about 15 minutes and a sucker to calm down. We then headed back to the condo to go to the pool and the lazy river! It was nice to relax after a long day at the park. Ryan and I had a great time watching Brayden play in the sidewalk fountains. He would go up to them and bend down to see where the water went and then all of a sudden it would shoot up and hit him in the face! He thought that was hilarious.
The next day, Saturday, we hung around the condo resting and napping until dinner time. We then went over to the Swann Hotel and had dinner with some of the Disney characters. Again Brayden had the “you know what” scared out of him. He was fine watching Pluto and Goofy from far away but the instant they were 5 feet from him he would scream. So the nice lady who guides the characters around had to keep Pluto and Goofy away from our table. But she did have one of them sneak up behind Brayden so we could take a picture of him with them without him knowing. After dinner we headed over to the boardwalk and enjoyed a little “concert” that was going on. Brayden got right on the grass and danced with all the kids. We walked around and watched a few of the street performers, Brayden chased a few ducks around and then we tried to watch the fireworks from Epcot, but we couldn’t see them from where we were standing. We then took the last ferry boat back to the Swann Hotel. Brayden always enjoys riding the ferryboat.

We had to check out Sunday, so we got packed up and went and had breakfast and then decided to go miniature golfing. Brayden shot a whole in one with Ryan’s help on the first hole. But after that he didn’t want anything to do with hitting the ball, he only wanted to walk around carrying his ball and club. In the middle of the game he decided that he now wanted to “bigger” club. So Ryan and I resorted to using the “little” club to finish out the game. We had a good time. And of course I ended up winning! For some reason I always end up beating Ryan no matter what we do; miniature golf, video games, bowling… you name it! Ryan and I love to get out and take trips/vacations and it looks like Brayden enjoys it just as much as we do! Although Brayden was non-stop and he wore Ryan and I out, hopefully we can do it again sometime soon.

This year we had a great 4th of July. To start, Ryan and I were both off from work so we got to spend the whole day hanging out with Brayden. Early in the day, we got out the secret stash of water balloons. Brayden didn’t really understand the concept at first, but after he saw Ryan and I having fun throwing them at each other we all couldn’t stop laughing. He kept throwing them and popping them faster than we could fill them up. After word we went to pick up some fireworks. We then headed down the street to our neighbor Ryan’s house (he is also a firefighter who works with Ryan). We continued our tradition of BBQ’s in the driveway and shooting off fireworks and having a good time. Brayden had a blast riding his Winnie the Pooh truck outside and stomping on pop-its all night. He was a little terrified of the fireworks at first, but after a couple he decided he was ok watching them from my lap. (sorry I forgot to take pictures)