Florida and the Keys

It cost us $40 to recover these pictures from our memory card! So please enjoy them all you can.

Day 1
First stop- Daytona Beach. Too bad you have to have 4 wheel drive to drive on the beach there. It would have been cool. We played in the water at Cocoa Beach. Azure had a blast with Dada.She also liked playing in the sand with her shovel and pail. A great buy from the Dollar Store, too bad we forgot it there :(

Day 2

Had lunch with one of Charles' mission companions in Ft. Lauderdale. Then headed to Miami. The water at Miami Beach was beautiful.Then we headed to Little Havana and the famous Calle 8. Everyone assumed you spoke Spanish and it was great to see so many fellow Cubanos :) We looked for a shirt for Azure that said "I'm a 1/4 Cuban" but, didn't find any. We ate some delicious yucca with incredible mojo sauce (that I need to make!) and classic platanos fritos. It made me miss my grandparents!

Chasing pigeons in Jose Marti Plaza.

Matching green for St. Patty's Day.Gloria Estefan's star. I was a huge fan when I was little.

Then we headed down to the keys at sunset. And, I downloaded, especially for this occasion, the song Kokomo from the Beach Boys to my iPod so I could listen to it as we drove on Key Largo. It made my day. It was indeed amazing to see ocean on both sides, in front of you, and behind you from the highway.

Sunset on the 7 mile bridge

Day 3

Sunrise on Key West. We sure didn't sleep in on this vacation.

We rented bikes and rode around the town. Azure wasn't very comfortable so she wasn't a huge fan. Key West was beautiful. Azure liked all the roosters running around the island.


Afterwards we ate some amazing Key Lime Pie there on Key West. Clearly, the best Key Lime Pie I've ever eaten.

Then we drove to the Bahia Honda Key and relaxed on the beach there. It almost felt like we were in Hawaii, the clearest water I've seen in the (mainland) US. Tropical paradise.

That night we drove back to "mainland" Florida through the everglades. It started to rain though so we didn't see any alligators. We found a Cuban-Italian restaurant in some podunk town! I love to see lasagna and black beans and rice on the same menu :) As we drove back to Orlando we passed through miles and miles of orange groves and could smell the sweet fragrance of orange blossoms. What a delight! We also drove by Florida's Own OJ factory and could smell them heating up large caldrons filled with OJ.

Day 4

Drive back to Savannah. This is when the camera started freaking out so we don't have any pics of Day 4, but we do have some video which I may add later. We got to see the beautiful Orlando temple. We also stopped in a town owned by Disney World called Celebration. The architecture was phenomenal. Charles thought it was freaky, too much like The Truman Show, but I thought it was kinda cool since I'd never seen anything like it in real life.

All in all it was a great vacation. I loved Florida! I wouldn't mind living there actually, I liked it so much.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Forget Christmas time. Spring time is my most favorite time of year. Easter is my Christmas. I love, love, love it! For my long time readers, you already know that from all my posts about Easter/Spring last year.I seriously get giddy shopping in the stores for Spring/Easter decorations, much more than Christmas. Savannah has not let me down. Springtime here is gorgeous! There are even more colors here than there were in Provo. We've got hot pink flowers here: azaleas and rich fushia.

Planting tulips with mommy.

*We just got back from the FL keys last week and unfortunately our memory card died. We're trying to recover our pics so we can document our trip.

Gratitude

Like you, I have a lot of what I consider to be righteous desires. Here are two of them.

I have always had the desire to have some part of my life on film. Maybe not so much for others but, for my family, for my posterity. I think a "movie" of some sort lets you see a dimension of people that you can't understand just by reading their journal or having someone tell you about them.

Unfortunately none of my ancestors kept journals, at least not that I know of, or have ever seen. I have always wished to read about their lives, their thoughts. I've always been intrigued to hear stories about my ancestors. I wondered if they had been like me at all. I wondered what qualities of theirs had been passed down to me.

A little over a month ago, I found out through one of my good friends, Jamie, that her husband, who works for BYU TV, was looking for people to be on a TV series highlighting family history, called the Generations Project. Through some email correspondence and phone calls regarding my ancestors, I found out that I have been selected to be on the show!

My first feelings were those of gratitude. I can't stop bearing testimony that the Lord gives us the righteous desires of our hearts when we are faithful and obedient! I now have the opportunity to find out about the lives of my maternal great grandparents. The directors of the show will be working with professional genealogists. They are also flying me out to St. Louis (where my great grandparents died) and to California to interview my Nana. So, part of my family history will be on film, along with me. And my posterity can watch it and know what qualities their ancestors had, and what qualities I have.

I think they are still looking for people, so if you live outside the UT area (they want non-Utahns) then check out their website and apply!

We plan on filming in June and I will keep you posted as I'm on the set. The show will air on BYU TV in the Fall.

Grammar Lesson of the Day

We have some great videos of Azure coming up but, a friend of mine posted this on her blog and I feel inclined to post it as well. My grammar is not perfect but, I have noticed this problem more and more and I think we could all use a reminder. Plus, this is just hillarious!

New blogs on "sites to read" list

I realized I haven't shared on the blog about the freebies I get and win. I've shared it with a lot of you individually but, not on the blog so check out these 3 new links on the right side bar.
I also rent a movie a week from Red Box for FREE. They offer free codes on Mondays and now on Wednesdays. We've watched about 10 or so now for free.

I've also entered contests and have won about $200 worth of free items like Baby Legs for Azure, Clinique 3 step face wash, $100 gift card to Ann Taylor, and more that I can't even remember now.

Love this song!

I'm all about LDS videos on YouTube now :) So great! Heard this song today and I love it, the lyrics, the ukuleles. Beautiful. I plan on teaching this to my Young Women so we can sing it at Girls Camp. Won't that be so fun? Enjoy :)

Cute things of the day

Tonight when given broccoli for dinner, Azure held it up to her nose and did the sign for flower. Then she looked at me kinda strange as if to ask, "It's ok to eat flowers?" The look on her face was priceless. She kept trying to smell it before putting it in her mouth. She's very particular about how she eats it, it has to be cut up and have cheese sauce or cream of chicken on it.

She handed me her toy trumpet, while trying to imitate the sound it makes, so that I could blow it for her since she can't do it yet herself.

Said, "Bye, bye poopy," whenever I flushed the toliet, regardless of it's contents.

Brought me her blankie, pillow, and "guy" (the stuffed purple frog she sleeps with) when I told her I was tired and wanted to take a nap.

Got to pet a cat and said, when it was time to go, "Bye, bye Key Cat."

I'm so grateful I get to stay home with her and get to witness all of these moments first hand.