Florida 2014- The Adventure Begins!

One of the fun things about our children at this age and traveling was how exciting and new everything was!  Just look at their faces- this is on the shuttle bus here in Albuquerque on the way to the airport.  Even this part was fun!  We were very happy to begin our adventure.


Luke was excited and nervous about flying.  Sitting next to him on the plane was so entertaining!  He could hardly contain himself.



As it turned out our first leg of the trip, the flight to Denver, was ugh, bumpy.  Rachel decided it wasn't all that fun anymore and poor Wyatt was pale and nauseous and starting to loose his lunch.  I was right there with him.  The next flight to Jacksonville was so much better.

When we finally arrived Allie tried to "borrow" this Audi but we had rented a minivan so we took that instead.  We were tired and ready for bed when we arrived at Grandma's and Grandpa's house at 2 AM.


Sunday was were up early again and out the door for church.  It is always fun to visit the ward in Deer Park.
Monday was another early morning.  We drove down to Ft Lauderdale to attend the Temple Open House!  It is beautiful and so Florida in it's decor.  We loved it.



After the temple and lunch we headed to beach and played for the rest of the afternoon.  Oh what fun to splash in the waves!  We were wet, worn out, and weary with happiness!  It was a great day.

Our last day in Florida

So maybe you are asking "What happened to the first 9 days of your trip?!"  Well, let's hope Jason took more photos on his phone.

We went to Florida- once last time- for Spring Break before Grandma and Grandpa move out west.  And boy oh boy did we have a jolly time!  

Our last full day there we went to the Brevard Zoo and Tree Top Trek.  What a fun adventure that was!

Luke, Wesley and Rachel are getting into their harnesses ready for the Chutes and Ladders course.  Rachel was really to small for it but since Jason is tall, he was able to clip her onto the red safety line the ran through the course.  They were a great team.

 It took only a few times for before the boys had it down.

 Wyatt would have really loved it!  He followed around on the ground hoping someone would just give him a chance.

 Rachel was a little nervous of the zip line at first.

 But she got the hang of it.

 The zoo was so fun too!  Luke was not too sure at first about the birds landing on him with their claws.  It was all we could do to get him to hold still.

 We even fed the giraffes.

Now in case you were feeling sorry for Allie because she didn't get go with the other kids, well don't worry.  Allie and I (Joy) did the Tree Top course.  And that was INCREDIBLE!  And so fun and a great adventure to do together!  I had to snag these photos from the internet so you can see what we did.

Thank you again Jason for being the man on the ground this time.

Grandpa Payne photos

Thanks Dad for sending the photos along, I'm having a great time looking through them.  -Jason

Soccer kids

Soccer season is drawing to a close.  Dad gets to referee Wesley's team and do photography for each of the teams.  Its a good thing I don't charge for the service - the families definitely get what they pay for!  

Here are the Fireballs.  One of Wesley's best friends (Asher Wheeler) moved away and he misses his team... His team misses him too.  These four boys get to play the whole game with no break.  Coach David has been great as well. Here are two six year old boys you may know:

It is a fact of life that 6 year old soccer is rarely played on the field...

And now we have the Firebolts.  We have grown close to the parents on this team in particular.  They are all wonderful people and have made attending the games very enjoyable.  We miss the older brother of the boy who moved on Wesley's team (Kaden Wheeler, moved to Seattle before the photos):

 This Luke boy has scored goals this year- maybe about 5 or so.  His first goal was very exciting to his dad as it was exactly one more point than I scored as a boy!  Any guess which 7 year old is which?

And now for the Pink Praying Mantids.  The coaches are both teachers, Mrs. Thomas is Allie's teacher at school and Mr. Thomas a science teacher at a local high school.  He coaches a girl's high school soccer team.

Little Rachel dances around and plays with the other kids at the games.

In other news, Rachel asks for a "princess sparkles" story every night.  She has been sleeping with the boys (they sleep sideways in the queen bed located in the boys' room).  The boys can't stand princess sparkles stories for some reason.

She is trying to control her prince as I recall...

The day after her princess dress up she got a hair cut - not as fun as eating a fudgecicle apparently.

Weekend Update

Guess who had his first day in Nursury at church?

These boys think that in order to wrestle you need to have your shirt off.  I guess you also need your black socks to be effective too...

Rachel does not like wrestling so much.  We read a book instead: The Ants Go Marching.

What's grosser than gross?

So you know that little voice in the back of your head that is telling you "OK, you haven't heard a peep out of your little guy in 5 minutes". Well...