Firsts in Florida

Our trip to Florida was a new adventure for our family of three. Our little man also had a few exciting things happen during our trip. The previous post documents Blake's first plane ride, which he did remarkably well with. Thank goodness! We also got to enjoy more first experiences with our little man.

We were in Orlando, FL after the OK/TX Spring Break, but unfortunately it was Spring Break in FL plus Easter weekend. Which, by the way, Good Friday/Easter is the busiest weekend for Disney World. No kidding. We were there for a cousin's wedding, so we could not help this unfortunate timing. So long story short. We didn't bother with going to Disney World and we went to Sea World instead. However, Sea World was quite a zoo anyway, I don't even want to know what the crowds were like at Walt Disney.

Here we are, Blake's first trip to Sea World.

 Lucky us, Sea World gives free admission to military and their dependants and Blake's admission would have been free anyway since he is under two years old. Well, now I understand why some places do not charge you for your child under a certain age. There were not many things that Mr. Blake was able to do inside the park except for watching the animals. In the "kid friendly" area of the park there were rides that he was not old enough to enjoy. But mommy found a slide and was able to give Blake his first ride on a slide. There he is chewing on his jacket sleeve. You can tell he is "thrilled". (Ha ha! I don't even think he knew what was going on).

 At our hotel we were able to let Blake have his first experience in a pool. I think he wasn't sure what to think about that either. We just stayed near the edge of the pool where he was able to sit up and splash. Please excuse my "mom swim suit".

We did get a small Disney experience. Our hotel was right by Lake Buena Vista and Downtown Disney was within walking distance. It is a nice area outside the theme parks with shopping and restaurants. It gave us something to do and was nice to walk around. Here are some photo opportunities we took in that area.

We really enjoy getting to do new things with our son. It has been fun watching him grow and become ready for all these new experiences.

We flew with a 7 month old. You should too!

Before our son was even born we knew we were invited to a cousin's wedding in Orlando Florida. It was not until the end of February when we had to make the final decision. Should we go? And how: drive or fly. We took the plunge, RSVP'd, and booked plane tickets. We were really going to do this.

Keeping in mind that our son is very active and not content to just sit around, I did my research. I read every article on Pinterest which gave advice and guidelines on taking an infant on an airplane.

After all of our research and efforts, I am proud to say that our airplane travels went very smoothly to and from Orlando. All of the advice from Pinterest left us overly prepared for the entire situation.

Security was a piece of cake, we were even more efficient and faster than some fellow travelers who were flying alone. I was able to wear our son in our Ergo baby carrier and I did not have to take it or him off to walk through the metal detector. They just had to swab my hands afterwards to "check" for bomb residue.

All the information I read recommended feeding your baby during take offs and landings. Great idea in theory and I understand feeding babies on demand, but can you really feed a baby on your demand? We found that a pacifier did the trick. So, if your baby doesn't take a pacifier very well then you better hope they will eat on your demand :)

On the way to Orlando, we had a connection in Houston. Our first flight was at 6 am and when we got to Houston, we had about an hour and a half to kill and Blake was perfectly happy playing on a blanket on the floor while we waited. On the way home we had a direct flight that left at 3pm. 

Here is daddy and Blake during the landing of the 6 am flight

 Mommy and Blake

Lucky for us, flying with our infant was not a traumatic experience. We were blessed with flights that were not entirely booked, which allowed us to have a row to ourselves each time. All of the flight attendants were very helpful and attentive to us. On the 3 hour flight home Blake started out taking a nap and then woke up and watched Elmo for most of the flight.

I know every child and family is different, but this worked really well for us. Blake enjoys new experiences and he also loved it when the flight attendants would come and talk to us and he would flash them his killer smile. What can I say? My son is already a ladies man.

continuous learning calendar

This is the first year for my school district to begin a continuous learning calendar, also known as year round school. We began August first which was when the temperature outside was still 100+ degrees. This was rough for classrooms where the air conditioning was not working properly, but fortunately my classroom was nice and cool.

Last month we had our first two week break for fall break which was formerly two days. I was able to take care of some necessary things like changing the oil in my car and buying the tags for our vehicles.

One day I went to the zoo with my mom and my two nieces. I finally go to see the baby elephant at our zoo and some tiger cubs.







On one of the weekends I went down to Grapevine, TX with one of my coworkers and my cousin. We went to the outlet mall, took a mini wine tour on main street and shopped at the shops along the way.

So far I am liking this continuous learning calendar thing. Our Thanksgiving break is the same, it will be Wednesday-Friday. After Thanksgiving we go back to school for ten days and then we get three weeks off for Christmas. Not too shabby.

You won't Belize this (cont'd)

My favorite parts of our trip were enjoying the beach and eating fresh (well fresher than here in Oklahoma) sea food. I think I ate some kind of sea food each night at dinner.

Our trip actually fell on the town's annual Lobster Fest weekend.
Sunday night in the main part of San Pedro they had a big party. There was live music and lots of food vendors came out to sell their lobster inspired dishes. We had lobster pizza, lobster wraps, and fried jalapeno w/lobster inside.

Lobster Fest


We also went out on a boat one morning to go fishing. Our boat captain has fished on this island for over 45 years and he knew exactly where to take us. Mostly Bob and his Dad fished while his mom and I watched. They were having such an easy time I thought I would join in as well.







After fishing all morning we decided to take some of the fish back to cook for ourselves. Our boat captain took care of the messy work for us.


Then some seagulls got really interested in what was going on inside our boat.


So he fed them a snack.

Then we had a nice lunch.

It was some of tastiest fish I have ever eaten. You cannot get fresher than that!

You won't Belize this

We got to take a trip to Belize with Bob's parent's last week.

Here is some background info on where we went in Belize. Belize is the northern most central American country and our resort was on the island of San Pedro which is northeast of Belize city.

Our flight from Houston landed in Belize City and then we got on another (tiny)plane for a short 15 minute flight to the island of San Pedro.




Once that plane landed we then took a taxi ride to a boat dock to wait for a boat to take us up the island to our resort CoCo Beach.






That's just how we got there. More to come about our trip!

since you've been gone

Two weeks ago I said goodbye to my fifth graders. I have been teaching them for two years and it was a little sad to see them go. I guess I am kind of attached to them. I took their picture on their awards day.


Since school has been out I have been one busy gal. My first weekend off I got to see a zebra, and no it was not at the zoo.


June first my hubby took me to Grapevine, TX. We did some wine tasting and got to enjoy some of the stores at the Grapevine Mills outlet mall.



On Saturday we got to go up to Tulsa to see a pharmacy friend get married. Here we are enjoying the reception on top of the Bank of America building.


Tulsa I hate the construction on your roadways, but we had a good time there in T-town.

So far, not a bad summer. We have hit the ground running and we'll be busy until hubby starts his rotations on July 1st. I'll try to keep this thing updated between here and there.

Nice to be back

...but only for a moment

Usually this is an exciting time of the year to be a teacher. Spring Break! I usually get to go do something fun!

For example....

Last year we went to Galveston with Bob's family and got to hang out all week there and around the Houston area.










Two years ago my sister and I hopped on a plane to visit our cousin in San Fransisco.






Then, the first year of teaching, I spent my Spring Break working on wedding plans with my mom.



This year I believe will be the most unexciting Spring Break plans thus far: work on my entries for national board.

Spring Break will look more like this...










The goal is to get them ready to be printed off by this time next week. The official deadline to get it mailed and post marked is March 31st.

It's getting close to the end,not much time left. So, I shall disappear once again, and hopefully be back by the end of the month.

Saludos Amigos

Hello everyone! Last week we spent our time on the Yucatan peninsula at the Secrets Capri Resort in the Riviera Maya. It was a belated two year wedding anniversary celebration! The resort was all-inclusive and the beach was beautiful! All of the pictures in the collage above are ones that I took with our camera. It was just gorgeous! The workers at the resort were wonderful and a lot of them seem to be familiar with JFK. Any time we would tell them our name was Kennedy, they would respond, "like the president?" . I'm still getting used to the presidential references that go along with my married name, but it's fun.

We enjoyed relaxing on the beach and getting pampered. I got to finish reading Eclipse from the Twilight series and started reading the final book New Moon (edit) Breaking Dawn. Sounds like we had a lazy vacation, and we wanted to do just that! We're anticipating a busy school year with Bob starting year two of pharmacy school and me moving up to 4th grade plus tackling national certification. So, whenever we start feeling overwhelmed next school year I'll reflect back to this lazy vacation, and press on.

and we're off

We left Friday afternoon for Houston. From here we are leaving for a resort in the Riveria Maya in Mexico on Monday morning and we'll be back in Houston on Friday.

But first Bob's parents thoroughly entertained us. We got to go to the outlet mall, ate dinner at Irma's Southwest Grill, and caught an Astros game. The Astros played terribly, but it was still fun.

Should be back next week with an update of the rest of our trip.

It starts...

I have been wanting to start a blog for about seven or eight months now. Of course I had several reasons for putting it off:

• I'm not interesting enough.
• Who would want to read my posts?
• I don't have children.
• I don't know how to make it look pretty (still working on that).
  

Although those reasons may all be true (lol). I have decided to start one anyway. So here it goes.

For Spring Break Bob and I got to get away for a bit. We drove down to Houston to visit his family. We spent some time in Galveston for a couple of days and enjoyed the beach.

On Wednesday we went to a Houston Rockets basketball game. That was really exciting for me because even though I lived in Houston for six years of my childhood, this is something we just never got around to doing.

Every trip we make down to Houston brings the promise of lots of yummy food from various restaurants and my wonderful mother-in-law's kitchen. We had great Mexican food in Galveston, seafood at Pappadeaux's and some fabulous steaks off the grill at home. It's hard going back home after being so well taken care of. Thanks Steve and Susan!

Of course a trip down south to Texas would not be complete without a few shopping excursions. I was able to enjoy an outlet mall just a few miles away from their house.

We made it back home Friday evening and got to relax the rest of the weekend. Saturday night we were able to get together with a group of Bob's friends from pharmacy school . We went to see Slum Dog Millionaire with them.

Tomorrow it's back to both of our school schedules and back to being busy. I'll sign off now with some pictures.