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OK we went South but things did not go South. Hee hee

First, I have to tell you we were stuck at a total stop for 1 1/2 hours on the Florida Turnpike due to a burning bus. Though it may seem like that was horrible it was not, we made the best of it and enjoyed seeing all the action.

When we finally made it to my father’s house, we sat to have a delicious dinner that he had cooked as a welcoming dinner, yummy steak. We had a lot of fun at my dad’s in Boca Raton. It was nice to be back in my home town. So much changed but the things I loved most about Boca were still the same. The day after we got there was the 4th of July and what better way to celebrate than to take my children to the same place I celebrated the 4th as a child, FAU. There were games to play, blow up rides (my favorite was a giant allegator slide, live music and of course great firework show.

In my dad’s condos there is a lagoon where he took my kids fishing. As we were fishing two alligators about 8 to 9 feet long swam in and came close for a look at us. I backed the kids up since they make a prefect size for an alligator’s dinner. As most of you know I enjoy taking pics and little bits of danger as long as I know the kids are safe. Since the kids were safe I moved in for some photographs of our friendly visitors. They might be friendly but I think I will stick to swimming in the condo’s pool.

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While we were there the condo’s club house got a new pool table so of course I just had to play. I’m not good at all but I still enjoyed playing.

Now as most of you know my favorite thing to do is snorkel. I love to see reefs full of fish and sea life. Because of my children’s age and the fact that they are not native Floridians I could not go out on a boat to a reef. Lucky for me Boca Raton has a little reef right on the beach. It was great. I can’t show you the photos I took with a disposable underwater camera because I have not developed them but I’ll post them later if there are any good ones. The reef was so great. Thousands of fish and many came to tickle our feet. Blake was like a natural. I can tell one day he will be my scuba partner. He seemed fearless. Then again there were not any shark around just a few barracudas. One night I could not get myself to leave the beach. The sun was gone but we were still there. Gabby loved digging in the sand and making things out of the sand. I loved watching the full moon shine bright with the moon light tinkling on the ocean waves. I did not want to leave but we did. The very next morning we woke up at 5am to eat breakfeast on the beach and watch the sun raise. What a beautiful sight! I used to say I was suposed to be a mermaid but God chose not to make mermaids so I got stuck as human. After watching the moon on the ocean and the sun raise with my children running and laughing in the sand, I know why I needed to be a human. That way I could swim with the fish when I wanted and still get out of the water, sit back on the beach and watch the beauty of the world. Happiness is being in a peaceful place with the ones you love around you laughing and happy. Just look at th ocean in the photographs, it is like the ocean knew the peace I was seeking. The waves were small and soft.

now sunrise

One day at the reef a storm blew in. Since I am a bit of an adventure seeker, I decided not to leave the beach like everyone else did. I took the kids to a pavillion to reduse the risk of lighten hit them and we watch this magnificent storm come in. OK I will admit the storm ended up being a bit stronger than I thought. The thunder was so loud it shock our insides and I was loving everying minute of it. We saw trees fall and branches fly off trees, and in South Florida if the branches are falling so are coconuts. After the main part of the storm passed we went coconut hunting. Not sure why we got so excited to find a coconut nor why I brought them all the way back to Texas when none of us like to eat coconut.

What good is it to travel back to a person’s home town if they don’t see their old friends. Over the years, I have had friends come and go from my life. I have had people I call friends but they were more like people that their road and mine happened to cross for a period of time. Since I was 13 I have had one friend that I can call a true friend, John. We suffered through all the aches and pains of our teen years together. We stuck by eachother to pick one another up when we made stupid mistakes. We defended and protected each other from the bullies in high school. When I moved out of Florida and moved to Texas, our friendship remained. We have lived very different lives and have had different advantures but we always called and updated eachother about everything. We celebrate eachother happy things like his marriage, the birth of his children , the birth of mine, my graduation from UTSA and all the little things in life that keeps us going. (like the great things we go through with our own children) We have cried and share sad times and our fears too. John and Karen have very sweet children. It is no surprize that when John and I get together we laugh so hard until my eyes tear up. Mostly we laugh at all the stupid things we have done. The best way I can describe John is a very over sized little kid. Even though it is no surprise how much we laugh together it is  surprising how well our children get along considering how they have only seen eachother twice in their lives. Gabby is about 9 months younger than one of their daughters and 5 or 6 months older than the other. We met at a park on the intercoastal in Delray Beach for an hour or two of playing.

Well hope you are not totally phtotgraghed out. Cause I’m just getting warmed up. heehee. I still have the drive home and to catch you up on the great things happening in life in San Antonio.

hummm so much to say! Where do I even start….
I drove from San Antonio straight to my sister Sussette and her husband Patrick house. (18 hours) They have shared their home to my children and I for a fun vacations for the past 3 summers. They have a camper on the side of the house that they set up for us so that we have the feeling of our own house in the county. Their house has lots of land. They have dogs, goats, chickens, cat, snake, gerbils, toads, ect. It is like being at a petting zoo.

Not only is the land beautiful but also the my sweet niece and nephews. Sue and Pat have a duaghter that is two years older then Gabby. Aubrey and Gabby get along very well an enjoy hanging around sharing stories and talking about all the animals.

Sue and Pat also have a son Blake same age. Well, Blake is older by 5 days. Joshua and Blake would run, sword fight, swim and play nonstop from sunrise until passing out at night. Their little son Max (age 4) tried hard to keep up with Joshua and Blake. They even enjoyed playing in the rain on the trampoline.

To most having 5 kids running around all day together is a kids party in its self but not to us. After Jessica, my other sister comes over with her and Jason’s 8 almost 9 children to join the fun it became a real party. What great fun they had. Jessica has two boys and 6 (almost 7) girls. All the children played very nice together. Jess and Jason has a son I think 8 or 9 months older then my son Blake and a daughter 4 months younger then Blake. They also have a daughter only 6 months older then Gabby. There were even times when Sue’s friends would come over with even more kids. Here of a bunch of pics. Hope you enjoy them!

We servived and sadly the eight little cutes would pile into Jessica’s van and leave. Then we were down to what seemed to be ONLY 5 kids. We went to the pubic pool and jumped off diving boards (pics to come latter if I even get to developng the underwater carmera’s firm) and nature walks and animals to play with. Can you believe as if Sue and Pat don’t have enough pets the kids would catch wild things to play with. Photos are below of Blake and Joshua holding a wild baby mouse and Gabby with a snail. Gabby and Blake are still laughing at the way I screamed to find my son holding a dirty wild mouse. While there I even got to shoot a BB gun. I had never even held a gun so shooting the BB gun turned into a fun activity and MAN, I was GOOD!

Just look at my own son laughing at me. Yucky, dirty mouse in his hands.

Wow that a lot of pics and that is just of our time in North Florida. I’ll do another post of my time in Boca Raton at my dad’s place. Hope you enjoyed the pics

Thank you my bro-in-law, Jason Walbridge, for once again fixing me up with my very own website!

Now I do have to warn even though I am SOOOOOOOOO happy and excided to be back blogging I do start back to work soon and well as you can tell I have not blogged since last August when I had started back to work and grad school. Maybe this year will be different since I am taking a break from grad school. OK yes I know I just made everyone gasp. “what a break from grad school when you only have three classes to go!!” Yes, I’m stopping gradschool inorder to focus more on my most importent job, the raising of my great kids, Gabrielle and Blake. I have so much to share and well only so much skin on my finger tips. hee hee. I will post lots of great pics from my trip to Florida soon.

PS: There dad, Sue and Jess…. I blogged!

Right before leaving to Florida, I had release the little toad back into the wild and I was down to just two pets. One being my dog Misty and the other being my hamster, Wilber. Only two pets but life can change very quickly. A month ago, I had two pets and now I have 18. Here are photographs and how this all played out. 

First is sweet Misty. She is two years old. I often took my children to the local pet store to play with the animals. At that pet store the cages are open for everyone to play with the animals. One day we saw a little puppy that won our heart. I keep trying to convince myself that maybe the time was not right and I left the pet store. Later that day we were in Target and Gabby said to me “Mommy it was hard to leave that puppy wasn’t it.” I had not told her how I was feeling, so with that I know she was feeling the same as I was.  I called the pet store and asked them if they still had her and yes she was there. I asked the salesman to hold her that I was on my way. That little puppy is our sweet Misty.

My children had wanted a hamster for awhile and I wanted to get one for them but I was picky I wanted it to be very young. As I was driving out of my neigh hood, there was a sign at one of the houses reading “baby hamster for $2.00. I stopped to look. There was a teenager that had a bunch of cages full of hamster in her room. She showed me some but none of them seemed to say “Carrie I want to go home with you.” I was about to leave when the teenager’s mother, who looked desperate to get rid of the hamster, said “Did she show you the littlest bunch?” I went back in her room and put my hand in the cage. A sweet little hamster seemed the be saying “pick me, PICK ME!” so I did. I drove home with a baby hamster in my hand. Wilber was three weeks old then. Now he is three months old.

That was all I had when I left to Florida, just Misty and Wilber. When we were at my sister Sussette’s house, she surprised my children with American Bull Frog tadpoles. One for each child. Sadly Gabby’s did not make it to become a frog but Blake’s is doing well. He is now a frog and is eating bugs. He is a picky eater. He does not like the crickets to much. He will eat them if there is nothing else but if a fly comes in my house Gabby and Blake catch it and put it with the frog. He loves to eat house flies. The flies are gone the same second that the flies go in with the frog. He is such a handsome frog and gets more handsome everyday. He is turning more green ever time I look at him. He might be Blake’s but I play with him most. He is very small. To show how small he is, he is standing on my fingers. His name is Poncho.

The night before leaving Sussette’s house one of her Guppies started to have babies. We had made a little net and the mother fish was popping out babies left and right. I asked Sussette if I could take some home with me. I guess my maternal instinct wanted any kind of baby I could get. Sussette got a jar and gave me 13 little babies. I thought 13 was a lot but then I though that most would not live anyways. It has been more then a week and a two days driving home and I still have thirteen little baby guppies. They were born on July 26. They do not have names. (to hold to tell them apart still. I can not put a ribbon on neck like people do with baby puppies. J

I do love Blake’s frog, Poncho. He is one very cute frog but he does have one thing I did not like and that was the algae that was growing in his swimming pool. I bought an algae eater and within two days the water was very clean. Since Gabby’s tadpole died she want to the algae eater to be her so it is. His name is algae.

I thought I was totally crazy but happy with my pets. A dog, a hamster, a frog and fish but God had plans for one more. Today I wake up and decided that today was the day for me to start caring about my health more. I always want to start finding time to walk but something always stops me. I told my children we were going to park and that they could take there bikes. I thought that with them on their bikes and me walking we would all be better off. I took the bikes from the garage and would you know it both bikes need air in the tire badly. I turned on my car motor on so the air pump would work and pumped the bikes tires. I also raised the seats and got the bikes all fixed. After an hour of my car engine on with me fixing the bikes and packing drinks and a mist pump, I final left to the park.

I drove about ten minutes to the park and final shut off the engine the radio was still on when I could hear the sound of a kitten meowing. I thought weird that the radio station put a meow sound in the middle of the song. The song had nothing to do with cats. I took my key out and that is when the radio was off and I could still heard the sound of a kitten calling for help. I open my car door thinking I ran over a cat. No, I did not the meow was coming from the hood of my car. I popped the hood and inside was a little kitten stuck. After about 20 minutes of wiggling and pulling I got the baby out. It did not look good. The kitten look very dehydrated and was gasping. I told Gabby to get water from the car. The kitten did not even try to drink. Then I said give me the misting pump. The kitten mouth was open and the kitten was panting. The kitten look like it was  not going to make it. Imagine stuck in my motor with the engine on for over an hour and the weather being 100 degrees. I misted and misted in the kitten mouth and watered her down. The kitten was looking better. I called my mother who called my brother. My brother said that he had seen two orange kittens and a mother around our house for the past few days. He tried to catch it but could not. My brother, Andrew, drove to the park to see the kitten. 

After awhile the kitten seemed better. We drove it home. It is very thin; I can feel every bone but thank God no injures from the motor. Not even a little burn. It has been drinking and eating and looking better and better. I have looked around for the mother but no luck. I am guessing the kitten to be around 6 weeks old. I do not think I will keep it because I am not to into the hair problem. I like animal but I do not like hair around the house. For now he has a home. I am going to chubby him up and then look for a home. We named home Motor for now.

I was thinking that Motor must think he died and went to kitty heaven. Last he know he was living in the streets looking for bugs to eat and now he is living in a house with A/C that has lots to eat like a frog, fishes and a hamster. There are even humans bring him kitten food and water. He has been scrub and scrubbed and has no flees. He has a towel to sleep on. Not that he has been able to even try it since he has been sleeping in either my children arms or my brothers. His life has change a lot in the last few hours. I hope he looks even better tomorrow. Oh, and No I did not do that walk after all. Maybe tomorrow!

God, I know that I prayed that I wanted more babies but maybe I did not make myself clear when I said babies. I want little human ones.

Sorry for any spelling, grammar and typos. It is 11:15 and I am to tired to reread it.

In Case you have not heard, the Sea World in San Antonio has new babies. Two baluba whales gave birth 8 days ago and a few baby dolphins a ew weeks ago. Yesterday, we wanted to see the baby whales but by the time we went to see them it was closed for the day. They are not doing the show now that was the mother and babies can bond but they are letting people go see the babies at set times. After the disapointment of not seing the whales we went to see the baby dolphins in the petting tank. Here is some photographs

Here is the mother with her baby. The mother was swiming around the edge of the tank as if she wanted everyone to see her baby.

The whole time I was in Florida Jessica’s children took turns being sick with fevers so we did not get to see them until the last day. As we were leaving Florida we stop and saw Jessica and her children for a few hours. Mia was not there because she was gone to camp. Here are some pics. from our short but sweet visit.

Sussette and Patricks home.

Gabrielle milking a goat.

Playing with the horse.

Animals everywhere.

Blake reading Max’s Birthday card.

Joshua climbing the walls.

Blake jumping to the sky. 

Gabrielle playing with Aubrey’s snake.

What fun! I love the beach.