Goodbye Florida! We are leaving on Friday. We have had the best time. There is so much to do here, and I forgot how much I love being able to spend time outside every day. This has been such a treat. Not only to enjoy the weather here and the time together as a family, but we got to miss out on the worst part of the Minnesota winter. That means we will have 4.5 winters in Minnesota instead of 5. While that may not seem like a significant improvement, trust me - it has been great for the mental health of our family! We are a little sad because it has been raining here for three straight days! While it has helped us be responsible and stay home to pack, it has been hard to know our time in paradise is almost up and we are stuck inside! It is going to be perfect on Friday when we leave. One last trip to the beach would have been nice, but we are ready to get home. I love spring/summer in Rochester, I miss my girlfriends, the girls I nanny for, the animals, our house, our bed...you get the idea. We are ready...sort of....
These pictures are pretty grainy, and I am not sure why! I think I might need a new camera. Anyway, Ellasen was 16 months yesterday. She is getting even better at walking. She can run and climbs on playground equipment! She is so much fun these days. She is talking up a storm. We think she probably knows around 100 words, and she can use them correctly. She can pretty much repeat any fairly simple words you say to her, but it takes a few repetitions obviously before she really gets what it means. The nice thing about all this chit chat is that she can tell me more and more what she wants or doesn't. She hates to be misunderstood so she has gotten really good at asking for what she wants. She is really into Sesame Street characters right now. She doesn't really care to watch them on TV yet, but she loves to find them in her books and on her toys. She is also really into animals and animal noises right now. She loves to go through her animal books and name them and make the sounds they make. She still makes us laugh daily and is such a blessing in our lives.
This past week/weekend we took our last little vacation during our time here in Jacksonville. We drove up to Augusta to visit family and friends. We stayed with Tim's aunt and uncle and visited with his cousins. We got to shop and have dinner with some friends that still live there from our time when Tim was in medical school. I realized too late that I didn't get any photos of Ella with Big Daddy (Tim's uncle). I think Big Daddy took some though so if I get some from him I will amend the post. We had the best time and Ella just loved Mimi and Big Daddy. We spent a lot of time in all of our old haunts. We went to our favorite restaurants, took a walk on our favorite walking trail on the Savannah River and went to see the old plantation house we were married in. On Sunday afternoon we took a trip an hour east to Columbia to visit some more friends. Ashley and Nicole are pediatricians in Columbia and went to medical school with Tim. We were all in each others' weddings. They just had a baby (Carson) so we got to see him. Once again we didn't take enough pictures, but we had a great time. On the way back to Jacksonville we took a little detour over to Savannah. We used to go there all the time in college and grad school, and it was fun to take Ella down to River Street and show her all the old buildings, the river boats, the pirate ships and shops. We also got some yummy seafood. We had the best trip and we were sad to see it end.
Pictures of Augusta and Family
Opening gifts from Mimi and Big Daddy
Cousin Laurie
Cousin Bryan and Laurie's son Griff
The blur in the background is Laurie's other son Padrick
Beautiful Augusta
There are tons of fountains in downtown Augusta. They were all dyed bright green for St. Patrick's day.
This is the Marion Hatcher Center where Tim and I were married!
Columbia (I only took a couple of pictures)
Ella loved to play in baby Carson's room and especially loved his dog chair.
Savannah
This is really hard to see because it is through the windshield of my car, but there are super old staircases like this one all over River Street in Savannah.
You can't see the words, but this is the original Savannah Cotton Company building.
Last Wednesday Tim took the day off and we went to the zoo here in Jacksonville. Ellasen is super into animals right now. She can name most of the basic ones and make the noises they make. Even though we have taken her to the zoo before this was the first trip that she really understood what was happening. Heck, this was the first trip she was awake for! She had a great time and so did we!
