A Little Princess

 To say Mackenzie loves Princess's and dressing up would be an understatement. She has worn her dress up clothes ragged and yet, there is something ethereal about them and I can't let them go. Each tattered piece I cut off of this Cinderella dress only reminds me that someday she won't have the beautiful imagination she does and I want her to revel in it as long as she can.

Florida: The last day and a trip home

I don't have any pictures of our last day at the beach, but this one didn't add to the last post so you get it here. I wasn't in a great mood the last day. It was really windy that day and Clara just wasn't having it anymore. I didn't spend a lot of time at the beach until the afternoon but was glad I joined everyone. Keith and Mackenzie had been playing and she was really brave. I got back in the water and had fun fighting the crazy waves. We all collected seashells and enjoyed having the beach pretty much to ourselves. That night we packed everything up so we could leave at 4 AM the next morning.
Our trip home was memorable. We got caught in a horrible thunderstorm in Alabama. I was driving and pulled over pretty quickly when the car kept hydroplaning and I couldn't see well. The thunder shook our car and the lightening was constant. Keith drove us through that and about an hour after I took over driving again, storm clouds loomed ahead of us. These clouds were so dark, I immediately started feeling panicked. As soon as the rain started pouring, I was gripping the wheel and when it got so bad I could absolutely not see out of the windshield I was almost in tears. We were on the freeway and I was in the far left lane trying to figure out how to pull over when I couldn't see anything around me. Keith calmed me and guided me and we pulled over. I switched spots with Keith and felt better when I saw most of traffic had stopped or was driving really slowly.  After that, the weather wasn't bad. When we were about an hour outside of Kentucky, we got a text alert notifying us of a tornado warning in our county. We called up a friend who told us it was storming pretty good and he'd let us know which way the storm was headed. A tornado did end up touching down in Louisville, but we luckily missed driving through that storm.
Keith humored me and let us stop at the Zappos outlet on the way home. It was a great break and I came home with a couple pairs of shoes.
All in all, it was a wonderful trip and I hope that we get to go back sometime soon. I would recommend Destin to anyone. The beaches are beautiful and clean and the town is family friendly with a lot to do if you run into bad weather (or bad sunburns).

Fudpuckers, Bubba Gumps, and a walk on the beach

Because we were so burned from day 2 at the beach, we tried to stay out of the sun on day 3. We pulled out our little tourist brochure and picked a couple of places to go. Our first stop was Fudpuckers where you could eat (we didn't) and see live alligators for free.

For a ridiculous price, you could take a picture holding this little guy.

Kenzie refused to be in this picture

Our next stop was Bubba Gumps. It was delicious and we liked the Forrest Gump theme

That night when the sun was setting, we drove a little ways down the beach and explored by the resorts.

You know how families go to beautiful places like Hawaii and Florida and come back with beautiful pictures of their tan families all happy and smiling against a scenic background? I want to know how to create that illusion

 

Blake and Kenz running for the playground

 

The men took the kiddos back to the condo and started dinner while Brittany and I walked into the sunset for about an hour until we reached our condo. It was incredibly relaxing and  one of my favorite parts of the trip

Florida: Day 2 continued...

 Clara is our little pale girl and she looked like a ghost with all of the sunblock. Her hat's crazy because it was really windy that day. Although we put sunblock on, we burned so bad.

I just love these next few photos. Kenzie is constantly in motion. I think she'll be a good little runner someday 

We saw several jellyfish. This was a smaller one but the colors were really pretty 

We found this body board in our condo and had a blast with it. I'm a little intimidated by the ocean but once I started getting used to the waves, I had a blast. Keith of course wasn't afraid and spent plenty of time in the water. This post makes me want to go back so bad!!! 

Florida: The drive and first two days

Keith had spring break in late March so we decided to take advantage of an off season break and traveled to Destin, Florida with our good friends Brittany and Tanner Barratt. I can't take any credit for planning the trip. Brit did it all and found us a fabulous condo for a killer price. All we had to do was survive the trip with two little girls...

The girls did much better on the drive than anticipated. We left a little before 5 AM and only had a minor issue with our coolant and fought Kenzie to go potty all morning. We took turns driving and arrived in Florida around 4 PM.

Our first view of the ocean 

We went to the beach Monday as soon as we arrived. It was windy but beautiful. Mackenzie thought the sand was snow, it's so white there. We had a great time and came home for some rest back at the condo that night. The next morning, we got up bright and early. I tried to run with Brit on the beach but my knee just wouldn't let me. When we got back form our run, we packed up the kids, some lunch and gear and walked the 5 minutes to our little area of the beach.

The girls in the morning

 Cute Emma 

 Kenzie loves her daddy so much and had a blast building sand castles with him 

Clara did great relaxing in the pack n' play

I know this picture is stunning of me, it's one of about 3 I have of me from the trip. I'm digging a little pool here in hopes that Kenzie would get comfortable in her little pool and brave the ocean a little bit. I can't take credit for this plan, it was Keith's and it worked  

 Emma and Clara taking an afternoon snooze 

Kenzie loved chasing the seagulls 

Scout Auction

I'm kind of embarrassed to post about this, but I had a lot of fun with this cake. Every year, our ward hosts a Scout auction where they serve a free dinner in exchange for a dessert to auction off. This year I wanted to do something a little fancier than my previous cookies, so I dreamed up this cake. It had 4 layers of cake, 2 layers of devils food and 2 layers of my favorite semi-homemade chocolate cake. I filled each layer with real homemade strawberry filling and iced it in white buttercream. I topped it with a rich chocolate ganche and chocolate covered strawberries. The whole thing took me several hours and a couple of days. I'm only sad I didn't get to cut into it and see how pretty I imagined the inside to look. It ended up going for over $100 and made it worth my effort. Next time, I'll add another layer of buttercream on the outside and dip my strawberries the day before. These pictures aren't that pretty, but here's the final result: