Florida Part II

Our second Florida stop was in Naples...we made the drive through Alligator Alley from Delray to Naples and it lived up to its name - I spotted 27 alligators in the water on the side of the road before I stopped counting! I'm not kidding. They did have a large protective fence between the water and the road just FYI...

We stayed in a cool hotel in Naples as well although I didn't take any pictures of it. It was called the BellaSera...We had two suites with kitchens so it was nice not to have to eat out for every meal.

We took 2 different boat adventures while we were there so I figured I'd share those photos first....

For our first adventure we rented a boat and took it out in the Gulf down toward Marco Island. It was a bit chilly that day but we made the best of it :) Hey - we were on a boat in December (a foreign concept for someone living in Vermont)!

We waited here for our boat to be ready...

My belly wasn't big enough to show it yet but baby T was in there!

Unfortunately we didn't see any of these...

They were out there though!

The men listen to a brief lesson :)

And we were off! Check out the scenery on the way out...

There were some HUGE boats out there - we were swamped by the wake of one on our way out - soaked but we didn't sink :) Our scenery quickly changed to this...

We stopped for lunch on Marco Island.

On our way home we saw some dolphins! Very close to the boat and so exciting :)

I zoomed in on some of these pics and it made them a bit blurry - sorry about that!

Have you seen enough dolphin pics? I took about 10 times this many and picked just a few for you :)

Before we returned the boat, we stopped on a beach to explore...

Have you noticed Matt's beard yet? He was so proud of it...

I can't believe I'm posting this one - but I will to prove I did some tanning on my pale VT winter skin. You can't zoom I don't think :)

Our next tour was on a completely different type of boat. We took an air boat tour of the Everglades! We had quite an adventure and many of you have already heard all about it. I'm not going to post much here but I did want to show you some of the great animal sightings we had.

I took all these pics and they were all real alligators!

We started out in the open...

Then rode through the Mangrove trees...

They set up floats for the gators so you have a better chance of sighting them :)

That's a marshmallow beside his nose - Meg threw it and hit him with it :)

There was other wildlife too...

OK that's it for now! Happy Sunday everyone!

xo

So Proud!

I'm sorry that this post is long overdue...Words cannot express how proud I am of my sister!!! In December she found out she was accepted into TUCK business school at Dartmouth University! She will start this fall. To say I am excited to have her in the Northeast would be a major understatement. I know her friends in Atlanta are going to miss her BUT I am ecstatic to have her a mere 2 hours (or less) from us! She is so smart and motivated and is so deserving of this opportunity.

CONGRATULATIONS MEG!!!

xo

Florida!

Hope you're having a great weekend! Ours has been nice so far - Matt has been skiing (without me sadly) and I had a fun day doing some baby visiting and snowshoeing with Lindsay! Today I'm finally getting around to posting our Christmas vacation pics...It was below zero here in VT last night and supposed to hover in the single digits all day today so I need a reminder that it's warm somewhere!

Matt and I joined my family in Florida after Christmas for a week - it was wonderful. My brother lives in Delray Beach so we started there visiting him :)

We stayed here - in Downtown Delray.

If you're going to visit - I would highly recommend it!

The colors were so Florida!

There was an amazing porch where we ate breakfast every morning :)

The guys (Matt, John, and John's friend/roommate) make plans....

Since the hotel was downtown - they also had a beach club on the ocean. We spent the majority of our time there :) (Sorry for the ihpone photos - I never brought my camera down to the beach.)

Ah.

Delray is such a cool, funky town. It's just south of Palm Beach on the Atlantic side of Florida. I loved it!

I'm sorry for the lack of people in these photos! We spent most of our time relaxing and checking out John's life there. However, one night John was busy and we had Mexican so I did take a picture of this person to send him.

Anyway - I'll leave you with this one...

There are more people photos from Naples...coming up soon!

xo!

Big News!

It IS what you're thinking...we're going to be parents! Baby T is due to arrive on June 29th :) We are SO excited! I've been feeling good so far and I'm so thankful. I'll be 16 weeks on Friday and it's hard to believe a month from now will be halfway through! I've been taking some belly shots and I promise I will share soon :)

PS - Do you recognize our sign? You might if you came to our wedding!



xo

Happy New Year!

Hello blog friends! Happy New Year!




Did you make resolutions? We did - I'll share at some point soon :)

I've been away from the blog for a long while...we went to Virginia for Christmas and then on a trip with my family to sunny Florida! It was hard to tear myself away from the warmth and head back to winter in Vermont but it feels good to be home. I'll get the Florida pics together at some point to show you.

I didn't take too many pics in Virginia this time. Our trip was short, but we did manage to squeeze in some time with both family and friends.

Kate had a Christmas brunch so I was able to snuggle my baby Worth some more. I'm a bit selfish with my baby holding time but he's just too cute to give up!

Will had fun at her grandparents' house...they also kept her for 6 days while we were in Florida and we're so thankful for that!

Hoping to sneak some Christmas breakfast...

The only other pics I took were of Ben trying on his Santa suit for the Christmas Eve party - the pics don't begin show how hilarious it was.

We were totally spoiled this year at Christmas with gifts for our house (lucky me to have an interior decorator as my mother-in-law so everything coordinates...although she claims I'm her hardest free client...perhaps my resolution should be to be more decisive) and a big vacation!

I'll be back....

xoxo

Christmas Decorating

School was released early today. It was the first time since I started working there and quite a shock...it's 35 and raining! Apparently an ice storm was on the way. I've driven through feet of snow on my commute to and from this school and they haven't blinked an eye - they simply put the chains on the bus tires. Anyway, no complaints here. I've already finished all my "evening chores" (e.g. running with Willow, packing my lunch, thinking about dinner, etc.) and I'm sitting on the couch with time to blog!

I'm also staring at my Christmas decorations...ones I've been enjoying for a few weeks now.

I'll let you look for yourself. Let's start outside - I froze my buns off and drove myself a bit crazy with several broken light strands trying to get all those fence lights up after Thanksgiving. It was worth it - the neighbors like them :)

Next year I'd like to add something to the windows, but ran out of energy this time.

My mom and sister weren't home at Thanksgiving to make our annual boxwood wreath (so sad), so I picked this one up at the Christmas tree place.

Moving inside...I struggled a bit with the mantle as our ceilings in this house are so much higher than my past ones...I do love my pointy santas and that I could hang my stockings this year though.

You've seen the tree...

The sugar mold got a little spiced up.

As did my maple sugar taps that John made me last year :)

Happy Wednesday - Christmas is almost here!

xo!