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After graduation, we made a fairly spontaneous trip down to Fort Walton. Once we got there, I realized that we had never been to the beach with just the four of us. It was a great trip, with fantastic weather. The condo was perfect for us: 2 bedrooms with bunk beds in the 2nd bedroom. It had an indoor and outdoor pool, right on the beach. We couldn’t have gotten a better place to stay. (And I got a smokin deal!)

We started out in the pool.

And finished at the beach. Sam loved playing in the water.

And Ellie loved playing in the sand.

Like I said, it was beautiful!

We had such fun.

After spending hours in the ocean, I saw this sign. Oops. I did get sick, but nobody else did. I think I must have picked something up elsewhere.

Ellie only wanted to play in the sand, but she would stand at the edge of the water requesting for someone to fill up her watering can. It made me think of the Coppertone girl.

And we couldn’t leave without making Ellie into a mermaid.

We had a great trip, and I’m so glad we went. We’ll go back soon on our annual family trip, and we’re also hoping to spend lots of time at the neighborhood pool this summer!

Can you believe this little runt turned 3 last week?

Ellie is full of laughs and energy, independence and compassion, nerve and courage.  She loves her froggie, her big sister, and Rapunzel.  She just moved up to a big girl bed and hasn’t had any trouble adjusting.  Her favorite colors are green and purple.  She’s a lefty.  She eats at least two breakfasts, a decent lunch, and not much for dinner every day.  She loves corn (all kinds including popcorn).  She drinks way more than the rest of us (milk, juice, water, you name it).

We had her birthday party last weekend.  Thanks for coming, friends!  I thought the weekend was going to be a wash out, but it turned out to be perfect!  We spent all day outside playing.

On her actual birthday, we brought Krispy Kreme for her class.  I intended to take her out to lunch, but we are a one car household these days (what is with all the drama in the Mauter house lately?) so lunch was a no-go.  We had dinner on the porch, which is where we always have our birthday meals for Sam (October) and Ellie (early May).

Here are all three dresses that I finished just in time:  Rapunzel, Minnie Mouse, and Mickey Mouse.  Brian was thoroughly concerned about making a Mickey Mouse dress, but I knew she wouldn’t care.  Sam wants one too.

And the finale was the tent!

We had her three year check up too.  She didn’t get any shots, so we got out of there pretty easily.  The doctor is somewhat concerned about her speech so we will need to see an audiologist and speech therapist soon.  I’m not really that concerned because she has always been “delayed” on speech.  She’ll get there on her own time, but if we need to have her checked out, that’ll be fine.

Happy Easter!

We started our Good Friday with some Easter coloring, a trip to a fabric store that I never get to go to, the park, and lunch.  (What kind of business can they run with hours M-F 9-4?  I get to go once every few years!)  More on what I bought later.  Then, home for a nap and some egg dyeing.  Sam loves it.  I do too.

Sam got a kit from Build-a-Bear (thanks, MamaLinda!) so we used the drops rather than food coloring.  It also came with stickers and glitter!

Later, Ellie enjoyed dyeing her eggs too.

Saturday morning, Sam was heartbroken as I used the eggs in my potato salad.  But we enjoyed lunch with some Mauters over at the Atchisons house.

And, no Easter celebration would be complete without an egg hunt.

On Easter morning, Sam woke up very early to hunt for her basket.  She found it behind the french door in the entrance hall.  The night before, she told me that she wished the Easter Bunny would not hide it in the place he did last  year: on top of the china cabinet.  I’m surprised she remembered!

Ellie’s basket was hidden under the piano.

The Easter Bunny took it easy this year: some books, some candy, bubbles, and some hair accessories.

And unfortunately after this, the camera got a smudge on the lens, so the rest of the pictures are smudgy.

I’ve been wanting to do a time-lapse video of something around here.  Decorating our Christmas Tree seemed like a perfect fit for such a project.  I put the camera and laptop on the piano and using EOS Utility I shot tethered every 10 seconds.  I used ImageMagick to crop and resize the images to 1920×1080 and then finally to sequence them as an MPG.

We had been talking about a trip to Gatlinburg all year.  It was our 10 year anniversary this fall, and I wanted to go somewhere.  I’m always up for a trip to the mountains.  I just had to convince Brian to go with me.  :)  The girls did great during the whole trip, even though we missed a few naps along the way.  So, I discovered how Ellie behaves without a nap: crazy hyper.

We stayed in a nice house, with a carport and backyard even!  But, the view!  I spent a lot of time just staring at the mountains.

On the first day, we started with an easy hike to Laurel Falls.  Sam wanted to explore every rock, stick, and leaf, so it took an usually long time to get up to the falls.  We had to remind ourselves that we were on vacation and we had no time expectations.  The trees had already lost all their leaves, but that meant we could see more without leaves in the way.  The Falls was pretty crowded, so we ate our picnic lunch (packed in Sam’s trusty backpack) and headed back down without a family picture.  But not before Brian almost had a heart attack.  The waterfall was a series of steep waterfalls.  The picture below was the first one, but if you turned around, there was another one right behind you.  All Sam wanted to do was run and jump all over those slippery rocks.  Talk about a scare for a protective parent!

We rode the tram down the mountain that night to have dinner.  And, we had a sundae on Sunday!  That is one of Sam’s all time favorite things.  The next day, we shopped at the Outlets.   No pictures from that trip, but we came back home and Sam had some art time.  She drew her Iron Bowl Prediction (completely unsolicited) to one proud papa.

On the last full day, we made the drive up to Clingman’s Dome.  As we were driving, the temperature continually dropped.  Eventually, we started seeing snow on the sides of the road.  We were told that Hurricane Sandy dropped 34″ at the high elevations!  It was still there!  Brrr, it was about 42° at the top.  Sunny, but cold.  We headed out on our hike to Andrews Bald.  It was an ambitious hike with 2 small kids, but I thought we could do it.  We saw plenty of snow on that hike, and it led to an awesome clearing in the woods.  We again ate our picnic lunch with the phenomenal view of the Fontana Reservoir.  Brian and Ellie were troupers on the way back to the car.  He carried her on his shoulders the whole way!

And to end a great trip in one of the best National Parks, I watched the sunrise from the living room.  We had a great view, but I’ll need to talk with Brian about how I’m supposed to take a picture of a sunrise.  I would bet it’s something about Manual and setting exposure.  Until next time, Smokies!  I can’t wait!