Furcon 2010/Atlanta trip

Have you ever secretly wished to dress up like a furry creature? Have you ever had the desire to become a fuzzy dragon, furry fox or cuddly cat? Have you ever wanted to meet others who share your love of all things furry? We have NOT. But somehow, call it luck if you will, we ended up at the furriest of all conventions around. If this is what you are looking for then by all means next March book yourself a room at the downtown Atlanta Hilton and you will be sure to be surrounded with the creepiest of creatures. This is one of those things that you really had to be there for...

I am kicking my self in the tail for not taking pictures of these guys. Borrowed this from my friend's facebook. This shows a little of what our hotel looked like for the week.

Mark had a dental conference in Atlanta this past week and we decided to make a family vacation out of it. Like I said, at our hotel Furcon 2010 was taking place. I find it sad and a little funny that Sadie probably now thinks that it is completely normal to share an elevator with a Fox or Lemur. Hey, even I started to think it was completely normal. It made for some good laughs and great memories. Atlanta was a lot of fun and a lot of work. Many times we uttered the words "last road trip." It was a long week with the girls. I wouldn't be surprised if I woke up next week and I had gray hair. They really were good on the trip. I'm just having such a hard time juggling everything. It really is crazy I sometimes don't have time to eat or go to the bathroom because I am trying to juggle so many things. I guess it comes with having to kids so close in age. It is a lot easier at home of course. But vacations with kids... whew. Whole new world.

While Mark was the Dental Conference I took the girls to the Georgia Aquarium. Way awesome! This one blows the DC aquarium way out of the water. I love aquariums.

Sadie has a thing for dressed up character people . So imagine how stoked she was for all the Furcons. (She in fact uttered that she wanted to dress up like animals.) We told her that is for weird people. Anyways, she saw this whale from way far away and really wanted to go see him. She has no fear of these creatures. I thought it was really cute how she just went and stood by him and waited for me to take a picture. Last known picture of beloved Blankie. Or what was left of her. This I will save for another post... Heartbroken! When Mark wasn't at the conference we went with our friends the Frandsens who also were in Atlanta with us to The World of Coca-Cola. We spent most of our time testing 64 different types of sodas from all around the world. Some good ones and some nasty ones. Seems like all the South American ones were extra sugary.

Frandsens, London's future in-laws. Getting ready to watch some crazy 4-d Coke movie. London and Will chickened out and left at the beginning. I think they just needed some alone time.

London was all about impressing her boyfriend Will with all her sweet new skills. Like sitting up. She was really excited to show Will how it was done. So they had a sit off...

This one is their engagement picture. Everywhere we went people thought they were twins. Remember they are 2 days apart. Such a cute couple!!

Don't ask me why, but Mark watched some Hot Dog documentary on TV once and he said it was his life long dream to eat at the famous Varsity where they are known for their hot dogs. So Marks dream came true and we had a feast at the Varsity. Now we are true Atlantan's. I'd actually never heard of the joint before but Mark told me it is all the rage.

Hot dogs with coleslaw, chilli and cheese... Yum Yum

London at the hotel looking cute...

This is a little of what our 6 hour drive home from Atlanta looked like. Frequent potty brakes. Here is Sadie somewhere in the middle of Alabama. You know, when you just can't hold it til the next gas station...

We also took a little trip to see Mark's Aunt and her family who live an hour past Atlanta. No pics, just fond mem's!

I also loved that I was able to go shopping and out to eat at all the places that are not down here in Fort Walton Beach. Cheesecake Factory, you and your avocado egg roles were truly missed. Till next time. XOXO

Best friends

Sisters, sisters there were never such devoted sisters... Name that movie?? This makes me happy...

I love how much these two love each other. They are going to have so much fun growing up together. London thinks that Sadie is hilarious. I swear London is so cranky when Sadie is taking a nap and once Sadie is awake London is all grins. And when London is fussy and sometimes I don't get to her pronto like I should Sadie tells me over and over again to take care of London. They look out for each other. I hope it lasts.

Copy Cat

This is how it started: London scratched herself with one of her claws. It wouldn't stop bleeding, so we prescribed her one band-aid. Strictly for medical reasons, to promote platelet adhesion, clotting, and eventual healing.

Needless to say, Sadie came up with an injury of her own: I like to say that she got bit by the Copy Cat.

This is not her first instance of behavior modeling, or "copying". We find her copying our every move, the way we stand, the things we say, etc. This copy cat is one ferocious feline.

Big girl is sitting up all by herself now. She gets really mad and a little offended if you lie her on her back. She wants to run around and be crazy with her big sister. I can see it in her eyes.

A Saturday to remember?

On saturday we went with our friends the Ridgeways on a little tour of northwest Florida. We saw some fun sites such as the Florida Caverns, Falling Waters (not to brag, but it is the highest waterfall in florida), and Turkey Creek Nature Walk (sorry, no real turkeys). The bummer was that we got separated from our friends due to technical difficulties, but Sadie loved seeing Blaise.

However, don't think that it was all smiles and sunshine. The movie you see above glamorizes our mini-vacation; there is one aspect of our trip that did not make it on film: juggling two screaming crying babies deep in the belly of the earth during the cave tour. Little Blaise was smart enough to start complaining early, so he got to exit with his parents. We felt so bad at first, but our sorrow soon turned to jealousy as Sadie got tired and London got hungry. There were times when I'm sure that nobody could hear the tour guide because of our shrieking girls whose devilish cries echoed from the primitive formations in the tomb-like chamber. Both girls, full volume, OOC (out of control). I was sweating bullets trying to lug around that squirming weasel Sadie, and Ashley's arm literally almost fell off due to fatigue from feeding London on-the-go. Needless to say, all of our pictures are from the first three minutes before everything went downhill. We decided that it would be better for everyone if Sadie and Blaise had their next playdate somewhere normal like a park instead of a dark cavern in the center of the earth.

This is why we love family Saturdays!

More fun beach walks

Mark heard from a boy a church a great place to go and catch crabs and fish when the water is warm. We went on an excursion to check it out so we will be all ready when it's time to get our crab on.

Sadie has an ability to find beauty in almost anything. Her favorite way to describe something is to say that it is "soooo beautiful". Even pinecones, I guess. She later brought this pinecone to church with her. Oh yeah, PS: everything has a "mommy," too. Sadie can assign mommy/baby status to any set of large and small objects (naturally large=mommy, small=baby). Such as a big and small makeup brush, a big and small soccer ball, and if we had found a bigger pinecone it definitely would have been the mommy. If Sadie sees any animal/person/car/thing leave, it can be assumed that it "went to go find it's mommy". the beautiful pinecone

Helping Sadie learn the basics of crab hunting

We have been checking out different local beaches trying to find the perfect one for this summer's beach-going. We can't wait for the hot weather so we can dive back into beach fun. Never thought I would be wishing for the horrible hot weather to return. But this was actually one of the coldest winters Florida has had in a long time. And of course we had to be here for it. One of the main reasons I was so excited about Florida is that I HATE winter. I thought I could escape it by coming here but boy oh boy was I wrong. They even got snow in some parts. Seriously?

We have enjoyed taking walks with the girls on the beach and Sadie really loves collecting shells and pine cones. We will miss our fun beach walks when we leave. But who knows, we could be heading to another beach somewhere else. We should find out in the next couple weeks where the Air Force will send us for the next 3 years. We move at the end of July or beginning of August. Pray that we will go somewhere AWESOME!!

Hooray! More visitors!

Grandpa Olsen came to visit us on Valentine's Day. The girls had fun seeing their Grandpa. Sadie had fun making cookies, singing songs, and reading books with grandpa. We tried some classic grandfatherly activities like chasing birds at the beach and flying kites, but it was cold and windy and Sadie got a little bugged when grandpa tied her blankie to the tail of the kite. Pretty scary. But I guess that's why the old saying is true: it's always fun when grandpa comes.

Hooray for visitors!

A few weekends ago London's life changed forever. Call it love at first sight if you will. We may hear wedding bells in the very, very far off future. London and Will... BN-BFF: brand-new best friends forever-Good one Peter and Emily!

These two couldn't keep their eyes off each other...
...or their hands.

Will and London are only 2 days apart. People at the parade who asked if they were twins were very confused when we told them that they are 2 days apart.

We had a great time with our friends the Frandsens who drove from Biloxi Mississippi to spend some quality time with us. We did lots of fun stuff like chaperoning the babies and planning the wedding. Too bad they don't live closer; we could have more time to get together and talk about how cute our babies are. Hopefully we'll both get stationed at some awful base together.

checking out the freezing, blinding white sand beaches

Mardi Gras season around these parts = parades with lots of free beads. London and Will's baby cuteness earned them a fair share of beads...

Any suggestions on getting your child to slow down on the nose picking?

Destin Harbor festivities

Enjoyed some root brew-skis at an ol' Irish Pub, lad. There are hundreds of thousands of dollars strung all around McGuires. Pretty spectacular. I hope the joint never burns down.