A week in sunny Florida!

We just got back from an amazing week in Marco Island, Florida! My wonderful and extremely generous parents took us there, along with Aaron, Jill and Ivy. It was so great to spend a whole week with all of them! We will have lifelong memories from this trip:)

Just a warning...get ready for a TON of pictures! Hopefully no one will get too bored, but it was hard for me to choose! So I just decided to do a very long post:)

The kids were very excited to go! Here we are, just arrived at the airport in Fort Wayne. My dad got great plane tickets--we flew out of Fort Wayne at around 8:30 pm, and we flew straight to Florida. So nice not to have layovers! The only drawback was that we flew into Tampa, which is around a 3 hour drive from Marco Island. So we arrived in Tampa around 10:30 or so, and after some delays in the airport we didn't arrive at our condo until around 3:30 in the morning! But it was fun:)

My dad and our kids watching the airplanes

Halle is excited:)

Nathan held Layla (she was his "lap child" and Daisy was mine)

Dad and Kaine had fun together on the plane!

Sweet Daisy...she was just perfect on the flights!

Our pilot was really cool...he let Kaine pose in the cockpit for a picture

This picture was taken after midnight...we are waiting by the curb for our long-awaited rental vans. Kaine and Halle are getting very tired:)

Now in Florida...here is dad and Kaine playing tennis one evening

Me with 2 of my little sweeties

Layla's first time at the ocean! She liked it pretty well, I think. Definitely not as much as Kaine and Halle, though--they looooooved the ocean!

Nathan and Kaine

Halle was really excited to be at the beach!

I love this of Nathan and Halle. Nathan is seriously such an amazing daddy--he is so great with playing with our kids!

I love this of Halle, too! You can see how much she is loving it!

Here is poor Daisy at the beach. She was so hot in her carseat, even though she was shaded with a towel! This is the only time we took her to the beach in the daytime.

Family pic at the beach

Kaine and his grandpa--they had a ton of fun together this week!

Me with my sweet baby Daisy:) I love this little girl!

Jill was goofing off and she got in the little baby boat:) I know I would not have been able to fit in that!

Nathan with his little princesses:)

Mom is such a wonderful grandma! She was always willing to stay in the condo with babies while the rest of us were outside! We rarely took her up on it because we wanted her to be with us:) but it was so nice of her to always offer! Dad was the same way, too. They are such selfless and generous people!

Anyway, here is mom with Daisy--it was great that she was able to get time holding Daisy this week! A lot of times she is so busy with our other kids that she doesn't get the time with Daisy.

My little surfer studmuffin

Here is a picture of Kaine by the pool. This picture causes deja vu for me...check out the next picture!

4 years ago! My little boy has grown up so fast:(

Daisy in her adorable little swimsuit:) As you can see, she was really happy in this picture!

However, when I got her down to the pool, she wasn't as happy:) She was starting to get tired and she isn't overly fond of the bright sun.

She was much happier doing this:)

This was so funny...we went to a Mexican restaurant and when we walked in the door there was a cartoon on the tv. Since we don't have tv at home, Kaine is just riveted whenever he has a chance to watch one! We were starting to walk to our table, and Kaine was still standing there watching the tv. I jokingly told him, "okay, you can just stay here and watch tv while we eat," thinking he would follow me as I started to walk away. Kaine said "okay!" and he climbed up on the barstool to keep watching! He thought I was serious! It was cute:) But maybe you had to be there to think it was funny...or maybe you have to be his mom to think it was funny:)

I love this of Dad, Halle and Layla!

See the rainbow? Beautiful.

A diaper picture of the 3 youngest. I just realized this is the first picture of Ivy! We are just in love with our niece Ivy--she is so adorable! Our kids are just obsessed with her:)

Nathan tried to put sunscreen on his head and he ended up with a skunk stripe:) It did not rub in well at all!

Layla was so cute at the pool...she had no fear! She really didn't like to be held, and she didn't like to have floaties on. She seemed to just want us to let her swim herself! Of course we didn't though:)

Kaine and Halle are good friends...Halle is always saying "I love my brother." So cute!

Kaine became so skilled in the pool this week! He learned how to swim so much better, and he was soon jumping and doing cannonballs off the side, diving for things at the bottom, swimming underwater, and he even did a flip at one point (I don't think he meant to, though!) We were so proud of him!

He wanted me to take a picture of him underwater:)

Aaron, Jill and Ivy...what a great family!

Dad and Kaine with their matching shirts:)

Our whole group eating Coldstone...yum!

Love those blue eyes!

Nathan and Kaine posing on the fountain. It's really hard to tell in this picture, but this was no small feat! Nathan had to jump really far onto this ledge, and it took my dad and Aaron to lift Kaine up to him! I'm not sure what the people passing by must have been thinking!

Kaine and Halle wanted to pose on a fountain, too, so we found them a smaller fountain:)

Our little Lay-love

A grandkid picture! It was really hard to get a picture that had all of them looking at the camera--this is just about the best one I got.

A picture of Halle in her pink tube--she was never without this tube if she was near water:)

My sweet and adorable niece, Ivy:)

Here is Kaine showing off his new swimming skills!

Nathan and Daisy--I love Daisy's squished up face in this picture!

The 2 littlest cousins! Someday they will be great friends:)

Halle wearing her Dora goggles...nope, this picture is not taken at the pool. This is at the airport! She looked so cute:)

I think that's pretty much it. Dad and Mom, we had such a great time! We wished we could have stayed another week...maybe next time? Just kidding:) But thanks so much for everything--your generosity and kindness is amazing. We love you guys!