Bilbray Patriots

Jacob's Joy & Beach Pix

Jacob found a lot of fun things to do to pass the time away on the beach. He loved boogie boarding and was out in the water for the majority of the time but he also loved to find sea-creatures......yes, living things - dont worry, only small ones! Somehow he also developed a gift for finding them. Maybe it was because most days he built himself a "sand-arm" which resembled "THE ROCK" from the Fantastic 4 (2nd pic) and tricked the living stuff in the sand to believe he was one of them??? haha.....
He and his cousin Ethan found a Blue Button Jellyfish that looked really cool (that's a picture of it in the green bucket) and he found tons of baby clams (3rd pic). He developed some method of digging for them and each time brought up a little living clam that spit water. When he put it back on the watery sand, it would burrow its way into the sand until it disappeared. It was cool to watch and he was more than excited about it.
Another tradition we kept this year was all going to Dairy Queen together to get treats. It's so hot and muggy in Florida that anything cold tastes good - but when its a Blizzard or Banana Split or chocolate covered ice-cream cone - it tastes great! We did that our last nite there.

BEACH BABES!

Yup.....we're both White/Caucasian?

Lakeland, FL Reunion

Back Left 2 Right: Alex, Randy, Karen, Kevin, Tiffany holding Armaya,

Mike, Sam, Kim, Kati, Joe, Amy, Mom, Dad.

Front Left 2 Right: Julia, Ethan, Brendon, Eli, Mikayla, Baili,

Ryan, Jacob & Kami

Going to find Crocodiles with Uncle Avrill

Off we go......

Church in New Smyrna Beach

He's Hooked!

Whenever we visit Florida, we have a tradition of having a family BBQ at Uncle Avrill and Aunt Dianes in Haines City, 30 mins south of Disney. It's always a fun family time and we usually swim in their pool and go out on the boat with Avrill. The kids love to fish from their dock but usually dont catch anything. So this year was hot as always and after eating the kids jumped straight into their pool.....all but Ryan. I asked him if he wanted to and if we was so hot out on the dock......he said "I'm fishing". He diligently stood out there, by himself at times, until all of a sudden we heard......"Ryan caught one". He had! Wow......Jacob helped reel it in and there it was, a good sized Bass. He was pretty excited but when asked to stand by it for a picture, he ran away.

About an hour later, I was inside visiting and Sam ran in to tell me, "He caught another one!"

Sure enough, he did. This time he was brave enough to stand by it for a picture. He was so proud of himself, as were we! Who would of known......Ryan......professional fisherman.

Hitting the beach

We have been having SUCH a good time here at New Smyrna Beach, FL. This is our third and final week. It's been great hanging out and relaxing. We go out to the beach about 11 every day and hangout (boogie board, building castles and sunbathing) until 2 or 3 in the afternoon. We head to the condo, via the pool, for lunch and head back to the pool once we eat. In the late afternoon we head back to the condo and relax for the night! Sam is terrified of burning so he puts on his clown makeup in the morning and that takes him through the day....haha! The kids are loving building sandcastles and the boys LOVE boogie boarding. I'm content melting away in the sun until I can't handle it and then I hit the waves! We LOVE it!!!!

The Happiest Place on Earth

We had decided not to visit the happiest place on earth (DisneyWorld) this year because we stayed at New Smyrna Beach which is about an hour and half from Kissimmee. After a few days here we decided it would be nice to leave the beach for a day and go ahead and take the kids down there and visit Disney! Aunt Diane had 3 passes for us to use and Sam arranged for a timeshare tour for 2 more tickets. We only ended up buying one children ticket so it worked out really cheap. The timeshare tour was funny......they gave us a great breakfast buffet and had a hilarious balloon master for the kids but our poor tour guy had beedy eyes and was so typical of a tiemshare pusher :( He was very nice! The kids were in the same room as us and any of you that have been to these tours know its not exactly kid friendly. They had the balloons from the "balloon master" and were practically hitting people in the head with the sword, dragon and bugsbunny he had made. lol. Baili actually cried when we had to return to the "room" after he showed us the timeshare room. All Sam and I could do was laugh. Jacob asked loudly...."do we get the tickets now" hello....obvious we are just doing this for the free disney tickets....lol! I explained to the kids that it was worth the 90 mins for $160 worth of passes. I dont think they go it it but I do think they understood that Daddy is not just tight with his money but smart with it too!


Most of the pictures from our DisneyWorld Trip are of Kami because 1. she was mostly with me and 2. the others could care less about taking a picture! Kami was super excited about Mickey and Minnie Mouse as well as the princesses!

All you have to do is look at Kami's face to see how much fun this was for her!

We didnt wait to see Ariel last time because it was a 60 minutes wait.

This year wasnt as long and Kami played in the water grotto before visiting Ariel.

"Make a wish" show with Mickey, Minnie and all their friends....so cute! Kami and I saw it in the middle of the day and then we all saw it just before the parade!

The Haunted Mansion is by far one of the kids favorite rides at Disney. The ride was down for the first half of the day so finally we were able to get on it. Sam's signature "scream" while on the ride happened this year as in years past - such an eejit!! haha! The ride broke down part way through which was interesting for Ryan and Kami who I was riding with. The kids favorite part is at the end when you see yourself in a mirror with a ghost riding in your cart with you.

Umm, Baili looks like she is draculas bride....hee hee!

Buzz Light Year Ride - another favorite of the kids!

We decided to leave the park a little early because we had to drive back to the beach. There was a special dance, shake it parade at 5:30 so the girls and I waited while Sam and boys went and got icecream. They were gone a long time and the parade started. I was getting nervous about them finding us because a lot of people started crowding around the sidewalk where we were sitting. After a while, someone tapped my shoulder to look out of the crowd and Sam and Jacob were standing there will 5 melting Mickey Mouse icecreams......Jacob looked like an icecream version of "Carrie" with dripping icecream melting down his arms onto the ground.....poor thing. He was so sad! We hurried out of the front of the crowd - with the two double strollers mind you - and finally decided just to chuck the $15 worth of icecreams into the trash.....just wasnt worth the effort. As I stood there with Jacob so distrought and Kami having a meltdown, Ryan trying to eat the chocolate ears of the cone before it went into the trash......Baili was in a trance.....I could only think how ironic the saying...."the happiest place on earth" haha....not in that moment! It was a great day though and we used the opportunity to teach the kids that when things go wrong, we regroup and look on the bright side! We talked about all the fun things we did get to do that day and how great it all was!

Beach Bums

Collecting sea shells....

Amazing sand-art....these guys were hours shaping

this classic truck right beside us!