Boca

We are lucky enough to live in a place that is located near quite a few beaches that are less than ten minutes from our house. We really love our Ft. Lauderdale beach but every once in a while Tyler and I really feel like getting crazy, we head out to another part of Florida and see what it has to offer. Tyler mentioned going to Boca Raton and immediately I thought of this:

Not that there is anything wrong with that. To be honest with you, I would rather spend time with my grandparents than almost anyone else in the world but when talking about having a super fun, exciting new adventure, Boca didn't seem like the place to be. However, Tyler convinced me when he showed me this place online:

Ok so it doesn't look like much from the sign but... they promised us that if we went there, we would see these:

And these:

Have I mentioned how badly I want to see a Manatee while we live here? I really really do. Anyway, supposedly this place has great snorkeling so we decided to head North 25 miles and check it out. When we got to the park though... we found this:

 

Can you see that sign? It says that to park there it's $18. If we were going to be there all day, we could have justified paying that but we didn't get there until after 4:00 in the afternoon. $18 for a couple hours on the beach? Maybe we are super cheap but we just couldn't do that when there are about a million other beaches around that are free.

We ended up finding a FREE parking lot about a mile down the road from here and figured that was the beach for us.

Isn't is gorgeous? And don't worry, it only rained on us for a second. That's one of the great things about South Florida... although it rains a lot, it's always only for about fifteen minutes until there are clear blue skies again. Oh and there are a lot of these, which is always a bonus:

and by "these", I don't mean the handsome boys at the bottom of the picture, I mean the rainbow behind them. See the big hole at my boys' feet? It is Owen's favorite thing to do when we go to the beach. Tyler helps him dig:

and then Owen does this:

I wanted to get a cute picture with my son playing in the water but as you can see from the picture below, he didn't really want to hang with me and look at the camera. He wanted to go back to play in the sand with his dad.

Oh well, we did manage to get som cute pics of the little bugger while we were there. Do you guys get sick of lone pictures of Owen? I just can't help posting them. I love this little dude:

 

That's him after he just took in a handful of sand. Yummy... but not really. We left the beach soon after and washed it down with this:

Mmmmmm... nothing better than pizza followed by some coconut ice cream.

Needless to say, I didn't get to see either thing I was expecting to see in Boca (besides one elderly woman who was walking down the beach in a see through white outfit). Next time we head that way, we'll be prepared to pay an $18 parking fee, but we better leave having seen some manatees.

Peanuts, Cracker Jacks and Chewbacca

Owen is officially a sports guy. We took him to his first professional baseball game and he loved it. First he loved it because of this:

Sad that I didn't get a picture with Owen's eyes actually open. Anyway... this guy is just some sports nut that dresses up as Chewy at all of the games. Not because anyone pays him to do it either. Can you imagine how hot it gets inside of that costume? Owen loved him, couldn't take his eyes off of him. Oh except in this picture.

Then he loved it because of this:

Mmmmm... cotton candy. So yummy.

We wondered if a baseball game would actually be enjoyable with a sixteen month old who loves running around but he was so great and sat and watched the game the whole time. It was super cute.

He must have loved that play. Totally clapping for the team. What a great little fan.

You know how sometimes baseball games can seem like they go on forever? This one was great because we got a break right in the middle of it.

Thats a picture of us and everyone else in the stadium running to get covered up. Luckily the rain cleared up quickly and we were back at it.

Don't mind the wet hair. It isn't pretty but we needed a pic to commemorate our family's first pro baseball game.

Oh, remember this post?

Well look at those little buggers now:

Can you believe how big they are getting? Owen loves to go out back and check them out. He's started calling them "Ewwwww's". Love that little guy.

Ahhh... RATS!

No really... RATS... we have them. Gross. We know for sure there are two, actually let me rephrase that, there WERE two until Tyler set up an obstacle course in the storage closet where they were living.

That is four rat sticky pads, one rat trap and a lot of poison. Two of those sticky pads are now gone because the rats didn't realize they were traps; they must have thought they were something fun and gooey to run through. Poor little buggers didn't know what they had coming.

How disgusting is that? Tell me that even though I'm confessing this to you that you will still want to come to our home. Don't worry, I've been scrubbing the floors, vacuuming and obsessively wiping the countertops with disinfectant just in case by some off chance they have walked anywhere other than the storage closet.

I mentioned this to a couple of friends and one of them said "Yeah, if you live in South Florida, you'll get rats, that's just how it is"... yuck.

On a happier note, we get to see this cute family in two weeks:

And visit this rat and his home:

I'm pretty dang excited for it, except I'm not super excited for the hot part of it. I really want it to be a comfortable temperature when we're walking around a theme park all day. Because sometimes right now when I'm walking from my house to my car, I feel like this:

I've already asked pretty much everyone I know here if it will cool down a little in the next two weeks. They all tell me the same thing, that it doesn't cool down until November. I'm just going to keep asking until I get the answer I want, that it will be the perfect temperature for spending time outside.

This little guy has nothing to do with rats or sweating but I just like to post pictures of him so...

Wanna? I do.

When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Tyler wanted to be an investor. Why you ask? Because he'd walk home from school with his friend Tony, who had an uncle who owned a huge house on top of a hill that they would pass along the way. One day while passing Tony's uncle's house, Tyler asked Tony what his uncle did for a living, Tony told him he was an investor.Tyler had no idea what an investor did but he loved the idea of having a big house on the hill when he was all grown up.  So from then on, if anyone asked Tyler what he wanted to be when he got older, that would be his answer.
When I was young I wanted to be a school teacher. My reasoning... when we were young we didn't get to drink soda except for a few very special occasions throughout the year. My second grade teacher would drink Sprite every day and I figured that if I got to drink soda on the job, that was the job for me.
As I've stated before on this blog, we're always wondering what Owen is going to be when he grows up. This week Owen and I headed to a place called Wannado City. This place helps children explore their career options for when they get older.
You can not believe this place, it's a miniature city with all of the necessities:
A bakery: (Owen, do you want to grow up and be a chef?)

A hair and nail salon (or maybe a stylist?):

A merry-go-round where Owen learned to ride a horse (You could always be a Jockey...):

A hospital with little ambulance (Or maybe even a doctor or an EMT?):

A dance club (hmmmm... Owen as a dancer?):

A train (Or, even a conductor?):

A performing arts center, where kids can be in the actual play they are putting on (An actor you say?):

A newspaper agency (Possibily a reporter?):

and a bunch of other things I didn't get pictures of... things like a fire station, a circus, a modeling agency, a bank, a courthouse, the possibilities are endless...
When you get to Wannado City, they hand each child a check to get cashed in the bank. The kids can then use the money to buy a pizza (they make it themselves), go on rides, see a show, etc. Each time a child goes into one of the "businesses", they learn how to do the work in the business and then get paid for it. Owen got paid for dancing onstage at the performing arts center and for baking a cookie (yum).
I really loved this place. Too bad that once Owen turns two, it will be too expensive for us to ever go back.
Oh and did I mention what job made Owen the happiest? It wasn't the dancing, the cooking, the train conducting or merry-go-round. It was sitting in his friend's stroller and fake driving it around. So Owen, what you're telling me is that you want to be a race car driver when you grow up? 

Woobies

While I was pregnant with Owen I had a few baby showers. At these showers I received a LOT of really cute blankets. Although I loved each and every one of them, I have to be honest, I wondered if I would actually use them.

The answer: Yes, definitely.

Can you see how happy these make our little guy?

Every morning when Owen wakes up we are forbidden to leave his room until we have every soft blanket he can get his hands on or any blanket he can get me to get my hands on in our arms. This morning he spotted nine of them before we left his room.

We love this about him.

Some other new things we love about Owen:

• He loves shoes. He'll pick up any pair, no matter whose they are and bring them to you and then say shoes over and over until you put them on. Oh but when he says shoes, it really sounds like "ooozsh".
• He points at everything and says "that". We think it's because we are constantly saying "Owen, what's that?", "Owen who's that?", "Owen can you see that?"
• He loves to sit with me or Tyler looking out the glass door in our back room. He could sit there for hours looking for birds, lizards, yucks or anything else interesting moving around out there.

• He is such a boy... he loves climbing on things, standing on things he probably shouldn't, racing cars and making them crash, chasing Tyler with a football, basketball, any ball in his arms and he loves big trucks. When the garbage truck, recycling truck or any big truck is by our house and he hears it, he stands by the door until we take him outside to see what kind of truck it is.
• He is also saying "Whoa!" a lot. Any time he makes a car crash or throws something or he falls... I don't even know where he learned it but it's so super cute.
• He loves to play the drums. We don't own real drums but he loves to fake play our fake drum set. The ones we have for rock band.
• He loves chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, white morsels... any sort of creamy chips really. It's all my fault. If I ever just need a little dark chocolate I will go to the fridge and have one or two Ghirardelli chocolate chips (I blame both my mother in law and my dad for this bad habit)  and I would give him one or two as well. Bad idea? Probably. 
• Our favorite thing right now is that he has started coming to find one of us if he wants us to play or wants to show us something. If we are in the other room and he needs or wants one of us, he will come in, grab a finger and lead whoever it is to where he wants to go. I know all kids do this at some point but we love that our little guy has started doing it.

I say it all the time but I can't help it... we love love love this little man!

Once upon a time...

Once upon a time I was robbed at gunpoint. Seriously. I was seventeen and worked at a tanning salon called Body Brown (clever right?). I was working the night shift by myself when two guys walked in, held a gun to my head and told me to give them all of the money in the register. I was too confused to actually do anything but just stand there so one of the guys reached over, got in the cash register himself and pulled out the $80 that was there. Question: Do you think once they got the money they asked themselves whether it would have been worth shooting a little seventeen year old girl for $80? Who knows... anyway, it was scary.

However, it was not the most scared I've been in my life. I didn't even scream. The robbery was over too fast for me to register  that I should be frightened. The most frightened I've been in my life was the second week we lived here.

We had been in Florida for seven days, in our house for one day before Tyler had to leave on a work trip. Typically I'm not scared of being in a big empty house without a man around. I lived on my own for a little while and the thought never crossed my mind to be scared that someone would come into my house and harm me. But when you have a child and you are in  new house, in a new neighborhood in a new state, your mind starts to wander and you think  things you never thought before. Things like: Someone could break into our bedroom window" " Someone could hide behind that bookcase" "Someone could come in through the attic" and a few other crazy things like that. Luckily, me sweet friend Mel told me about these alarms you can get at your local hardware store that you stick on your door and when someone tries to come in, it makes a loud screeching sound. I thought it sounded like a great idea. That way, while I was sleeping, I would for sure hear someone trying to come through my front door (because obviously, the burglar would try the front door first). So Mel and I headed to Home Depot and each picked one  of these alarms up for ourselves. I got home,  took my time making sure it was on the door securely and went about my business with a renewed sense of security.

Fast forward twenty minutes... Owen and I were in the laundry room having a great time doing the wash when all of the sudden my new alarm is BLARING. I grab Owen and start screaming at the top of my lungs... someone was coming in my house to do who knows what to me and Owen. I have seriously never been so scared in my life. What was this man breaking into our house coming to get from our poor innocent little family? After a second I got the courage to come and meet my maker. This is what I find at my front door:

Yes... that is the new alarm lying on the ground. Me screaming like I a little girl... maybe just a small overreaction. Needless to say, I haven't turned the thing on since. I'm too afraid it will fall off again at 2:00 in the morning and I might die of fright.

On a different note, Owen finally got his hair cut. This is my attempt at getting a good shot of it. He wasn't having it:

Isn't he a handsome little guy? Even when he doesn't cooperate with my camera taking.

While Mamma's Away

I had a meeting for church tonight so Tyler and Owen decided to go out on the town and live it up MAN style. They headed over to the Bass Pro Shop (because really, does it get more manly than that?) While they were there they did this:

Shopped for ATV's... I think he looks like a natural don't you?

And this:

Little guy takes after his uncle Derek... loves boating already. Have I mentioned that since we sold our ATV's, Tyler wants to get one of these?

They did some of this:

 

Pointed at a lot of fish swimming around. Do you think he knows that he'll be hooking those little guys at some point in his life? Poor fishies.

And they did this:

Not great pictures but they were trying on hats. Owen's favorite was a camo hat. Hmmmm... I think he might be growing into that rat tail.

Oh and when they got home, they did this:

Wait... did I mention that our little man still needs a haircut? He really does.