Cypress Gardens

I have finally had a chance to upload some pictures from our two days at Cypress Gardens. Unfortunately I don't have pictures from the waterpark area and that's because I was enjoying the water park as well. They have a really nice lazy river that we floated in for about an hour and then got out and let the kids go down the slides and sit near the HUGE kids park. After that we went back to the lazy river and floated some more. It was quite peaceful and the water was really nice as well.

I'm not usually a water park person only because I worry about the germs and such. But the kids really wanted to cool off so we went ahead and enjoyed that part of the park as well.

The front entrance of the park has an area called 'Bugsville' where there are all sorts of rides.......roller coasters (which the boys all loved) and kiddie rides (which Shelby really liked).

Here we are in the front of the park.

Little Miss Trucker in her beach truck!

Little Firefighter on her way to help save a kitty cat! LOL

They had a beautiful ski show and the boys kept telling their daddy that they want to ski now. Music to his ears since he loves to water ski. Next to the waterski show, they had a beautiful water fall. It reminded me of either northern GA, near Dillard or even Hawaii with the landscape. It was so beautiful!

One of the great things at Cypress Gardens has always been the way they take flowers and sculpt them into different things. The park used to be all about these flowers and had very few rides. But I think because of all the other parks and their rides, Cypress Gardens had to include some other features if they were going to survive. Not that I'm against those new rides, as they were fun. But I'm glad that they left the beauty of the original park. Nestled all together near the lake you could stroll around the entire area of decorated flower animals. Here is Shelby with a seal.

And with a lady bug.............and a huge bunny!

And finally Craig and I with Shelby.

It was a great family day (days)! If you are ever in Winter Haven stop by Cypress Gardens for the day.

Birthdays, Lush, and the weekend!

Where does the time go? My oldest will be 13 on Saturday.........it still feels like just yesterday that he was born. We are usually away on some sort of family vacation around his birthday every year but this year he has asked us to go another time. LOL So we decided to go back to Cypress Garden's on Friday (tomorrow). The park gives out a free admission for anytime within the next week, so we'll go back tomorrow and hang out in the water park area for most of the day. I have to still upload the pictures from Saturday so I'll do that this weekend and post. LOL

We are also going to the mall so I can head to the Lush store! Have you experienced any Lush products?? Oh my goodness..........you must! Lush products are vegan/natural products. I am in love with the shampoo bars and the bubble bars. For those of you who like to take a good bubble bath, these are just the ticket! They smell heavenly and bubble like you wouldn't believe. One little bubble bar lasts for a good 8 to 10 uses.

The other great item is their shampoo bars! I've never used a bar for shampoo and when a friend of mine told me about the shampoo, I didn't believe it. But these bars actually do exactly what they say! I have the seanick bar which says it will give volume to your hair. Guess what? It does!

One of our family traditions is that we allow whoever is the birthday honoree the choice of their dinner........whether it is going out somewhere to their favorite restaurant or having me cook their favorite meal. I'm not quite sure where we will go this weekend but I'll be sure to report on it when I post again. LOL

Happy Birthday D! We love you!

Woo Hoo It's the weekend!

Hey everyone~ It's not technically the weekend yet, but we'll be starting early today. We have to head down to take our RV to the shop to finish the repairs from the lightning storm a couple of weeks ago. Then we are going to PF Changs for some lettuce wrap and shrimp fried rice and then to IKEA to see the office furniture they have displayed.

On Saturday we are going to Cypress Gardens. We are so excited to spend the day at the park because we haven't been there in years. In fact they had actually closed it until someone bought it and redid the park. There is a water park included now, which the kids are very happy to visit.

Have a great weekend! I'll post pictures from the day next week!

Happy 4th of July weekend!

Happy 4th of July ( a little early!)!!

I hope you all have a fabulous holiday weekend. Be safe!

What a week!

The house is quiet right now, and has been for a couple of days. The boys are spending the week with my parents on the beach. They are having fun swimming every day at the pool or at the beach. There is a little snow cone place near my parents house and I am SURE that they have been going there as well!

I'm totally excited! The Whole Foods Market opened up a store closer to us and I can't wait to check it out. This market is actually a bit bigger then the one about an hour and a half away from me. I used to schedule a day to go to the market and visit some old college stomping grounds along the way. This market actually features a butcher, fresh veggies and produce, a cool bakery, and a nice little eating area. We went to one in Greenville South Carolina and it was out of this world! The local paper even had a coupon so that makes it even better! I heard they have the SIGG water bottles, so that would be great if they did, especially with the coupon. Now if they would only build a Trader Joe's!

When we head out later to go the market, I am excited about also stopping by Justice for Girls and Yankee Candle. I have some great coupons for both and they are also having some great sales! Yeah!

This morning I spent about two hours with our local power company having an energy audit done at the house. I was alarmed when our power bill arrived 3 weeks ago and immediately called to see what we could be doing different or what we could do to help our bill go down. So I had started doing little things.............washing in cold water, no heat dry on the dishwasher, running full loads of laundry, turning off lights (or unplugging so my little princess wouldn't feel the need to light up EVERYONE'S world!). I was happy with the results of the audit. We did find a little leak in one of the ducts and they offer a rebate to have that fixed. So that was cool. Then they did a check on our usage from our last bill..............we were down 15 kw! So that means by what I was doing in those 3 weeks, I was actually making a huge difference! Woo Hoo! Now tonight after we hit all the stores, I want to stop at the store to get the CFL light bulbs.

The little Princess turns 5 on Sunday! Can you believe it? It seems like just yesterday that I was preparing to have her. With my pregnancy with her I only gained 11 pounds. I wasn't really able to eat much or drink anything but water because I had gestational diabetes. I had to check my sugar intake 5 times a day and once a week I could splurge and have a crystal light! I still laugh that I used to see a 7-11 miles ahead because they offered Crystal Light slurpees, which was perfect for the Florida summer heat! We had her birthday party with her friends a couple of weeks ago because of school. So on Sunday we'll be hanging out and possibly go out to dinner........her choice. I wonder where she will choose?? Hmmm. Our tradition is that when it is your birthday you can choose what you want for dinner..........we can eat in or out, your choice, restaurant of your choice too! The boys love it! I just finished putting her gift in a bag and was delighted that the blue baby hippo webkinz that I ordered arrived today! Yoo Hoo

Well, off to get the Princess ready to head to the stores!

Fool's Gold

Today was somewhat a relaxing day. It started off rainy and windy and I spent most of the day cleaning the house and doing laundry. Usually on Friday nights we'll order a pizza and watch a movie, well last night (Friday) the kids wanted to watch Camp Rock on Disney and I watched the Daytime Emmy Awards. I don't have the time to watch the shows, but I do like reading about what goes on within each of these fictional towns. My hubby laughs about the shows but I always considered it a release from what is going on in our lives to live thru the character's experiences. Somewhat like a movie, if you will.

Well, tonight we sat down and watched Fool's Gold. I saw some previews and watched an interview with Oprah a few months back. Plus I adore my boy Matthew! LOL The movie was quite good. Lots of action and a romance to boot! The boys were laughing because they didn't think this was 'my type of movie'. ROFL

One of the neat things was the previews of upcoming movies. I am anxious to see the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants part 2 and Mama Mia! They both look fantastic!

Tornado? Computer problems? Oh my!

Have you seen this sign above? I haven't but now I know it! It means 'lookout for tornadoes'. Tuesday was a whopper of a day. I had just spent a couple of hours going thru Quickbooks and finishing all the paperwork for the month. I had reconciled all the accounts. I had to leave to pick up the kids from a playdate. All was well until I noticed the sky ahead of me was dark and scary. As I approached it got darker and darker. I turned onto the street and as I talked with the Mom and Dad their neighbor walked out and said we were in a tornado warning and they mentioned the area of this home. I had to access quickly if it was smarter for me to stay or go. I decided to stay. I detest driving anyway so for me to drive thru wicked weather would have been the worst. As we waited and watched we did hear the faint sounds of a train..........they do NOT live near any tracks. So we determined their was a tornado around us somewhere. It was quite scary! I drove home afterwards and when I arrived my hubby was sitting at my computer staring at it. My older son told me that it wasn't starting and my hubby was trying to get it rolling. He also told me that our RV was not working either! It was pulling out heat and was acting 'odd'. Oh my gosh!

Long story short, my computer is fried. A computer geek (self titled too!-LOL) has it so he can try to save the harddrive memory with all of my documents and pictures. Then we are fortunate that our computer is still under warranty so they are sending a box for repairs. I can't even imagine having to redo all of this stuff, so I am praying that all the info can be found AND saved!

Then today to make matters worse, there was another storm. Guess what? Yep, our TV got hit. So we decided that this was too strange that all of this was happening at once. Why you ask? We have lightning protection and surge protection galore? So we called out the power company and they are accessing to see if we are grounded correctly. Our electrician is coming out tomorrow to check as well.

I am SO ready for this week to be over and hopefully start with a better week soon! Our plans for Father's Day is scrapped because of the expense of all this damage.

On a good note I did something crafty! I had an estimate for someone to redo our upholstery on the kitchen chairs. They quoted us nearly $500 for the kitchen chairs alone. I couldn't stomach that much for just some fabric on chairs. So my friend Valerie and I decided to try it ourselves! We had so much fun doing the chairs. I had my first taste of power tools too..........a staple gun fueled by an air compressor! Wow, the power. I forgot to take a before shot but here is the after. The chairs were a cream color before that showed every stain that our three kiddos can muster. LOL I love this new burgundy red color! What do you think?

I hope you are having a far better week!