Anniversary Day Trip to the Gardens

For James and my fourth wedding anniversary, we drove to Belingrath Gardens and enjoyed the beauty of the flowers. I had never been, and I loved it! 

The rose garden was huge and amazing. I enjoyed smelling the roses with my super-sensitive pregnancy-induced sense of smell.

A pond in the rose garden

One of the hothouses

The Belingrath Gardens home was fun to tour. His fortune was made by bottling and selling Coke from the 1930s through World War II. She collected porcelain figurines, and had 15 sets of china and four dining rooms! The house was lovely, but nowhere near the scale of the Biltmore. :-)

A view of the house from the river.

A lion statue in the gardens

The flower-lined walk beside the great lawn

One of the beautifully landscaped ponds in the gardens

The water feature beside the house

James' Grandmother, Grandma Damewood, came to visit her daughters so we got to go to the Smother's house to see her.

Grandma Damewood wrote a book just for Lily about her name. It is precious! It is about Lily asking herself, "who could love a lily?" then talking to the frog that loved the lily pad, the hummingbird that loved the tiger lily, the bees that loved the lily of the valley flowers and then she remembers the Easter Lily and Jesus' resurrection. Then she runs to her Mama who says, "I love my Lily." That is extra sweet because I do say that to Lily all the time.

Lily got to sit on the Smother's horse and go in the chicken house behind her. She loves seeing the chickens!

The other week we had all of the family over to tell everyone that we were expecting our third baby in December. This is all of the current cousins on the couch at our house. There are three more babies on the way too!

Gulf Breeze Zoo Trip

We got to go to the zoo in Gulf Breeze April 3rd. Everyone but especially Lily enjoyed it so much!

The goat got up close and personal.

We got to ride the train around the grounds to see the gorillas and zebras and elephants

A sleeping raccoon. Lily urgently requested that we get a picture of it, so we did!

We got to go in a budgie-feeding area where they would eat seeds from your stick.

Lily loved that!

Anna tried to touch a bird, but it wisely scooted out of reach.

James was Mr. Bird Man with up to five birds on him at once!

NC Vacation

We traveled to NC to see Grandma and Grandpa Joyner and Aunt Becca in the middle of March. It was fun to see my old haunts. I got to go to the Mary Jo's Cloth Store, Mom's tax office, and World Wide's office where I was a secretary for five years.

But that Tuesday on the way back to Mom's house from WWNTBM, Lily threw up and started the whole family on a nasty flu bug epidemic. Everyone in the combined household came down with it except James. The night I had it the worst was one very long night. :-) The girls continued to throw up at least once every other night for the next month. It was a bad one!

In Dad and Mom's back yard. NC has mountains!

One day during a break in the sickness, James and I hiked Crowder's Mountain. I was feeling weak still and wondered if I would make it. I made it up and back though!

We sat at the top of the mountain and used the excellent cell phone reception to play Hay Day for awhile. :-)

The girls traveled to NC well in Emily and Steve's borrowed new mini-van.

The Baines came to see us one night.

We played a super-quick game of Catan before the rest of the family had to leave. Kristen went to Mary Jo's with us and caught the flu bug.

All smiles days before the horrible sickness struck Aunt Becca down.

Anna enjoyed playing at Chickfila on the way home from NC.