Jacksonville

Jacksonville.  The place where they put happy pills in the water.  Seriously, almost everyone I have met here is SO nice.  And I haven't met one person who is actually from this area yet.  So obviously, it's something about this place that MAKES you happy.  

The move went fairly smooth.  Didn't take us long to unpack and get settled.  The hard part was having our house loaded with workers forever.  We replaced all the carpets with laminate floors, which look nice on first sight and are much more durable for the kids than hard wood floors.  And it really made a huge difference to get that shoddy carpet outta here.  We replaced the carpet on the stairs.  HAD to paint the entire house.  They had some nasty colors in some rooms, and the others were loaded with awful patch jobs and holes.  Pics to come.  We had air conditioner guys, grout guys, exterminator guys, alarm guys, washer/dryer guys, a locksmith, our handyman.  And every time we think it's getting quiet, something else comes about:)  So, despite the traffic coming through here, the pool initially full of green algae, the air conditioner that broke for a week during mid-summer in Florida, and the dryer vent that was completely clogged, everything is great:)  It really is good though.  It's awesome having our own pool, we have super nice neighbors with kids around Skyler's age, I met some new friends with kiddos the same age, and it feels like vacation.  Palm trees, the beach so close, the waterways.  Awesome.   

Our house!  I went out to take some pics of it, but the kids were sidetracked to our neighbors house and were playing outside.  So here is a pic from their driveway!

 Sadie's new friend.

 Happy girl to finally have a play date!  The kids were starting to get lonely for friends.

First picnic! No air meant it was cooler outside than inside.  That should say something about our house temp considering it was the end of July!  We swam A LOT that week.

 Michael woke up on this day and wanted to take the kids for a ride.  I was shocked he was letting them near his car!  They liked it:)

 Skyler during his ride.

 Sadie during hers.

 And after. :)

 We checked out a little airplane museum Michael's base has. 

And of course, our pool.  We LOVE our pool!  Skyler has turned into a little fish:O)

 And she's working on it!

 We went a little north to go to the beach at a state park.  Great beach.  The kids had a blast.   This is Sadie afterwards....enough said.

 I liked the light outside so I told Skyler to pose for me.  This is his version of posing!  My lens had fogged up on these, but these were too cute for me to pass up.

 Florida is a little scary when it comes to bugs and snakes.  We have encountered an abundance of both!  These guys are crazy.  They are giant grasshoppers and some of them are bigger than my hand!  This one was getting mad at me...making all these crazy noises and hopping towards me.  I braved it out for the pics....

 And....just a part of the haircut Skyler gave Sadie while I was dealing with the dryer guy.  I laughed, than cried when I pulled chunks of her hair off her head...her beautiful curls!  She's kind of sporting a curly mullet at the moment...thankfully, she's super cute and her hair is crazy to begin with, so it's not toooooo obvious.....maybe it's time for a little haircut to even things out a bit!

 Mr. Stylist here..."What mom, hair grows."  " I just took two pieces from each side".  It was kind of hard to be mad when he made it seem like no big deal:)