President's Day Weekend

Hooray for the Presidents!  

And a few days off from school!  We escaped to Florida for the long weekend to soak up some sunshine on North Miami Beach.

Ben, warming up on the back of an alligator.  Our first stop in Florida was at the Cheesecake Factory for some lunch. while we were waiting to check into our room.

Discovering the pool on the first evening.

It was a bit too cool for Eric and I but just fine for 3 young energetic boys!  One advantage of the boys getting older is we can sit on the pool deck in a lounge chair while the boys play together in the water!

Beautiful beach!
The beach had just enough waves for the boys to jump and splash in, and a big sandy beach for Eric and I to stroll on!

Each morning after breakfast we played tennis, well, kind of.  The boys also played basketball.  

My Valentines.

We celebrated Valentines day on the beach...

and later on with a yummy steak dinner at a local Argentinian steak house!

We also celebrated Sam and his 8th birthday while we were in Florida!

It was a little rainy on Sam's special day so we found a fun indoor monster miniature golf course to play.

We enjoyed picture perfect beautiful sunny days on the beach with temperatures in the 70's for the first 3 days.  The clouds, wind and a little rain moved in for the last 2 days, but provided beautiful skies to photograph! 

until our next beach vacation....

Happy 8th Birthday Sam!

 We began celebrating Sam's 8th birthday in January when he choose to take 2 friends to a Pacers basketball game for his birthday party.  I picked  up the boys from school on a Friday afternoon and brought them home to get the party started!  They played, snacked and ate pizza, cake and drank root beer.  Then we headed off to the game!

The Pacers unfortunately lost to the Wizards that night, but it didn't matter much to us, we had fun anyways!  After the game the boys all had a chance to shoot a free throw on the court!  What a thrill!  They all had such big smiles on their faces!

On Sam's actual birthday we were in Florida and celebrated him again, then!  

At age 8 Sam still loves to play basketball and baseball and has dreams of being in the NBA and MLB.  He loves the color green and anything green, including the Green Bay Packers.  He has a love for books,  legos and video games!  He's also a very best friend to his brothers, when they are not fighting like siblings do!