Family Memories



All 7 cousins together! First time EVER!
Riley, Makayla, Macy, Haley, Reganne, Noah & Connor
Baby Peyton is still in Sheryl's belly till Dec 2012 but she'll make it for the next round of pictures!

 

Reganne, Riley and Haley



Noah eating up the fact that he is sick with a virus.
If he didn't have a fever i would have thought he was faking it.

He is definitely just like his Daddy :-)


 

Having fun at Toys R Us


 

First of many play dates with Jackson, Noah and Haley!

 
 

Noah has already moved up to the 2yr old room!
He wasn't to excited about being dropped off his first day :-(
He's doing great now though!

 

Awe, so cute...


 

Birthday party at catch air for Connor, Riley, Macy and Makayla!

 
 

Mimi time ;-)


 

Good Ole Times in July



She's so proud of herself for writing the entire
alphabet on her chalk board :-)



Wrote her number 1-10 all by herself!



Breakfast on the deck after watching hot air balloons



Watching 3 hot air balloons at 7am on Sunday morning!






Kids first candlelight dinner due to electricity going out from mid afternoon storms



Lots of grocery shopping trips in the Car carts ;-)
Kids favorite way to shop!






Made their own train while watching Thomas the Train....creative kiddos...lol



He loves his smoothies almost as much as
his Mommy and Sher Sher do!



Pool time!



Pool adventures with Papa!





Who didn't love playing in the rain as a child?





Papa and Noah playing baseball on the Wii




4th of July on the lake!




More sandcastles with Grandpa but this time it was at the lake and Daddy got to join in on the fun!




Laney, Grandpa, Haley & Noah watching Barney!



AHhhhh.....EXCITING news around here......I'm going to be an AUNT again!!!!

That's right, my twin sister Sheryl and her husband Ryan are expecting their very first baby in December 2012!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You can get all the latest scoop as well as the Gender Reveal on her blog -

http://chromekblessings.blogspot.com/

I have to say I'm one SUPER excited Auntie and Haley can't wait to have another baby to play with :-) We are probably more excited than they are!!! Can't wait to hold this little baby in December!  We are going to have lots of sleep overs at Auntie Sabrina's house!

Family Beach Trip June 2012 to Fripp Island, SC



Our Family!!! (2nd half of the week). Not pictured is Sheryl,
Gary, Mandy, Macy,Makayla, Jared, Tonya and Connor
who were there the first part of the week. Whit arrived the
night this picture was taken. Clayton had to stay at home
and work and took his own restful vacation at home ;-)



Packing our bags.....

This was the first family beach trip vacation we've taken in over 10 years! It was so nice to have everyone back together again and most everyone was able to make it so it made for a wonderful trip! EXHAUSTING for sure but lots of fun and a TON of memories :-) Just imagine 9 adults and 5 kids (all 4yrs old and under) all in one house.....Did the movie Home Alone come to mind? The clip of the movie when the family is all running around like crazy people trying to pack up for the trip is EXACTLY what our group looked like when trying to leave for dinner...HAHA. CrAzY!!!!!!  I've tried to capture some of the events in the pictures below but here is the link to snapfish that has all of the pictures that my Mom and I took.  http://www5.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=6532854027/a=6870110027_6870110027/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/




One of many sand castles - Grandpa and Haley

 


Cousins!!! Nathan, Macy, Makayla, Haley & Connor.



    

Jared and Tonya assisting the cousins to make a sand castle!



Love this picture! She sure loves her Aunt Miss!




Noah talked Macy into playing ball
with him! She was his little mommy
and took good care of him!



   

 


Grandma, Noah and Papa walking the beach (one of many walks) ;-)




He couldn't be happier!




Oh my...these lollipops Macy & Makayla brought their cousins was a HUGE hit! Noah ate his plus everyone else's. Such a treat!


  

Throwing something into the water.....no surprise there



Mimi, Noah and Grandpa soaking up the sun rays



Haley and I got our nails done with Sheryl before heading to the beach!





  

Showing Papa how she jumps the waves









Heading to get ice cream on the golf cart :-)



 

Haley and Nathan having fun in the sun!

 



 

Our broken family....

 ......but thank God no one was life threatening! My parents, Aunt and Uncle (Sally & Laney) and other Aunt and Uncle (Art & Linda) were all in my Mom's Mercedes SUV on the way back from visiting the winery's in Dalonega when they were in a head on collision. There was a car stopped on the other side of the road trying to make a left hand turn when the jeep behind them plowed in to the back of them throwing the jeep out into my parents lane. It all happen within a split second and no time to react. Both cars were probably going somewhere between 45 and 50mph when they hit. There were 4 ambulances and 2 helicopters to take everyone to the hospitals, luckily my family were all able to go by ambulance to Northeast GA Medical Center. Our last family member Sally was released from the hospital yesterday Finally, 4 days later! We are still working out the details on how to get her and Laney back to St. Louis with her broken ankle and broken hand but in about 6 weeks she should be all back to normal! Could be MUCH much worse for everyone so we are counting our blessings every single day!



Sally - On her way to surgery Thursday night for

right ankle and right hand



Laney - 30 stitches and 18 staples for one
NASTY/DEEP cut on his leg. To the bone!







 

Mom - super sore chest and possibly fractured rib from seat
belt and a black eye

Dad - Fractured sternum and bruised

heart from the seat belt













Art - yikes, he looks like he got in a bar fight.....and Lost :-)



Linda - same as Mom, super sore chest/ribs from the seat belt







Haley & Noah went to visit everyone yesterday and got to ride around in Sally's wheel chair :-)



My cousin Tom said it best when he said "they almost wiped out a full generation of the Smith family." Smitty who is pushing Laney in the wheel chair above was the only sibling that was not in the car with them and is the oldest brother. That's crazy when you think about it that way huh? We are counting our blessings for sure!



Finally.....Our Maui Trip post

So this is waaayyy out of date now as we went to Maui in the middle of May but better late than never right? Noah is in bed and after an exhausting weekend I think Haley will be there very shortly so I'm sitting down to actually start and hopefully complete my Maui post! Like i said before this is going to be LOoong so get comfy!
The trip started out a bit crazy as we spent until about 11:30pm packing up our luggage for the trip and then getting a call from Lindsey at midnight to let us know that our 8am flight had apparently been cancelled!?!?!? We had absolutely no notification that our flight was cancelled! Luckily Ben and Lindsey had logged online to register for our airline tickets and were told to call an Agent where she indicated our flight to Dallas on Saturday morning at 8am was cancelled.....but not to worry as she had booked us for the Sunday 8am flight already!?!? Well that was great and all but a flight to Dallas wasn't going to be very helpful on Sunday as our connecting flight to Maui left Dallas Saturday at lunch time and we had rental cars and hotels all lined up for Saturday....NOT Sunday! At about 2:30am we were finally all set and had confirmed seats on Saturday mornings 7am flight to Dallas now! Since we had a 7am flight Ben and Lindsey graciously picked us up at our house at 4am!!! Not much sleep going on at either of our houses that night. We did start the trip of right though....Mimosa's at 4am :-)

FINALLY........Saturday around 4pm Maui (10pm ATL) time we had arrived at the most BEAUTIFUL place on earth! Every one's luggage arrived safely and most importantly Ben's box with 12 bottles of expensive wine all made it with out any issues!! We were set! This trip was probably one of the most fun and relaxing trips we have ever been on! Don't get me wrong, we were pretty busy every single day doing some type of excursion or activity but it's a different kind of relaxing when you don't have to try to truck along two kids! THANKS so much to our parents for keeping Haley and Noah for us for a full week so that we could enjoy this wonderful vacation by ourselves!

Our second day in Maui we spent laying at the pool and walking the beach while Ben and Clayton mapped and booked our excursions for the week. Quite a change having Clayton make the plans for us :-) !

Day three we did the road to Hana where we hiked SEVERAL hours to several beautiful waterfalls! That was by far my most favorite part of this road. After the hikes i would have been more than happy and recommend turning back around. We left the hotel at 7:30am and did not return back until close to 8pm that night! It was a looong day but it was well worth it! We were even able to enjoy a peaceful picnic lunch on some of the rocks by one of the waterfalls, so pretty! The hikes were great and even threw in a few challenges where we had to climb a random muddy rope that was tied to a bamboo tree so we could shimmy up a rock wall. Be careful coming back down this one....very tricky...or maybe I thought it was tricky since Clayton was so graciously going to help me down this one ;-) Our next waterfall adventure included a wooden ladder that someone had also tied to a bamboo tree. Good thing we saw this ladder just hanging there and more importantly thankfully the bamboo tree didn't break! The very last waterfall that we hiked to took forever to get to and when we finally got to the end we found out you have to swim about 100ft to actually get to the waterfall. Luckily we could see it from where we were standing because there was no way we were jumping in with all of our clothes/shoes on, backpacks, camera's, phones, etc. We did drive all the way to the town called Hana and saw the black sand beach, blow holes, and several other beautiful waterfalls along the way but the hikes were by far my favorite.

Day four we went on the most amazing snorkel cruise!!! I have only been snorkeling one other time and thought i'd probably never do it again, but i'm so glad that we booked this excursion on the boat that we did because the crew and captain were wonderful and the boat was beautiful and very clean! The snorkel was the most beautiful snorkeling i'd ever seen (including on TV). They said that the water was so calm and clear that day that you could see 150 to 200ft down! Here's a picture that i took with my phone from the boat deck if that gives you any idea of how clear it was! To top it off the boat had two big trampolines on the front of the boat where we claimed our spots and served free wine and beer on the trip back.

Day five we woke up at 2:00am to catch the bus to Haleakala to watch the most amazing sunrise and then biked it all the way back down!!! I thought this was a fantastic idea and was very excited about it until we were on the side of the road at the top of the mountain, helmets on and all and the tour guide asked us to introduce ourselves, say our name, where we were from and the last time we had been on a bike. I FREAKED!! I realized the last time i had been on a bike was over 14 years ago and now I'm going to test out my skills going down a mountain??? I saw how those people all drove up the mountain and since we were riding back down on the same road as everyone else driving i was very nervous to say the least. I finally was able to lighten up and enjoy more of the ride as we got further down the mountain and i realized i wasn't going to kill myself. Glad i did it, but not sure I'd do it again as the sunrise was FREEZING at the top of the mountain! Sooo cold! The rest of the day we spent laying at the beach/pool and watch Ben and Lindsey parasail!


<> 

 

Lindsey surfing!





Day six....Surf lessons!!! So much fun, i strongly recommend everyone trying this! This is my second time doing this and the instructors are always fantastic and how cool is it to say you learned how to surf in Maui? I was adamant that i wasn't going to get my hair wet! My plan was to get up on the board, surf, and then get back down on my belly and ride the rest of the wave in....just like you are supposed to :-) I was successful at this for a little bit in the beginning but I did end up busting it and getting my hair wet in the end :-(  Oh well, it was still worth it! We headed back to the pool to catch happy hour and float on our rafts with our lava flows! We topped off our very last night in Maui at the most amazing restaurant (Mama's Fish House)!!!! The food was delicious, the atmosphere was perfect and of course Ben hooked us up with the absolute BEST wine we could have ever asked for!!!! It was the perfect ending to our trip!

 



Day seven we layed at the pool and walked the beach for our very last day in Maui. It was soooo sad to think that night we would not be coming back to our beautiful hotel to watch the sunset or sunrise, no hanging out in the hot tub with our bottles of wine and the random locals that joined us one night...haha. No more trips to Scoops ice cream parlor and shopping after dinner! Every night we went out to dinner and there wasn't one meal that wasn't fabulous out there, it was all great! We were even able to watch the luau from our patio's one night and the sunrise and sunsets in Maui were breathtaking! Oh how I MISS MAUI!!!! We knew the kids were in the best of care and they wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else so we were in no rush to get back home and fully enjoyed every part of this vacation!