Ensemble Conference

I recently went to a conference in Orlando for travel professionals who belong to the Ensemble consortia. My agency does focus on Disney - although we do everything - but the conference just HAPPENED to be in Orlando, so we were pretty excited. It was a really great conference where I learned SO SO much about the travel industry. It was also a great chance to get to meet many of the agents that I work with. We work from home all around the country so even though I have talked, IMed and emailed with them all, I had never met them face to face! So it was really nice to be able to put faces with names. Here is my friend Sharla who was in my start group that I got to room with!! I'm pretty sure Smart car was a sponsor...


The first day was all business with a fancy dinner that night. However, the second night was when the real fun began (um, not that it wasn't all fun?). The second night was sponsored by Disney, since they just happened to be around the corner, and they shuttled us all over to Epcot and led us behind the gates to where they normally hold their Party for the Senses party. It is a paid, ticketed even that they have during the Food and Wine Festival, and we basically got to go to a pared down version of it to see what it was like. It was, in a word, fantastic! It was set up in this huge hall and had live music and stilt walkers and all kinds of fun stuff, as well as seriously delicious food. The picture below was taken of one of the most delightful things I have ever put in my mouth. Take a glazed donut, cook it in a pan full of melted butter, sprinkle some cinnamon on it and then flambe it in rum, and that is what you have below. Basically the world's BEST donut. Sorry it was half eaten before I could stop myself to take a picture.



After the party we all got to go to a private area where we watched Illuminations. It isn't my favorite fireworks show, but it was pretty neat to have such great seats.

The next night we went to the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter, but I am going to do a whole other blog post on that. Here is our group after eating, before heading over to Illuminations. Best travel professionals ever!!!

18 Months

How is it that I have a one and a half year old? Sometimes I look at her and can't comprehend how I have been blessed with such a beautiful little child. And I really can't believe it has been a year and a half!! Everyone tells you it goes by fast, but you just don't believe them. Especially those first couple of months. ;)

We had Isabella's 18 month doctor visit a couple of weeks ago and so I thought I should update everyone since it is such a major milestone. She is doing great basically. She is 70% in height (which is good, she was only 45% last time, having shrunk from her 93% at birth!), 45% in weight and about 80% in head size.

What is she up to? Well she is starting to say a lot more words. She says please (well at least she tries, basically any word that has an S sound in it sounds like ssss), cheese (also her new favorite food), she tries to say Amanda and Grammy now. Her absolute favorite word is NO. She is very certain about what she wants and she will say NO when she doesn't like something.

She LOVES her daddy. She would definitely rather have dad than mom these days. Everyone told me it would happen, but I have to admit it is a little sad. Jason, however, is loving it. She will just hug on him, lay her head on his shoulder, so sweet. When I go get her up in the mornings these days, the first thing she says to me is 'dada'? Like where is he?

Her new favorite thing is sock puppets. She has discovered that she can put her socks on her hands and she makes them talk in this kind of growly type voice. The last two days we went to Mother's Day Out with sock puppets on because she would not let me take them off. Haha. She has also learned to do ring around the rosie, which she wants to do over and over.

She really is just so smart. Most things I ask her to do, even if I think she will have no idea what I am saying, she does! I can ask her to go get something she left in a totally different room and she knows what I mean and will go get it. Brilliant I tell you!

Here are a couple of my favorite pictures from the last few weeks. We really have not been very good about taking pictures! Isn't that awful? If I didn't have an iPhone we would get no pictures I swear.

Since she was a baby she always liked to sleep with her arms behind her head. This does not look terribly comfy to me, but she slept like that forever this weekend!

She looooves her Nana. When we go visit my parents she loves to go out and swing in the back yard!

My parents also went to Hawaii recently and they brought her a hula girl outfit. So stinkin' cute!!

Sold!

Well, that is what I hope to be saying about my house soon. But that is what a family in Lake Highlands is currently saying about their house! We just bought a house in Lake Highlands!! Yes, this may be sort of out of left field, but we had been thinking about moving for a long time, just not quite so soon. Here's the story...

Jason and I decided to list our house just to see what happened. We figured we would put it on the market for a couple months and see if we got any nibbles. Well, then my realtor, who is also one of my best friends, and I decided to go look at houses in the area we wanted, JUST to look. I specifically told her not to allow me to fall in love with any. Well, I found the perfect house that day and fell in love immediately. You can't help who you fall in love with!!

Jason came to look at it that weekend with us and he liked it too. It was just everything we had talked about wanting. We honestly thought we would have to sacrifice on SOMEthing, but there was not one thing about this house that we really didn't like. Well, except for this awful wood paneling, but that can be painted. =) Anyway, we prayed about it a lot and decided to make an offer, just to see what they said. They accepted our FIRST offer! No counter, nothing. Who does that? Well at this point we decide it was meant to be. So we get our house on the market sooner than expected and are now awaiting that special someone to take it off our hands!

We don't close until December, so we have another month or two until we start to panic, but we are really excited. It is in a great school district and neighborhood and I just think it will be a great house for Isabella and whoever her sibling might be to grow up in. And no I have no announcements in that department, I am speaking hypothetically about the future. =)

Anyway, just wanted to share our exciting news and also ask for you to please pray for us! The stress of trying to sell this house - meaning keeping it clean at all times with a toddler in it - has been high. So please pray that we will sell it quickly, and for a good price ;), but mostly just quickly!

Well, Summer's Officially Over!

So since it has been over a month since I wrote in my blog, I am going to try to catch up. First blog - all about Isabella. Since Destin I swear she has grown a foot. When I look at her these days I just feel like I have a little girl now. I mean I know she hasn't been a 'baby' for a while, but she just seems so grown up!

If you don't believe me you can see the picture below. We stopped by her Grandpa's office recently and he had her doing calculations!!



Ok seriously that picture cracks me up. She LOVED that calculator that spits out paper though. She loves grandpa's office because he will let her do whatever she wants! =)

On that same visit we went to Babies R Us with Nana and she rode in her first motorized little car thingy. Not sure what those are called...


Her new thing lately is for me to hold her. I don't think it is so much that she needs me to hold her, she just wants up high. She has been in to everything down low so many times, I think she is ready to get in up high drawers and cabinets. Anyway, she likes to sit on the bathroom counter and put her feet in the sink and look at herself in the mirror. While doing this one day, since I can't exactly go anywhere while she does this, I experimented with pigtails. They are SO cute I think.


What else have we been up to? Well we are selling our house! We were going to wait until after the holidays, but we figured we may as well put it on the market and see how it does. Who knows, we may be moved by the holidays or not. We aren't in a hurry, but I would like to be in a new house by Isabella's birthday. Mainly because I have a great idea for her birthday party and want to invite lots of people. Is that a good reason? =)

So trying to get the house all cleaned up and out with a toddler in the house has been a challenge, so Isabella started Mother's Day Out for three days a week this week! She loves it there, so I don't feel too guilty offloading her for 15 hours a week. I go to pick her up and she waves and keeps playing, so that makes me feel good.

Bella also has started speaking her own language, some dialect of Japanese I believe. She has also started saying a bunch of English words in her own cute way. Banana, goggles, cookie, juice, wet (although that sounds just like hot), and pretty much anything that starts with a 'B' she at least tries to say. It is so amazing to hear her start saying random things out of the blue. Half the time you don't even realize she is paying attention and then she blurts out what you just said. Jason and I were having some conversation in which Lady Gaga came up, and Bella immediately goes 'gaga'. Then we kept saying it and she kept repeating it. Haha. She has always been a Gaga fan, so it isn't surprising. =)

Destin 2010

Last week we went to my parents house in Destin for a week. To say I was nervous about going on a 12 hour drive with a 15 month old would be an understatement, so I felt like I was preparing for it weeks in advance. Bought new toys, got the DVD player all ready, stocked up on her favorite snacks, etc. The way there wasn't too bad. She got a little fussy, but for the most part she was pretty good.

The beach itself was disappointing. We go to Destin almost every year and I have never seen it look like this. There was a TON of algae in the water. We had been worrying about oil, but there was none of that to be seen! I would hardly even get in the water, but you could swim out to a sand bar not far out and it was a lot nicer. The locals said it does this every few years because of some wind pattern, but I never remember it looking so gross. Oh well. Bella liked just sitting in the surf and playing in the pool, but she was not a huge fan of the sand. Here she is with Jason...




My parents also got a golf cart this year, so that was fun for us to scoot around in, and Isabella LOVED it. She loved riding in it, but she also would beg to go outside just so she could crawl around in and play in it.


Another cute thing she does lately is shrug her shoulders when she doesn't know something. Here is a good picture of it. She just looks like a little adult to me!


One day the boys went to play golf so the girls went shopping. In the middle of the shopping area, there is a little water splash area for kids so we let Bella play there for a bit to cool off.


So my daughter loves my mother more than she loves me. When given a choice of who will hold/feed/bathe/name it her, she will choose my mom every time. Look at this picture. She just looks at her with total adoration!


All in all the trip was nice. I did get some relaxation in. Read a book, saw a couple of movies, ate some delicious seafood. The ride home was a little more tense, with a total meltdown the last hour (I just couldn't get Jason to stop crying!! ;) ), but we made it! It is always sad when vacations are over, but I was also glad to get home to our normal routine.

When we got back to Tyler, my sister and bro in law were in the pool so Isabella wanted to get in too. I just thought this picture was so cute. She loves to put on adult sunglasses (she will have nothing to do with her own) and then blow kisses like she is a movie star. So cute.

15 Months!

How the time does fly. I can't believe it has been two years since we found out we would be adding to the family! We had Isabella's 15 month doctors appointment yesterday and everything is looking good! She is 65% in height, 50% in weight and 80% in head circumference. Doc said she is a girl with big ideas haha. He also said we have to get rid of the bottle. This is very sad for me. I love our time in the morning with her just sipping milk in bed with us while we watch the Today show. It is a cuddly relaxing time, but now we are going to just go straight for breakfast when she wakes up. We started this morning, but she was not happy about it! She fussed and fussed until we had actual food on her tray. Then she was ok. We also have some work to do getting her to drink milk from a sippy cup. She likes anything else from a sippy cup, just not milk. But she loves milk from a bottle. Go figure.

At 15 months she knows a handful of words - hot, bye bye, dada and Gretta (our dog) being her faves - eats most anything (except vegetables, unfortunately), can almost run, loves the water, is getting much better about riding in the car (which is great considering the 12 hour trek we have coming up), waves at everyone and everything, and is starting to be very affectionate. She will run up to you and give you a hug or kiss and sometimes during a hug will pat you on the back. It is the cutest thing. She is going to Mother's Day Out twice a week, which has been SO nice for me so I can get the house clean and laundry done and such as that. She is just getting so much more fun. She has such a personality and a sense of humor and really knows what she wants. It will be much easier when I know what she is trying to tell me that she wants!

Anyway, next Saturday we leave for Destin. I have stockpiled toys, books, snacks and DVDs to get ready for the trip. We are just going to leave reallllly early and hope she sleeps a lot. I definitely anticipate some tantrums being thrown, so I guess we will have to be stopping at some McDonald's or other such places that have play grounds so she can burn off some steam. Say a prayer that it goes well for us and that we actually get some rest and relaxation at the beach!

4th of July Weekend

For the fourth of July this year we went to Tyler to visit the folks. We had a pool day Saturday and grilled out and even though it was cloudy we still had a great time. Isabella LOVES the water. She has no fear I swear. She doesn't want us to even hold her she just wants to go for it. I think we need to start swim lessons soon! We also learned she loves ice. We had a bunch of drinks just iced down in a cooler and if she wasn't in the pool she wanted to be getting ice out of the cooler over and over.

I think this might be the cutest picture we have ever taken of her. She is just chillin' out with her juice box haha. She looks all relaxed, but really those sunglasses had just been put on her and remained on her about 0.2 seconds after the picture was taken.