Day two of the Florida vacation, consisted (partly) of a walk to the park. A brand new, beautiful park, within walking distance of my father’s house.

The day first began with Mason waking up WAY too early. Dad was nice enough to sit with him for a bit.

On the way there:

On the way back:

We took a LONG road trip to Florida last week. What was supposed to be 12 hours on the way down turned in to, at least, 16 hours. Horrible accident on the way down shut down the interstate for two hours, we were stuck in traffic, moving about 5 miles an hour, for about four hours. But, we made it, the kids did great, no major fights in the car.

Once there we had one of numerous birthday parties for Mason. Turning three in just a couple weeks, I can hardly believe it.

We had cupcakes and the traditional off-key singing of “Happy Birthday”. A year later and that kid still loves to blow out candles.

He also got a haircut. Isn’t he just the cutest thing ever?

We also did a little Christmas gift opening for the kids. Grandma Ellen didn’t know it when she bought, but Violet had been begging and pleading for a Princess sleeping bag.

We made our annual trek to the cabin this past weekend. Colleen and Violet, both of whom had never been on a horse, got to ride a horse this weekend.

Oliver is eleven years old and very mild mannered. Tim had hold of the reins the whole time. Colleen will be in charge of the beast next time she gets up. Uncle Tim made sure to tell her that on numerous occasions.

Before we left, we noticed this book sitting out. It has pages where you can go and write the words of numbers. You can trace over them. Unprompted or guided by us, we noticed that Violet had gone through and traced over most of the words in the book. Our little girl is growing up so quickly.

Not to be outdone, Mason wrote his name on the fake Etch-a-Sketch.

As usual, everyone had a good time hanging out in the hills of Virginia. We didn’t spend much time on the Blue Ridge Parkway this year. Normally, we’ll go have breakfast at Mabry Mill, but we didn’t have the energy for it this year.

There was quite a downpour yesterday afternoon. Violet played out on the porch while it was raining, she had a blast.

We left early this afternoon, but not before a beautiful morning mist…

A few more pictures from the day: