Adventures of Evie

  Today we decided to have a nice, relaxing beach day. We've been right here by the beach for several days and haven't really gotten a chance to even look at it yet! We drove out to Honeymoon Island to spend the day gathering shells, swimming, and relaxing. The ocean is Evie's favorite place. She has always loved the water, even when she was a little baby. Her first experience with waves and salty water was in Jamaica in the Caribbean Sea when she was just 9 months old. Since then she's swam in the Pacific, the Atlantic, and the Caribbean Sea many times. She isn't a huge fan of the salt water in her eyes though! She was a little disappointed to find out that she can't swim underwater without her goggles on in the sea.  She gathered up lots of shells though and she had a ton of fun playing in the sand, swimming around, and "surfing" on her waveboard. It was a really nice way to spend the day together and the beach was empty, warm, and absolutely beautif...

  Today is the first OFFICIAL day of our vacation. We originally planned it to be a low key beach type trip since COVID is still a thing and it was meant to be a last relaxing week before life gets hectic with school and the holidays. However, once we found out that Universal and Disney were less than two hours from our house there was no way weren't going to go. We started with Universal Studios.  It was a really magical day! We got to ride the Hogwarts Express into Hogsmeade and our first order of business when we arrived was an interactive wand. Evie had fun waving it at the windows in the shops to try to get the magic to happen. We all had a few goes at it as the day went on and even though it was hit or miss it was a lot of fun trying! We stayed in Hogsmeade for awhile and got butterbeers and some sweets from Honeydukes. Evie really wanted to go inside Hogwarts but she wasn't tall enough for the ride and she was not interested in the Hippogriff ride so after we finished s...

  For day two of our vacation we went to Disney World! Evie has already been to Disneyland when she was younger and she really enjoyed it. This wasn't part of our original vacation plans (although neither was Disneyland when we went there!) but there was no way we could be so close and not go. We set off early in the morning and got there around opening. One thing I will say about the Disney World experience is that it was FRUSTRATING. Like...REALLY frustrating. When we went to Disneyland on a whim it was a pretty painless experience. We drove up, parked, walked in through Downtown Disney and spent a fun and stress free day at the park. Not the case at all with this. We had trouble figuring out where to park, the trams were super slow to get us from the parking lot to the park, then we had to wait AGAIN for the monorail. That was also packed although someone did move at the last second to at least allow Evie to sit down. After all that we had to wait in line to get tickets because ...

  First day of our summer vacation! Today we spent a little bit in Atlanta. Evie and I have both been in Atlanta before on several occasions but we've never explored the city much and today we didn't have a ton of time for exploring either but we did grab some breakfast and then see some of the sights downtown before we headed to our final destination (for a few days anyway) in Florida.  We also ended up with a flat tire before we headed out but luckily it was easily pumped up and patched and we got on our way without much of a delay. Since we're staying in a pool house we have our very own pool to use everyday and of course the first thing Evie wanted to do when we got there was jump right in! It's going to be a fun but jam packed trip! :)

  Vacation day is finally here! Today I had to work a little bit in the morning so we played some games and wrapped up the last of our packing for our trip. This is our last summer trip before Evie is a big kindergartener so I'm hoping it's going to be a really fun one. Even though Evie is really excited about riding the school bus, her excitement for actual kindergarten has waned as it's gotten closer and  now she is mostly nervous about it. She has been home with me now for over a year and even though we've done a lot of learning it will be a HUGE adjustment for both of us to give up those few hours together. But hopefully it will all work out and she will love it once she settles into the routine.  After I finished up work we headed to our first vacation stop...ATLANTA! :)

  Today we had a creative day. Evie's iPad is charged for the first time in weeks due to the upcoming trip and she took that as her opportunity to  take it and "make videos for her fans" all morning. It's fun to watch her play and narrate her play and she often will make up stories with her dolls or toys and record them and then bring them to me to watch my reactions. It's not my favorite activity for her to engage in but it definitely brings out her creative side and it kept her busy for awhile so I could wrap up some things too. Her favorite videos to watch when she is allowed are Dr Squish and FunCaboodle so today she channeled her inner squish and played with slime while she talked about how it looks, smells, moves and feels. It's a good sensory experience and it's a great opportunity to talk with her about why it feels the way it does and what makes it move the way it does...etc. After I got off we wrapped up a few errands and headed to Nana's for...

  Well it's finally here. Week 52. I started this blog almost exactly one year ago today! It's really crazy how much Evie has changed and grown during that time. She seems so much more grown up than this time last year. Last year this time she had 30 days til she was home for good and this year she has just a few weeks til kindergarten! It's crazy to think we've already had almost an entire year of time together, But don't worry! With her kindergarten being only half day we still have plenty of fun projects and crafts ahead. ;P  This week is going to be a hectic one. We have a vacation planned for the end of the week so we're going to be spending a bit of time packing up and making sure we have everything we need! For that reason I didn't want to set up anything too messy or intricate this week. We started the day with some yoga today. It's been a bit since we've used one of these Cosmic Yoga videos but she really loves them and a morning stretch is ...