Newport!

We had such a fun time in Newport Beach with my family! Paige and Ben flew from NY to Arizona and drove over from Phoenix with my parents and Steven while we flew from Orange County, Florida to Orange County Airport - Cali! It was a looong day of traveling, especially since our flight left at 6:45 am (aka 3:45 am Pacific Time). So we landed before noon and felt like it was time to go to bed already! But it was great seeing my family again and quickly had fun exploring our hotel in Newport Beach.

We spent our days at the beach, we actually went down to Laguna most days, just reliving our time at our favorite beach house, Sherman by the Sea. I hadn't been to the Pacific Ocean since we'd moved to Florida so it was so good to be back to what I grew up with as "the beach." I love the smell of the Pacific Beaches and had forgotten about that while living out here. Another awesome thing, Jackson did so good at the beach! My mom brought tons of beach toys and he loved playing, exploring, digging and stacking everything! He finally has gotten used to walking in the sand and even wandered down to the water a few times, not minding how freezing it was! So one thing about living in Florida, it makes you so spoiled with warm ocean water. It was way too cold for me to get in, but lets be honest, I didn't get in much before anyways!



We also had tons of fun at the hotel playing shuffle board, ping pong, swimming, exercising, walking around the grounds and taking at least 5 cookies a day from the front desk...good times..

We spent our nights at Fashion Island, Balboa Island, playing tennis, playing games, watching movies, and even managed to get our Cafe Rio fix in (even waiting in a 45 minute line to get our food - who knew Taco Tuesday was such a hit!?)

The Edge

This post is long overdue, but here is the new car!! Tyler's company used to require their salesmen to drive vans because of all the demos and products they need to carry around with them. But when the company switched from Toyota to Ford for their car company, Tyler jumped for joy because Ford doesn't even make a minivan. So they've now all transferred to the Ford Edge.

I never thought I'd say this but I miss the van. The Edge is great but I miss the roominess of the back seat with the bucket seats and third row and also I miss never having to open the back doors, but rather just push a button. But seriously, Tyler was sooo happy when he drove home in this!


Here's a better picture of it since I don't know how to take a picture of the whole thing...


It really is a great car and when I'm sitting in the front, I love it. The technology they have in cars now is so crazy, check out the interior - it's one giant touch screen computer!


But I'll say it again, I miss the van and I may even drive one someday. Can't believe I just said that haha but now it's on the blog so I guess it's going down in history.

Disney Haircut

Before I start blogging about the Cali trip I need to document the event that took place the day before we left: Jackson's first haircut!


Can you tell how excited he was :-)

I hate to admit it, but Jackson got his hair (or lack of it) from me. According to my dad, I was bald until I was 4. OK I wasn't bald, but I had really fine, wispy brown hair for a long time. Tyler had a full head of curly hair when he was a baby. Jackson got a little bit of Tyler's hair genes, but not much. Last month when it started getting kinda curly in the back and long in the front and over his ears, we decided it was time for a cut. And of course we wanted him looking his best for all his family out west!

So where did we take him for his first cut? DisneyWorld of course! I learned from a friend (yes you Amanda) that there is a barber shop on Main Street @ the Magic Kingdom! They offer 3 services, adult cut, kid cut, and babies' first cut. So yeah, it was kind of a big deal.

I tried taking some "before and after" shots, but the squirmy little guy makes it hard to get a good photo. But here are a couple pictures of "before"

It's not really even that long compared to lots of one-year-olds out there, but this was super long for my standards! There are long strands sticking out pretty badly all over the place but it's hard to see in this picture.

Getting started with the haircut now! They put Jackson up on this nifty seat thing and he stayed on there for about 30 seconds, while she made a little pouch to keep his locks of hair in.

From then on, he was on my lap with a binky in his mouth, yo gabba gabba to distract, and spinning micky mouse toys to entertain him with.

He actually lasted pretty well from then on and didn't cry or get off my lap the entire time!


When it was all over Jackson was presented with his first set of Mickey Ears!


At first he wasn't so sure about them ...


But then she held up a mirror for Jackson to check himself out. He loved it and in this picture is in the middle of saying, "oh woooooow" I think he liked the way he looked :-)


Jackson's new BFF Leslie presented him with a certificate and a pouch that contained locks of his hair.


It was a fun experience - and one of the perks of living so close to Disney!

California

Wow. We've spent the last 10 days in southern California. It was a whirlwind of family fun! A few days with the Christensens in Newport, a couple days focused on Troy's wedding in San Diego, and a few days in San Clemente with the Jennings. Top that off with a full day at Disneyland, and we had one amazing trip.

Expect a long blog post or two coming soon...


The crew after our perfectly executed Disney Day :-)

Summer time and new adventures

*Yes, I had to take the previous blog post down. Hopefully the word got out to enough people that it made a difference. For those of you who read it, please pass the word along to those who may not understand how the show really works. And yes, he does come back in China. Do you really think he did that on his own - or do you think the producers made him come back? You're smart people...




But in other news, it is getting dang hot here in Florida. Jackson tries to stay cool with his hat and shades! Normally temperatures in the summer stay in the low 90s (but with the humidity it feels well over 100). However this week the temperature is 96 and up every day. Getting pretty crazy, and it's too bad Jackson doesn't like swimming. He'll get in the pool and be happy for a couple minutes with me, but would much rather run around along the edges of the pool exploring which normally leads to getting into trouble. When Tyler gets in the pool with him he will stay in quite a bit longer, but it takes a lot of activity in there to keep him happy. (I'm telling you this kid loves his daddy, I've even heard him say "Daddy!" in his sleep.) But the kid is so busy all the time that sitting in a pool floaty or being in our arms does not give him the independence he so badly needs!

So needless to say, I've resulted in watching lots of Yo Gabba Gabba to pass the time. It's the only tv show that he will watch. The kid is obsessed with this show. It's hard for me to get a picture of Jackson, but when he's watching the show he's so focused that I can get some cute shots.


so serious when watching Brobee enjoy a party in his tummy...

During some of his more favorite songs on the show he'll stand up on the couch, clap and dance around!

Here he is pondering the lesson taught in an episode "don't bite your friends."

Most of the other times I try to take pictures he's too busy running around, opening doors (a new trick that leads to lots of trouble) and climbing up on chairs (also trouble and evidenced below)


So even though the baby version of Jackson was super easy, this toddler we have is quite the busy body and quite the challenge! He's still a super happy boy so that makes things pretty fun. Also he's been a very good consistent sleeper for the past couple months. He now sleeps through the night 90% of the time and takes lovely 3 hour afternoon naps :-). But with all that running around he does, he needs the sleep!

PS Today marks the 5 year anniversary of Tyler and my first date! This picture is taken a couple weeks after we started dating...so cute :-)

A normal blog post (well kinda)

Would anyone out there believe me when I say that the majority of my time is spent at home? Probably not if you read our blog, I'm realizing. As I scroll through our most recent blog posts they are all about either us going on a trip, or having people come visit us and going to DisneyWorld. But that definitly does not sum up the average day for the Jennings. I really don't want it to come across that I'm blogging about our fantastic life of travels and adventures, "please look how awesome we are!" I am honestly just documenting our trips because I want to remember them and it's the best way I know how, and also because our family loves to see pictures of Jackson. These trips are the days when I have the camera out, and thus get "blogged."

But those aren't the days that I live for. My favorite thing to do in the whole world is spend time with Jackson and Tyler at home. I've always been a homebody and love the times we have together running around the backyard, cuddling in our bed, reading books, watching yo gabba gabba, chasing each other around the house and playing hide and seek. These moments don't get blogged, but they are the ones that bring me the most joy.

There are often special moments I spend with Tyler and Jackson that I think I want to "blog" about. But at the end of the day, I either get too sucked into to our tv shows, or a good book and don't stop to blog about it. I wish I was better at doing short little daily blogs about tender moments. Some of our friends are so good at always having the camera out and documenting these precious moments - I am trying to be better! But after this rambling first few paragraphs, I do have a blog post coming, about something that happened here at home in Orlando...




We said goodbye to the minivan!


For Tyler this was a joyous occasion, for me it was an emotional one. Tyler was given this company van when we moved to Florida. It had become standard for employees in his position to get vans because they have a lot of storage space for the demos and products they travel around with. Tyler has always been a lover of nice cars, and never in a million years would have thought he'd drive a van. But other than the fact that "it's a van", it has been a great car. What other car do you press a button and sliding doors just open!

Tyler put so many miles on the thing (70,000), that his company needed to trade it in for a new car for him (and it's not a van, more on that later). But I wanted to document our last moments with the van before Tyler dropped it off at the dealership!









Look how sad Jackson is to say goodbye!

You can see, with the bucket seats it's so roomy inside and I've enjoyed many road trips to Alabama, Miami, Jacksonville, and even the Florida Keys in this car! But my favorite moment has to be when we brought this little guy home from the hospital with us.


I will always remember that drive... thanks for keeping our precious cargo safe minivan. I will miss you!

Memorial Day week

The difference a year makes...

Last year, Memorial Day was a unique time for the Jennings / Christensen families. We spent the day itself driving from Arizona to Utah and then blessed Jackson that night.


Then on Wednesday, June 2nd we said goodbye to my brother Michael as he went into the MTC to prepare for his mission to New York.

Now we're celebrating his one-year anniversary of serving his mission (or "Hump Day") Jackson is a completely different person this year...


This was actually my first year in Florida for Memorial Day and we spent it at the Munns' home for some bbq and boating and then headed down to the Miami area for a couple days.

The main accomplishment of the week was getting Jackson to tolerate sand! This is pretty important since we'll be spending a week in Newport Beach with my family later this month...

He started out playing in the sand at Munns' house and Jacque sent me a couple cute pics she took of Jackson there.


Then we headed down south and got stuck in the worst traffic we'd ever seen. Combine Memorial Day Traffic with a bad car accident with 20 miles of delays, than once we finally got going again - a brush fire closed down the entire highway ... it took almost 6 hours to get to Miami (normally a 3 hour drive).

But finally we got there and they gave us a suite at the Crowne Plaza, Hollywood Beach!





It didn't matter that we had a bag full of beach toys, Jackson was just fine playing with the spoon he found buried in the sand...



It was a quick trip but our one night in town, we spent with Tom Swapp in South Beach. Despite the fact that Jackson kept running up to play with homeless people, and the raunchy music blasting from the speakers at the restaurant, it was a good little night! I even got an anthro shirt because Tyler was in such a good mood hanging out with Tom :-)



They had a lot of fun running around together for about 10 minutes after dinner, here's a sampling of the night's activities..