Food & "Fun"

Here's our crew: Cousin Sam, Tio, Lyla, Tia, Me, Josie, Louie, Grandma, DD, Aunt Pat, Cousin Katie, Pam & Uncle Denny...Whew! Long story short - this was the night we decided to get a drink during the heat of the day...
And these are the photos of the first and only night we decided to go out to dinner. The pictures sort of speak for themselves... While all is calm at the "grown-up" table...

Josie has to be fed standing up...

And Lyla pukes on the table, Katie & Sam pulled a prank on Louie and 4 hours later we were all fed but flat broke. Two key lessons learned for large family vacations: 1) if the gal on the phone tells you that there isn't a wait at Stinky's Fish Camp - she's lying just to get your business and 2) when there are fourteen mouths to feed - eat at home. :) So, the rest of the week we feasted on home cooked meals which worked out great!

Grandaddy grilled some delicious Alabama Farmer's Market Corn...

Grandma made enough lasagna to feed us for two days and Louie made an epic Mexican feast complete with homemade salsa that even Josie enjoyed. (In fact, this photo actually tells a side story. Josie ate more chips in one week than she's ever had in her life - every thing from tortilla chips to Katie's sour cream & onions. When we got home and returned to our normal routine with Carissa - Josie asked her for chips as her snack on Monday. We had to explain that was just a "vacation thing" which she seemed to understand. Thankfully.)

Diving in Destin

If you want to go Scuba Diving in Destin...
#1 - Rent a house somewhere closer than Sea Grove Beach, otherwise you will have to get up at 4:15AM to make it to the dock on time,
#2 - Giggle when they tell you the boat you are on was used in the filming of Jaws 2 just before you jump into 50 ft. of water wearing weights around your waist and a heavy airtank on your back,
#3 - Watch out for Jelly Fish!

"A dive is a dive" so I'm glad we made the trip to Destin to dive the jetty on our last day there, but it definitely could've gone better. The visibility was less than 20 feet. And while there were lots of cool crabs to see in the rocks, the whole dive felt like a real-life video game as we all had to dodge GIANT moon jellyfish that were everywhere! Poor little Katie, who was snorkeling above with Uncle Denny and Sam, even got stung. Considering the darn things were as big around as end tables, no wonder we heard her scream across the water from our boat. So, unlike Hawaii, there are no glorious underwater turtle photos here, but there are a few of us all relaxing on the boat post-dive.

Beach Photoshoot

Who could resist this gorgeous Seaside backdrop for a few family photos?

Family tree style - here are the two that started it all. :)
Three Austins:

Three Schneiders:

The Whole Family:

And although "Tia" and I decided she'd post Lyla photos and I'd post Josie ones, I couldn't resist sharing this sweet one of LylaBird:

And - FINALLY - we got some photos of Lyla & Josie together!!!!

Here are all the "kids" - including cousins Sam & Katie all the way from the U.K.!

FYI: Josie's Shutterfly Album has now been updated with photos from June & July!

My favorite 'series' in the sand

These are sort of "accidental" shots that my sister snapped as we were heading down to the beach in Seaside to take the "real" photos. There was Josie running down a sandy hill in her summer dress. I yelled to my sister who had her camera handy, "hey, can you snap a few of Josie?" and these were the result. I love them!
Clearly, she did a beautiful job of capturing Josie's obvious joy/bliss/delight as she frolicked and explored in the sand. (Manda - these were such a surprise in the heap of photos that I just keep returning to. Thanks for capturing them!)

Note: there are so many photos that the only way I could wrap my ahead around posting them was to do them in a series. Look for lots more to come over the coming days...

A dark, cold (and cool) detour!

For the moment, you'll just have to just trust me when I say that we spent a week at the beach in Florida. I'm still so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of blog-worthy photos that I just don't yet have the courage (or energy) to tackle them. So, in the interest of posting something, here are the photos from our detour to Mammoth Cave on the way home. It would've been a great trip on its own, but that the fact that it perfectly broke up the journey home with a chance for us all to stretch our legs and run around - well, that made it fantastic! Here are some photos from our journey down to about 10 stories underground. (No small feat for this claustrophobic-mama.)
At the starting gate (we opted for the self-guided, leave-when-you-wanna-leave option)...
The Descent...

Josie's "I think we're in a cave" face...
I think we were allowed to touch it...
It's harder than you might think to take a photo in a cave...
So the problem with taking pictures in a cave is that all the pictures look like they were taken in a cave...
Not just any park bench, this one's 100+ feet below ground...
Josie decides to sit for a spell...
Finally, we figure out the "night mode" setting on the camera and manage to snap some good family photos that include a little cave backdrop...

Notice the cuddling, because it was um 54 degrees.

Josie was getting very sleepy and also a little bit frozen...
So we played a little bit more...
Then resurfaced (whew)...
And, mission accomplished: Josie was back asleep before we even hit the highway.
Oh, one last thing - we "promised" Josie bats but there were none. So Louie and I did our best flapping-batwing impression while Josie called out "Here Bat, Bat, Bat". We also had fun playing with the echoes. Josie's repeated quote if you ask her about the cave - "Bats in da cave, Cave kinda dark, Cave very very cold." Couldn't say it better myself. :)

Now, like bookends, you have the beginning of our trip and the end of it. I promise that the good stuff from the middle will be coming soon! And I hope it will be worth the wait. :)

Follow the lines going South...

Friday morning we loaded up the car - complete with handy rooftop carrier, a ton of snacks, some DVDs from the library that ended up costing me $50 in late fees, and a full arsenal of toys, books, music and "surprises" for Josie - and hit the road about noon. Our goal: Montgomery, Alabama! And, after 12 not-so-bad hours in the car, we had successfully made a 9 hour drive.
Conversion to toddler time: add about one hour of driving for every three estimated by google maps. Note to google: Add this feature.

Besides the fact that Josie wondered why on earth we were waking her up from her peaceful sleep in the car at midnight to sleep in a strange hotel in downtown Montgomery, Alabama - everything else about our stay there was great. We decided Josie would enjoy the state farmers' market more than the trip to MLK's childhood home that we had originally planned and were SO glad to take the time to visit it.
The rows of fresh produce were unbelievable. And, besides the fact that peanuts were freaking everywhere, it was a blast. (BTW - did you know you can get boiled peanuts, green peanuts, roasted peanuts, spicy peanuts, etc all in one place?)

It was not easy to keep Josie's hands off the produce...
In fact, it was not easy to keep her mouth off of the fresh produce either...

They even had their own hen coop which allowed Josie to work on her chicken impression.

Pose for a quick photo, then back to the car to drive it around to one of the big doors to load it up with some fresh surprises to share with the family in Florida -

One humongous watermelon that actually weighed more than Josie, 30+ ears of corn, enough peaches (picked the night before) to feed 13 people for a full week, some sweet onions and bright red tomatoes. What a nice way to start our vacation! (Although it was not so fun to ride the rest of the way to Florida with a watermelon in the front seat and my feet on top of dozens of ears of corn in the back seat.)


Oh, and I forgot to mention - they were having a VW convention there. As Louie put it, "America is funny." And if you ever want a real slice of America, I highly recommend the Alabama State Farmer's Market in Montgomery. It's the only place I've ever been where you can get proper instruction on how to choose the best melon, freshest peaches, etc. But if you're going to buy corn, I recommend using a fake Southern accent. Otherwise you just might end up with 15 ears filled with worms. (Those of you there for the shucking know what I mean.) Here's one of the VWs.

Florida photos coming soon. There really are over 1000 of them, which will take awhile to sort/edit/etc. What an amazing, relaxing, wonderful week!!!!

Sneak Preview

My sister posted a sneak preview of a few pics from our Florida vacation on her blog at THREE AUSTINS. Lots more in the coming days/weeks...

To hold you over

We're leaving tomorrow for the great Schneider adventure to Florida where we will join the Austins, my parents, my Dad's sister and my Mom's brother and family (all the way from England). It promises to generate lots of blog-worthy pictures, videos and stories. So, keep your eye out in the coming weeks for that. In the meantime, here are a couple videos from this week to hold you over. Hugs!

Here is Josie saying her "long name"...


And here is some general silliness of Josie singing, dancing, and clowning around. Enjoy!




(I should mention, the song "Wagon Wheel" that she wants to hear is the Old Crowe Medicine Show song that she's been dancing to with her daddy since birth. This video started with her own version of the song, as the real one does not actually go "Wagon Wheel, Wagon Wheel..." Told you she got the song improv gene! )