Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy......

Birthday, Nick!

Classic, Nick pic....he's really turned into a helpful, thankful, and fun kid.  We're pretty lucky to have this great five year old.  Nick's pretty excited to be five, too.  He's been waiting a long time for this day! 

Thanks to some great friends, we were able to spend the day at Caribe, taking full advantage of their vast amount of pools.

Just chillin on the lazy river.

A couple of cuties, Carsyn and Cora.

No tube required for these guys.  They spent quite a long time floating this current.

After a day of swimming, Nick wanted to take pizza to the beach, and what an amazing place to have dinner!

Sun-kissed face from spending way too much time swimming.

Little sis helping to open gifts, of course, while trying to convince us that it was really her birthday.  But she assured us, "it's commin up."

Backyard, splash toys give hours of entertainment when you don't have a pool.

Nick wanted birthday pie instead of cake for dessert, so we sang happy birthday as loud as we could and then dug in.

Just as we were packing up to head over to the Wharf, this handsome Ranchero shows up.  Pretty hard to resist a man in a straw hat wearing a linen table cloth.  

Good looking crew on the ferris wheel.

Nick insisted on making the trip to the Wharf for a ride in the sky because it was his birthday.  It's just about becoming tradition, and you can't beat a sunset at this high up.

~B

Catching Dinner, Almost

What a beautiful night to go out and try to catch our dinner.

Eyeing up the catch.

The cast.

So Proud!

Not Bad!

Now we're getting somewhere.

Showing off the big catch.  

The release. 

These fish have a bit more growing to do before they can do our dinner justice.

--B

Water Filled Fourth

It was nice getting back on the water for the Fourth of July.  It was a perfect day for swimming and kayaking in the Gulf.  We spent the morning at Johnson Beach, had a relaxing afternoon at home watching the storms roll in, and then made it back to the beach after dark to watch the fireworks and an incredibly beautiful full, orange moon rising over the water.

-B

Let's go to Florida!

So yeah..... in case you haven't heard, and can't tell by the blog update, the Hasting family is back on the Gulf Coast :-)   For the short 15 months that we spent in Colorado, we've got a lot of great memories.  From camping up in Golden Gate Canyon to Cora & Nick's first experience with the snow, it was a blast.

That said, it took a lot to get us to leave the beach to begin with.  Between the whole Chinese drywall mess and the BP oil spill and cleanup process, is just seemed like the time was right to try something new.  I even remember the idea that it wasn't really much more work to move across the country than it is to move up the block.  HA HA HA!  Not so much....

Me & B have learned a lot about what we want for our family and there is no doubt that we're back where we should be.  And as you'll see in the first new beach pics of the kids, they're pretty happy to be back too.  It's kind of funny, you don't even have to get them to say cheese to get some of the biggest smiles that I've seen in a while :-)

Oh, and the beach is beautiful.  Come see us soon!

1,640 Miles, three days, eight states, four kids, one dog, one flat tire...... definitely worth it.

The route.

Good-bye's are never fun, but we hope to see you all soon at the beach.

Plenty of room.

I was more impressed with Kansas than B was, but to be out of the city and away from all that traffic was beautiful to me.

It's no Wrigley Field.

Nice shot B!

Yeah, we probably should have stopped for a family pic here, but we were SOOOO close.

A good picture is never hard to get at Johnson Beach.

More pics to come real soon.