School pictures

So since we were gone to FL in April from a Wednesday to a Tuesday, I totally forgot that Luke's school pictures were the first day he would be back that next week. When I dropped him off in the morning and saw all of the other kids dressed to the nines and my child in his regular clothes (although sporting a new shirt from Busch Gardens--thanks Grammy!) I wondered if I should go home and get him another outfit. As it turns out, his class was going to have their pictures taken in about 20 minutes and I never would have made it. I felt bad, but figured if they weren't that good I didn't have to buy them.
When I picked him up, I asked the teachers how it went and they both seemed to think I shouldn't be worried about how he was dressed...they were right! Look at my 2 pose choices from Luke's pictures that day.

First shot



and the slightly better full body shot



Needless to say, I no longer regretted not remembering picture day and did not feel complelled to spend $50 bucks on photos. Josh and I did have a good laugh though, clearly someone was not excited to have his picture taken!

Busch Gardens

Before we left FL, we fit in a trip to Busch Gardens. We thought about taking Luke to Sea World in Orlando, but when Josh's mom mentioned that Busch Gardens had an Elmo themed Safari Land we figured the shorter drive would be a better choice in case he didn't fare well!
Our first stop was one of their live shows. Let me just say that I have been to BG many times in my life and this would have to be the first time I actually went to one of these shows, other than when they used to have dolphins...going to theme parks with kids is a very different experience, not to mention that since I am pregnant only Josh got to ride any roller coasters that day!

Here is a picture of the stage for what turned out to be an entertaining show.


Extreme close-up! (Hardly any trace of that hemangioma left, no?)



An example of the entertainment. There were lots of birds, dogs, cats, and other various typically wild animals. They all pretty much went about freely on the stage. I am thankful that no snakes were allowed to roam free!



Luke and Grammy watching the show



My only ride for the day, other than the skylift.



Luke did NOT love it. Halfway through he made me stop making the plane go up and down and wanted to get off.



He liked the carousel a bit more...



But his favorite by far were these cars, which he rode all by himself. He didn't want to get off of them when his turn was over, maybe he just liked being alone...no I think it was that he really really likes cars and finally thought he was getting to drive!







Cooling off in the theater to watch a Sesame Street movie...complete with chairs that sprayed water on us at various times.



We did take some time to see the animals, like this guy (or girl, not sure). It was feeding time!



Glad we rented the stroller, it sure came in handy!



Luke and the lion :)



Uncle Matt came over after work to see us one more time before we left.





And that ends the April trip to FL :)

Sun N Fun

While we were in FL we were able to catch the Sun N Fun Fly In. My parents have lived there for nearly 12 years and this is the first April that I've been in town and able to go. We thought Luke might enjoy seeing all the airplanes. It was much more than I expected, lots of planes and many vendors selling various things. This is how we started the day.

Luke and Papa by a big tank. (I think Josh is giving Grant a hard time about his Lebron jersey...guess Grant will need to get a new Heat jersey now).

Luke got to get in the cab of this huge truck! (He was soon followed by Grant and my mom!)

Luke is clearly not excited about posing with this hog...er plane.

Look Daddy!

What are we looking at?

Parachuters!

Luke went inside a big plane

The gang at the air show

Aunt Kathy holding Luke while he covers his ears as the planes roar overhead

How we ended the day

And for your bonus enjoyment, a little video of Luke and his funny run. He used to run like this with chicken wings all the time, not as often anymore, just when he is trying to be funny.

April Florida Trip

This past April, we traveled to FL so Josh and me could attend a conference in Orlando. I never thought we'd be going to the same conference since I specialize in older adults and Josh went into peds ophthalmology, but with my current position I get to be concerned about all vision related conditions. Since the conference was so close to home and I knew Josh wanted to attend we made plans to go together. This meant Luke got to spend some quality time with Nana and Papa while mommy and daddy enjoyed a couple of days together in Orlando. The first day of the conference was over for us before noon so we headed out to the boardwalk by the Swan and Dolphin resorts (where the conference was, but not where we stayed!). You could see Epcot from there and we ate lunch the next day at the ESPN zone restaurant (which I've read recently that they are closing this chain).



Since we couldn't check into our hotel yet, we went to Downtown Disney and walked around. Josh had never eaten at a Rain Forest Cafe, and even though we didn't have our kid with us, we had lunch there. It ended up being good that Luke wasn't with us. Look how close we sat to this mechanical elephant, I think Luke would have freaked.


Our trip to Orlando included a visit to my good friend Vim so we could see her adorable daughters! Here is Josh with Violet (she's about 5 months younger than Luke so we were sad to not have Luke with us) and one of me with Violet and Vim holding a newborn Natalie. So glad we got to visit with you guys while we were in Orlando!!



We finished off our evening with a trip to Universal Studios City Walk. We intended to eat at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co, but decided to walk around a bit first. We found our way to NBA City and of course had to look around. By this point I was starving, and still in my first trimester which meant "I NEED TO EAT NOW!" so we dined at NBA City. The food was ok, but both of us wished we had eaten at Bubba Gump.

More about our trip to FL next!

so sweet

one of my favorite recent pictures of Luke (taken 4/11/2010) so sweet!

From Luke's point of view

Luke grabbed the camera and took some pictures all by himself, and mostly of himself! He did this while we were at Saturday Night Live watching my Grandpa and Eleanor perform. I think he did a pretty good job for his first stint as a photographer :)









Recently, Luke and I were watching an episode of Bob the Builder, which Luke has always referred to as God the Builder which I think is cute and hope that one day he really knows the truth to that. Watching this made me wonder if President Obama got permission to use the "Yes we Can" slogan, and then I wondered if he watched this program with his girls and that is where he got this idea :)
Also, during this episode, Bob was eating a sandwich and put it down for a minute and got distracted. When he came back to the sandwich a few bites were missing and Bob said "who has been eating my sandwich?" Without missing a beat, Luke said "Noah" (our dog) with just the perfect amount of disappointment!
For all those wondering who really did eat some of Bob's sandwich, it was a sneaky bird. I'd hate for you all to be left wondering :)

We interrupt our regularly scheduled catch up posts...

to tell you that we found out yesterday that Baby Elliott #2, who Luke calls Baby Bop, is a boy!!! We are so excited to have another son and so happy that Luke will have a little brother. The baby looks healthy, everything looked good on the ultrasound so we couldn't be happier with the news. Now on to picking out boy names. This is a new area for us, for some reason neither us can remember, we had the name Luke picked out long before he was a reality so his name was easy. This one will be a little bit harder :) So for now he remains Baby Bop!