Happy Birthday Slade Michael!

Slade's first time on an airplane... did great!
Gav loves on Slade every chance he gets and Slade always pulls the too cool move... ;-)
Gavin with voodoo man on Bourbon St

A shot of the butterfly sanctuary. One of the many exhibits at the Audubon Insectarium Nature Institute
baby Komodo Dragon Gavin was a bit disappointed that he wasn't full grown :-)

That Orangutan had to be hot!

Slade turned one on August 17th. We celebrated by taking a family trip. Big brother Gavin picked our destination, New Orleans! We packed our bags and headed to the Big Easy... :-) We all love it there! Well, we didn't know how Slade thinks about it, but we took Gavin a couple of years ago; so he had the trip all planned out as to the places he wanted to take Lil bro. This was Slade's first experience on an airplane and as you can see from the pic, he did great. He fell asleep before the plane even took off. On the way back he stayed awake and played with a kid sitting behind us and Gavin. :-) After we arrived, got checked in and all that good stuff then, according to Gavin's itinerary; it was off to the Audubon Insectarium Nature Institute. Next, we headed to the Aquarium. Oh and the aquarium is always Gavin's favorite, but now we have 2 fans... Slade, after having Art point telling him fish, repeated and kept saying, "fish, fish, fish..." we are so proud of our little talker; learning new words everyday! That EARLY evening, we took a stroll down Bourbon Street. That was a quick one... Gavin met voodoo man? He was nice. :-)

Day 2: We went to the zoo and man was it hot! But they have those indoor exhibits that save you from falling out; so that's good. Gavin really enjoys the reptile area. Slade just likes to ride in the stroller, be exposed to new things and roll with us! After the zoo we took the street car (I call it a trolley and a soon realized that I was the only one.) we rode that back to our hotel. It was neat and about a 30 minute ride so we were able to get a good look at the city. It was a first for all of us and we really enjoyed it. We also had Gav's favorite, room service here and there and rented some movies at night. It was a great trip and I'm sure Slade loves New Orleans just as much as the rest of us... As I was packing all our stuff, getting ready for check out Gavin asked me, "Mom, when's the next time we can visit New Orleans?" He LOVES it! :-)

Slade's First Haircut...

What? You're gonna cut my hair off; so I can actually see where I'm going... sweet! :-)
He must have really wanted a haircut... it took a bit for me to explain what we wanted, imagine that! :-) Slade sat there very patiently and that's so not his style. He's a busy body.

Hello ladies... ;-)

Sooo excited and saying Da Da the whole time, of course!

A little side action for ya...

Summer Fun!

naptime
The shore at Moody Gardens Palm Beach. Gavin wants to bring his pole next time. :-)

Slade and I were first timers... the look on Slade's face says it all. He had a blast!
Gavin's good buddy Noah and his mom met us and we had such a great time together! The boys ran all around that park and would check in with us every so often. Those two ruled that park and know the ins and outs of every ride and slide! :-)
These two... holdin it down in the Lazy River
and when they weren't in the Lazy River Slade was pointing in the direction of it and saying, "That, that..."

Here's what Gav does in the Lazy River... the life guards want you to use the tube, but Gavin just swims/floats along. It's 3 feet deep and there's a slight current (hence, river) that takes you along in an oval, back to where you started... It's awesome! And there are waterfalls or people may dump water on you... that happened to me! :-) They were trying to get their friend, missed and hit yours truly... felt good though, it was hot!