The AlaBahamians: Playing "Catch-Me-If-You-Can"

Welcome back friends... it's been a LONG time! These photos dates back to September 2014! Over 3 years... my word how is it possible?? On this last day of 2017, I'm challenging myself to get caught back up on this blog once and for all. I believe it helps me more than I ever realized to talk through things we're going through, to share stuff on my heart and to see our little family grow through all these photos and memories. I have changed the settings to private, so if you got a random invite to read this thing... that may be why. Here we go...

Obviously, some of these memories stick with me a little better over the years than others do. These photos of an exhausted Dallas, and some curious little train riders was on the day we took a train from St. Louis to Chicago. Let's just say our hotel that we stayed in at across the street from some "station" was not the actually train station and we had about 20 minutes of running with heavy luggage and short-legged little guys across a few blocks of St. Louis to try to make our train. Luckily, it had been delayed by a bit and we made it with about 3 minutes to spare! PHEW!!!

Little did we know that the delayed schedule was going to be a trend for our entire journey. According to our itinerary, we should have gotten to Chicago in about 3-4 hours. It took us more like 9 hours that day. We already had a very quick trip to Chicago to see Dallas' brother, Elliott, and his wife, Erin, so we were worried it was going to interfere with surprise plans for the boys.

We did see some beautiful mid-west countryside along the trip though, and at least we could rest when we wanted.

We finally made it to Chicago!! We headed to our hotel, grabbed a quick bite with Eliott & Erin and made it an early night so that we would be ready for a busy day of exploring the city.

I do remember that both of the boys got car sick driving into the city that morning which resulted in a little "situation" :P where Dallas and Emit both had to get some fresh shirts right away when we got into the city.

Where have these two little rascals gone? They still wear these shirts, but they are definitely not this big on them :)

It was a beautiful day to walk around the city. Crystal clear skies, sunny, and very pleasant temps!

Elliott and Erin knew the good spots to take us to.

It always overwhelms me thinking about raising children in a city, but I know it can be done, and done well. I think I would find it really hard to relax though, so it makes me thankful for our quiet little island. However, it is very fun to get out and see things of this world!

It would have been fun to stay a bit longer, I'm sure we could have had a blast!

We had a surprise for the boys, and they were tired of all the walking (even though they were riding on shoulders most of the day), so off we went to the 'secret place!'

LEGOLAND--that is one interest that hasn't changed in 3+ years ;)

To say they were thrilled is an understatement!

They would definitely love all this Star Wars stuff more now that they've seen all the movies and are crazy about them.

It was close to closing time, so we pretty much had the place all to ourselves, which was actually pretty great!

Master Builders

I think it's safe to say we enjoyed being kids for a bit too ;)

Chicago was a fun little adventure :)

Back to Exuma we go...

Where Ninja-boys and chickens are just another day in the hood :D

I was very excited to get our new school space setup this year. We moved one of the old sheds that we used to store a bunch of gear in to a spot in our yard, and it became our new school room!

It was small, a labor of love, and a sweet learning space!

It is always fun to see where our journey takes us. Joss' Kindergarten year we had a 'classroom' setup in their bedroom closet. We definitely do better with a designated space to go and have our learning fun.

Of course that doesn't mean that is the only time we learn and do things... but I love having it to turn to!

Boys playing photographer above and below.

Our little 'art gallery' from this time.

Behind the lens according to Joss and Emit... these next few clusters are from their camera.

Sailing Club continues to grow... legos and crafts from school! They loved the little turtle shells and spiders!

Meanwhile, work is still going on.

Always exploring... above and below the surface.

Surfing time with the Morton's, always chaos & fun adventures with this crew!

More school fun...

They LOVE scavenger hunts of any kind!

Auburn football and SKYLANDERS!! The photos on the right in this group below, they sorted their Skylanders by type (earth, sky, water, etc) and found shirts and things around the house for them to stand on that represented those colors. I though that was pretty clever :)