Florida! {day one}

A month later and I still miss our Florida vacation. I know for a fact I could spend every day on the beach. Dave would get tired of me asking daily to go to the beach. Pleassssseeee!

Friday morning we were up bright and early to finish the 8hrish drive to Florida. It was the last leg of the drive so we were all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ;) 

Atlanta, GA (we beat the morning rush!)

swapped boys for girls in Georgia. boys rode with Casey, Homer, Pigg, and my Mom and Dad to Georgia. girls rode with Dave and me.

FLORIDA! ... *the* oddest trees

The day we arrived it rained. But we were totally okay with it! It was beautiful regardless.

We had no idea what our hotel was going to look like, but it was classic Florida resort. And we loved it! Of course we immediately checked out the rooms (which walked out to the beach), hit up the beach, and then walked around the entire hotel... classic Zimm-family style. 

amazing view!

and then we immediately went to the beach. kids in suits. adults watching. until the rain got us. but again, we didn't care :)

view of our hotel from the beach (yellow buildings)

and then there was pizza. THE best Margherita pizza I've ever had. Man, it was good. If you're ever on Treasure Island (near St. Petersburg), you *must* have Britt's Pizza!

More to come. Kids are anxiously awaiting breakfast. I have an abundance of photos so more to come soon. Thanks so much for being patient!

minor set back

Well, as expected, closing my Facebook wasn't as easy as I thought. NOT because I wasn't ready, but because the darn thing is tied to my growing photography business. Since I know there isn't much traffic here, I need some help with growing the following on my 'new' Facebook photography page. I apologize in advance for even having to ask this, but would all of you friends (and mostly family) who follow along with this blog kindly reLIKE my photography page on Facebook. PRETTY PLEASE! andddd promote away if it's not too much to ask. Eek. Starting over from scratch with the photography page kind of scares me but it has to be done. Ugh!

Thanks so much in advance!!!

Click here for the actual page.

Also, I'll slowly be adding more of my albums back to the photography Facebook page... so much to do!

social media farewell

Social media... where to start. where to stop. I could be involved in every new, up and coming thing and probably give myself a headache. In an effort to keep things simple and less stressful and ... whatever else this could do for me, I'm letting go of one very large social media outlet. 

Now, the reasoning:   wellllll, one day (or over a couple days or weeks really) I thought...you know, this is just so dang negative all the time. and I don't know half these 'friends.' and really, I don't do anything on here but occasionally share social events and sometimes funny 'words of wisdom' and of course the liking of random baby and friend photos. But that was about the extent of my participation. I can't even remember the last time I updated one of my photo albums. I change my profile pic for special occasions. But in all honesty, this said media outlet was just consuming too much of my time for people I don't really know or need to know or care to know. Then after talking with one of my rad (and very wise) cousins and little sister, the decision was made final. 

All that being said, I guess it could be considered rude or inconsiderate for those who want to know more about us or whatever else someone could think but I'm done. So long. Good bye. Adios. Sayonara. Farewell.

Those I keep in contact with know where to find me and follow along on this not-so-well-kept blog. And then there is always Instagram. I rather enjoy that social media outlet. I think quitting one will not necessarily keep me on another more often, but give me one less app to check before I go to bed at night ;)

SOOO all that to say... Good Bye, Facebook. You've been... interesting. ;) 

If you're worried about missing me, follow along with this blog, Twitter, Instagram, AND Pinterest. Seeeee, that's wayyy more than I need to be doing daily. EEK!

32/52

"a portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013"

Peyton: all I can think is he was demonstrating his 'pounce'
Lia: serious, as usual
Austyn: pouting over too many marshmallows
Tayt: consuming another marshmallow
Nash: blues
Drew: sass
Meg: learned a new trick and thinks she's pretty hot stuff

I'm just going to jump ahead to week 32. I'm basing this off the most current up to date 52 photo by one of my favorite bloggers. She has her stuff together and has this 52 stuff current. Ha! Me? Not so much. The last month, including getting ready for, going to, getting home from, and recovering after... Florida... has me behind on JUSTTTT about everything imaginable. Blogging. Checkbook. Yard work. Gardening (if you consider what I do gardening). Laundry. Dishes (washing by hand lately. a family of 9 should have a dishwasher. ours does not work) :(  regardless, you name it, it's not done. Speaking of, I need to make some calls for Peyton's football season. And maybe pay some bills so we can keep the lights on. KIDDING. Kind of ;)

pool/potty break in Georgia: Florida bound

Dave and I (and our TomTom) were in charge of navigating for this entire trip. Sounds easy enough... well, if there is one thing Dave and I get a little feisty with each other, it's getting confused with directions. There may have been a couple occasions on this trip where I looked out the window for 5 minutes. No words. Silence. And then everything was better... because we're going to FLOREEEEDA!

So... 24+ hours without sleep (me off and on for 15-minute increments), many a potty pit stop, endless trivia, anddddddddd we arrived at our destination in Georgia for the afternoon and night (Thursday afternoon and night). The kids were very excited there was a pool and spent almost the entire time in said pool. It was amazing!

Homer snoozed while we swam. He had enough of traveling and pool by this point. 
(photos courtesy of Mom)

Nash was not enthused with the pool. I made him get in with a ring and holding him. He thought he was dying. And so did everyone else within a 2 mile radius. Eventually he made it to the bottom step by himself. Baby steps.

Many thanks to our wonderful friends for putting up with all the nonsense and housing all of us for the night. I love the way Casey put it because that's exactly how it went down: we will be comin' in hot, turning your shit upside down and then leaving before it's light out.

Jokes were made about leaving money on the dresser on our way out, but in reality we just left a mess of the house and many apologies for someones weak bladder... dang kids! We would *love* to visit them again. We all had a really great time! Thanks so much again :)

(friends youngest fella... cute kids!)

Follow along with Casey and my Mom for another perspective and better photos of our trip! :)