Lakeridge Winery Annual Grape Stomp

We went over to Clermont today to see Eileen, Mabel and Milo at Lakeridge Winery annual fundraiser...

We had planned on stomping grapes but the lines were crazy long and it looked like a very messy business!

It was totally packed and boiling hot!

The kids loved posing in cool shades:)

First weekend as an Empty Nester. Check!

Becoming a Bull!

We dropped Maddy off at USF this week! They were really well organized and had a whole bunch of activities lined up to help the new students settle in:)

And they even provided tissues for the parents:)

We got her unpacked in a couple hours and spent some time with her lovely roomie Emma and her family which was really nice too:)

Maddy's dorm has just been built and has tons of state-of-the-art facilities like a gym, dining facility (with sushi!), laundry room, lounges etc. She is so lucky!

Maddy's dorm decor is so stylish!

I gave her a necklace with some of Bryce's ashes. I knew she'd love it!

We stayed for most of the day as did most of the parents which was really nice to see. We took a mom/daughter selfie just before I got in the car. That last hug was so hard. I didn't want to let go...

The whole day was such an emotional roller coaster but it has gotten much easier over the past few days and Maddy is really thriving already. She has also done a great job of keeping us up to date with texts and facetime is really great too:). We have also had updates on the USF facebook page - it was hard to pick her out in this photo (allegedly she's in the "F":))

Maddy even got up early to participate in the "Charge" Community Service Event on Saturday morning. We were giddy when we saw this little video on facebook:)




We are doing well too. Knowing she is finding her way helps and we are staying busy and making new plans. And Tampa is only an hour away, right??!! Go Bulls!!

Celebrating Juneau's first Adoption Anniversary!

On Sunday we celebrated a year since we adopted Bryce and Juneau! The foster parents sent a big box of toys, a really touching card and a beautiful frame to remember our special boy. Love those girls so much:)

We got Juneau some toys, a party hat and the best dog cake ever:)

 We topped it with peanut butter and bacon - she loved it!

Cake coma face...

 She took all of her toys to her bed for safekeeping...

Since she looked so cute in her party hat, we took the opportunity to get some lovely pictures...

This was my favorite pic...:)

Love that smile:)

Post party snooze...

These two are really going to miss each other...

Happy Anniversary Juneau - we love having you as part of our family so much!

Bioluminescence Kayaking!

For Maddy's last weekend at home she chose for us to go kayaking at night at Merritt Island to see the naturally-occurring bioluminescence that appears at this time of the year:)

The particular conditions that create this phenomenon are rare - in fact there are only 7 locations in the world where it happens. We couldn't get photos but here's how it looks when you first go out...

At the beginning we thought the blue lights were waves but actually they were fish! Once you get out on the water, the schools of fish cause trails of light in the water all round you and the mullet actually jump out of the water. Everyone was laughing as the fish were hitting people and landing in the kayaks. It was amazing and really funny! The whole experience was about 90 minutes and it went in a flash - it was so much fun and a lovely way to finish out Maddy's last Summer at home:)