The Smith Family Explosion

As most of you know, Ryan and I are expecting our first little one this June! Not only are we exciting for our little baby to get here but we are also that our little one will have so many cousins. Taylor will be here very soon and will be 6 months older than our nugget. Dave and Dani's baby will be here just a few short weeks after our due date! I'm so happy that our kids will have the opportunity to grow up with lots of cousins and family around. I was not fortunate enough to have all our family around when I was growing up and I'm so happy our kids will have the chance to grow up with their big, crazy family around.

Here is our latest picture of the baby. This was at 11weeks, 5 days. If you look really closely, you can see the little booger sticking out its tongue!

So, today I am 14 weeks along. On December 23rd, we have our gender determination sonogram!!! This has been the topic of conversation between the two of us for quite some time. So as most of you know, our sonogram technician believes from our sonogram at 11 weeks that this baby is a girl. Now, after talking with medically seasoned family members, this seems a little early to make such a declaration. So, we hope to finalize this crazy ladies and her determination in two weeks. Ryan and I also have a bet about the babies gender and if this woman is right I am on baby duty the first month while my husband sleeps. ( I don't think this is gonna hold up when the baby gets here, but we will see!) Also, although I am 14 weeks along I literally have no baby bump! Ryan and I are visiting Dave and Dani this weekend and it's funny to compare our bellies because Dani has one!! But I guess mine will be here soon enough :)

Take care everyone and love you all!

PS..

Miss you mom and dad!!! Love you :)

As of late...

Hello everyone! I want to share what we have been up to the past couple of months. This fall has been a fun, challenging and relatively low key as Ryan finishes up his Micro Biology course and I try to keep up with the usual demands of teaching. The months of August and September were kind of a blur but as we reached the cooler months of October and November, we slowed down a bit and finally took a few pictures of what we have been up to. So now we have something to share :)

In October, I was asked to attend the Florida Association of Science Teacher's yearly conference in St. Augustine to represent the school and district I work for! I was so excited that my principal asked me to join the conference but also for the hotel room and food at such a nice resort. It was a little like a mini-vacation. I spent 3 days learning and interacting with every seminar and activity that I could. Upon our

arrival to the conference, there happened to be a few cancellations for a half-day kayak trip, so we jumped on it! Ryan and I have a set of kayaks and occasionally get out on the water to explore but having a tour guide on our paddle was a great way to learn even more about the St. Augustine area. Above is a picture of a Red Mangrove tree which is very common in the Tampa Bay/ Sarasota area. However, it is not common at all for it to make it as far north as St. Augustine. Usually, the temperatures are too cool for it survive through winters and it is thought that this colony of mangroves made their way so far north because of hurricane from 2004. Our kayak guide quoted some science guru by saying that this winter is thought to be one of the coldest in 1000 years and they locals expect the mangrove populations to die out. I guess we will find out soon enough.

In the evenings, FAST organized socials for the teachers to meet and chat about our favorite topic, science! (Of course). And they did so much having activities such as star gazing, IMax movies and guest speakers. One evening in particular, the conference committee had set up six high powered telescopes to view the full moon and Jupiter. Growing up, my dad and I spent time with our telescope viewing the Moon as it waxed and waned through its phases but viewing Jupiter was entirely new for me! I wasn't able to take a photo through the telescope but found a photo that looks identical to what I saw that evening.. check it out above. The conference was a wonderful experience and two other of my colleagues and I will be hosting a district training in January to share all the new info and gizmos we acquired at FAST.

On the home front, we are repainting our bedroom soon, finishing up our pavers after Ryan's online class and whatever odds and ends that need to get done. Ryan has continued his tradition of running with his dad every 3rd day on Bayshore. And I think Ryan may be running off a little of his beer pudge from earlier in the year :) I married a cutie!

We are looking forward to visiting with our family this Thanksgiving as I believe it has turned into sort of a family reunion! We hope everyone has a safe trip down to Tampa and can't wait to visit with everyone. Love you all!

We are here to stay.

Ryan and I have moved every year for four years and on July 31st, 2009 we made a new promise for ourselves... we aren't moving.. for a long time! So as our house anniversary date rolled around this year we decided to celebrate by adding a few components to our home that made it even more of an 'island time' pad.

Lowe's delivered our two Fox Tail Palms to our home along with 1200 pavers. We felt like little kids on Christmas :)

Then Lowe's moved all of our purchase..

Then, the rest was up to us!

After sweating in out in the heat, two palms were planted and 1200 pavers were relocated to our back yard. Way to go, boys! Here are the Smith men after they finished planting and moving.

Thanks so much for coming over to help us guys! We love our home and love sharing it with our family and friends. Next time, we won't put you to work ;)

A few more pictures

More of my summer creations in the kitchen... this is a delicious portebella mushroom burger with a side of curry carrots. The burger was great however I don't recommend the carrots... ewh.

Ryan and I at Crabby Bill's for the final game of the World Cup. Bad lighting here but a good moment to remember! So much fun.
Here's a night out with a few friends. This girl in the middle is a huge science geek like me.. she could seriously be my new best friend.
Ry and JP.
Datz.. so tasty.

Gator Hunting.. well, Gator Looking really.

Earlier this week, Ryan's old friend from St. Leo made a stop in Tampa on non-stop six month journey with his girlfriend Arna. Both Bjarki and Arna live in Iceland and spent a day and night with us here is Sunny Florida before they headed off to Vancouver. The two are spending the next five months (they've already been on the road for one month now) seeing as much of the world as they can! What a great idea! To entertain and excite our guests we took them to the Smith lake house for a day of skiing and gator hunting!!

Our gator hunting trip was very successful not only because we saw so many gators but because we could get very close to them with the boat before they swam off.

This little guy was the smallest gator we came across. He might have been a whole foot and a half long.
This is me venturing into the water to get a close up shot. I was trying to muster the courage to actually catch the little booger but I just didn't have it in me.. you can see his little reflective eye shinning back at you here in this picture.

Florida Summer

Summer time is fun time!

Cori Belle chowing down on some yummy avocado!

Old friends.

New tricks.

Arna and I thought it looks like the guys are wearing

a shirt.. maybe it was better in person :)

We discovered hard wood floors under the carpet

in our Florida room.. turns out they were in pretty

good shape after we sanded the old paint off of them.

Before (above) and ....

After sanding.. huge improvement :) Now all we have

to do is pull up the carpet in all the rooms and sand those

as well.. can't wait.

Kiteboarding and such..

During beach week, Ryan had one solid night of wind and spent two hours tiring himself out kiteboarding. While he was tearing it up, Jamie asked me if I had any pictures of Ryan kiting and it occurred to me I need to share the good stuff!

Kiteboarding and I go way back. First of all when I first met Ryan he had just begun to take up the sport and he was completely clueless. Of course, I couldn't tell he was but now the stories he tells me and what I know of the safety improvements in kites.. I'm amazed he's alive. I'm not kidding. So anyhow, kiteboarding and I have a history together. I've kinda of always felt that this is the one sport Ryan loves to do more than any others. (I totally understand.. I feel this way about horses). And as our relationship has grown, my understanding and support of his sport has evolved as well.

At first, I was merely a spectator who was a little grossed out with his crotch harness that spent hours sitting on a beach watching and reading. As time progressed, I was roped into doing little house-keeping activities that would get him on the water as soon as possible. Soon after, I volunteered to start taking photos and videos of his tricks and time on the water. And today, well.. after a trip to the emergency room, four new kites, a new amazing board :) and harness, he is very well practiced and I am well groomed as his kiteboarding assistant.. and I love it!

Here are some of my favorite pics of Ryan kiteboarding...

The face of a happy man!

Happy that the camera still takes pictures after this one....

Mad air. Not even sure how high up he was but I used the zoom for this photo!

Shortly after taking this photo a woman approached me and asked what magazine I was shooting for.

Enjoy and thanks for looking :)