::florida part 2::

Too bad about the nude sunbathing--but I sure do love the beach, so I guess it's ok. Here are a few views of our first hotel area from out on the beach. It was very picturesque.

Old people everywhere of course, even in bikinis. Yikes.

The next one shows you the big main building of the hotel--it looks kind of like some sort of polynesian lounge.

We were up high in a room in the tower on the left. We had an awesome view from our little balcony!

Can you believe how many huge high rise hotels there were along the beach?

The shells were so fun--I've never seen a place with so many shells. From something we read it looks like the shells are on the beach in piles during certain times in winter. By summer the tides have washed them all away. How crazy is that?
I picked up some awesome ones and brought them home to share with Max. He could hear the ocean in most of them.


After the conference was over we headed up the coast about a hour or so to another little island. This one was much quieter and less fancy. There were also more old people there somehow. The beach was not as fun there--tiny teeny waves--but the most fun part about it was that Kris and I had a couple of days with no work, no conference, nothing. We just got to hand out and have fun.
We rode beach cruisers to lunch (and ate with droves of old people dressed in the colors of sherbet).

We took walks. We chatted. We sat in the sun. We played tennis.

(We play tennis badly, but it's fun.)
It was just so nice. We were glad to go home to our boys, but so sad that our couple of fun days were over.
Thanks SO much to Kathy for coming and taking care of our guys. I didn't have to worry about them being safe and happy. I knew they were in the best hands they could be. We LOVE you Kathy!!!

And really, who can complain about coming home to this:



What a great week. And I got to come home on my birthday to a party. Awesome.

::florida part 1::

So there was a great looking conference for pedodontists and orthodontists in Florida. We got a flyer for it a good while back and Kris thought it looked amazing--and that the location looked hard to beat. He enlisted his ever willing mom to come and watch the boys and we got to head out together for a long weekend of work and fun.
It was so nice. We've hardly been out since the baby was born, and haven't been off together overnight for years. After I got through the initial confusion of why flying was so darn easy, and figured out what I was supposed to do with myself without somebody to spank or kiss every two seconds it was great and very refreshing.
And Kathy kept me posted with pictures like this:

and this:

So I didn't feel TOO far away.

We were in Marco Island, FL. Not really so much an isolated island, but just one of the many many little pockets of land right off the west coast of Florida. The hotel was beautiful. It was right on the beach and though these weren't the kind of big waves you might be used to from CA beaches, they were nice. The air was fresh and there were shells everywhere.


The beach--a view from one of the patios of the tall (8 story I think) hotel.

Yes, the pool was amazing. I did keep wishing the kids were there to swim in it. It was the perfect toddler and kid pool. It had a hugely long set of steps that a kid could play on without blocking everybody's entry & exit from the pool. Perfect. We might just have to go back!

This is a face somebody made and left in the sand. I captured it for Max.

The following is one of my favorite sights--wish I would've had my nice camera instead of my phone at that moment.

These guys just look so serious. It makes you wonder what very important and life changing event is happening in seagull world.

And finally (for part 1) a Florida beach sunset. You know how it is when you're at the beach and the sun is setting? For a while it seems like everything is the same light blue/yellow bright blazing color. That's when the sun is almost to the horizon, but not quite. But when it finally reaches the edge of the world, that's when you start to realize again that there's a difference in color between sea and sand. And that's when the sky puts on it's show.

It's when the orange goes away that you see all the other amazing colors--waiting their turn.


(It looks like we're in jail because we're at the hotel restaurant and they have some sort of seagull deterring netting up over us.)
I can't say that this particular sunset had anything on some of the amazing ones we get out in NM, but it was pretty nice. And being at the beach makes everything smell, taste and look just a little better anyway.

::our race::

The half marathon started at 5:30AM on saturday. We'd only arrived on thursday afternoon, so we definitely weren't acclimated to the time difference. So 5:30 really felt like 3:30, yikes.
Worse than that, in order to get to the starting gates on time, we had to catch the bus at 3:30AM. SUPER yikes. It was kind of like not sleeping at all. Crazy.
So Kris and I slept out in living room where we wouldn't bother the sleeping family, got up and 3 and headed out for the bus.
The weather was so perfect. It was chilly but not freezing, not a hint of wind or rain and not unusually humid.

We had to wait around a pretty long time before everybody started walking up to the starting corrals. And when I say everybody, I mean EVERYBODY. There were supposed to be about 27,000 people running this race. It was kind of like a sea of humanity.

Kris and I split up to go to our respective corrals, me in the next to slowest and Kris faster. It was kind of a bummer not to have him to chat with, but I talked with the girls standing nearby and got to know a few people whom I never had any chance of seeing again.

I felt a little goofed up with the early wake time and the time change, but I was excited and ready to go.

They set off fireworks at the starting line every time a corral got to leave--this was pretty fun since we could all see them. It was exciting.

When I started running I felt like I could go forever. The low altitude and the wet air combined to make me feel strong. I had to slow myself down after a while so that I could save some energy for later.

Kris did awesome. He didn't walk at all and he kept up a nice strong pace for him.

I ran and walked and walked and ran again.
There were people on stilts at one point cheering us on. There were characters that people were waiting in line to take pictures with. There were high school bands by the side of the road playing tunes and cheering. There was one guy with a big boombox and huge mickey hands cheering us on. There was a hot air balloon in the median at one point.
Then of course we got to run through the Magic Kingdom and right through the castle. It was really fun.

And the sheer number and variety of people kept it interesting too. So many different kinds of people--colors, shapes, sizes, outfits.
At one point I had to stop for a portapotty (ICK) and people just kept streaming by as I waited. It seemed kind of like I just jumped back on the train when I was done, people going by everywhere.


This doesn't even give you a good feel for how many people there were.

We ended in Epcot. I saved just enough energy to run the last mile. I knew Kris was going to be waiting and I wanted him to see me finish with a little gusto!


I was exhausted and sore when I got done, but I felt really proud of myself for doing it. I worked hard to get ready and I was able to do better than I every thought I would've!
And it was fun to have Kris there with me, I knew he was proud of me and impressed.
This is not my favorite picture, but it's the only one I have at the finish, so here you go.


And here are our medals as we rode back to the hotel on the bus to see our boys!

So cool, right?

It was only about 9:30 or so when we got back, but it felt like the middle of the afternoon. Kris and I got to nap later in the day while Kathy took Max out to have fun. Then we limped off on our broken sore legs to meet them.

It was really a great first race. I'd love to do it again sometime!

::disney fun 2::

More fun to report on!
We got to visit all the parks on our little jaunt, though we didn't get to ride or visit everything that we hoped to. The Soarin' line was so long that we had to give up at Epcot, and the Peter Pan ride in the Magic Kingdom was hopeless.
We did get to do the Toy Story one though, and the new Star Tours (which was awesome enough to make me carsick!)
We got to eat a lot (too much) decent to good food and the weather was PERFECT. It didn't rain on us once and it was never warmer than 80 degrees.

We got to introduce Grandma to the fun of pin trading. Max got to ride the Rocking Roller Coaster for the first time and he was brave enough to go right back on again after.
Here we are hanging out waiting for one of our many meals to show up.



Probably the best part of the whole trip was getting to spend time together doing stuff that had absolutely nothing to do with work!
And the second best thing was undoubtedly the weather. It was so nice to have weather like that in the middle of our winter.

The sad news is that Sandy got sick the night of our second to last day. He got a big fever and was so miserable. So he was up half the night and then slept most of the next day. Kris went home that morning to get some work done, and the rest of us were supposed to play. I sent Kathy and Max to the Magic Kingdom and watched over little Sandy.
Finally he woke up and we all met up for lunch.

The poor little guy did his best to be a good sport. Then Grandma took him back for more napping and Max and I got to play for a while. This is a picture she sent me later that night.

He felt a lot better by then, thank goodness and was actually eating. You can see his little pink cheeks though--they're the give away that he's still a little sick!
Why do kids always get sick on trips?
The flight home was a bit trying with a slightly sick exhausted baby, but Max was perfect.

But that's getting ahead of myself.
Max wanted a churro the whole trip and we had such a hard time finding one. But finally on the last day when Max and I were exploring the Magic Kingdom I spotted some people enjoying churros. I stopped them and asked where the heck to find them. We finally found them and snarfed them.

(Check out Max's awesome pins. He did some good trading on this trip.)

And last for now, but not least I have a picture of Sandy riding the ant at the "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" playground. Max LOVES that place.

Sandy liked it too, but the uneven-ness and texture of the ground made him feel a little weirded out.
I will leave you with a pretty awesome video of the crawling that resulted. True Mowgli crawling. He also fell on his little head several times because he got so unbalanced. I think that's what happened right when I stopped the video. Wish I would've gotten it documented. It was hilarious.

I'm going to report on the running later!

::kansas city::

In early November we got to go to Kansas City to see Kelly's family and to be present for baby Gray's blessing. We were pretty excited to go, considering it has been years since we've been back there. We're quite fond of Kansas City and there have been many things we've missed about it over the years.
The bummer was that it was seriously a whirlwind trip. We got there saturday afternoon and left monday morning.
So it was tough to squeeze in all we were hoping and wanting to do.

But of course, most importantly, we got to see family. Kelly and Lechelle had a nice little open house before the blessing with lots of yummy food. We got to hang out together for a bit there, and then go to church. The blessing was so nice and their ward seems great.
Before church we took a couple of photos, but Boston was NOT wanting to cooperate. Cute, but cranky!



This was the very cutest one:

And then the whole group of us Hendricks.

Some cute kids in there!

Besides the family time, we got to go and eat some of our favorite foods at our favorite places. The Taqueria Mexico was still there, just the same as when we left it.


And still delicious. Sandy loved digging into the rice and beans.

We also went to our favorite sandwich place--Planet Sub. Twice. And it was just so stinking good.
The funniest thing is that we started taking Max to Planet Sub (regularly) back when he was about Sandy's age. He would eat a little bite of the kid's sandwich and then be done.
Well Mr. Sand the crazy eater chowed the whole peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then asked for MORE!


I think he may have the potential to grow up to be a competitive eater. YIKES. I better watch out.

So it was a fun quick trip. Wish it could've been longer, truly it only seemed like we saw Kelly & Lechelle for a few minutes. But we can do it again soon! We're always up for more Planet Sub.

::st george pt 2::

So for part two:
One little bonus photo from the swimming. The Go Pro camera is so awesome.

I took pictures of Kari's family. I haven't finished editing them yet, but I have done a few and they're quite cute. Like this.

Then we left.
Poor little Sandy had a big puke--the first real one of his life on friday night. It was very sad, and then he seemed totally fine. We hoped that it was just overfeeding or travel or something. Anyway, he was fine after that and so we went on with life.
We left on sunday morning and the GPS told us to go through Zion's. It wasn't the quickest or easiest way to go, but it sure was picturesque.

It's gorgeous. And so fun to drive through a huge tunnel through the mountain.



The bummer was that the little twisty roads made everybody a little carsick--except Sand. Max especially felt ill, and we had to pull over so he could decide whether he was going to be sick or not at some point.

He wasn't quite himself.
We stopped in Flagstaff and stayed the night. We ate a kind of gross dinner and went to bed. Sadly, I woke up at 1AM sick and threw up all night. Then Max woke up and wasn't sick at first, but.... Kris didn't feel all that well, but survived without a puke, lucky for him.
Kris took the boys down to breakfast while I tried to catch up on a little sleep.

Sandy ate a large and healthy breakfast. He loves breakfast.
Max _tried_ to eat a large and exciting breakfast.

Wow, right? Kris said he managed to eat about 10% of all the food he had gathered.
Then he proceeded to be sick for the rest of the day. He threw up all the way home.
We did make it home in the late evening and we were so glad we made it.

Lucky for us we're not used to this sort of thing. Our boys are such great travelers. Hopefully we'll be spared this happening too many other times!
It was still a fun weekend though. Lots of fun pictures anyway!