A Long Weekend with the Aunt and Uncle

I knew all of my crazy travel over the past few months would pay off.  While I miss the boys like crazy when I am gone, I love the miles that helped make our Tampa trip possible.  My sister in law lives part of the year in Grenada in medical school and the rest of the time hubby in Tampa ~ fortunately she loves us like crazy so she allowed us to crash part of her summer vacation.  The last trip to Tampa was am absolute nightmare so everyone was a little nervous about how the boys would be on this trip.  Fortunately, all was well and they were perfect little angels.  

Z feeding the birds at Busch Gardens!  Absolutely AWESOME!!!

Zach and his best friend!!!  That kid will believe anything he tells him.

Z's first ride! Totally awesome he went on it twice

Chilling at the pool!

Thanks Uncle Wee and Aunt Manda for an awesome week! We miss you guys already and can't wait to see you again!!!

Found This One and Couldn't Resist!

Can't Hardly Believe it???

I can hardly believe that Z is turning 5 tomorrow. I thought I would post one of my favorite pictures from each year of his life. Of course, an organized mom would be able to easily find them and would probably have a picture of each birthday in 1 place....But I'm not an organized mom so it took me forever to find these pictures but it was too much fun looking at them with Z tonight.

1st Day Home From the Hospital. We had no idea what we were doing and were scared to death so naturally Joe, Zach and Ozzie slept and I just stared at them all for hours.

Halloween 2008 ~ Dumbo was one of Z's favorite movies for the longest time.

November 2009

December 2010

November 2011~ Family Picture Day

Earlier Tonight!

Easter 2012

Easter...One of my favorite holidays!

The past few years the little boys and I have traveled up north to my mom's for easter. I love the church that I grew up in and love that I can take my kids there and always see a friendly face. And of course, grandma sings in the choir so Zach gets pretty into that. It was a bit of a work in progress to not only get the boys clean but to keep them clean the 3 blocks we walked to church. Fortunately, they cooperated a little in the process.

Visiting the Grandies

This past weekend the Rohlfing's headed up north to visit my parents, celebrate Zach's early birthday, and of course Easter. The more birthday's Zach has the more excited he gets about them. Below are a few pictures of the early birthday celebration.

Zach and "Grammy"

The Big 5!

Counting the Candles

Can't believe how big this kiddo is getting!

"Where's the ice cream"

Zach's Animal Adventure

As you can see from our other posts Zach had a great time on vacation. This trip was especially cool becuse he was not afraid of anything and ready to try new things. We stayed at the Royal Haciendas in the Riveria Maya and they had a lot of great stuff for the kids and adults. One of the cooler things about this trip was they had a different animal that came around the resort each day that you could take pictures with and pet. Of course, you couldn't take with your own camera and the pictures were priced crazy high but the second we saw the pictures of Zach, Joe informed me we would be buying all of them. When they told us the price, we nearly had a heart attack as that would require a 2nd mortgage on our house so we opted for the best ones (how can you find the best ones with this kid) which we are happy to share on the blog!

This one is my favorite!!!

More Vacation Pictures!

Today's post is all about Lukie! As many of you may know, Luke is a unique creature and has a very low tolerance for about anything (especially patience). While we love this little guy more than anything we were a bit worried about how he would handle vacation. He did relatively well although often times we could heard him screaming from across the resort. We believe the Welcome Party for the next week's visitors may have actually been a "The Rohlfing's are Gone Party". All in all, Luke did a good job on vacation and even managed to laugh and smile a little. Included in this post are some of the picture the resort photographer took of Luke (which of course we had to buy and were extrememly overpriced).

Enjoy~

Nannie and Luke! Luke has a love for monkeys so we thought that perhaps he may be interested in petting or holding the monkeys that were at the resort, we were mistaken. Mainly, he looked at us and everyone else like we were crazy.

One of Luke's favorite things to do on vaca was watch the water aerobics which Nannie and Gramms (and sometimes me but it was really hard) did daily. He constantly had a look on his face that read, "do these people realize they look rather silly" He actually learned how to count to 10 in Spanish by watching the aerobics, so I guess the trip wasn't completely wasted.

I often wonder how something so cute and sweet can sometimes be so bad and loud!

MY FAVORITE!

Mexico 2012

Last week we spent the week in Mexico on one of the best family vacations I have ever been on! We were fortunate enough to stay with my mom and were able to spend a bunch of quality time with her and the in laws. Joe and I were afraid that 5 adults would not be enough for the 2 kids but we managed. It had been awhile since I had been able to take a vacation where I didn't think about anything! After spending that much time with my boys I have to say I actually enjoy them and they are pretty cool little kiddos.

I can't believe how this kid is growing up! Z had his own camera to take and I actually can't wait to see the pictures

The Rohlfing Crew!

Watching the fish swim with Grammy! One of my favorite pictures of my mom and Zach.

LG was not a fan of the beach. Didn't like the sand on his piggies and was afraid the ocean would get him!

After the first day on the beach, Z was "sick and tired of building sandcastles"

This picture was taken after Z, Joe and I went on a ziplining tour of the jungle. I honestly thought that Z and I would be spending 4 hours in the jungle gift shop but he was all about the zips. Unfortunately, he was too young to go by himself but he had a blast with his "friends" that took him on the zips and actually convenienced me that I shouldn't be afraid and I could do it. After ziplining we headed to do a bungy jump followed by ziplining into a cenote. Z was the only kid on the tour and one of the youngest kids that has been able to do all of it. Joe and I were beaming with joy when all of the other people on the tour commented on how awesome he is. Definately one of my favorite memories from vacation!

Day One!

Not a huge fan of the ocean but he tried it out! He was pretty excited becuase it was the same ocean that his Aunt Manda lived on.

It took big muscles to build that huge sandcastle

One of my favorite pictures!

The fam building a pretty awesome Sand Palace! Complete with a stone path and a dragon to keep the bad kids away (especially the little boy who was too good to help Z build this awesome sand castle!

Ready to hit the pool! Probably one of the best pictures of the boys from vacation!

Finally Quiet! He looks like such a good baby when he sleeps.

Obviously it would be hard to share the almost 200 pictures that I took on vacation but this is a start. Can't wait for our next trip to Florida to visit the aunt and uncle then California with my best gal pal!

The Blog is Back Up!

When I was on vacation last week my mom and I were looking at our family blog and I realized that it had been 3 years since we have last posted......Oh the things that have happened in 3 years where to begin.....Shortly after our last post we found out we were expecting Baby #2, Lucas Griffin joined our family December 10, 2009 (the same day my best friend has her first baby) and our lives have been a bit crazy since. Joe and I got away to California to celebrate the wedding of our dear friends Ben and Carly, my sister Jen got married to one of the best guys in the world, Sarah moved to St. Louis which has been awesome to be so close to her, and Joe's brother Lee got married in Vegas. Joe and I both started new jobs and Ozie has aged seemlessly. It would be practically impossible to share the last 2 years in photographs so we are going to skip to vacation in our next post!