Austin Bound

Okay I have to admit I have been really slack at posting on this blogsite...you all know the constant treadmill of life...and life with kids..days go to weeks and weeks to months...however exciting things are happing in our life. As many of you may already know the Bedford's are moving to Austin, Texas!! Mark has received a promotional transfer to the Hyatt Regency Austin. For those of you familiar with the Hyatt world relocating is part of the territory. This definitely is bittersweet news for us as we have really enjoyed living in Celebration, we have made some wonderful friends, love the Celebration lifestyle, and really we get to take our kids to Disney quite often...even to this day I always enjoy visiting the Disney themeparks. On the flip side this is a great promotion for Mark and out of all of the places we could be going to Austin has always been at the top of our list. Neither of us had been there before this transfer, however we really felt it was a city that suited us.

Well the whole Bedford family has been in Austin for a week and I have to say out of all of the hurdles we will endure during this relocation, liking Austin is not going to be an issue. Austin is a nice blend of what we loved about Hawaii - beautiful scenery, lots of nature, healthy eating, an outdoor lifestyle and what we have come to enjoy about living in a metropolitan area shopping, good restaurants, activities for the kids, etc. The Hyatt is in a fabulous location right along the river (that they call "Town Lake"). There is this wonderful hike and bike trail that runs along the lake. People of all ages are out walking, jogging, biking...I am actually starting to feel a little out of shape! There is a park along the trail so the boys and I have spent many afternoons hanging out at the park or even just watching the dogs swimming and playing in the "no leash" area along the trail. There is a Children's Museum across the river from the hotel so we could not have asked for a better location to be for keeping the kids busy. I was kind of dreading living in the hotel with two young kids, but it really has not been difficult at all. In addition to all of the nearby attractions, they have this nice little play area in the restaurant so Joshua and Noah have become morning regulars...I imagine the staff dread seeing us come in as we make a big mess, the restaurant is open to the lobby...so the noise my boys make kind of echoes throughout the atrium. Noah's latest party trick is smiling and just screaming at the top of his lungs...great...However the staff always seem very excited to see us and have really taken good care of us. The sad news is the restaurant is getting renovated and Mark has informed me that the play area may be gone as soon as next week!!!

We have been in total grocery store awe and excitement as we have twice visited the downtown flagship store of Whole Foods. Austin is where Whole Foods started and I have never experienced a grocery store where people seem so happy to be shopping! I love it! We just love going over there to eat dinner sometimes the food is amazing and the choices are endless.

I think our big hurdle is going to be finding a place to live. We have realized that we will never find a master-planned community quite like Celebration, but we are remaining hopeful that we will find a family friendly neighborhood with good schools and decent amenties. We loved this one area called Steiner Ranch which had many of the qualities we liked about Celebration but the commute is just too far for Mark. We are now looking into an area called Circle C...a master planned community only about 20 minutes to downtown. However the Austin market is actually doing well compared to the rest of the country and inventory is a little low. Anyway I am remaining optimistic that the right house is out there!

All in all our first week in Austin has been great everyone has been really friendly and helpful. One of my old roomates from when I lived in Hilton Head lives here and has a 4 year old boy - so it has been nice to at least know one person. The GM of the hotel and is wife and family have been extremely gracious as well...ensuring we have a nice spacious room, taking the boys for an afternoon so we could househunt and so on. The boys definitely miss their friends and doing laundry is a bit of a pain, and we don't have TIVO (Survivor is on at 7pm!!) but really it hasn't been bad at all.

I'm not sure when we will head back to Celebration. I'm really hoping to find us a house and Joshua a preschool before I head back with the boys, but who knows. However I think we will definitely head back in another couple of weeks regardless of if we found as house as I believe the boys will be really wanting to get back to their own things and routine by then.

Lots of Love!

Amy, Mark and the boys.

Cayman Memories

Photobucket Album

Way back in June Mark had bought me a plane ticket to Grand Cayman for our anniversary. The ticket was for a weekend in December, with the intention of giving me a break from the kids and some girl time with Brigitte and many of our other friends. As excited as I was I couldn't help but think that if I was going to Grand Cayman I should have Mark with me. As I began to grieve Brigitte's passing I knew that I wasn't going to face the memories alone and that we should all go as a family.

As short as our three day trip was it was truly a remarkable time. We had lived on Grand Cayman for five years and in some ways it felt as if we had never left. However there were definitely some remarkable changes to the island. The most poignant change was the Hyatt Regency. Hurricane Ivan had damaged much of the main part of the hotel and from what we understand a battle between the insurance company and hotel ownership has now left it to be an overgrown old building. As you look at the main hotel from a distance it looks the same as it always did...however as you get a closer look you see it is fully gutted and what was once the signature landscaping of the island is now just an overgrown jungle. Very sad. However the beach suite portion of the hotel was up and running and we enjoyed three nights with a wonderful view of Seven Mile Beach. We were privileged to encounter many of the old employees of the Hyatt-many wonderful souls who gave their heart to working for Hyatt. These employees had just found out that Hyatt was pulling out of Grand Cayman effective the end of the year. They will all most likely have jobs with the ownership who will run it as Grand Cayman Beach Suites, however there is a sense of pride in working for Hyatt and the standards of service that coincide. I think that is what truly was upsetting to the employees.

Despite the sad news of the Hyatt we had really a wonderful time catching up with many friends and their new additions of children and pets. We reminisced about old times and our 5 fabulous years on Cayman. I enjoyed early mornings with Noah watching the sunrise on Seven Mile Beach and was reminded about how much I love the beach. As plentiful as our trip was, we couldn't help but realize that there was one missing piece-our friend Brigitte Brown. We kept thinking she was just going to appear in our room going "Beddos!!". One of the highlights of our trip was getting to meet Bailey, the dog that Brigitte and her boyfriend Viv had adopted. He is a very well trained Jack Russell Terrier all the way from Ireland...Joshua and Noah had the best time playing with him.

As we tearfully said goodbye to Cayman and our many wonderful friends, we can only hope that it won't be another 5 years before we get back there.

Click on the above album to view a slideshow of our trip!

October Road

October has always been my favorite month. The weather is generally great wherever you are and it is all about Halloween my favorite holiday-when you work in the hotel industry your love for many holidays begins to diminish-Halloween is one of those great holidays that is really pure fun, no emotional ties, no big feast, and well Mark can generally get the day or at least the evening off! As September started to come to an end, everyone in the Bedford household was anxiously awaiting October. October was bringing Grandma and Grandpa Bedford to Orlando for the month, Joshua's birthday, and Halloween. We were eager to show Mark's parents our wonderful little town of Celebration, Disney and also let them experience Halloween since it isn't truly celebrated in Australia. Well we sure did have a fantastic time with them. We took them to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party complete with trick-or-treating through the Magic Kingdom, the Boo to You parade, Halloween fireworks and more. Luckily Mark's parents are the type to want to experience different things...it is really strange for many people to don a weird costume and go ask people for candy! When we pulled up at the Magic Kingdom Mark's dad would not get out of the car until he saw other adults dressed up. I can't blame him! Needless to say he soon was receiving many encouraging compliments on his costume.

October 8th marked Joshua's 3rd birthday! Wow we still can't believe he is now three...however we weren't too sad to say goodbye to the "terrible two's"...or at least we are hoping they are over. Given the fact that we don't really have a back yard nor a large house (by mainland standards) we decided to hold Joshua's party at My Gym. Basically all you do is show up with a cake and a few decorations and they take care of the rest. Not an easy feat keeping 17 young kids busy and out of trouble. Needless to say they did a FANTASTIC job and the kids had a great time. Tying into the My Gym theme I made a trampoline cake (Joshua LOVES to go on the trampoline at My Gym and of course it had to been GREEN-he loves GREEN), and then I made cupcakes to resemble the ball pit at My Gym. The kids were so cute they each had a cupcake and then wanted a piece of cake!

As much fun as October was it unexpectedly turned into windy, emotional road. On October 11th we unfortunately were given the news of the passing of our dear, dear friend Brigitte Brown. We had relocated to Grand Cayman not long after Brigitte and she soon became a close colleague, friend, mentor and confidant. We genuinely adored her and she did us the honor of giving a reading at our wedding as well as accepting our request to be Noah's Godmother. Brigitte was someone who brought out the best in you. We shared many laughs, many holidays, and yes many Amstel's. She is always in our thoughts. When we told Joshua we would be leaving for the day to go say goodbye to our friend Brigitte because she was becoming an angel. He told us that we could go outside and see her because she would be the brightest star in the sky. He sure is right. Brigitte you never stopped fighting, may you rest in peace.

Yummy, Yummy Rice Cereal

Noah gets his first tastes of real food (well if you call rice cereal real food) on August 31st. He is almost six months and watches everything that goes into our mouths so we thought it was time. You'd think I was a baby feeding novice as I didn't place the bowl out of the way and before I could blink he had it in his vice grip and soon the lucious rice cereal was all over him. Hey playing with it is all part of the experience right!!

We Finally See April

As you may have read in our previous posts regarding the Campbell Clan we had caught up with April's parents recently but it had been a long time since we had seen her. Therefore we were very excited when we heard that she was flying from Seattle to Florida to help her parents watch her nieces during Labor Day weekend. April's parents have a vacation home a little under two hours from our house in Celebration so we were definitely going to make the drive to see her. Mark pretty much is guaranteed to work most major holidays therefore we were even MORE excited to discover Mark would be off and could come to see April as well (and well I wouldn't have to travel that distance with the two kiddos myself).

April's nieces are 1 and 3 and then toss in our two crazy kids, Nala our dog, and April's dog Ivan and you've got quite the comical crew. Nothing like trying to catch up with an old friend while ensuring dogs don't go wandering, toddlers don't go near the pool and play-doh stays where it should be....all while trying to somehow watch a Penn State game. Too funny!

By Plane, By Car-Maine and PA

(The Billings Clan outside a restaurant in Maine)




Between parents on two continents and living in some remote locales we'd like to think of ourselves as fairly seasoned travelers. However nothing prepares you for traveling with kids and well the sheer amount of STUFF that goes along with kids. Toting along 4 bags, one set of golf clubs and two car seats let alone factoring in any carryon ...the luggage cart was overflowing. I wish I had a picture to post as well...but I was too busy trying to push two strollers while Mark pushed the heavy load of travel essentials. I had been eyeing up the double Maclaren Triumph to travel with but could not succumb to adding a 5th stroller to our growing fleet. However I was definitely rethinking my decision as I was attempting to push two strollers at once!
Once we got our luggage checked it was easy street. Our flight to Baltimore was two hours and didn't involve any connections. A breeze compared to our past travels. We had a day and half lounging by the Billings pool in PA before we began the second leg of our journey. The 15 hour car ride to Northern Maine to see my grandparents. Our strategy was to leave at 2am and get a few hours under our belt before our little angels awoke at 7am. This strategy proved very advantageous as we were stopping about every two hours after that. We knew it was time to pull over and find accommodation for the night when Joshua told us that he "didn't want to see anymore road signs and he wanted to go back to Celebration, Florida!!"
The long car ride was well worth it as we had 4 great days hanging out with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. My brother Marcus and his family as well as my parents made the trip up from PA so it really was a great time spent with family. Northern Maine boasts a notoriously "slow" pace therefore we busied ourselved breathing fresh air and enjoying the company of our relatives. Joshua was trying to keep up with his older cousins and Noah well he just charms people with those fat legs of his!
We stayed in these quaint little cabins just across the border in Grand-Falls Canada and of course had some lobster!











(Hanging with my grandparents)
(Joshua and Mark before their canoe ride)

Noah rolls over

Noah rolled over by himself for the first time today!