Caroline Day

One Year ago today Rick and I became parents in a hotel lobby in Nanchang, China. In some ways in seams like we have always had Caroline and in other ways I question where the year went. A year ago Caroline slept in her stroller and watched TV all night. That was after she cried for two hours. It became clear that she loved the stroller and the stroller became our friend. One year later she still loves the stroller and she loves to go but can I count the ways our girl has grown. She loves to laugh, play and talk. She loves her mom and dad and big sister and brother. Tonight we will celebrate Caroline Day with green and pink butterfly cupcakes. I will end tonight the same way I ended a year ago. I will thank God for our answered prayers and I will pray for the mother that left her so she could be ours.

Our Backyard.

Rick and I love to travel and we have found it a little difficult with Caroline being so young. So until she gets a little older we have been trying to enjoy our backyard
We are currently on Spring Break but have really enjoyed the last few weeks. Rick and I have made a real effort to enjoy the local area around us. Both of us grew up in the area but we have discovered lately that our little local area has a lot of fun.
We loved to go and stay on Fifth Avenue in Naples or just go and have lunch. Fifth Avenue has a lot of unique shops. It is within walking distance of the beach. We often go and have lunch and then we walk to the beach.
We are also on a big exercise commitment so we try to at least to incorporate long walks into what we do. So two weeks ago we joined the Naples Botanical Garden. Every week we try to go and enjoy the natural beauty while we walk a few miles. Caroline loves it.

Although we look forward to the day when we can pull our passport back out and travel to someone else’s backyard for now we are enjoying ours.
So here are a few of the spots we have been to lately:

Naples Beach Hotel

http://www.naplesbeachhotel.com/

This is an older hotel in Naples. You can have dinner right on the beach. The sunset is great

http://www.naplesgarden.org/

This where we love to enjoy the gardens and walk

The Inn on Fifth is in a great location to enjoy downtown Naples

We enjoy the beach but really do not go as much as we should.

Fifth Ave is in downtown Naples and is a tourist area. It has lots of great shops and restaurants.

The Asian Garden is one of our favorite stops along our walk.

On Sunday Rick, Caroline and I all went to the Naples Botanical Garden
The Naples Botanical Garden is local tropical gardens with beautifully restored natural habitats. So last week we went to the Corkscrew Swamp and this week we went to the gardens. We are not trying to be tourist in our own town. Although we do live in a tourist town. Rick and I have started the Couch to 5K program So we run every other day on the days that we do not run we try to walk a few miles. So on Sundays we try to take Caroline to interesting places where we can incorporate a long walk and then we go out to a lazy lunch.

http://www.naplesgarden.org/Visiting_the_Garden.aspx