Charlotte turns 11 in Cocoa Beach!

Because Zac has to travel so much with his work, we get to reap the rewards of airline miles, hotel stays, and credit card points.  Every now and then he has a work trip that comes up in a vacation destination and we have started taking our kids one at a time to enjoy a one-on-one trip with them.  This year, he had a need to be on Cocoa Beach, Florida over Charlotte's birthday and we decided it was time to take Charlotte on a trip with us.  We kept it a surprise right up until a couple of days before the trip.  She was so surprised when we let her open a week early present!

This girl has only flown once before when we went to Disneyland and she thought it was great to have an unlimited choice of movies and the sky-high view out the window.

A beach vacation is just what this girl would have chosen as she really loves the sun!

Ashlyn and Tanner hooked her up with some early presents of sunglasses, sandals, and all of her travel necessities.

We could not believe how much this girl loved the ocean.  First thing in the morning, she was begging to get out to the beach and then she spent no joke 4 hours in the water just jumping waves, looking for shells, and body surfing.  And then spent another 4 hours the next day doing the same thing!

There was a fun mini-golf place by our hotel that had actual live gators, snakes, reptiles, and birds. 

Charlotte got a chance to hold a gator.  She was so brave.

We found out while we were in Florida that Space X would be launching the Falcon 9 loaded with satellites up into space at 4 a.m. Wednesday morning.  We couldn't believe our luck as were very close to Cape Canaveral and decided to get up at 3:30 a.m. to drive as close as we could to the rocket launch... which was apparently not where we were supposed to be as we were asked to leave by the police.

After going back to the hotel to get a little more sleep, we got up and visited The Kennedy Space Center, where we spent hours and hours looking at space shuttles and satellites that have actually been in space!!  We also checked out all of the other very cool displays.  NASA has turned the Kennedy Space Center into a space nerd's Disneyland.  It is amazing and we were entertained and inspired.

Some more beach and space pics in no particular order:

The day of Charlotte's actual birthday, Zac and I surprised her with a little birthday cake and a balloon.  The rest of the day was spent making our way back toward home.

Our beautiful hotel had a large lazy river and was just a walk across the street to the beach.  Charlotte loved having her own "room" in our hotel room with her own TV where she could watch whatever shows she wanted without any complaints from siblings or parents.

On the way to the airport, we stopped at a manatee sanctuary hoping to catch a glimpse of the friendly cow of the sea.

Unfortunately, this sculpture was all we were able to see.

It was a very late Walmart run at 11 p.m. when we finally arrived back in Blackfoot and Charlotte and I ran into the bakery to grab a cake and some ice cream to take home to share with the brave siblings who had babysat all week long.  (I love having older kids!!)

And just before her birthday ended at midnight, she was able to blow out her candles and make a wish... though I don't know what else she could possibly wish for after such a dreamy vacation.j

10 Things to Know About Charlotte

1. People often think she is older than she actually is.  Contributing to this fact is that she is tall for her age, she is also good with her hair and clothes, and she talks like she is an adult.  She has the wit and humor of a mature adult and adults enjoy having conversations with her.  She has always been very precocious for her age.

2. Charlotte is athletic.  She has played various leagues with basketball, volleyball, and softball and she seems to do well at all of them.  She loves participating and never turns down an invitation for a travel team.  It has been so fun watching her get more aggressive, stronger, and more skilled over the years.  She is a contributing scorer on the basketball court, she is getting her serves down in volleyball, and she can smack the ball out to the outfield almost every time in softball.

3. This girl loves arts and crafts.  She got a monthly subscription to a maker crate for Christmas and it has been the best gift ever for her.  She loves making and creating art.  She is learning so many different techniques from punch needed, to paper pulp art, to sewing.  She also just loves sketching and painting and has a natural ability for art.

4. She is learning how to bake and cook and she loves it.  She has been learning some basic meals that she can prepare for the family and she loves to whip up a batch of cookies.  She is finally getting old enough to be independent with a recipe.

5. Charlotte is getting so good at doing her hair!  She got a curling wand for Christmas and she had it mastered in a week.  She also got several little hair gadgets and gizmos and she has learned to make her hair so cute with them. She is completely on her own now with her hair, I don't have to help her anymore, which is very freeing.

6. She is also very stylish.  One of her favorite pastimes is shopping!  She is always begging to go to the mall and feels shoppers high when she can order clothes online.  She has such a cute style that even her older sister is envious of her closet.

7. Charlotte is obsessed with reading.  She can disappear for hours at a time into a book and as soon as she finishes a book, she is begging to go to the library to find her next read.  Her teacher has to set her reading goals pretty high to keep her challenged.

8. Charlotte does very well at school!  She pulls straight A's and gets very stressed out if she thinks she might not be getting an A.  She is involved with the gifted and talented program at school and it is so fun to hear of the fun and challenging projects that they keep her working on.

9. Charlotte is very musical.  She can sing like an angel and is the only one of my kids that I can get to sing.  She has been asked to sing several times during sacrament meetings in our church, solos as well as duets and group numbers.  I can't believe how brave she is to be able to sing a solo in front of a crowd!  She also picked up the violin this year in the school orchestra program and is doing great and she continues to grow and progress on the piano.  She is amazing at music.

10. This girl is awesome at making friends.  She is very friendly, funny, and outgoing.  Whenever she gets to have a friend over, it is always agony trying to decide on just one because she has so many friends she loves.  She is chatty and cheerful and full of creative fun ideas, which makes her so fun to be around.

We love our Charlie Bear!!