Thursday, July 10, 2008

Brownie Invasion at the Nick Hotel!!

the Nickolodeon Hotel in Orlando hosted their annual 'Girl Scout' month in May (giving special discounts to girl scouts). Our ever ambitious Brownie troop took a weekend and went to check it out!





























Seven Brownies and seven moms (and one big sister, Sara) checked in on Friday and had a weekend full of wet, wild fun!















We started around 9:00 am - and we were practically the only ones at the pool!















Of course by lunch, we had been joined by hundreds more!

Monday, July 07, 2008

New Beach, Old Friends

Some of our dearest friends from Idaho were in Hilton Head, SC recently! When friends from Idaho are that close (relatively speaking) - you gotta go visit them! This is the first time we've seen these guys in over three years! So we drove up and barged in on their family reunion!




















Sara and Maddie - boogie board babes!
















Anna and Sydney
















Jake and Conner















All these kids and I still didn't get them all in the picture - missing about 4 more! Talk about a FULL HOUSE!
We had a great time and I have decided we should make this an annual event! ;-)

More Swimming!

Thanks to our wonderful neighbor - we have some more great pictures from swimming!




















Super Dad - serving as a volunteer timer! (Dark shorts, straw hat)











Anna doin' the backstroke!




















Jake and Carly





















I have become a swim mom! Yikes! (that's a bad angle...)



More from Jake - and when I say more... I mean more.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

One place in Florida that stays cold year round...

That's right - we went ice skating! Well, I shouldn't say 'we' because there was no 'me' on the ice!
Sara and her buddy Jenna decided to have a combined birthday party since their birthdays are only ten days apart! So they invited all the girls in their class plus a few and of course, their siblings!















Sara and Savannah - through the glass - not a good way to take pictures!















I was surprised how well Sara and Anna did - they definately didn't get the ice skating gene from me... so that must mean Greg has done some figure skating that I don't know about!















Waitin' for the zamboni to finish...















Happy Birthday Sara and Jenna!

WHAT A DAY!!!

Saturday June 7, 2008 - What a crazy day! It started out with the first swim meet of the season. All three kids are on the swim team - so we were up and out of the house by 7:00am. Our swim meets typically last til around lunch time! So we finished up as quickly as possible and Greg had to leave with Jake to get him to his last baseball game of the season that started at 1:00. The girls and I were about 1/2 hour behind, but we made it in the middle of the first inning. Jake's games last around 1 1/2 hours so as soon as his game was over, Anna and I left to go horsebackriding with the Brownie troop. It was a long hot completely FULL day!















This is Anna about to take off in lane 4. She's wearing green goggles!
















This is Jake in lane 4 - he's also wearing green goggles! He won his heat - swimming 25 yd freestyle for 6 & under.















This is something we may not see again for a while! That's Sara and Anna at the far end getting ready to swim a relay together. Sara swims with 9&10 year olds and they had a freestyle relay but one of the swimmers on their relay team had to leave early. The coaches asked Anna if she would swim in place of the girl who left. Even though Anna swims in 8 & under she did great! She held her own and their team finished in second place! Unless she's asked to fill in again - the next time they might possibly swim together on a relay team is when Anna turns 13!












My little mermaids!
All three kids are doing fantastic at swimming, Greg and I are very proud of them.

So next we move on to the final teeball game of the year. Jake refuses to call it teeball - so I should correct that and say the final BASEBALL game of the year. Jake's team is the Phillies and they've done pretty well this year. Of course there's no official score keeping, but every parent at every game knows who's winning! Even though it's teeball, the coaches pitch to them - the rule is they get 2-3 pitches and if they don't hit a pitch, then they hit off the tee. Jake has been doing great and most of the time hits pitches. He sometimes plays pitcher (he doesn't pitch the ball, just plays the position...) and will stop grounders and make great throws to first base. His only problem is catching the ball - guess we can work on that during the off season!















He looks more like a soilder...















What a cutie!




Here's a video of Jake... gettin' a hit and makin' it to first base! That's my boy! And yes, my big mouth can be heard loud and clear!

On to the next event of our marathon day... Horseback riding with the Brownies!


We had to split the troop into two groups - we chose the group that started later for OBVIOUS reasons!






























My little cowgirl! I had a video of her riding - but I think it's too big to upload. Anna will be pissed!

Monday, June 16, 2008

Visitors!!!

FINALLY! We have had our first visitors! I should qualify that 'cause we did have some friends stay with us one night and that was nice, but this is the first visit we've had where our visitors stayed more than one night! One of my best buddies, Lisa and her two kids Chloe and Tucker stayed with us for a week! We had a great time - hope they did too!















Anna, Chloe, Sara, Tucker & Jake
















The kids got to swim with the dolphins for FREE! Chloe and Sara also had a wildlife encounter with a manatee!















Anna and Jake did some snorkeling!















The kids enjoyed having friends stay with us and were extra glad they got to take a couple days off school!

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

The Little Red Hen

This was too cute! Jake, along with all the other kindergartener's put on a show recently.
The Little Red Hen! MOST of the kids were chicks. So here is Jake looking completely terrified on the front row fourth from the right!
















Now here we are "in costume!" Front row, third from the right.
They all wore these little chicken masks on their heads.














It was so cute!
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Saturday, March 29, 2008

Yes, I know!

Ok so it's been MONTHS since I've posted anything! Sorry about that! We've been busy - mostly with just life! Seems the kids always have something going on and I've been trying to paint the house - trying being the operative word. So far I've painted ONE whole room, but I'm still not completely done! It's Anna's room and there's still some decorative stuff to be added. Hopefully, I'll have some before and after shots posted by next year! LOL! At any rate, between Girl Scouts (thank the Lord cookie season is over), teeball, chorus, homework, holidays, birthdays etc, etc, etc, blogging has taken a back seat! Besides - it seems that I haven't been taking very many pictures either - most of these posts are from last year - (be sure to watch the videos). But it is a new year and perhaps, maybe I can keep up with this a little better - or not! Love to all!

Jake's Birthday

Jake celebrated his 6th birthday in February!
















What a dude!

A day at Daytona Speedway!



The Girl Scouts sponsored a special day at the Daytona speedway so we thought that would be a good time to visit! We were fortunate enough to be there while they were doing some test runs. The cars were REALLY fast and REALLY loud as you can tell by the kids covering their ears! We had a lot of fun!

Christmas Music!

Each kid had a show this Christmas! All the second grade classes put on a "Winter Magic" show. Anna's class did a dance with snowflakes! She is on the right with her snowflake over her head.
















Front row, third one from the left with her hat on!
















Sara joined her chorus group at school and they put on a performance at the Landing in Jacksonville, which is sort of a mall type area right on the St. Johns River in downtown Jacksonville.



















Jake's class had a reindeer party and put on a show for the parents! It was way too cute!
















I really wanted to add a video of Jake singing, but it was too big and he said he was too embarrassed!

Friday, March 28, 2008

Brownie Sunday

Anna's Brownie troop has been major busy! This was back in October!!

They invaded St. Augustine and had a special Brownie ceremony, then made friendship bracelets for each other at a local shop called the Bead Chick, visited the Fort where I took them on a tour, played at the park, ate dinner, AND then went on a ghost tour of St. Augustine with another parent/tour guide! It was a long day, but everyone had a great time! This was a family activity so lots of siblings (including Anna's) attended!















































Thursday, March 27, 2008

Soccer time!

These are some great pictures one of the other parents took of Jake. Too good not to show!















Gettin' down - he loves being goalie!
















This is one of my favorites!

















I like this one too - that's a tattoo (temporary of course) on his cheek!

Monday, December 17, 2007

Merry CHRISTmas!

Wishing you WARMEST Christmas greetings from Sunny Florida!

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

May the Force be with You!

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

Actually, it was just last month on Halloween!
I'm not sure how this happened, but all the kids decided to be Star Wars characters!
















Sara started this whole thing with Princess Leia. She's become this Star Wars fanatic lately - so she and Jake have something to talk about.




















So Jake was Darth Vader and he walked around saying things like "Your powers are weak old man." It was hilarious!





















But I have to say, my greatest shock came when Anna said she would be Yoda! That ugly little creature that speaks in backwards sentences! Anna thought it was great having her face painted green. School pictures were THE NEXT DAY - so as I applied that green make-up I said a little prayer that it would all come off! Prayer answered! That night, she carried my ipod with an external speaker and they marched around all night to the Star Wars theme and the Imperial March (that's Darth Vader's music!) - everyone loved it.








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