Merry Christmas!!

My BAD

YIKES - geez it's been almost a year since I've been on here! My big bad! Blame it on Facebook where I seem to be spending most of my non-work related time these days! I will update this blog soon... I promise! ;-)

Wards Creek Elementary Chorus

Once again, the Wards Creek Elementary School Chorus performed Christmas music at the Landing in downtown Jacksonville!

Last year, the weather was perfect for this outdoor performance! This year not so much....
But you can bet that a little rain didn't dampen the mood - after all these kids are on a field trip - away from school!! What's not fun about that?

Of course, it was the only rainy day that week!

Trick or Treat!

It's that time of year again... more candy than we need or could ever eat!
Here's our little trick-or-treaters - this year we have Juliet, a Chinese princess, and a Storm trooper, although he refused to wear the helmet!




















Also joining us were Cleopatra and a little black cat!
They all had fun and of course, got way too much candy!

Like ... Totally!

This is not a very good picture, but I just had to post it! This is Saturday - before Halloween and some friends in the neighborhood are having a Halloween party! Can you guess the theme? Yep, 80s! I didn't take my camera 'cause I was told after the party last year that NO cameras would be allowed. Apparently, things got out of hand last year and the photographic evidence was somewhat incriminating! However, there were several cameras there and hopefully I'll get some copies of the more mild pictures!

And don't even think that we're done with Halloween... not in this neighborhood! We have another big party on Halloween night, so there will be more pics to come!


John, Cindy, Lachlan, Kristen, Mitch, Kelli, Greg and Me!

Our new hobby...

Now we've found a new hobby! Rock climbing - of course here in Florida that means indoors on a climbing wall, but it's still fun. Jake was invited to a 'rock climbing birthday party' and that was where we got our first taste. Now I try to go at least once a month and Sara has been begging to go too! Jake's not too sure about it, but had a good time at the party!

Back to School!

Yes - I know it's been a looooooong time since I've updated this site! Too long! And I don't know how it happens... since I don't have a real 'paying' job, but I always seem soooo busy! So now the kids are back in school... that should help, but then again maybe not. I still seem to keep busy - trying to stay fit, walking the dog everyday - running on occasion, and I've been totally book-obsessed lately! But enough about me... this is the 'livelykids' blog afterall! So here they are! Ready for a new school year, even though they had to start a day late because of Hurricane Fay! Sara is in 5th grade, Anna in 3rd grade and Jake in 1st grade. This year is actually a little sad for me... this is the last year that they will all three be at the same school. Sara moves on to middle school next year. Can't stop them growing up!

Horse Camp!

OK - I never would have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes! My girls wanted to go to horse camp this summer! Thanks to our great neighbor, Cindy, it worked out perfectly. So Sara and Anna went to horse camp 8:00 - 5:00 everyday for a week and they absolutely LOVED it! They never once complained about the heat, about the dirt, about the smell, about the work they had to do or even about scrapping the horse poo off the bottom of the horses hooves! MY LITTLE PRINCESSES SCRAPPED HORSE POO WITH A SMILE! Unbelievable - so now I guess this is something we're going to have to do...

Anna loves Trudy!

Sara rode several different horses during the week! Both girls did fantastic!

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!

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.