May 2012

It's pretty bad when you have to go back and look at pictures to update your blog... sigh.  I've been slack.  So here' last May.  Other than Gracie turning 4...

It warmed up for a few days, so we went to the beach and filled up the pool:

jumped at Monkey Joe's and in mud puddles

The kids did tennis lessons.  Gracie decided she was ready for a try and Elijah became an old pro:

Gracie went to the fire station with her school and Elijah took another field trip to Halyburton:

Mother's Day was quiet and fun:

Gracie had an end of the year party with her class at Monkey Joe's and then celebrated her last day of school with a little pot luck:

The HMS Bounty sailed into our port city and we went down to see what the big deal was:

Grace and I went with Elijah's class to Airlie Gardens for a final field trip and then we attended a super fun birthday party complete with water slide:

At the party, Elijah knocked his second loose tooth out...and FOUND it!  

It was definitely an eventful May.  I will move this to the May area in a week or so.  We'll see if I can actually get caught up and sometime soon!

10 on Monday

• Today is Jerry’s first day as an MBA student.  His books arrived after he had to leave for class.  Poor guy.  I still hope that today is a great first day for him!
• Today is the first day of Elijah’s last week of school.  I’m in denial that my boy is not a baby anymore.  sigh.
• Last week Grace and I went strawberry picking.  After a morning deluge, the rain stopped long enough for us to pick two buckets of strawberries.  And by us, I mean I.  I took a bunch of pics, but this has got to be my favorite!

She ate 6087234870 strawberries and I had taken as many pics and I think she was a little sick of both. heh.

• We have introduced the kids to Looney Tunes.  I love Looney Tunes!  There is one on a disc that has Porky Pig in it wondering why he has to learn about history.  At the end he says the Pledge of Allegiance.  In this episode he does NOT say “under God”!!  Yet further proof that it was added.  *eye roll*
• I am supposed to make cupcakes for Elijah’s graduation on Friday.  I’m not sure when I will find the time for this to happen.  But happen it will.
• We leave for a massive vacation in a couple weeks.  Stop #1 is Edisto Island!  I love this place.  It’s so peaceful and quiet and family friendly.  There are no fast food joints (unless you count Subway) and no real shopping and no movie theatres.  It’s pretty much the antithesis of Myrtle Beach (which, don’t get me wrong, I love too…)  Anyway, we go there with my folks for a week.  Then the kids and I are heading to the mountains with a quick stop in Denmark to enjoy the river for a bit.  We will stay up there until mid-July!!  It’s a long stay, but I’m sure it will be fun and action packed.
• The kids will do swim lessons again up in the mountains.  Elijah is so excited.  We have a small pool in the yard and he is already trying to do the crawl in it.  heh.  He has been talking lessons up to Gracie (who is still a little unsure.)  They will both do great.  I’m considering going on and signing Elijah up for the next level of classes…but we’ll see.  I don’t want to overwhelm him.
• A side note that I forgot on the weekend update: While running back and forth with Elijah to the bathroom.  The occasional break found them sitting on our bed watching TV (we have the Netflix Instant Watch in there) and I was working on something out in the living room.  Elijah yells out that Grace is eating Jerry’s candy.  I didn’t think that Jerry HAD any candy in the room, so I go in to see what’s going on.  Grace had taken the wrappers off of about 10 of Jerry’s cough drops, popped each one in her mouth, and then spit it out…on the floor.  Sigh.  Why there is not a Grace shape hole in the wall, I’m not sure.  I must have been having a quasi-calm moment.  sigh.
• This weekend (since Elijah saw to it that we stayed home…) Jerry and I went through most of the boxes we pulled out of storage and sorted through them.  We had about three HUGE boxes of books.  We went through all of them and pared it down to about half a box, which I was able to fit onto our shelves in the office.   It feels good to purge.
• Elijah is doing very well in his tennis class.  He pays attention and concentrates on what he’s doing intently.  This is his “I’m concentrating intently on what I’m doing” face:

• And a little bonus.  Hopefully, if my mom or mother in law are reading this, they have received their Mother’s Day gifts in the mail.  If not… please stop reading…  heh.  I made three gifts last Friday.  One was a Tree of Education pendant.  I have a picture on my phone, but haven’t posted it yet.  I made this for Elijah’s teacher.  We gave it to her Monday and she loved it!  I made my mother a Family Tree pendant.  I didn’t take a picture of it, because I’m an idiot.  Finally, I made a Family Tree Wall Hanging for Jerry’s mom.  I made it bigger, because 1) she doesn’t wear jewelry and 2) she has 5 kids and 8 (almost 9) grandkids.  It could have been done on a smaller scale, but I think it turned out really nice on a larger scale.

At the base are Jerry’s parents: From left to right: Jerry with our two kids branching off, Lisa with her four kids branching off, Ron (no kids yet), Matthew with his two, and Carry with her one (due in October.)  Beads can be added if more kids come into the lives of the siblings.  I thought it turned out quite nice.
So that’s it for this Monday!  Check out the C25K blog to see how that’s going.  I try to update every morning that I run!

10 on Monday!

• This Saturday was massively busy but so good!  We dropped Jerry of for his MBA orientation and then headed to Memory Lane Comics.   The kids really enjoyed it and racked up on the stuff. They each got 4 comic books, a Star Wars action figure with commemorative glass, a Star Wars plane, and a fishing pole. They each purchased some action figures and overall had a great time.  There were no action heroes there while we were there, and in retrospect that was good.  Elijah isn't the most thrilled with larger than life things in costume.  So we went to Dunkin Donuts and had bagels and then went to the park.

• Saturday evening we went to the beach to celebrate a friend's birthday.  It was really fun and we all had a great time!  All the kids have no sense of how freezing the water feels, and played until their teeth were chattering and their lips were blue.  So fun!!

• Mother's Day was really nice.  Jerry helped the kids make me some gifts and he got me a watch and new headphones for my MP3 player. 
• We went to Chris's Cosmic Kitchen for breakfast and since I'm a mom, I got a free slice of cheese cake...mmmmmm.....
• We went to Dick's and got a sunshade for the beach.  We came home and set it up in the yard...it was awesome!  We went to the beach and tried it in pretty bad evening wind... and not so much. We will try it again on a not so windy day and hopefully it will be better.  
• Today was my first day doing the Couch to 5K.  I have started a website to track my progress.  This is a link to the website.
• Today was also Elijah's first day at tennis lessons.  And though I am completely biased, he rocked!  He is so athletic!  

• Tomorrow is beach day for Elijah's class. I am going to take Grace to yoga at the library... I feel like I am driving all the time these days, but soon school will be over and I will feel very stuck at home.  But that will only last for a couple weeks because...
• We go on vacation the fifth of June. We will be in Edisto Island for the week and then the kids and I will go home with my folks to stay for quite a few weeks.  YAY for summer!!!
• Finally, my parents rock for many reasons, but recently they have offered us their car.  We are thrilled with this as being a one car family while Jerry will be in school AND Elijah will be in Kindergarten AND Grace will be in Pre-K.  Phew!  I will still be driving very much, but it's nice to have the option of the second car.  So thanks mom and dad!!!