Sunday, April 28, 2013

1st T-shirt quilt!

A friend of mine asked me to help her make a t-shirt quilt for her daughter who was graduating High School. It was so much fun to do and I love how it turned out. Thankfully, Mom and Daughter do too! This soooo made me want to make quilts out of mine & Tim's old race t-shirts. Maybe.......when I find that bucket of time. :-)

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Park fun with Friends

Gorgeous Saturday = Park play with friends. We were finally able to coordinate schedules to meet up with Ryan and Colin (Eli's buds from Primrose). It was great for the boys to see their friends and I loved catching up with my friends too (their Moms!). Fun was had by all and there were hot and sweaty boys when we left. A sure sign of fun!

Happy Brothers!
Oh the cuteness that is Cole-man
Some serious digging going on
Digger Junior
Some field time
Captain Cole-maaaaannnnn
Silly!
Colin, Eli, Ryan, Cole
Tried for a silly shot but only Cole got silly for me. The other boys gave me great smiles!

Friday, April 26, 2013

LES Sock Hop

Tonight Eli's school had a sock hop and we took the whole family. Cole loved running around with a buddy of his from daycare. Eli loved running around with and seeing all his friends - fun stuff when there's not actual school involved! We checked out all the silent auction items (still in the running for two items!), the dance floor and the food vendors. A fun crazy time with all the kiddos at LES!

Cole and Will - trapped in the soccer goal
Time to dance - they had a crazy socks contest and we saw some fun ones!

My Little Munchkin

Early morning breakfast run - Friday morning treat!

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Funny faces of Cole-man

Tonight at dinner, we were playing "Truth or False" - a game the boys came up with where we make true statements and sometimes we make silly statements. Then it's up to everyone at the table to decide if it's "Truth" or "False". The boys got to giggling about something, I don't even remember but Cole's facial expressions were hilarous. I tried to catch them on camera and was marginally successful. Boy oh boy, does he have a silly personality! We love the funny faces of Cole-man!!




Sunday, April 21, 2013

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Garden prep and Good Lucks

Our main focus this weekend was to get the garden ready to plant. We needed to clean out the raised bed and till / clean out the individual beds. The boys had to supervise Daddy and his garden work. Of course that involved running around with their dump trucks. I took the opportunity to find some "good lucks" - four leaf clovers. Superstition or not, I love finding them! A pretty calm relaxing weekend at our house. It's good to be home! 

Weeds / overgrowth pulled
Running around with dump trucks - I think this is a top five family past time!
Daddy our tilling man
Where are the good lucks? 
Searching......
Mommy found one!
Laying new fabric

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Pump It Up - birthday style with light sabers

Tonight we went to Pump It Up to celebrate Eli's buddy AJ's birthday. It was everything a great birthday party should be - friends, inflatables, light sabers and cake. Eli and AJ are in swim class together and have become friends. All of the kids had such a great time running around, jumping and sword fighting. It was really great that Cole got to come too! And all that excitement led to easy bedtime around here. Yay for a weeknight party!!

Trying to reach the top - notice the light sabers in the shirt backs. 
Hey Cole!! He was not happy to start but then found his way. 
Determined
and Grumpy
The whole birthday crew - minus Cole, not interested in a picture
Happy Birthday AJ!
AJ's sweet sister Avery - love that face, icing is awesome!
Buds!!

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Last Day of Work

Today was my last day of work at my current company. It doesn't quite feel real yet. Walking out of the office, leaving everything - phone, computer, paper - behind and knowing that no one would be calling or emailing me. Quite a weird feeling when you've been somewhere 8-1/2 years. I'm not a company hopper. In fact I've never taken a job that I felt was "temporary" or a "stepping stone". I've always jumped in with both feet and did my very best, only company changes and / or people changes made me re-evaluate. This move has been a long time coming. A few tough years with some of the people I worked for made me question the integrity of some folks (both in my company and our clients) and realize it was not where I wanted or needed to be. A VERY long process to answer the question of where I belong has finally come to conclusion. In construction for almost 17 years, I've mostly done Education work - both public and private / both K-12 and University work. My new opportunity will allow me to be Executive Director of Construction for a local school system. It's a dream job for me and it takes me back to what I love.....K-12 schools. 

For now, I get 2 weeks off to try to handle some life-stuff before starting over. I know it will go by fast but hopefully I can start scratching off the super long to-do list I have. Wish me luck!!

Sunday, April 7, 2013

The Easter Bunny was here! Happy to be home.....

It was nice to wake up already home today - even after yesterday's LONG drive. The boys were super excited to see that the Easter Bunny had left something in their Easter Baskets while we were on vacation. We didn't want to lug their baskets to Florida and back so they put them on the table in hopes that EB wouldn't forget them. And EB didn't disappoint!! A new Lego Kit, matching Angry Bird pajamas, jelly beans and a Chocolate Easter Bunny! They were both thrilled and immediately wanted to put together their new Legos. The rest of our day was spent de-campering - we cleaned out the camper, I did LOTS of laundry and we tried to get everything back in its' place. Cole also tried out the trail-a-bike this afternoon and loved it. Bye Bye Bike trailer!! Very nice to have the full day to do so instead of driving today. Now we can go to church and try to relax a bit tomorrow before heading back to work! 

Easter Bunny goodies
Just what Cole wanted!
Are we born to know that you eat the bunny ears first?
Apparently so!
Lego Build time - Eli got a race car, Cole got the tanker truck
Head stand
"I don't want to take a nap Mommy"
Eli / Daddy bike racing
Cole was a little "iffy" at first on the trail-a-bike but you can see he loved it
I'd be happy with Daddy pulling me too!
Time for more fun biking adventures!

Saturday, April 6, 2013

Vacation Day 9: The drive home.....

The plan for yesterday was to drive to the same place in Georgia that we camped on the way down (about half-way), camp for the night and then finish driving home today. We got up, had breakfast and then packed everything up to hit the road. We ran into some traffic going through Orlando (seems like that place ALWAYS has a lot of traffic) but other than that, getting out of Florida went pretty well. We made sure to stop at rest areas to stretch / run the boys and hit the bathrooms. That worked great and I don't remember a potty emergency. The boys were super great travelers. The trip home was rolling along until we hit Georgia. We got to our exit for the campground about 3pm and decided to push on home - it had only taken up about 7 hours to get to that point so we thought "Hey, we'll be home by 10pm. Sounds great - let's keep going!". Oh what a bad decision that was. Literally just a few miles past the campground exit, traffic came to a stop. And barely rolled along for a LONG time. We saw on an exit that there was a fort so we hopped off to do something fun with the boys. It ended up being 10 miles off the road but Fort McAllister was a God-send to let the boys play. We had to bundle up because the air and wind off the water was chilly, not like the warm temps we had left behind in Florida. We played for a while and then decided to find something to eat. We ended up at Golden Corral and boy was it perfect. We were all so hungry - steaks for me and Tim, chicken fingers for the boys. After that, we went off-Interstate and I navigated through some serious back roads. As in, barely any signs of civilization. We stayed out there as long as I could handle (I was nervous about running out of gas, something happening and no one being able to find us - irrational but that was me!) and then we made our way back to I95. It ended up being a great detour and we much prefer a longer route moving that just sitting in traffic. We stopped in SC to fuel up and then boogie for home. It was about 9 or 10pm and Eli & I had a breakdown moment. The boys were so good but at this moment, while Tim was pumping gas, he had tears in his eyes when he said he just wanted to be home. I told him that I did too and I was sorry for not stopping. The boys shortly fell asleep and Tim & I were bound to get home. We made it back to our county, could almost smell home and then....had to stop for gas again! We didn't want to but after we filled up, we knew we could have run out on the highway. We pulled in the driveway about 2am - 17 hours after we started the drive. Granted it wasn't 17 hours continuous but it sure was a long day! We pulled in the driveway, grabbed the boys and hit our beds. Today, it was definitely worth it to wake up in our own beds and not have a 5+ hour drive to get home but boy it was a long day. It was also great to catch up on laundry and de-vacation everything. 

So to sum up our 1st ever family vacation - AWESOME!! 1682 miles and a lot of fun and memories. The camper was great, camping in it was great. The boys behaved so well and had a blast. We loved seeing our family, having daily adventures and just hanging out. Eli & Cole seemed to love camping life and it was just a great time. I wouldn't change a thing (even the long drive yesterday because even though it was tough, it worked out perfectly for today). So glad we went and we will definitely do it again!!


Family shot at our last campsite
Eli quickly scaled the climbing wall at the Fort playground
Beautiful.......
Monkey Eli on the Monkey bars
Fort McAllister
Hilarious outfit! But it was pretty chilly and we were still dressed Florida-style. 
Hey Cole!!
Swinging fun - these two crack me up
Happy face - happy to be out of the truck!!