Memorial Day Weekend

We spent a lot of time at the pool this weekend since it was so hot. Here's a few pics from our weekend:

Zach didn't want to get his picture taken with Aunt Kelly but while he was fooling around I got this one.

Lauren, Kristin and Ilene being silly.

Lauren, Ilene and Megan enjoying the beautiful weather outside.

Alex with his cute smile.

Thanks Aunt Kelly for taking a family picture.

Megan is my little model, she loves getting her picture taken.

I'm not sure what Zach was doing but he was having lots of fun with those stick looking things.

Kristin was watching Aunt Kelly, daddy, Zach and Uncle Steve play a game.

Zach being entertained by Ilene in the pool.

Another cutie pie... Ryan was filling his bucket with water.

Zach was jumping off the diving board and Paul was catching him. He did this over and over and over.

One last picture of Zach enjoying the pool.

And that was our weekend! It was perfect weather for the pool and it was great seeing all the family. Here's hoping next weekend is warm too.

Lauren Update

You all know that Lauren got a concussion last month, well, not even a month ago. She got cleared to go back to playing soccer and all was okay until this past Tuesday. During the game she collided heads with another girl yet again. I don't think it was quite as bad of a hit as the first time but to make a long story short, she has another concussion.

She saw a specialist today who told her that she needs to rest as much as possible and do no physical activity at all until the doctor tells her it's okay. Lauren is to go back to her for weekly visits until then, probably for about a month.

If she keeps hitting her head the girl is going to permanently look like this:
LOL! Just kidding Lauren. Everybody makes faces at me anymore when I take pictures, I guess I take way too many! Anyway, she has 3 days this weekend to take it easy and then she will go to school next week on a limited schedule.

I'm so glad it's almost summer (and that soccer is over.)

End of the Year Picnic

Today, to end the preschool year, the school held their annual picnic/fair that Zach went to with Paul (I had to work it).

They had a beanbag toss...
Sand art...

Zach showing off his sand art creation while eating his freeze pop...

A moon bounce...

And even horse rides...

There was also a duck pond, tattoos and another craft table.

Plus there was pizza, soft pretzels, water ice, a popcorn machine, tons of veggies and fruit and loads of desserts.

It was a fun day, glad the weather held out so the kids could enjoy it. I can't believe that Zach will be in Pre-K next year.

I don't want any more visitors!

Not the human kind, you all are more than welcome, I'm talking about the wildlife.

Megan was outside playing and she came in running saying that there was a snake in the garage! Of course Paul wasn't home and there was no way I was going to be able to sleep knowing there was a snake in the garage so I had to get it out. She said she saw it slither under my car. After carefully looking underneath I backed out my car, got a flashlight and started shining it behind things. Luckily I found it quickly but now how to get rid of it? No way was I touching it or going too close. While keeping my eye on it in case it moved I grabbed a shovel off the wall and started using that to push some of the junk out of the way and to get him out of his hiding spot. Here's the little intruder: (yes, I grabbed my camera too!)
He didn't look very big curled up but he was probably between 12" and 18". I guess to most people that's not big, too big for my tastes though. Shoot, a baby snake is too big for me!

This is how I get rid of snakes, by cutting them in half with a shovel.

I will never look at my garage the same again. Now to just hope the mama snake doesn't come after me for revenge!

Talent Show

Tonight Megan had her talent show at her school. Her and her friend Martina sang "I gotta Feeling" by the Black Eyed Peas.

They didn't sing the whole song for the talent show but I cut it down even more to put it on here. Megan's the one that you can hear singing but in Martina's defense I don't think her microphone was either on or turned up. There were some more group acts after theirs and you could tell that one microphone was definitely louder than the other. I think they did pretty good for 4th graders though and was surprised that Megan wasn't the least bit nervous about it.

Look who visited us?

A snapping turtle! We were pulling into our driveway after church yesterday and Paul was just about to ask if I had bought a stone turtle for a decoration when it moved it's head. It was in the mulch between the air conditioner and driveway.
I have never seen a snapping turtle before and at first had no idea what kind of turtle it was. I've seen plenty of box turtles and knew it wasn't that, this one was huge and had a long tail. Well, it wasn't long before we realized what it was when Paul tried to move the thing and it snapped it's head back at him. Man they have some long necks! Every time Paul went to touch him he would hiss and snap.

Somehow Paul managed to get the turtle into a box and then we drove it down to the pond at the beginning of our development. At the time we had no idea if they liked water or not so we (well, actually Paul) dumped it near some bushes that were close to the pond.

It wasn't until later when I searched snapping turtles on the computer that I realized that they do live in/near water. At least he was close to the pond so hopefully he was smart enough to find it. But then again we found him by our house, far from the pond. Not sure how he got there. I'm really hoping he doesn't come back!

Confirmation Day...

...for Kristin today at church. She's been taking classes every Sunday for the past few months and finally today was the day for her to be confirmed.

This past Friday there was a dinner for all the confirmands (there were 6 of them) and their families. Each confirmand had to decorate a table any way they wanted, Kristin chose an under the sea theme. We went in early to decorate and here's Kristin with her table. The only thing we forgot to bring were the little stuffed ocean animals we had so we just put them on right before the dinner. Our full table Friday evening.

All the confirmands were given a cross necklace after the dinner.

All the kids had a verse or two of scripture to read during church today. Usually she talks so quietly but she did a great job, even the people in the back could hear her. Of course the microphone helped. :)

Papaw was her mentor during the classes so I had to get a picture of the two of them. Plus it shows the pretty dress she was wearing.
If you think Kristin looks different it's because she got her hair cut a couple of weeks ago and has bangs for the first time in years. I guess she was ready for a change.

Nascar day

We're not Nascar fans but Paul was offered tickets for yesterday's race and since they were skybox seats we went. I had no problems with being a Nascar fan for a day if I'm sitting like a VIP in a suite with food and drinks being served to us.

We didn't get there until noon, can you tell we're not die hard fans? The real fans were there by at least 8:00! We didn't get a parking pass included with our tickets but Paul managed to act like it was a mistake and they let us in to park in the special skybox parking. Since it was an Aflac skybox we were sitting in we had to get a picture of us by the Alfac truck.Let me clarify something, Paul was only given 4 tickets and with 6 people in our family obviously 2 weren't going. We ended up taking Zach since he's always had a thing for cars and Lauren since her boyfriend was going to be there with his dad. It turned out that Lauren was invited to sit with them in the stands since they had an extra ticket. Now we had an extra skybox ticket so Kelly came with us.

Like I said we're not Nascar fans but every once in a while we would be flipping through channels while watching tv and come across a race. Zach gets so excited to see his cars and likes saying the numbers he sees but I think his favorite car is the M&M's car since it's so colorful. He was excited to see his M&M guys on the truck.

We didn't walk around outside too much once we handed Lauren off because it was lunch time in our suite. So we headed up to the Aflac suite and checked in. We found 4 seats together in the front row by the window and saw that the cars for today's race were practicing. Just had to get a picture of the Aflac car as it came into the pit.

While eating lunch we watched the cars practice and Zach was excited to see them at first. After that I think he was more excited that there was soda there!

Here we are one way...

...and the other. I switched seats with Paul so he could see the turn better.

Here's the beloved M&M's car. Watching that did capture Zach's attention the most as he tried to find where it was on the track.

Practice is done, time for our race to start which was the Heluva Good 200. Too bad the M&M's car and Aflac car weren't racing in this one. The cars that were racing lined up on pit road for the announcing of the drivers.

We were given scanners so we could listen to the drivers. Zach didn't wear his much, he was more interested in just pushing the buttons. For some reason he kept wanting to listen to car 98 and would get mad if I changed it on him.

Kelly and I got much more into the scanners though.

No really, those things were cool...once we figured them out. They can be put on a scan mode where it cycles through the different drivers or you can put in the number of the car you want to listen to. Especially helpful if something happens on the track, you can quickly switch to that car and find out what they're saying. Kelly and I listened to car #22 after he spun out in front of us and caused a yellow flag. He was in second before he spun out and it was really neat listening to them trying to get him back up in the standings.

It was a pretty uneventful race until right at the end when they had just gotten a green flag and an accident happened in the first turn.

After an 11 minute delay they finally got to finish the race with Kyle Busch, #18, winning. He dominated the whole race.

Now it was time to find Lauren and buy a couple of souvenirs. Paul had told Zach that if he was good he would buy him a car to take home. He ended up getting 3 cars, #18, #99 and #2. I didn't think he was that good!

I got a picture of Paul and Zach in front of "Miles the Monster" at Monster Monument.

Our day at the races ended and it was actually more fun than I had anticipated. That scanner made the race, I think it would have been boring just listening to the announcers on tv. I'm actually hoping we get offered tickets next year too.

Old New Castle

Today was fun because I helped chaperone Megan's field trip. Her class has been studying Delaware history as their unit in social studies so a trip to Old New Castle was perfect. We started off visiting the courthouse where they reviewed a whole bunch of history by using props. I thought it was rather interesting and the guide really kept their attention, she was good at her job. I even learned a few things!

Then we went into the courtroom and another guide directed us as to where to sit. Megan was ahead of me and she was directed to the right. When I went through the door I was directed straight ahead along with another mom and a student. It turns out Megan was one of 3 judges and I was a defendant.

Megan being a judge with her friend Martina.

So they did a mock trial with some of the kids being witnesses and some of the kids on the jury. The witnesses were asked if they saw us (the defendants) making a nuisance of ourselves Friday night. We got 1 no and 3 yes responses. So then it went to the jury to decide if we were guilty and of course we were. So now the judges had to decide our punishment which could have been anything from hanging, being put in the pillory and having rotten tomatoes thrown at us, whipping or even having a finger or other appendage amputated. Well no surprise that they chose hanging! Megan thought that was soooo funny.

Other things we did were taking a tour of The Strand, the most historic street in New Castle, touring the George Read house and touring the Dutch and Amstel houses. Some of it was interesting like when they talked about how people lived in early colonial times but some of it was just plain boring like the one guide talking about the different styles of chairs. I wasn't even interested in listening to that, I felt bad for the kids.

Here's a picture from one of the games that a guide taught them, it's called Threading the Needle and it was a game that children in colonial times used to play.

Just a couple of tidbits that were interesting. This picture is one of the houses on The Strand. The small circle plaque is a Fire Insurance policy. If there was a fire the fire company would respond and if this plaque was on the house the fire would be put out, if there was no plaque the fire company turned around and went back.

Not every house on The Strand has one of these displayed, either they never did or it got lost/stolen over the years. The other thing interesting with the picture above is the thing attached to the window. It was actually a couple of mirrors that you could look into from the upstairs room and be able to see who's at the door. It was pretty neat how they've preserved these houses.

The other neat thing about Old New Castle are the roads. This one in particular was only paved in the middle. There was another rode that we crossed that was all stones. Very pretty to look at but wouldn't want to walk in heels on it!

Very neat field trip that corresponded perfectly with their Delaware history unit. Somehow I never went on this field trip with Lauren and Kristin, I'm glad I was able to go with Megan.

Mother's Day Tea

I got to celebrate mother's day early because the preschool puts on a wonderful program. They set up a room upstairs with tables and each classroom (there were 5 classrooms today) decorated their tables in a theme. The moms come at 11:00 and get to enjoy tea or coffee and little treats that the kids (and teachers) have made. The kids then come up at 11:30 and sing songs for us. It's just too cute. With working I wasn't sure I would be able to attend the "tea" portion but they surprised me by getting a substitute for me for that hour.

Megan took our picture this morning, all dressed up and ready to go.
All the teachers do a wonderful job at decorating. Zach's class had a bird theme going on. Each child made a placemat, a birdhouse and a cute pompom bird attached to a stick in the centerpiece. Our treat was a yummy cake topped with blueberries and strawberries and homemade whipped cream. I ate a little over half of it and saved the rest for Zach.
My class had an "Under the Sea" theme. They made a glass bowl with fingerprints turned into different sea creatures, a tealight candle holder, a keychain and finally the placemat. Their food was a bagel with blue cream cheese and goldfish crackers. They also got "sand cups" which are blue pudding, whipped cream and crushed vanilla wafers (for the sand).
A closer look at Zach's masterpieces. His placemat goes along with the bird theme, it's a picture of him sitting in a nest. If you can't read what's under Happy Mother's Day it says, "I love my mommy because: She cleans my dishes." Oh geez! Well I guess I'm glad he appreciates something I do!
Alright, the food and tea are all done and the kids come into sing. Lucky me, I had a front row seat, I must have inside connections! No, his teacher just set me there because that way if any of the kids in my class freaked out because of the sub I was right there. I will say it was great though.
Of course I just had to put some videos on here. They sang 6 songs, I managed to get 3 of them on video. You'll see why I didn't get all of them after you watch the third video. But first, here's "All Things Bright and Beautiful."

Second song was, "Special Day."

And here is my ADHD child kind of singing "Down in My Heart."

He continued to twirl after that for the next 3 songs so I figured why bother with anymore videos. At least he wasn't the only one not standing in line singing, one other boy from his class was laying down by the wall.

It was a very nice day and all the mommies just loved it. Next year I'll be able to go and not have to miss my own class since the pre-K kids do their tea on a different day.

Lauren Update

She stayed home with me for two day because she still had a headache. I took her to see her doctor on Monday.

She thoroughly checked her and asked her tons of questions as to what happened. She agreed that she has a concussion and it's even possible that she could have a hairline fracture of her skull. No CT scan was needed because there were no signs of bleeding (from her ears and in her eyes) but she did write a script for an x-ray but didn't want it done until today or tomorrow and to call her first before going. I have a call in to her and I'm waiting to hear back if she still needs this. If so I guess I'll be taking her tomorrow after school.

She said that she can't return to any sports or physical activity until 7 days after the headache is gone. It's killing Lauren that she can't play soccer. She's missed two high school games so far and she most likely will also be missing next Monday's game. I think the earliest game she'll be able to play will be next Wednesday. It's a shame that she's missed so much especially since the season is almost done. She did get to be ball girl at her last game though.
She was the slowest ball girl ever! (Of course I told her she did great!) I think I saw her do a slow jog once, other than that she pretty much just stood around. She at least got to hold a soccer ball, it's a start.