This morning while Chris was doing yard work we were relaxing by the pool. I was reading a book for school and here is what the children were doing...

Will was following his dad around squirting him with the water gun to try to keep him cool. I think Chris was most appreciative.

Noah was pretending to be shot by Ethan's water gun. This is his dead man falling into pool look.

Here is Ethan succumbing to Noah's water gun.

And then there was Hanzie just trying to figure out how to keep cool!

The end of the week was a whirlwind of trying to get organized before school starts. We did squeeze in some fun. On Wednesday night we went to Universal. The boys love Islands of Adventure so we went there. Universal Studios is still insanely busy on summer nights so we can do a lot more in the 5 -10 minute lines there than the 30-60 minute lines at Universal. Thursday and Friday we just hung around the house and cleaned and organized. I feel a bit more accomplished now. Today we went to the beach in the morning. It was fairly cloudy, but the boys had a blast body boarding.

The gruesome photo of Ethan's first lost tooth!

Look Kate- Chris finally hung the picture!! It looks really cute.

It's official... Ethan has lost his first tooth!! He was very excited this morning. We had some excitement with Chris' car yesterday. It appears to have been a minor issue and his car should be ready this afternoon. Better this week than next when I'm back to school. He was able to take my car. Noah was not at all happy with that prospect. He said, "That's not fair- now we have to stay home ALL day!!" This coming from a child that knows he is going to Universal tonight- SPOILED!! We have our fingers crossed that everything goes well with Kate's home inspection tonight. I'm very excited for her. Ooh, my new dishes arrived today- a day early!!! I love William-Sonoma. I just ordered them! I packed up all of our old dishes to give to Katie. She, like Kate, is moving to her own place soon.

SCHRADER DRAMA- The boys have insisted that I call Grandma Pat to tell on her son Chris. Chris was playing, wrestling as usual, with the boys. This is what Will looked like at the end of the night. I think we have settled on his punishment, 34 minutes in time out (1 minute for each year of his age) and telling on him to Grandma Pat!

After spending the morning in the pool, we helped Kyle celebrate his first full day as a 5-year-old. Their family is like our own, new Floridians with no family around, so the boys helped Kyle celebrate. We went miniature golfing. Of course as soon as we start the second hole it started storming. We spent a good 1/2 hour or more in the arcade waiting for the storm to pass and then finished up playing. They all had a great time. The miniature golf place had live gators. I thought it would be impossible to be sad for a gator, but I was. They had about 15 little gators in this 10 X 10 holding pin thing and you could pay to feed them. These poor things were being fed hot dogs around the clock. Not to mention they are swimming in artificially green colored miniature golf water. After miniature golf we went out for pizza and had cake. Ethan rode his motorcycle around the neighborhood when we got home and Will and Noah chased him on their scooters.
The boys enjoying their round of golf.
Documented gator cruelty! That string you see dangling is hot dog on a stick.

We spent almost three hours at the beach this morning. It was so hot that we spent almost the entire time in the ocean! I'm perfecting my bodyboarding. The boys were "WAY OUT" in the deep water jumping waves. Noah was too freezing in the picture to smile. I must note that it was 90 degrees out and the water temperature is in the mid-80's so Noah has an interesting concept of freezing.

Well, Melissa and I have been promising the kids forever that we'd take them to the beach. Yesterday morning we took them. They kids were all playing in a tide pool trying to catch little fish and Melissa and I were in the ocean. I look over and see two gigantic fins sticking out of the water. I pointed it out to Melissa and we both quickly exited the ocean! We've seen sharks before but they are usually no longer than 3 feet or so. This one was at least 5 feet! We stayed in the tide pools for the rest of the time. We ran some errands- I've been putting a lot of things off that I need to get done before school starts and it is now crunch time! Last night Emma and Paige had a sleepover with the boys. They had to leave early this morning to go pick up Bobbie, Steph, and Morgan from the airport. Melissa watched She's the Man with us and had a strawberry daquiri with me! Today we are hanging out with Drew. I also have gobs of laundry to do.

SHARK BAIT!!!

Ethan looking for some fish to catch in the tide pool.

Yesterday we hung out with Drew again. He is such a cutie pie and gives me a quick baby fix! He'll be with us on Thursday and Friday as well. Chris took the boys in the pool last night to teach them some surf moves. They have been watching the Backyardigan's Surf's Up episode and were ready to try out their rad moves! For any of you that have seen that episode know just what I mean. Today we went to the $1 kids' movie and saw Hoodwinked. Noah was laughing so loud and giving a play by play of the entire movie to Emma, Ethan, Will, Paige, Sophia, Emily, Melissa, and myself. I don't think he realized that we were sitting right with him watching the movie! I also went to the preschool to fill out some paperwork. Will and Noah's old teacher is now the director of the school. Noah hid behind me the entire time! Once we got in the car he couldn't stop talking about how nice Mrs. Sarah was. Funny how he wouldn't even look at her while we were there.
Noah preparing to paddle out, um, to the other side of the pool???

Ethan's surf lesson. His favorite part was wiping out.

The newest Gap underwear model!

Yesterday the boys spent the entire morning in the pool. We had to drag them out at 2:30! Mike and Melissa took all of us out on a boat ride. We all couldn't fit on their boat so Denny and Steff were nice enough to let us borrow theirs. The boys had tons of fun. They played on "Hermit Crab Island." Emma collected tons of hermit crabs and lined them up for a race. Clearly, it wasn't the most exciting race to watch! Chris left about an hour ago to go surfing. Hopefully he'll be home in time to go to the beach with us.

Here they are enjoying the view!
Nice hair, eh? On the way back Paige said, "Your hair looks funny Noah." Noah said, "Don't touch it, I want it to stay like this forever!" I guess he likes the wind blown look.

Even more sweet hair! Sadly, Will's hair always looks this crazy.

Chris and the kids are staring at all the hermit crabs. They were everywhere!

Here is Emma setting up her hermit crab race.

Here we are soaked after riding the Popeye whitewater raft ride, twice!
Ah.....

We survived our latest Disney experience! We stayed at the Port Orleans Riverside. We were familiar with that resort. It is the same resort that we stayed out when we went with Bill and Steph a couple years ago. The last time we stayed there we were quite far from everything. We were literally the furthest building away from everything at the resort. This time I knew to ask to be closer to everything. After standing in line for 45 minutes to check-in with all the other people checking in with the conference and a few unlucky families that were checking in at the same time, I begged the lady to give us a room close to the lobby, restaurant, and pool. She was nice and not only gave us a room close to everything, but a room that was available 4 hours early! That worked out nicely for Chris and the boys. They didn't have to hang out waiting for the room. I checked in, gave Chris the key, and RAN to catch the bus to take me to the conference at the Dolphin Resort. The conference was insane. Unfortunately, only a few of the workshops that I attended over the three days were helpful. Those few did provide some great ideas though so it was worth it. They also had some great keynote speakers such as Antwone Fisher and Ron Clark. I now want to read both of their books. Each night Chris hung out with the boys at either Downtown Disney (No worries- the hotel had a boat that launched there so Chris didn't have to navigate himself anywhere!) or the hotel pool. Each night we went to Universal and rode a bunch of rides at Islands of Adventure. We also worked in trips to Mall at Millennia and Florida Mall. The highlight of Universal was getting drenched on the Popeye whitewater ride. We were lucky enough to get to stay on and a get a second dose of getting drenched. The boys thought it was awesome to be soaked. They couldn't stop talking about how their socks and even their underwear were sopping wet- good times! Chris also enjoyed scaring the life out of Will and Ethan on the Jurassic Park River ride. Noah wasn't tall enough so he was spared! (I have unsuccessfully tried to add pictures, I will try again later.)

Well, Daytona USA was not that thrilling. The 3-D IMAX movie was sort of cool, but it could have been a 1/2 hour shorter! I personally had more fun buying back-to-school clothes for the boys at Old Navy and Target. They also got their lunchboxes for next year. Will got a space shuttle, Noah got a robot, and Ethan got this firefighter jacket looking lunchbox with an American flag patch.

It's Friday!!! A rainy Friday, but still it's Friday. Baby Drew has been hanging out with us for the last few days. Christie and RJ's regular babysitter is on vacation this week. Noah loves babies and was more than happy to have him here. He wanted to feed him, burp him, hold him, talk to him, etc. Drew is such a good baby and we had tons of fun playing with him this week. Chris got the boys free tickets to Daytona USA. We'll be spending the day tomorrow in NASCAR country. I don't know why he isn't getting any free Disney tickets or something like that. Everything is NASCAR related!!! Oh well, we checked out www.daytonausa.com and there is an IMAX theater there which the boys will love. On Monday we leave for Disney. I'll be working most of the time, but the boys will get to hang out at the hotel pool and Downtown Disney. The resort we are staying out has a boat launch to Downtown Disney so Chris won't even have to load the boys in the car. Katie was kind enough to agree to stay with Hanzie! Here is cutie pie Drew hanging out with us.

Noah asked if we could keep Drew forever!

Ethan was completely zoned into TLC's While You Were Out backyard makeover. Ah... rainy day fun!

Here is Chris torturing Will! Okay, Will was really laughing, but it looks like serious child abuse from the angle it was taken! I promise his head never hit the table... that hard, LOL!

Hanzie did his best to entertain me during the rainy weather. We had a nice little bark off. I think I won!

HAPPY 4th OF JULY!!! And happy birthday to Roey! We had a nice relaxing day today. We slept in a bit, until 8:00, pretty nice. Once we got in gear after a big breakfast we went plant shopping. Will was amazed at how much stuff we had for breakfast so he insisted that he needed to use a big boy plate (aka dinner plate) to fit it all. They were all quite happy to be eating from the big plates. While plant shopping Noah picked out another purple flower. He picked it from a clearance rack and it only cost $1.99. I wish the stuff I wanted was on that rack! Melissa keeps telling me to get some lantana. Well today I found some that I liked. It is an Anne Marie lantana and flowers in yellow, purple, and pink. I also got a lavender allamanda. I didn't realize how large they grew when I picked it out. Hopefully it doesn't go too wild! I just love the big purple trumpet flowers on it! After plant shopping we ran home, had lunch, and then took off for for the beach. I read some of my US magazine and then tried out Chris' new body board. I'm officially addicted. It was so much fun! During our visit to the beach we saw the rockets' red glare go bursting into the air! The shuttle launch was cool. The boys kept asking over and over again if it was for real. We watched the live NASA feed before we left so they saw the astronauts on the shuttle talking and were completely amazed that those were the same people going to space! After watching the shuttle disappear into space we hung out for a bit so the boys could hear the loud thunderous sound. After the beach we came home and got ready for the cook-out at Bobbie's. Dick was our grill man and everything was delicious, especially the banana pudding!
My new allamanda! I may have to move it now that I realize how big it is going to get.

The rockets' red glare!!!

A couple more shuttle shots.

Cloudy weather and surrounding storms shot down our idea of going to the beach this morning. Now I know how NASA feels! We have just been hanging out around the house this morning.

Ethan and Noah built a zoo around the jungle puzzle we did.

Will was frustrated because he just couldn't convince Ethan and Noah that his Star Wars ship somehow fit in with the whole zoo theme.

Even more blooms on our crape myrtle. Our other one isn't doing quite as well. Hopefully we'll get a proper rain today to help it out.

Busy weekend...so far! Last night Chris went to the Winn-Dixie 250. He had the same type of tickets that he had for the last race so he ate dinner at the speedway and had a few drinks. Mike went with him and they took some pictures and saw some racers. This morning we took the boys to the YMCA pool. The boys really wanted to check out the waterslide and various fountains. I called to see when they would be turned on this time so we wouldn't miss them. The seemed to really enjoy it. This afternoon we went to the beach to see the shuttle launch. Of course there was no launch, but the beach was incredible tonight. It was so clear and Carribean looking! After we had a cook-out with the Eagneys and Melissa's brother. The kids set off some sparklers and the big kids set off some bigger fireworks. At last it is bedtime and I am exhausted!! I think we may hit the beach in the morning. It was so enticing this afternoon that I feel the need to go back! I love when you can look straight down to the bottom. I don't remember it ever being this clear.

The enticing beach!!! Hopefully it will be just as nice tomorrow.

Sparkler fun!