Dancing Bear

On Saturday, my parents, Matt, and I went to Delainey's first dance recital! Yes, it was a precious affair, make-up, flowers, big fluffy, WHITE costume, and lots of excitement. We had a great time-it was fun, and some of it was funny-especially the little girls, as expected.

I was interested to see what Delainey's class would do, since they were all over the place in class, and didn't really do the dance during the first run through at dress rehearsal. And oh, they never practiced on a stage....




They did very well-and I was especially proud of Delainey. She really seemed to take the lead-mostly due to her slightly competitive nature (cough, cough, cough)but mostly I was happy that she actually did the dance!!

A few more pictures of the big dance...

Make-up!! (I think mom better take some make-upping classes)



Arabesque (or however you spell it-and yes, there is ketchup on her left knee...)



Flowers after the show from Dad!

For Janene

The height check would surpass you Janene-the boy is around 6'2'' now!!

Hey, are you and David going to trip on down to Florida in July for HP6???
Plenty of space for a grad school break!!!

On to bigger and better things...

My littlest boy finished kindergarten!! How quickly they grow!! I got to go and spend most of the day with him! They had a luau day with water fun, a movie, food (we made homemade ice cream), and lots of fun!!

The day starts on the carpet




Chase's latest pose-I wish you could hear the sound that goes with the face!




Getting ready for some water fun




LIMBO!!

Last Day

The last day we went to Patriot's Point to see the USS Yorktown, a submarine, and a Coast Guard Clipper ship. We only got to the first two, but we had a great time.

The USS Yorktown



Andrew wrote a report at school on helicopters in Vietnam. He had the great fortune of meeting a pilot of one of these helicopters and got a personal tour of the flight deck.

Day two

On day two we were going to visit an historic park type place for a low key Sunday. Unfortunately it rained so we had to find other entertainment.

We went to the Aquarium and visited the site of a very cool, very neat tree called the Angel Oak-it reminded me of either The Lord of the Rings, or the newest Pride and Prejudice movie!!

Family photo at the aquarium in front of the newly rebuilt Cooper River bridge



Delainey enjoying some time with Uncle Neal and Aunt Jill



A view of the Angel Oak




It took everyone in our family, including grandparents, aunt and uncle, to get around the trunk of the tree (Chase really didn't want to cooperate...)

Memorial Day part one

Over the Memorial Day weekend, we went up to Charleston with my parents to visit with my brother Neal, and his wife Jill. On Saturday we walked around Charleston and thanks to Neal's friend Tony, took a carriage tour.

This is in front of the Heyward-Washington House-one of the "George Washington slept here" kind of sites:


Cute Delainey pose:



The exchange building


The powder magazine

Andrew with one his favorite things-a gun




Braden has mono and did an exceptionally fabulous job of keeping up with all of the walking and touring, however, at this point, he was DONE! Disclaimer: this is a terrifically sad looking picture

TSA-edited version

So I totally messed up a lot of Andrew's competition information...

So, from the pro, ie Andrew, here's the real scoop on his projects=

Hey, y'all, just to correct my incompetant mother (just kidding *wink, wink*), my correct event iformation is as follows

1. Agriculture and Biotechnology: Okay, White Nose Syndrome, not whatever she wrote.


2. Cyberspace: I worked with 2 partners to make the website. Remember, website= cyberspace, not computer programming.


3. Computer Programming: Cyberspace scandal aside, Computer Programming involved me and a partner using Python programming language to program a program (imagine that) that would solve a problem. NOT WEB DESIGN.


4. Consruction: Belive it or not, she actually got this one right!

Okay, so complaints against the Catholic Church aside (tee, hee), I qualified in every event for nationals, except for computer programming, which is only a state event. To compensate, however, I picked up Manufacturing Challenge, in which, using recycled materials, our chapter built bat houses. I really didn't do much for it (shhhhhh), however, I helped a bit, and am redoing it to make it better, painstaking technical drawings and all. Well, I'm being implored to go to bed (just in case you got confused in my writing, I am still a kid), so good night, and Sarah, Todd, and associated press, I'll see you in Denver!!!!!

We are the champions...

So here they are, the reigning Middle School Champs of the Florida Technology Student Association!!!



Saturday evening was the awards ceremony after three days of competition. Andrew's school went from one trophy last year (I think it was their first year) to 22 and state champs!!

Andrew competed in four events: Ag-Bio where he and a partner did research on "white nosed" fungus (or something like that) that's affecting bats, Computer programming where he and a partner designed their chapter's website, cyberspace (not sure about that one), and Construction, a team of 5 who designed a bridge for the Malabar scrub site.

He took 2nd in Ag-bio, 3rd in Cyberspace, 2nd in Computer programming, and 1st in Construction. Up next is nationals in Denver. We'll have to see if we can find the funding for that one if he qualifies.

He was completely excited-glowing actually-and had a great time in Orlando!!

GO Andrew GO!!!

The latest news....

Delainey and I arrived home on Monday after spending the weekend in Arizona for my brother's wedding. We had a great time, and she traveled well, although getting up between 5:15 and 6:30 was a bit tough. It's hard to reset a four year old's body clock! The wedding was nice and it was good to see my brothers for just a bit.

Last week Braden was home four of five days from school with swollen glands on the right side of his neck and general malaise. The one day he did go to school he should've come home early but declared himself "too chicken" to call me to come and get him. Thursday I learned from him that his legs had been hurting differently than usual (for those that may not know he suffers from chronic leg pain of the "undiagnosable childhood pain" variety). So Matt took him back in on Friday. Yesterday we learned from some bloodwork that he has mono. Joy. I'm glad in some ways though since we actually know what he has instead of the vague sickness diagnosis. He's done well this week, but hit the wall last night and is still in bed at home. It should be interesting how he does.

Andrew is off at the TSA(technology student association) state competition in Orlando. He'll be gone until late Saturday and he's really excited. First long trip from home-I'm just hoping for no phone calls saying he broke the elevator or some other very creative thing that could come from many smart young men and women hanging out. You really have to watch out for the smart ones.....

New Easter digs-or Christmas morning take two

Same kids, same front yard, different ties/dress

Of Baskets and Hunting-Part 2

We were invited to a fun Easter Egg hunt party on Saturday morning. It was great fun with lots of people and was a welcome relief since we were going to have one, but I was coordinating a Ward activity for that night!









Sometimes you really have to LOOK!!

Of Baskets and Hunting

A little fun Saturday morning after the EB dropped by...

The pre-basket corral



Following the jelly bean trail left by the EB





Andrew counting his green "grass"-a great idea from Matt's mom



Chase with green peep bunnies



Braden with a petco gift card for a new beta fish

And after the zoo..

A little Krispy Kreme bliss-just makes me happy thinking about it!

A trip to the zoo

After our snake experience we visited the Brevard Zoo with my mom. We had a great time seeing new exhibits and watching the feeding of the river otters. A few pics for fun:

Chase in the sand



Delainey playing "pet vet"



Braden in the sand



Random picture of Andrew

Snake Charmer

Nothing like starting spring break with a little excitement!! About a week prior to this picture, Matt discoverd a pair of black racers enjoying a National Geographic moment in the side of our yard just outside the boys' windows. A few days later I found "mama" snake dead-Matt thinks I ran over her with a lawn mower, but that gives me the heebee jeebies just thinking about it. On the Monday of spring break we found "papa" snake in our pool enclosure. Andrew the snake man tried to catch it. It took a bit, but he finally got it on his pillow case covered pool net and escorted "papa" outside.



We tried to force him one way with the pool noodle, but he'd have none of that!

General Conference diversions

Last session, four antsy kids. What do you do? LEGO'S!!

The pain of riding a bike

We took the training wheels off of Chase's bike, but haven't taken the time to spend working with him on how to ride it. On Saturday mornings Braden is playing basketball at a nearby church. I was on a bike ride and Matt was bringing everyone else on their bikes to meet us at the game. Apparently Chase was doing really well on his bike until...CRASH!! And yes, should you all wonder, he DID have on a helmet. Judging by his injuries, he has "earned" himself a new one!



Up close, a bit fuzzy, but you get the color better. The goose egg on the forehead just drained down around his eye.

The death of a bracket

Can you hear Taps playing??? It's playing an ode to the death of my bracket...
You gotta hate it when you go down in round 2. I picked Maryland to go all the way. Yeah, they were a 10 seed and historically that's not a successful number, but hey, Gonzaga was THE Cinderella team one year. I really though Maryland had a little magic going this year. Oh well, I'm still at 8 of 16 for the sweet 16 and still have the possiblility of going 50/50 in the final four.

Let the games play on...I need to go get a tissue.

I tried to open the gate

Soooo, Chase and Delainey went to play outside this afternoon. A few minutes after they went out, the front door opened, and in they came carrying a long object. I was thoroughly confused as they came in since there was a shadow behind them. It looked like a long box that you would put posters in or something. Chase then says, "Dad, I was trying to open the gate, and this just came off!" I laughed, which made Chase cry (he's not feeling well today so he's crying hard over EVERYTHING!!). We had to console him and tell him how cute it was that he brought the actual piece of the fence in with him!!

Cute girls

Delainey's friend Mattie came over for a visit. As they were leaving, the girls beat us outside. When we came out we found them picking clover blossoms. It was sooo cute. I'm glad I was able to catch it on film. I was really glad they did it because the last time we had Mattie she had picked some clover for her mom and I, not understanding fully what she wanted, had her leave them behind. She was devastated when she got home and she didn't have her flowers for her mom. I felt awful. I feel better now!!