Book Battle

*not to be confused with Battle of the Books.... that is FOURTH grade.

This morning, Carly was on a team from her class for the Third Grade Book Battle.  Our county does this program called "Battle of the Books" when the kids are in fourth grade... they have a list of about 10 books (Battle Books) that they read and then can answer questions on, then could eventually be on a Quiz Team for their school that competes with other schools.  So, Ryan came up with the idea to start the kids in 3rd grade, to get them ready for the Official Battle of the Books.  You know, because he's the school Librarian.  Excuse me.  Media Specialist.

So the 3rd grade team from each class competed against each other this morning.  Now's when I get to really brag.  My blog.

Carly.  Completely a McGregor.  She was a complete ANIMAL with the buzzer and answering the questions.  Particularly the "Who was the author" questions.  She knew EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM.  I figured it has FINALLY paid off that whenever I read to her in her infancy that I read the title of the book AND THE AUTHOR out loud to her.  You know, giving a shout out to the person who wrote the book!  It sunk in.  I was so proud of her, and I will be honest: Surprised!  I had no idea she was THAT competitive and all I could think of was "Word of Life Quiz Team".  She'd be PERFECT for it!  I tell you, that girl did not hesitate once!  Sometimes Ryan only said 3 words of the question and she was smacking (oh yes, SMACKING) the buzzer!  Her team blew the other 3 teams out of the water.   The other 3 members of Carly's team (yup, that's Olivia up there!) were awesome, too!  They are all really bright kids, and were VERY well prepared for the Battle.

Excuse the cell phone picture... Completely forgot my camera (what?).

Also, shout out to RYAN for being such a great Media Specialist!!!

State Parks...

Ryan and I feel obligated to EXPOSE our children to as much of the good ole UNITED STATES OF AMERICA as possible... all under the veil of Family Time.  Our most recent outing could be a delightful example of a botched expedition, but it is still entertaining and worth going into the old Virtual Scrapbook.  Plus, I sincerely believe our children will be reminiscing about it for years to come, while Ryan and I roll our eyes while muttering "Real Florida".

It seemed like a very good idea, planned somewhat "spur-of-the-moment", which is generally how we roll around here.

I had picked up a Fun Looking magazine at the Florida Welcome Center last month, while traveling home from NH with my mom.  (GREAT trip, by the way... Mom is fun to drive with!)  called "Florida State Parks... the Real Florida" and it is full of all these places around our state that we hadn't heard much about, but looked like real treasures.  Most are beaches, but there were some with hiking trails, so it looked, you know, FUN.

So, since the Madira Bickel Mound State Archaeological Site was only about 45 minutes away, and said "HIKING", we packed up some snacks and our children (yes, in that order.  Priorities.) and headed out.

When we FINALLY found the place (in the woods), we parked our car in the lot (could accommodate about 2 cars) and climbed out.  A woman on a bike gave us a somewhat strange look.  I'm pretty sure she heard me say, "Oh!  Can you unlock the trunk?  I forgot my camera!" because she smirked.  After I took the above picture of my fellow hikers, she was giggling.  REALLY?


So we started out... and photographed this informative sign:

... and began our hike.  It started immediately with this staircase.  (Keep in mind, I'm at the bottom taking a picture withOUT utilizing the zoom, and Ben's at the top.)

Then we heard Ben say, "Is this it?"  As in, "Is this IT??"

Well, yes, Sweet Boy.  This is the end of our strenuous hike.  All 50 feet of it.  Impressive Mound in the Woods.  Of course, we get to our car again (you know, in 2 minutes) and Carly says, "Can we have our snack now?  I'm starving!!".  

No wonder the Lady on the Bike was giggling.  

Not to be outdone by the Pseudo-Park-Historic-Site, we checked the book (obviously we hadn't learned ANYTHING), and saw that ANOTHER interesting looking place was nearby, so we decided to check it out... Judah P. Benjamin Confederate Memorial at Gamble Plantation Historic State Park.  The book said, "antebellum mansion" and "plantation" so we were having visions of Tara.  I should have remembered that Tara was REALLY a painting and fancy State-of-the-Art-for-1939 camera work.

It took us 2 minutes in the Visitor Center to realize that it wasn't even Judah's house, it was Robert Gamble's and Old Judah was getting all the credit in the State Park registry.  Because he visited there.  According to someone named Caroline, who signed a piece of paper that said, "I know that Judah P. Benjamin was here".  Framed on the wall in the Visitor Center.  Can not make that up.

Anyhow, not to say it was all a bust: the Visitor Center had some neat artifacts, sugar cane farming tools, and the mansion features a rainwater cistern (that short brown "building" by the side of the house) because Gamble was afraid of well water.  We did NOT take the $6 tour inside (we decided it could NOT be any better than the FREE capitol buildings we frequent) and we figured it might be more exciting if they were doing a Civil War ReEnactment or something along those lines...

... on the way home, the kids made sure to tell us how much fun they had.  Which made me giggle.  Of course, BEN felt the need to add, "I mean, those places were really boring and not fun at all, but it was fun all of us being together!"

Random Picture #7

Carly on the cover of our Church's bulletin... coming up from the Waters of Baptism.  It just might be one of my favorite pictures of her!  Ryan's hand on her right, my Dad's on her left, and Rodney's on her head... look of pure joy on her little face!  Wonky teeth.  I loved this day.  Her choice to be baptized.  All of it.

This photo was taken by Kristin Joy Taylor who takes many of our church's photographs.

More pictures on the church website, www.tampacovenantchurch.org  along with downloadable sermons, which are pretty excellent, too.

Carly's face, when she noticed her picture on the cover?   Hilariously priceless!  She started giggling, then peeked over her shoulder and all around the congregation, you know, because they MUST be staring at the Star.

Zoo Zoom 2011

A couple of weekends ago, Carly had her BFF Olivia over to spend the night... I shared her itinerary HERE, which cracked me up... have to tell you though, these girls were SOUND ASLEEP by 9:15pm!  But there was a LOT of giggling going on.

The next morning, they had to get up VERY early to run their first 5K.  We've run the Zoo Zoom race for several years now, and it is a very fun race through our local zoo.  We decided last year that THIS YEAR, the kids would run with us.  They were up for it, or I should say CARLY was up for it... meaning she got up MANY mornings with me at 4:30am to run in our neighborhood!  She talked Olivia into running with her, and they even created T-shirts and matching outfits to run in.

Carly got the idea at the Disney Marathon, when she saw people running past wearing "Bride" and "Groom" shirts.  I overheard the cutest comments about them while we were running (I stayed back with the girls to make sure no one stole them off the course, you know, like a gorilla, or something)  Lots of college aged girls saying how they remembered their first best friends and dressing alike, etc... how cute they were together.  The funniest thing for me was that they talked their Third Grade Teacher into running the race, too!  So, Shout Out to Miss Harmeling for being such a GREAT SPORT.  Literally.

Ryan got his best 5K time ever, he's so amazing!  29:02

Ben finished not too far behind him, 34:13.... he said, "I was walking, but I started running because I just wanted to be finished!  Ughhhhhh!"  Sounds about right.

The Girls finished at 49:01 and 49:02, respectively.  The Old Girl finished 49:17.  She's too old to sprint to the finish line, no matter HOW cute the man waiting on the other side is.

And another McGregor Tradition was born!

Epcot Flower and Garden Festival

We are still loving our Disney passes, and were THRILLED when the kids wanted to renew them for their Christmas present this past Christmas!  Certainly made "shopping" easy, and we love the time we spend together, just wandering the parks.  Right now, Epcot is having their annual Flower and Garden Festival, which somehow we missed last spring...

They have these insane topiaries all over the park of the characters.  Apparently there are 75 of them... we didn't try to find them all, I think we would have needed more than one day.  

We did find Mickey, Minnie and Pluto flying a kit, however.

And Bambi's Butterfly Garden was very cool.  Yes, Carly stood still for a very long time waiting for a butterfly to land on her finger... it didn't happen, but the people around her found her to be quite entertaining.

There were several houses like these where you could see the changes from caterpillar to butterfly.

Amazing landscape... that is all made by flowers.  Lots of flowers.

This picture is for our little Car Fan Nephews.  Apparently Julean isn't the only one anymore!  A little part of me thought if we sent him this picture he might want to come live with us, but I think I might need to produce the real thing for him to do that!  We were impressed with this life-sized version.

The kids were posing for Roy and Mavis!  Our sweet friends we added to our family over Christmas.  They are from England (you know, hence the picture) but work in the Garden with my parents for much of the year.  We got them for a few weeks over the holidays and loved every minute we spent with them!  

An English Tea Garden, sponsored by none other than the Twinings Tea Company.

Ok, we are kind of fans of this group.... the British Invasion.  They dress up kind of like the Beatles and sing their songs.  I'm sure they LOVED our kids chasing each other all around the English Maze in front of their stage, singing along at the top of their lungs.  Can you see Ben and Carly hiding in the maze?  They are getting quite good at Beatles Rockband... Ryan seems to think he could take over for one of the British Invasion people, you know, if they ever got sick...

In case you wanted to see what Earl Grey tea looks like when it is growing...

Oh yes, Princesses and their Princes got to be topiaries, too.

The kids BEGGED to visit the Plushies of Pokemon characters at the store in Japan.  They had fun playing with them, as did about a million other kids in there!

Rapunzels tower from Tangled... cute movie and this was kind of cool looking.

Pretty sure everyone knows who that is...

Adorable pandas in China.

Pixie Hollow Garden.  There were fairies everywhere and apparently there was a game for little kids to find all of them... Carly was a little too old when all the Pixie business came out, but we enjoyed the rainbow flowers...

And all was well until Ryan started saying, "I don't believe in Fairies" really loud.  Oh yes, he got a few Angry Eyes from Fathers waiting around with their little girls.  I had to get him out of Pixie Hollow quickly.  

This is more Carly's speed... Test Track.  Sadly, it had just closed for a repair and they couldn't ride... Next time!  They got to ride Mission Space instead, so they were just as happy about that.  I stayed outside and itched my eyes.  Sadly, I should have remembered I have allergies BEFORE I walked around about a million species of beautiful flowers.  I'm still paying for it today... *sigh*

It was worth it:)

Unseen Header

Last month, I spent a Saturday with my sisters and my mom. We went over to my Uncle's house after he had passed away and cleared out his belongings.  My mind was just reeling the whole time as we put shirts and pants into trash bags to take to Good Will.  I just couldn't get over the irony of it... stuff is just nothing.  Of course I've always known that.  But to have a visual reminder... and I was sweetly amazed by the "things" an old man kept.  It was precious little.  His room was really organized and neat.  Minimal.  But there were a few "Dad" plaques his son had given him... pictures of me and my sisters families from old Christmas cards... a large stack of valentines and birthday cards from his girlfriend of 20 years... the small new testament encased in olive wood my mom had given him decades ago.

I was reading this verse (above) this past week... thinking about how very temporary our life on earth is. Certainly, in light of eternity, it's hardly even a drop in the bucket, and we get all concerned over how many years we might get...  we think someone who got to live to be 90 "had a good long life".  And it's true, it's what we can comprehend because we are here, and we are human.  It puts "your life" into a whole different perspective... the things we allow to bother us, that we go on and on and on about... what we get upset about... who hurts our feelings... what we think we need... what tangible objects we want to provide for our children... does it REALLY matter?

Lent is again upon us.  We appreciate it.  Just like we enjoy the Advent Season and taking time to slow down and focus on Christ being born... we appreciate 40 days of FOCUS on Christ dying for us and His resurrection.  Our chosen sacrifice for Lent is not even a small glimmer of His sacrifice for us.  And it's been since Wednesday, and I've already COMPLAINED about a million times about it!  You'll be happy to know that each time I complain, a "little voice" in my head says, "Really?  It's hard for you?  Really?"

... so I came upon this verse.  And backed up to read a little more.  The backed up to read the whole chapter, which was really good, too.  I had a "catch my breath moment" over verse 17... our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  Momentary Troubles.  Seriously, the next time I am faced with something that troubles me, I need to remind myself it's MOMENTARY.  You know, sometimes when I'm reading the Bible, I have to remind myself, "This is YOUR God speaking to YOU... He knows what you need to hear" and for real, when I put it like that for myself, it really is like my own father offering me incouragement.  What a picture.

Speaking of pictures... took this picture when we were almost to Ryan's parents house this past Christmas.  We were just a few miles from their house, after driving for 2 days, and I made Ryan stop the car so I could take a picture of the sunset!  I even responded to a "where are you" text from my sister-in-law, Kristi, that she HAD to go outside and take pictures of the sunset.  Hurry!  It won't last!

... she sent me back a picture.  2 little boys.  Looking out the front door. Waiting for their cousins to arrive at Grandma's House.

It begs the question.  What am I waiting for?


Therefore we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.   2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Gasparilla Races

The weekend of February 26th and 27th, Ryan and I participated in the Gasparilla Races in Tampa.  As my Mom was delayed going to Israel due to my Uncle's passing, she was able to watch Ben and Carly for us ALL weekend (Shout Out to Uncle Steve for volunteering before we knew Mom would be home!  Are you available NEXT weekend?  Just wondering!)  I know B and C were THRILLED not to have early morning wake ups and long waits on the side of the road, just to watch their parents run!

Downtown Tampa in the early morning hours.... my pictures are ONLY from Saturday, as I didn't run that day...   This is the start of the 15K.  Ryan took on the "Michelob Ultra Challenge" which included every race offered... 15K, 5K, half marathon, and 5+3K (to Non "Fifth/Thirds Bank" people, an 8K... apparently the bank sponsored that run...).  He's so crazy.  And looking handsome before his first race.  Note the "Long Haul" race shirt...

 This is the Wheel chair Start, 10 minutes before the race started... of course, I loved this... these people are so very inspiring!  There are NO EXCUSES.  Just saying.

Ryan running by me... 

While I was waiting for Ryan to finish, I saw this group of already-finished wheel chair competitors hanging out... again, very impressive people.  

Ryan crossing the finish line for the 15K... I love that I caught him giving God thanks for a good run.  

There were thousands running the 5K, so I didn't try to catch a picture of him finishing that race... but he got his best times ever, so I was proud of him... you know, when I saw him at the car and he told me the good news!

Sunday morning, we both ran a half marathon.  This is a GREAT course around Davis Island near South Tampa, then down and back Bayshore Blvd... straight, "fast" course.  I was thoroughly enjoying myself until the last 3 miles, when I needed to eat more goo, but I just could not!  Needless to say, I did NOT finish strong, which I HATE, but still got 3 minutes faster than the Disney half, so in the end, I had to be happy about that.  Ryan kept reminding me (you know, because I was completely complaining!)... "You just FINISHED a half marathon!  Half Marathon!" so I had to smile about that... after a while:)  He got his best time ever, and a great time on the following 5+3K... I'm telling you, when I finished I was in AWE of him that he could even THINK about running another mile, much less 4.97 miles.  

I've said it before, and I will say it again.... I LOVE doing this with Ryan!  I am NO RUNNER, but there is something about setting goals and accomplishing them, and having the man I love completely supporting and cheering me on.  He is really, really encouraging.

We both got a really nice medal.... yeah, no picture of that.  And Ryan ended up with a medal for each race, plus a REALLY BIG one for completing the Michelob Ultra Challenge.

Random Picture #6

Carly is having her BFF, Olivia, sleepover tonight.  LAST night I told her to get her room all cleaned up and ready for the Big Event.  This is what I found today... I will take full credit for her organizational skills.

And a Formal Apology to my BFF, Sue:  Please forgive me for never scheduling Pillow Fights, or 30 minute laughing sessions when you came over.

And Mom, I did NOT put your picture there to win a few points... that's where your little darling put it.  She misses you already!