Same week, new year

Another school year off to a decent start.  Happy to report that these two have headed back to school... 7th grade and 4th grade, respectively.  

Also happy to report that 7th grade seems to be a much smoother transition than 6th grade was for Ben!  Apparently, our boy grew up a little bit over the summer... and I will be honest, I just might miss that Middle School Anxiety I had all last year.  Who am I kidding, I'm sure it will be back in full swing.  In about 2 years.  ANYWAYS, the kids are settling into their new routines, and Carly has even signed up to be a Student Ambassador for her school.  This means that (well, if she's accepted, I guess) she would accompany teachers when they go around the county talking about the Magnet Program and the specialty schools and she will talk it up too, and hopefully recruit new students to come their way.  Pretty sure she will do just fine talking in front of complete strangers.

So, the Car Rider Line is in full swing, too... of course, Carly just bums a ride from Ryan, but Ben gets picked up each day.  I share carpooling responsibilities with 2 other teachers from Ryan's school, and we  drop everyone off back at the Elementary School.  Pretty thankful for this arrangement, and Ben's Most Thankful not to have to ride the Very Hot Bus with an hour wait at the Magnet Change Station.  Anyways...  While I wait, I play with my phone.  Mostly I look at pictures on Pinterest.   Shout Out to my sister, Tracy, for introducing me to Pinterest.  It is, essentially, an online Bulletin Board where you can "pin" any idea you find online and saves it with a handy photo and the link so you can find it again... Found a cool recipe you want to try?  Pin it.  Get the idea?  Well, a few months ago I started finding recipes I wanted ROCHEL to make for me, so I pinned them and make little notes for her.  Sadly, I forgot to tell her to look at my board, so THIS IS YOUR OFFICIAL INVITATION, ROCHEL.  I emailed you one, as well.  I also sent one to Randee with photo's I saved for her.  You know, in case she needs help with her photo business.  Which she doesn't.  Blah, blah, blah... it's more interesting than Angry Birds, which my sister ALSO made me get.  And I have to say, who wants to play with Suicidal Birds? (Tracy, I'm on Level 2-10... Ryan LOVES seeing me play video games, and the kids think I might have broken something else in the accident).

Anyways, here's a snapshot of Pinterest, because it's fun... www.pinterest.com if anyone is interested... or I'm happy to send anyone an invite, as my sister said it might be easier to "Get In" if you are invited.

And a funny quote I found that about says it all...

And on to more important things:  2011 Swim Banquet.

This year I made a couple of composition books to be raffled off, and I think they turned out pretty fun... Love that Cricut.  And the kids got trophies:

And the ever popular Coach Chris... he's been working hard with Ben and Carly for 4 years now.

Quick team picture... I hit some weird setting on my camera so these have an odd finish to them...

And in case you were thinking that Ben needed a haircut... he got one today:)  He was mostly horrified that it wasn't Aunt Randee, but I guess he survived.  I tried not to crack up when she started telling him how to style it every morning.  As if that will EVER happen!  

One last thing to show Ben is growing up... his first night at Youth Group tonight!  And he was having fun hanging out with the kids when I came to pick him up and said several times that he really enjoyed himself.  I tried not to think about him being at YOUTH GROUP (you know, while I was out having coffee with my friends while he was there) but we are really thankful for such a great youth program at our church that he is able to be a part of. 

Random Camera Roll #1

 

Isn't she cute?

But you know who's REALLY cute?  The guy who bought me this:

Thanks Ryan:)  You are so sweet, and I don't even mind that you only bought it for me so you didn't have to share my ipod touch with me anymore.  ENJOY!  

Anyone who reads my sister TRACY's Blog, is well aware of iPhriday.  And probably the fact that she hasn't updated it since August 5th.  I guess now that I'm back at work (oh yes, after ELEVEN WEEKS of NOT being at work I'm finally BACK!!!) I don't have to rely on iPhriday so heavily as my source of entertainment... but I'd still like an update (just saying, Trace!)  ANYWAYS, I can completely see why she has this feature on her blog... it's just so fun to take pictures with your phone.  And alter them with instagram.  

So here's a look at what we've been up to... last weekend the kids had as swim meet.  It was a championship meet and they both did REALLY well.

This is the members of the team who were there when we took this picture... a few boys came later on, so Ben wasn't the only one.  The little one in the front is Dana.  Remember Dana?

Carly with a big smile after her 50Free Race... her goggles came off in the middle of the race and she STILL got her best time ever.  And she was happy....

                                                  

Ben's 50Backstroke, cut time off too....

And his 50Free, where his goggles came off and he STILL got his best time ever, 29.72... and a finish Michael Phelps could be proud of (Ben's the bottom swimmer, a split second ahead of his teammate!)

                                     

That's me and my sister-in-law, Kristi... no, she didn't come visit me this week, although that would have been nice.  This picture is from her visit in January, the day we went to the Magic Kingdom together.... very fun.  I was just trying out the "BeFunky" photo altering app... and it's fun.

Here's Carly in the parking lot of Marshall's.  The day we realized that her presumably black and white Old Navy shirt turned colors in the sunlight!  Who knew???  She was THRILLED!  

One of our visits to my mom, post Knee Replacement!  She's doing great, and this is her walker that my brother decorated for her.  Although, she rarely uses it anymore, that's how great she's doing!

And just a fun picture Ryan made me take of a plane coming in for a landing.  We were near the airport.  But I guess you could figure that out, since planes don't generally fly that low near Non-Airport areas.  

Fun night at the Rays game.  They won....

... and we were very entertained by the Chick-fil-A cow (of course, Carly had to solicit a photo out of him...)

Nice.

and the dancers in the family:

...and that would be how they got themselves up on the JumboTron.

... and again, after the game!  On Friday nights, you can exit the stadium across the field (They call this The CenterField Shuffle... because you can dance your way across, I guess... well, Carly does, of course!)

And that's a fine self portrait.  I'm sporting specs these days as I just figured out I'm allergic to my contact lenses.  Nice.  Here's hoping when I'm finished with my round of steroid eye drops, I will be able to wear daily disposables without preservatives, or else I will be be-specled forever.  Rats.  I guess it could be worse.  I'm happy I can see REALLY well out of the goggles.  Fuzzy pic because the field was dark.

oh yeah, and Miss Dancer got herself on the JumboTron SEVERAL times while dancing her way across Centerfield.  That could be because she kept jumping in front of the camera man.  Poor guy had little choice.  When we got home, she said, "You know I'm going to be famous one day, right?!"  Um, yeah, we pretty much knew that.

Next day, (yesterday) we went into Ryan's school with him to help get his bulletin boards ready.  I wanted to be a teacher when I was little because I thought bulletin boards would be so fun to decorate.  These WERE fun, since I used the Cricut to cut everything out:)  Ryan came up with the idea for this one and actually did most of the work.  I didn't take pictures of the ones inside the library (this one is outside the entrance).  His school is a magnet school for Technology and World Studies and we created a Travel theme for his library this year.  

Tonight!  We babysat my friend Debbie's little boy.  He's my mom's Birthday Buddy and pretty funny!  I think he enjoyed being a McGregor for the few hours he hung out with us.  Carly actually babysat, and let me tell you, she's really good at it!

She gave him bandaids for his fingers...

... encouraged him to say, "I want to be a McGregor!" during dinner....

... then made him do the dishes afterwards.  She tricked him by telling him it was "water play".  Hilarious.

See how random that is? 

Summer Vacation 2011

Click here to view this photo book larger

Last Day in MI

On our last day in Michigan, we went to Lexington with Ryan's parents.  We ate lunch at Wimpy's, which was pretty funny.  The owner guy or whoever, kept coming back to our table and telling us really random stories.  Apparently, my boot and crutches attract all kinds of people who need to tell me about all their injuries and car accidents.  Who knew that when I got hurt I would become a Member of a very Elite Club?  Anyways, he was actually pretty nice, it was just funny that he kept trying to talk to us.  After lunch, we walked around some shops and enjoyed the cool weather.

The railroad tracks near Black River Acre's.

That night, BOTH the boys got to drive lawn mowers around the yard... 

Ben and Isaiah had a great time!

Last Campfire... getting ready for sparklers

Love these silhouettes...

My favorite picture from the summer...

Walking through the corn again... this time they held up cornstalks so the little ones could see where they were...

... then they were ALL harvesting the corn, so we made them come in.  If there is a corn shortage this fall, you know which kids to thank for that!!

A beautiful vacation!