Field day for Hunter

Hunter had field day at his preschool the other day. The kids had fun. Hunter was a good sport and man can he throw a rubber chicken!

This would be the opening ceremonies. They had the kids run laps around the blankets.
Hunter of course, always with a smile on his face for the camera.

Look at that concentration for the clothespin toss.

Potato sack race. What I dont have a picture of is Hunter falling on his face minutes before this picture was taken.

Proudly showing off his medal.

Others... not so much.. (sorry Sherrie.. I still think its a funny picture).

Camping Neil Style

We decided to take the kids camping Sunday.

Adam and I have not been camping since I was something like 7 months pregnant with Tina. It did not take too much convincing to get the kids on board.

We went out earlier and gathered sticks from the "woods" aka. the trees behind the subdivision.
Adam set up a little fire in the playground and brought the lawn chairs over for the kids and they roasted hot dogs and marshmallows on the fire. I kept thinking to myself that we were surely breaking some kind of law having this fire going in the backyard.

I have to say camping in the backyard is definitely the way to go. I was able to get laundry done and clean up everything as we used it so I had no unpacking and clean up to do the next day.

We brought the kids inside for showers then went out to go to bed. OUR KIDS ROCK! They talked and giggled for a few minutes on their side of the tent but they were asleep before we knew it. Adam rigged up the laptop so he and I were on our side of the tent and watched a movie. Didn't I say that camping in the backyard is the way to go??

Sierra (the cat) managed to squeeze herself into the tent which was a bit of a freak out moment. One minute we are laying there watching a movie. The next minute we have a cat sneaking in.

Hunter renamed Sierra by the way. Her new name is CHA CHA. Tina then added to it and her NEW NEW name is CHA CHA PUSSYCAT.

Oh and I should mention Parker and Daisy. Daisy made a little nest over on the kid side of the tent and never budged. Parker came on to our side and I am not kidding when I say that old dog was every bit as excited as we all were to be camping.

I think it was close to 1am when I heard Tina coughing. Between my nose being frozen and the air mattress deflating, I just went ahead and grabbed Tina and she and I slept the remainder of the night in the house :)

Overall it was so much fun. I know we'll do it again, the question is though WHERE??

Tina and Speech

Last Wednesday Tina went for another speech evaluation.

Can I just say she jumped from basically a 3 year old level to a 6 year old level in 6 months!!! She will be 5 in July.

Tina has been in speech since she was 17 months old with the same therapist. Its so wonderful to see all of the changes in her.

Every other week, Tina rides a horse as part of her therapy. I don't know all the ins and outs of it but I know she loves it.
If your wondering what riding on a horse has to do with speech, then I'll tell you what I know. If your not wondering.. well I'll still tell you.

As they ride around the arena on the horse the speech therapist has a bunch of flashcards that she shows Tina. They also have cards mounted all along the outer edges of the arena. They talk about what is on the cards and work on annunciation as well. Wah-lah. Pretty simple huh?

The only drawback is that Hunter is not allowed to ride the horse (legal stuff) so I usually end up with a pretty PO'D 3 year old that just watched his big sister having a blast and he cant do it. Did I mention that he is 3 and he wants EVERYTHING at this point of his life.

More on Hunter later. I have to run and clean up some mud monsters from the backyard.

Family Vacation Spring 08

Yeah I know. I'm doing a little backtracking.

Adam got back from his deployment in March and we decided to take a trip down to Daytona Beach, Florida.

We left on Sunday and visited with Robyn in Jacksonville for the night. We woke up Monday morning and made the short drive down to Daytona. Tina and Hunter were so excited.

HELLO DAYTONA!!

We went ahead and checked into the hotel and then took the Excursion out to drive on the beach.

I need to get the picture from Adams phone of the kids getting their first glance of the ocean, so just use your imagination for now.
We didn't get very far when we let them out of the truck to touch it.

We spent so much time at the beach and although we played in the sand some, the kids mostly ran in and out of the waves. They also had ample time to drink plenty of "salt and pepper" water as Tina called it.

They didn't even care when the wave would come and fill in the hole they just worked so hard on digging.

We spent 3 days on the beach. Played some putt putt at a local arcade, visited our rental house to check up on things there and stopped by my old job to say hi to the guys and to show off the kids. Adam and I had such a nice time going down memory lane on this trip. We spent our first few years as a married couple down in Daytona so there were a lot of good memories to relive.

Goodbye Daytona Beach, Hello Orlando.

We went to downtown Disney and visited the stores there. I still can not believe how blown up Disney is now. All of the stores with so much "stuff". They even had a store there called "Bippity Boppity Boutique" where for the mere price of $250 dollars you can have your daughter turned into a princess. Basically for that price you get a princess dress and shoes, your kids hair pulled into a tight bun on the top with a some glitter spray, a manicure of glitter polish, some glitter makeup and a few pictures. Gag me. If your a parent who actually pays for this service.. email me. I'd love to pick your brain.

Adam and I still cant believe that although we walked with the kids through numerous stores, neither of our children pitched fits when they didnt get anything. At one point Tina told Adam "Daddy I would like to take something home with me", but that was it. No fits, nor whines. I love my children!!

The Lego store there was pretty cool. They had a room with bins full of tiny legos of every size and color.

Oh yeah, its made of Legos

We walked until we could not walk anymore and then topped the night off with a ice cream cone followed by a Tina lead "duck hunt"

Sea World was the next morning and again the kids were so wonderful. Hunter was just a few inches too short for the bigger rides, but he was able to ride the rides in the kids zone. He was excited to ride them, but the minute they started he wasn't too sure anymore. Tina, well, she couldn't get enough of them.

It was hot and we were tired, so we actually left there around 2pm.

Adam and I both agreed that even though Seaworld was fun and they kids liked it, we would take the beach over the theme park any day.

Here we are!!!

Well here we are. As if I don't have better things to do, I decided to bite the bullet and start a blog for all of our friends and family (and maybe for Adam if he can read this on his deployments).

I am hoping this will be easier for everyone compared to dropshots and myspace.

So lets get going shall we??