Family Vacation... Part 2

One day that we were visiting the Flemings we all went into New York City for the day. We took a double decker bus all over the city where we could get off at any of the many stops that it made throughout... we had never ridden one of those before! We saw several places, including Central Park, Rockefeller Plaza, Times Square, St. Patrick's Cathedral, the American Girl Place, and the Empire State Building. We also had fun shopping around the M&M store and on the streets for our NYC tshirts! One of the most interesting things that we did, though, was take the NY subway system back to our car at the end of the day. How confusing! It took us about 20 minutes just to figure out what line to take... it was also hot and VERY dirty down in the train area, complete with VERY large rats! Let me assure you that this wasn't our first choice of transportation in NYC, but our bus passes had run out for the day and this was way cheaper than 7 of us trying to take taxis across the city! It was an adventure, though! We finally made it back to the car, found a place to eat a late dinner, then headed back to West Point. We had a very fun day, and Mitchell and Amelia loved getting to see NYC!

Family Vacation... Part 1

Our family just got back from a wonderful summer vacation where we had the opportunity to see many new and exciting things! We counted that we traveled through 11 different states and also DC, so we definitely covered lots of miles! We did so many things that I have decided to break the vacation down into a few parts. Part 1 is our visit with good friends Steve, Barbara and Davis Fleming in West Point, NY. What a great time there! We had never been to their home in West Point (where they live on post), so we thought that it was about time for a visit. I think that we were all amazed at just how beautiful it is there! The first thing that we did there was go to their 4th of July celebration at Trophy Point, where we listened to the Army Band play patriotic music, watched great fireworks, and just had a wonderful time catching up with the Flemings and taking in the beauty of Trophy Point overlooking the Hudson River. Another day we got to go on the official tour of West Point and hear more about the history... very interesting! Then Steve took us all on more of a behing the scenes look at some of the campus. We very much enjoyed our visit to West Point and spending time with good friends!

Swim team, 2008

We have just finished another fun swim season with the Summer Hill Barracudas! Mitchell and Amelia both did very well in their events this summer and had so much fun at all of the meets. The season ended at the county meet where all the swim teams in Oconee County compete against each other. The Barracudas came in 2nd! Mitchell and Amelia were both happy with their times and both came away with a few medals! The county meet lasts about 6 hours and is a long day, but all of the swimmers get plenty of down time and have fun playing games and relaxing together in between events. It is a great summer activity for the family!

Camp Sunshine

Dave's cabin of boys (dressed as tacky tourists for a parade)


the special opening ceremony


Cathy's cabin (the blue team for "wacky olympics"!)



saying "good-bye"!

Dave and I had another great week at Camp Sunshine! This was my 16th year to go and Dave's 14th year... we both can't imagine a summer without it! People always ask what Camp Sunshine (a camp for children with cancer) is like... it is one of those things that you just can't put into words. It is a week where we get to watch children with cancer have a normal time... and a total blast at camp. It is one of our biggest rewards of each year to be with these special children for a whole week. Dave and I both have the opportunity to get to know some of the kids on a more personal level by being cabin counselors. Dave had a great group of 11 year old boys and I had a very sweet group of 12 year old girls... they were all so much fun to be with! We hope that we will get to continue this special tradition for a very long time!

Amelia's 9th birthday!!

Amelia is 9!! We pulled off a big surprise for her birthday this year... we thought that she was going to go insane trying to figure it out! We sent a secret invitation to her friends and asked them to bring earrings as a gift to Amelia because we were going to take her to get her ears pierced at her party. We had Amelia open a card from the family first which revealed the big surprise and had a gift card from Claire's in it to pay for everything. She then opened all of her friend's gifts and now has a wonderful collection of new earrings! After opening gifts we loaded up all of the girls into our vans and headed to Claire's... they were all so excited! Thank goodness Amelia had lots of support for the piercing because she was nervous, even though she has wanted to get this done for a long time. They did both ears at the same time and Amelia only cried for about a minute. Then we gave out gift cards to all of the girls to Claire's and they got to have a blast shopping for themselves! Then we headed home for mexican food and an Oreo Delight cake (Amelia's request). Amelia was very excited about her surprise birthday theme (she had known that she was having a party, but not what kind) and had a great day!

Annual trip to the farm

Every summer we make a wonderful journey to North Vernon, Indiana to visit a lot of Dave's family. There are lots of Uncles, Aunts, cousins... and lots of kids around! The smaller cousins have the best time running all over the farm, playing with the barn kittens, feeding cows, horses and goats, taking tractor rides, swimming in the pond, eating lots of food, etc. It is one of the most relaxing vacations that we take each year and we would not miss the wonderful family gathering! We all look forward to this trip every summer!

Mitchell's 11th birthday!

We can't believe that our baby is 11 years old!! Mitchell had a great idea for his birthday this year and we all had so much fun with it! He wanted to go white water rafting so we let him invite 3 friends to come along with us. We rented a house in Bryson City, NC for the night before rafting. We all left right after Vacation Bible School on Thursday and headed up to NC. Mitchell and his friends had fun playing for a while before we had grilled cheeseburgers for dinner (Mitchell's favorite). Then he opened his presents and they all watched a movie. The next morning we went to the Nantahala Outdoor Center to get ready for the rafting. We all had so much fun! The boys all got to ride on a raft together with Dave and the rest of us rode on the other raft. Thanks to Granddad, Grandmama, Debbie, Angie, Nicholas, Brandon and Reese for making this trip so much fun for Mitchell!
Mitchell also got another family celebration at home on his actual birthday... and more presents! What a great birthday!

Vacation Bible School

Vacation Bible School at our church is always a fun week to look forward to after school ends. I helped again and Mitchell and Amelia had a blast going around with their age groups. This year's theme was a beach theme... Surfin With the Scriptures and was so much fun! What a great way to start off summer vacation!

Last Day of School!!!

Yea!!! The last day of school is finally here! Mitchell and Amelia both had end of year parties today and had a lot of fun. Amelia's party was outside and was a cookout for the whole 3rd grade (the 5th grade cookout was on Thursday). They had so much fun just hanging out, eating and playing games with water balloons! The 5th grade parties are also very fun for them. Each pod (which is 5 classes) has its own party and it looks more like a big block party. All of the students are all over the pod in whatever classroom they want to be in. They got to eat pizza and just hang out for the last time together (they will be split up between 2 middle schools next year). The last picture is of Mitchell and his "brick". His science teacher (and homeroom teacher) Mr. Julian told his students at the beginning of the year that if they made an "A" on every single test this year and kept an "A" average in the class that they could paing their own brick in his classroom. Only seven students got a "brick" and Mitchell was one of them! We were so proud of him! He painted his brick with a Clemson theme... go Tigers! Now that we are done with school for the year we can focus on all of the fun we will have this summer!

Softball party

Amelia had her end of season softball party tonight at a local pizza place... always a wild scene when you get a large group of little girls together! They had a great time and were so excited to receive trophies from their very sweet coach! Amelia has loved playing softball and had a great group of girls to play with this season. She can't wait to play more!

Awards!

We got to attend 2 awards days at OCES for Amelia and Mitchell this week. They both have had excellent years which was reflected by the awards that they received. They received 3 or 4 awards each and we could not have been prouder of them!

A special Clemson weekend!

Amelia and I just had a wonderful weekend together at the 10th annual "Take Your Daughter To Clemson" weekend. We got to stay in the nice Stadium Suites dorm and had some really nice suite mates... Amelia loved staying in the dorm room! We got to do a lot of fun activities on Saturday like take a tour of the athletic facilities, learn about monarch butterflies (which was very fun for the girls!), learn some new math created at Clemson, climb a rock wall, go cosmic bowling, eat ice cream... whew! It did not take us long to fall asleep that night! On Sunday we had a nice breakfast in one of the stadium suites, then we all headed over to the famous "hill" (have you ever heard of the "most exciting 25 seconds in football?). After touching the famous "Howard's Rock" the parents got to run down the hill first. Then it was the daughter's turn! They had the best time running down that hill! It was about as exciting for the parents to watch our daughters of all ages running down the hill as it is to watch the football team... and definitely more special! Then we got to run all over the field (Amelia and I ran a 100 yard touchdown) and have our picture made with the Tiger. Needless to say it was a very special weekend to share with Amelia at our "Dear Old Clemson". We plan to attend again next year!

Strawberry time!!

Every Spring we go to Washington Farms to pick strawberries. We finally found and afternoon that was free to go! Amelia has been with me to pick every year since we moved to Athens, but this was Mitchell's first time. We all three got a bucket and went to work! Amelia eats about as many strawberries as she puts in her bucket (these strawberries are great right off of the vine!). With such great helpers it didn't take us very long to gather our three buckets! I have now made a batch of strawberry jam, put several bags of cut up strawberries in the freezer, and of course put a bunch in the fridge to eat! YUM!!

Trophy time!

Mitchell's regular baseball season has come to an end! He has had lots of fun playing for the Yankees... his first major league experience. Playoffs will start on Monday. The team got together at Cici's Pizza after tonight's game for dinner and to celebrate the season. And Mitchell got another cool trophy to add to his collection!

Happy Mother's Day!

Mother's Day for me was lots of fun! Amelia woke me up early and sent me on a scavenger hunt with clues leading me to the next place... all the way to some gifts! She had made me a beautiful blue trinket box, a flower with "coupons" that I can redeem and a card. After a pancake breakfast together we went to church. Dave and the kids took me to Carrabas for lunch, then off to my surprise. We got a laptop computer! They surprised me by taking me to the store to help pick it out (Amelia wanted the pink one, but as you can see we got the normal black one!). It was a very cool surprise! Later that night we went to a friends' house for dinner... we definitely ate well today!

I am so happy and thankful every day to be a mother to two wonderful children. It is truly one of the best jobs in the world!! I feel like I had some great role models to help prepare me for this job... my mother and my grandmothers. What better teachers could there be?

OYSP Spring Showcase

Amelia had two performances in the Oconee Youth School of Performance Spring Showcase this weekend... the ending to our crazy week! The show was great and of course Amelia was the star of the show! She really enjoys her classes at OYSP and is already planning what she wants to do there next year. Amelia's musical theatre class did a number to some songs from "Grease" which was really cute! Her tap class did a dance that had both tap and jumproping in it! It was great and Amelia got to show off her jumproping skills. After the show we all had a wonderful dinner at Last Resort Grill in downtown Athens, topped off with some of their famous yummy desserts!

3rd Grade Musical!

Amelia's 3rd grade musical was tonight at the Oconee Civic Center. The performance was very cute... "A Froggy Day In Lindentown". It's always amazing how their music teacher can organize over 200 students into a production like this! Amelia was thrilled to have a small singing solo in the musical, and she did an awesome job! The end of school is getting closer!!