150

Ok, this is my 150 post!!! Wow!! I never thought I would make it this far!


The past week has been really busy as usual. Saturday was Elizabeth's two dance recitals. We were there for almost 10 hours. Needless to say both of us were very tired. Here's a few pictures from the recital. I also have a video of her hip hop dance that I will try to post later!

Getting ready for Company picture.

This is the entire competitive dance team for Shooting Stars. Can you find Elizabeth?

Elizabeth and Banastre before the second recital.Banastre dancing like Sissy!

We also had 1 Moving Away party for a friend from dance, 3 days at the community pool, 3 days of dance classes (gotta get ready for Nationals!), 1 trip to Chick-fil-A where they played for awhile, and a trip to the beach today. It was a fun, but exhausting week. This next coming week will be filled with dance practices as Nationals Competition takes place July 5-9. The kids were "working" hard!Matt, Sue, and Reg hanging out in Cocoa Beach.Elizabeth posing as usual!Banastre says "CHEESE!!!"

Of course, on the way home Banastre was asking to go the beach again. So, it shouldn't be long until we are back again!

Summer Update

Remember how I predicted a busy summer...how's this for a busy week:
1 trip to Magic Kingdom
4 trips to the community pool
4 days of dance classes
1 two hour long play in Chick-fil-A
2 hours of Banastre discovering Play-doh
100 (at least) viewings of Backyardigans Pirates
Not enough nap or "Mommy time"

I have been lazy this week and haven't taken any pics...but there will be plenty today. It's recital time and I hope to get lots of good photos!

And for those of you who aren't familiar with the Backyardigans and have never seen the older pirate episode, watch below to hear one of the songs that is being constantly sung in our house! Banastre was even singing himself to sleep this week with this song!(Don't even get me started on the "Scurvy Pirate" song. Who teaches their kids to "Raid a ship and then hotwire it"?) But of course, that one is his favorite!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpC0I7zZbe4

There's also a new pirates episode that has taught Banastre the new words of "piratatude" and "Scallywag". It's great to hear these things come from him. He can even do the Scallywag dance!

Father's Day

Look closely and you can see the giant turtle! (He has his head up towards the top of the water)
Banastre petting the alligator.
Elizabeth and a new friend.
Grandma even gets in on the petting!
Banastre's favorite part! The Beach!!!!!

On Father's Day, we took a day trip to Tarpon Springs. It was a lot of fun and the kids really seemed to enjoy it as much as the adults! It was amazing to see all of the different natural sponges that are harvested in the gulf. They also had a small aquarium where we were able to see them feeding alligators and a giant snapping turtle. Banastre and Elizabeth even petted a small alligator. There was a 200 pound grouper that had to be the biggest fish I had ever seen. There were even big sharks and little sharks. The best thing was the petting tanks where we got to pet sting rays and two small sharks. It was very hard to pull Elizabeth away from those! Of course, being so close to the beach, we had to take Banastre and let him see it!

I think Reg and Matt both enjoyed their Father's Day exploring a new part of Florida with the kids!

Summer vacation and Batman

So, our first full week of summer vacation has passed and I am exhausted! Banastre and Elizabeth can be very loving to one another. Hence the photo above. Other times they are arguing and fussing with each other! Ugh!!! So to keep count of summer vacation we have done the following in the past week: Went to Lake Louisa and the State park, trip to Epcot, swam in our pool, went to the community pool, 3 dance classes, trip to the library, grocery shopping and two showings of our house. I hope every week isn't quite this busy!

Yesterday, I was no the hunt for new pajamas for our little man. Came across this pair and fell in love. One of my nicknames for Banastre is Batman. This just completed it for me:

Notice the cape? It's so cool! No more capes made from blankets!
I just loved pic and had to share..... he looks like someone famous, but I can't figure it out...
Here's Elizabeth too...notice her sunscreen wore off her face and now she is burnt!

Well, just got a call from Matt and we are on our way to Disney today!! Have a great weekend everyone!

Watch out Third Grade

Here comes Elizabeth!!!! Today is her last day of Second Grade. She is very excited to be getting out for the summer. Mommy for sees lots of time spent at the pool, Disney World, and day trips to the beach.

Earlier this week, her class had Awards Day. Our smart girl received every academic award they had!! We are so proud of her!!!!!!

She received the following awards:

Math Superstar - perfect score (math sheets sent home once a week with work two to three grade levels above the current grade level)

School Board reading award - Must have read 35 fiction books and 35 non fiction books during the year (Elizabeth read 221 books this school year!!!!!)

All A Honor Roll all four nine weeks

WOW!!!!!!!!

Now, so you can see the difference. A pic from her her first day of school and her last!

She sure did change a lot this year!!!!

Just for the record..here's Banastre's pics too. Taken from Elizabeth's first day of school and earlier this week:

What do you think...keep the hair long or go back short?

Vero Beach

We are Disney Vacation Club members. Seeing as how we now live 15 minutes from the entrance to Disney, we have been trying to figure out how to use our points. Well, it just so happens that Disney has a few other places than just at Disney World. They have a Hilton Head resort, a brand new resort being built in Hawaii, and one in Vero Beach. Disney's Vero Beach Resort is only 2.5 hours from our house. Can you guess where we spent 4 days this past week?

These are from our first day on the beach! It wasbeautiful!!!! It's amazing though how the beach around Vero is deserted. There was no one around if you walked about 100 feet from the resort.

This is the Pirate Ship with water for kids 48" and under. Banastre and I spent a lot of time here. If the water hadn't sprayed in his face, I think he would have enjoyed it even more!

The playground was another favorite spot of Banastre's. Luckily they had lounge chairs right beside it so I could tan while he was playing. Usually,it was me and B man at the playground while Elizabeth and Matt were in the pool.

On Friday, we hit the beach early in the morning, then took off to have lunch. We found this great place called the Environmental Learning Center that we decided to explore. They had lots of great exhibits and fun things for the kids to do. Including a fossil dig area. This was a great big hit with both of the kids. We also explored lots of areas dedicated to the water life in FL and the animals located in the state. We also walked all of their outdoor trails. It was hot, but a lot of fun. We also went to a Treasure Museum after we left the ELC. Learned lots of cool information about all of the wrecked ships off of Florida's Treasure Coast. (Can you guess why they call it this?) The ships still actively produce treasure and it washes up on shore frequently too. Matt had found a piece of pottery while on the beach Thursday. We found out Friday that it is from one of the wrecked ships!! How cool is that?

Here are pics from all of us at the observation deck at the end of the walkway at McLarty Treasure Museum. You could see a couple with a metal detector walking around and a boat with divers in the water near the shipwrecks. If only we could have been one of the lucky ones to have gold wash up at our feet!

Saturday was spent a lot like Friday. We hit the beach early in the morning, the pool and play areas in the afternoon and then at 5:02 pm we went out on the beach to watch the space shuttle Discovery take off. Buzz Lightyear was on board the shuttle this time to go to "Infinity and beyond!!!" Learn more here. It was a great experience to see it from the beach. We normally see the launch from our backyard, so it was neat to have a different perspective. We did get an extra bonus here on the beach, about two minutes after watching it disappear into the atmosphere, we could actually hear it! Everyone on the beach clapped and cheered!

Saturday evening we took a long walk on the beach. We had a lot of fun looking for shells, observing the sea turtle nests, and just spending time together. Our only company on the mile plus walk was the lovely pelican pictured above. The sunset was spectacular and a great way to end a lovely vacation.