New Love

We have a new love in our home. Her name is Lucy.



The kids and I have been searching for a family dog of late. It's taken a while, but she joined our home this weekend.



She's 3 months old and we're completely in love with her.



She's a black lab mix (not sure with what--possibly a little bloodhound).



She's good at fetching.



And sleeping (the kids thought she might be cold and wrapped her up in a blanket).



She's leash trained, crate trained and under our care has learned to sit. She's also learned to sit and wait for us to enter the house first--no bolting and running through our legs to get in first. We think she's pretty smart!

Summer

The calendar says it's the first day of summer. The thermostat has been reading mid-July - August. Wow! It's been hot!!

What Do You See?

Sometimes the only thing to do is to start looking at everything again until you forget what you're supposed to see & actually see what's there ~ Story People

Reasons for Celebration

Last Wednesday was game one of the soccer tournament for Andrew's team. They earned the first seed in the tournament. His team won Wednesday, Friday and headed to the championship game on Saturday morning. At the end of regulation, the game was tied 2-2. At the end of overtime, it was still 2-2, and they had a shoot out. Andrew moved to goalie and stopped every shot!! One of the girls on our team scored a goal, and we won 3-2.


Flying High!


Turning the ball around.

Holding his breath on a goal kick.

Intense look during the throw-in.

Celebrating his goal on a throw in.  He intended to throw the ball in, have it hit another play and bounce into the goal.  He was successful!!

Stopping the ball during the shoot out.

His 1st Place Medal.  Also notice the missing tooth.  I pulled it right before the game--in the parking lot.  It was just hanging there and I was afraid he was going to swallow it or choke.

Way to go Supersonics!!

Another cause for celebration was Abby's birthday. She's actually 8 today, but is away from home. We celebrated her birthday on Friday.


I found these fun Happy Birthday Sunglasses for her.

She chose an iCarly cake.

This one and the next one were taken while we were
singing Happy Birthday to her.


Making a wish.

And blowing out her candles.

Happy, happy birthday Abby. 

Twenty Minutes

Last night I asked each kid to spend twenty minutes in his/her room cleaning and straightening up.

Out from under Adam's bed came all of this:





Approximately one hour and thirty minutes later, he was still there.

Mother's Day Picnic

Last Friday I attended my final Mother's Day Picnic at the park with the school's kindergarten classes. It was a gorgeous day. The kids went on a scavenger hunt with their mothers and we traipsed all over the park looking for the items on our list. Andrew and I were down to one final item--an acorn. Andrew thought perhaps we could find one under the trees by the creek. As you can imagine, the rocks in and around the creek were too tempting and several of the kids were jumping from rock to rock. Not surprisingly, Andrew fell in--up to his waist. We had to make a quick trip home for a change of clothes and some dry shoes.


That's my boy!

We had free time before lunch was served to play.



After lunch all of the kids sang songs to the mothers. It's so cute. They had practiced and practiced and did such a good job.



Andrew has a special friend, "T." He asked her mom if it would be okay for them to have their picture taken together. "T's" mom has a folder that she calls "The Andrew Loves "T" Folder." It contains all of the things Andrew has written, colored and drawn for her. It's so cute.



You can see some of the moms reflected in Andrew's glasses. His teacher told the kids they had to take their sunglasses off for the songs so the mommies could see their eyes.



It was a really fun day. As soon as we got home Andrew made his teacher a thank you card.



Here's Adam from my Mother's Day Picnic with him in 2006 (he's in the middle).



And Abby from my Mother's Day Picnic with her in 2008.

Ability, Motivation, Attitude

Ability is what you are capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it
Lou Holtz

Nature

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. ~ Anne Frank

Glasses

There was no school yesterday. After an appointment in the morning, we had the rest of the day to play. We decided to go see How to Train Your Dragon -- in 3D. Let me say it never occurred to me that it would be more expensive than your normal "way too expensive" movie. We were going to the same theatre after all; we were just going to receive a pair of glasses to see the movie in 3D. When the lady at the ticket counter told me how much, I almost fell over. Adam said, "How much?" I muttered a number slightly less than $50 -- just slightly. I laughed and said, "What a bargain." To which the ticket lady replied, "Awww, thanks for saying that. Almost everyone is complaining about the price." Too funny!






I have to admit it was money well spent. The movie is so cute and it was so fun for me to sit and watch the kids reactions to it. There were several times where I saw them reach out to touch what they thought was right in front of them.

Another good day...

Field Trips

Last week, Adam had two field trips. The entire fourth grade class went to Reed Gold Mine where they were having Carolina Heritage Days. Reed Gold Mine is the site of the first documented gold find in the United States. There were several special exhibits set up for Carolina Heritage Days. Like this guy ...

The bucket was used in a fire brigade.

As soon as Adam saw this guy, he said, "Look, a pirate!" and he was serious. To say his class was not prepared for what they were going to see on the field trip is an understatement.

And this ...



...this sufficiently scared one of the girls in my group...the one who had wondered off every time I turned around. The one was not dressed appropriately and only wanted to stand in the sun.

We did pan for gold.



We learned that all of the gold that has been found would fit inside the elementary school gym. I was surprised by that. Adam found a fleck of gold.

A teeny, tiny fleck.

Adam and a friend.

We also toured the mine. My favorite parts of the tour went something like this, "This is an air hammer. It wasn't used at this mine." and "This is an escape ladder. It wasn't here during the time they were mining." Um, so the escape ladder is for our benefit? Great.

The next day the fourth grade AIG kids went on a tour of Historic Concord. They had just finished a study on architecture. The teacher had prepared a scavenger hunt for the kids. They were to find certain architectural features on the houses and buildings. Each feature was worth a certain amount of points and the group who had the most points at the end of the day won a pizza party with the teacher.

The kids took the scavenger hunt very seriously.

We also had a geocaching riddle to solve. My group worked together very well. Instead of finding a treasure, the kids were led to historic markers on the sides of buildings.







We took a tour of the Old Courthouse. The first floor of the courthouse had been converted into an art gallery and the second floor into a theatre. We toured the Museum and the Memorial Gardens where the roses were in bloom.



After a trip to the Creamery for ice cream and the Chocolatier, we were all to meet in front of the library. The teacher was collecting everyone's responsibility slips, scavenger hunt sheets and geocaching information. She did all of this right under this sign.

Too funny.

At the end of this week, I head out with Andrew. Every year the kindergarteners take their mothers to a local park for a Mother's Day Picnic.

Soccer, Kites, Bubbles, Ice Cream

Spring has been glorious this year--except for all the pollen. The pollen has been quite rough on the allergies. This past weekend was filled with more soccer. I'm loving being a soccer mom.

Andrew's team had another victory on Saturday. The score was 4-2 and Andrew's team scored all 6 points. Oops. At least we scored more for our team than for the opponent.




I don't think I'll ever get tired of watching Andrew's enthusiasm for life.

We bought a kite and took it to the park on Sunday. We tried and tried and tried, but had no luck getting it to fly. I overheard Adam telling someone that the kite tried to attack us. That's pretty accurate. It would start to fly and then do these crazy spins and plummet to the ground. I'm not sure we had it together correctly. The kids had also received some tiny kites for Christmas. We didn't have any luck with those either.





After we gave up on the kites, we tried some bubbles. The sun was terribly harsh (for pictures at least), but I like these anyway.





Andrew was laughing at something Adam did.

We made bubbles for the kids until our arms hurt. They loved chasing them and trying to pop them with their "swords."




We then headed into town and were treated to some ice cream at the Creamery.

Mint Chocolate Chip for Abby








We really had a great time together this weekend.

On a sad note, I hit a cardinal on the way to taking the kids to school this morning. She got stuck on my windshield wipers. She did not die immediately. She looked right in the window at me and blinked. TWICE. And just sat there. I screamed and then started laughing hysterically. What? You don't think that's the appropriate response? I had no idea how to get her off and Adam suggested that I turn on the windshield wipers. So I did. And she rode back and forth across the windshield. Adam told me to speed the windshield wipers up. I figured it was either that or stop and pick her up by her tiny little legs. The latter didn't appeal to me. So I turned the windshield wipers up on high and she finally "flew" away.