Where in the world?

Do you suppose this sign is?

Well that is where I was!
There was sun. There was sand. There was turquoise water to float in. There were drinks with little umbrellas in them. Can you guess where?
It was a great vacation, we celebrated our 10 year anniversary and missed our boys like crazy.
I will post more pictures with details (not all the details ;-)) after I have caught up a little around here.

Tree Planting

Yesterday we work on a community service project in our neighborhood. The city had some trees to be planted and I had a group of cub scouts who need community service and needed to plant trees to help earn their badges. We had a great time and planted a lot of trees. 50 or so? I did not count.
The organizers gave us a tree planting 101 lesson and then set us free on the trail with color coded flags marking where the trees should go. Everyone pitched in, the boys did a great job. We finished our section in about an hour, and then we had to head out, others stayed and helped finished the other sections. They were trying to plant 300 trees in 3 hours. I wonder if they finished?

J-man was very into digging holes. He was also trying to see who could dig out the biggest rock. When he would find a big one he would make a lot of noise and hold it over his head. I guess you do what you can to entertain yourself....

We planted 3 types of trees; Douglas Firs, Western Hemlocks and Cedars. They even got some extra trees for the volunteers to take home and plant in their yards. Mitch said no, he thinks we have enough trees :-). These trees are close enough that we can visit them whenever we want. In fact, I think I will take the cub scouts on a hike in the spring to go visit the trees that they planted. I wonder if they will remember us?

How to entertain yourself with a shiny countertop

It's Football Season

Flag football that is. Today was the boys first day of practice followed by their first game. They both had a great time and we had the perfect weather for it. Ask me how much fun we are having when the rain starts!

T-man is #1!

Look at this Q-T!

J-man's game was a little more exciting. They were all just getting used to each other and learning play.

J-man is passing the ball. They sort of tried them out at all positions. Supposedly we can go on-line and get their "stats" after every game. I'll have to check that out and see how J-mans "stats" look. To be continued. I'm sure next time in the rain.

Somebody had a birthday today!

It's hard for me to believe, but I gave birth to this guy 9 years ago today at 3:57am. He weighed in at 8 pounds 3 ounces. Now he weighed in at 83 pounds. Amazing what can happen in 9 years.
We had a little family party for him tonight with Grammie and Great Grandma and Great Grandpa. J-man helped bake his own cake - and frost it. There might be egg shells in the cake, and the frosting knife might have gotten licked a bit too early, but we still ate it. And because T-man will not touch chocolate with a ten foot pole, we had to make a yellow cake with vanilla frosting for him. Mitch is not too fond of chocolate either, so we made them sit at the other end of the table to eat their non-chocolate cake. Freaks.

This kid was serious about his blowing out the candles! All 9 of them!

Ripping open his presents, he is very excited for the MIB movies. He thinks they are cool. I think that it is scary that MIB is a decade old. Yep came out before he was born. Oh well. More partying will be taking place this weekend. In the meantime, to keep him busy since his teacher is not sending any homework until next week, I made him a list of who he needs to write Thank You notes too.

First Day of School

Yeah! It's back to school for J-man and the first day of Kindergarten for T-man. We made it to the bus stop 10 minutes early thanks to Mitch, and the bus was on time. Amazing. T-man asked J-man if he could sit by him on the bus and J-man told him (in his snottiest voice) "No, you can't sit with me. Kinders sit in the front of the bus!"
Bubble burst. Before school even started. Bummer.

Waiting at the bus stop. By themselves. 10 minutes early. Wearing sweats. On the first day of school. I decided not to fight the wardrobe choice. Not a fight worth fighting. Until picture day.


The bus was the choice of transportation today. Even though I had to go to school with the overflow of supplies that were needed. So I met them at school. Again, pick the fights worth fighting.

So T-man seemed rather shell shocked by Kindergarten. He really doesn't know any of the kids in his class very well. All the neighborhood kids and baseball buddies are in other classes. He said he had a good day today and he has tomorrow off. We will have to get another update after he goes back on Thursday. Speaking of Thursday.... Thursday is a big day around here......Lots of planning going on........
T-man was also very excited about his Hulk Backpack. Hopefully he can remember to bring it home every night and also remember to give his teacher the stuff that is supposed to go back to school. Unlike his brother who needs his mother to call his teacher to make sure that it got turned in. Hopefully we won't have to go there this year. Hopefully.

More Weekend Pictures

Everybody got to take a turn riding horses. Well except me. Did you see that horse stick out its tongue at me? They don't like me and I like to look at them, but last time I rode one I had some difficulty walking afterward, and have not forgotten that. Anyway... The boys were having fun!

J-man

My nephew - A cute package of Trouble.

T-man. Very concerned that in some of the pictures you can see the rope. He wants it to look like he was riding that horse all by himself. As if.

Mitch got a little riding time too. Unfortunately the horse sat down on the job, ending Mitch's ride. Mitch said it made it easier to get off, so it was a good thing. Plus we got to make fun of Mitch all evening. He will claim that he said "Sit!" and the horse was just following commands, but that is NOT what happened. That's our horsey story and I'm stickin to it!