5th Grade Picnic

Yep, it's here already.  The end of the school year!

I have to say this year went exceptionally fast. (For me.)  It really does seem like a few months ago we were selecting backpacks, filling them with supplies, and the boys were climbing into bed, excited for their first day of school the next day and seeing all their friends again.

But now it's all behind them and they both worked very hard this year.  There was a LOT of reading. Lots of testing. (TONS.)  Lots and lots of vocabulary memorizing.  Every Friday both boys had to memorize a huge list of fancy words.  There were poster projects and field trips and CRCT's and sicknesses and rain and cold and heat and lots and lots of early mornings in the dark in the car, waiting for the bus to arrive.

But that's all over with now and it's SUMMER TIME!

But first we had one last school party.  Benny's school had a 5th grade awards ceremony on Thursday, followed by a schoolwide picnic and mass kickball game.  First came the awards ceremony.

Benny made Honor Roll! 

Then came the picnic.

During the picnic, Benny's teacher told me that this year the class had been "Truly exceptional and wonderful...a great group of kids."  I couldn't agree more, based on what I've seen.

And next year, Benny will be in BAND.  He is very excited.

Along with the picnic came some horsing around.

Lots of horsing around.

Then kickball!

Though it was blazing hot, everyone had a blast, and more than one child was bouncing off the walls with energy and excitement.  They worked hard all year, and now they get to play hard for a few months of summer bliss.

Congratulations, Benny!

Two Weeks of Illness

Remember how I mentioned everyone had so much fun on their cruise?  Well, everyone sure paid for that fun in a big way.  Everybody got sick on the very last day of the cruise.  When they came home, Benny and Gram were both in the midst of bad colds.  Sam felt fine, he said....then hours after arriving back home, he suddenly erupted in full blown pink-eye.

Off to the doctor we went, and both boys missed their first day back at school.  Benny had a sinus infection and ear infection.  Sam had pink-eye.

The next day Gram took a turn for the worse and got pneumonia!!

Benny had a rough week and felt lousy, but was able to return to school for three of the days.

Poor Sam stayed home ALL WEEK with a red, red eye that itched, ached, hurt, oozed, and blurred.  He was so miserable. 

At the end of the week he came down with a very painful throat infection.

So...our house was a house full of antibiotics and eye drops and cartoons, and I tried my best to keep Sam company while he laid around feeling awful.

Fortunately Sam was able to return to school the following week, after nine long days of being sick and being unsightly.

Gram needed a full two weeks to recover, but she is almost all better now.

So maybe I DON'T want to come on the cruise next time, after all?  Who knows.  But it sure sounds like the family shared some big ugly germs.

When the boys finally both felt better, we had a long, long afternoon of extremely rowdy behavior and tons of NOISE.  Though it bugged me, it was also music to my ears. So glad to see everyone feeling beter at last.

Let's hope that was the worst of it...for a while, anyway.

Cruising On Spring Break!

Is it possible?  Yes, it is!  The boys went on another cruise for spring break!!  This makes two years in a row, and their third cruise overall.  (Last year we all went on the ALLURE OF THE SEAS.)

This time, Gram packed up the boys and whisked them off to the Caribbean for seven days!  They joined Bass, Cory, Mikey, and Eydie on the CARNIVAL FREEDOM.  And they had a GREAT TIME.

Yep, that's my fearless eleven year-old, parasailing with Eydie and Mikey in the Florida Keys, on their first day of the trip.  Wow!!  Was I ever surprised to get the phone call afterwards and find out what they did!

And of course, Sam went too--with Cory!

They also visited an alligator farm (ranch?) while there.  They had Key Lime Pie.  They road the Conch Train.

And they saw the very end of Route 1!

The ship was beautiful (Mom said) and they had lots to do.

Everybody (but Mom, who took the picture,) pepares to board

Water slide on ship!

Sam, Mom, Benny at dinner

Eydie and Mikey

Aunt Louise and Cory

Various outings.....

And let's not forget going Ziplining while in Jamaica!  That sounded very FUN.

That's just a sampling of photos, and not much detail, but you get the picture.  The boys had a blast and we are definitely going to make a photo book from their trip!

Benny says he has noticed "a pattern" for his spring breaks, and is already wondering if Gram will take him on a cruise next year, too?

If so, this Mom's going to go along, too!

Bon Voyage!

Easter 2012

Every year, the highlight of preparing for Easter has always been the dying of the eggs.  I love to watch the kids make beautiful colored eggs, and I often join in with a few extra eggs I boil just for me.  So imagine my shock this year when both boys decided they were "too old" for dying eggs.  What??  No WAY.

As you can see, I pushed them into dying the eggs, and they went along with it, and maybe even had fun.  But I wonder.  Will I have to push them into it next year, too?  Is it over?  Already?  How can you be too old to do something so fun?  It's just not fair.

In any case, the boys dyed their eggs, and Poe watched.  They griped at me for taking photos, and nobody wanted pictures of them (another lovely new thing that comes with age) but I made the best of it.

And in the end, look what pretty eggs we had.  And the boys were not scarred for life, as they might have feared.

Let it be known that there was not one single mention of being "too old" for Easter Baskets. Nope, we had those hidden as usual, filled with candy, and the boys enjoyed them.

This year we had Mom and Dad come to our house for Easter dinner, and it was lots of fun to plan the menu and put it together.  We all sat outside and enjoyed the very warm weather.  And everyone got a little something from the Easter Bunny.

Unfortunately, Easter was immediately followed by a round of illness for everyone, starting off with Sam coming down with pink eye that Sunday night.  But that is a story for another post.  For now, I will just enjoy the photos of the egg dying, because who knows--it may be the last one I can talk them into.

Oops, a little more

I thought we were all done with Gatlinburg pictures, but then I found some on my camera card I had not yet downloaded.  So here are a few:

When it was early morning, or late at night, or we were waiting for rain to pass, there was a lot of this:

No arguments here!  It helped pass the time inside.

One of the boy's favorite outings was the exploration of the Guiness World Record Museum.

It had the usual array of Guiness things....interesting, fun, and...EW.  But the boys liked the "EW" part best of all.

This is Benny next to a life-sized exact replica of the world's tallest man.  Wow, was he HUGE.  Sam could not get over the fact that the man wore a size 36 shoe.

I think this mirror is just for fun, not any records.  But it was very distorting.

Look out Sam!

Sam thought this was interesting--the belt of the world's fattest man.  I took this picture, then all three of us stood inside the belt with TONS of room to spare. 

I honestly cant say what this was about...I looked everywhere and did not find a sign.  I THINK it may be Evil Connivel, with the record for the most broken bones or crashes or something.  Either way, Sam was highly amused.

If I look awkward in this photo, it's because I realized I was sitting in a puddle right when I sat down and Benny snapped the photo.   Oh well!  Very nice bear sculpture, and a popular photo spot.

Indoor mini-golf helped pass the rainy afternoon. 

Riding the cable car to the top of the mountain.  A very serious photographer on the foreground, a monkey in the background.

Last but not least, Benny took this picture while we were driving home across the top of the Smokies.  It was a lovely day, lovely views, and the photo does not do it justice.  The kids were really impressed by the beauty of it all.

I say we definitely need to go back next year!

Gatlinburg, Part Two

 The rest of our stay in Gatlinburg was great.  We only had one day of rain, and it really didn't mess things up too much, because we went to the Ripley's museum (both interesting and gross), and indoor mini-golf. (Not a shock that Sam won by a mile.)  We went back to town to visit the arcade, too.

Our last night there, we rode the sky car to the top of the mountain.  That was fun!

At the top of the mountain is a ski resort, and a small mall.  Sam stared longingly at the snowy slopes, the people skiing, and said he wanted to come back sometime and do that.

Inside, we looked around a bit.

Then decided to go ice skating!

The boys were very good at it.  Me...not so much.

Back down at the bottom is was one last visit to the arcade.  The boys had a blast.

And yes, they can work together when it's something fun!  This game was a hoot--Sam and I both won 500 tickets on it, and later we kept trying and winning again and again.

Here is some nail-biting action from the "horse race" we all did.  I won, and a stuffed tiger was mine!

The boys cashed in too, we came home with a stuffed sea turtle, and a huge whoopie cushion.

We had a really wondeful week, and I'm so glad we went.  Maybe we'll do it again next year!