Spring Break '09

This year we headed to Grayton Beach State Park in FL for the 2nd year in a row for Spring Break. Us along with our friends the Spiccis, headed out on Saturday, March 21st at 6:30AM for the long trek to Mobile, AL....our 1st stop. My friend Adriene's mom was gracious enough to let us stay at her house while she was up here, in MO, visiting Adriene's family. It was about a 12 hour trip which seemed even longer with a preschooler asking every half hour, "when are we going on the trip?", and her mommy saying, "honey THIS IS the trip, but we will be at KK's house tonight". She never really quite got that concept but instead tired out of asking about 6 hours or so into it. The change from family cars to "boy car" & "girl car" helped the trip to go even faster of which I drove for the last 4 hours. 

Photos of the "girl car" (being that Aimee and I are the only ones that document stuff like this we have no pictures of the "boy car"): 

Soph, Bail, Liv & Bella...

Aimee & I 

(yes I'm driving at the time of the photo...don't try this it's not safe)...

Anyone Still Out There??

 I haven't lost all of my readers have I? Anyone still out there? Helllooo, are you there?? I sure someone is out there, but I'll write anyway!

Sorry that I have been gone....Last week we were out of town on Spring Break...with no internet other then my iPhone, and for whatever reason it's next to impossible to blog from my phone. Below is a post that I was working on prior to break, and it will give you some insight as to what I've been up to. I hope to get some spring break posts up and my baby's birthday post (3/25).

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So my thought were that once the auction was over that life would slow down some. I thought this week would consist of a slower pace, more time to play with the kids, more time to help with school work, more time to CLEAN my house (which is trashed from pre-auction), but I was wrong...waaay wrong. We have had something every single night this week including: gymnastics, Eagles concert, dinner at Chris McD's with the football staff, baseball scrimmage, and birthday party. 

I've also learned that I can't not have a project to work on....two days after the auction ended I picked up the phone and called my friend to see what kind of help she needed for a big project she's working on (which I'll tell you about in a bit...we also need your help). Here's how the conversation went from my side: "Hey Ang, sorry I haven't been able to help you much, but now that the auction is over I can help in anyway that you need". Now here is the conversation my head is having with itself while my mouth is spewing: "What on earth is she doing? She has been complaining daily about this auction and how it takes up so much of her time, AND that she needs to learn the word no." "Tell her to shut up already!", says the common sense side, but the side that can't say no or stop helping obviously was able to speak louder and says nothing because she was victorious! Oh well...it's for a good cause!!!

So here is the cause: 

The website zootoo.com is giving away a Million Dollar Makeover to an animal shelter in need. This contest is done in three phases which consist of Phase 1: Point Accumilation, Phase 2: The Top 20 Tour, and Phase 3: America Votes

We are currently on phase 2 of this process after ending Phase 1 in the #1 spot which automatically earned our shelter, Central Missouri Humane Society, $10,000. Phase #2 consists of a site visit from the owner of zootoo, Richard Thompson, which happened yesterday.

Phase 2 ends on April 13th and after that if we have been selected to move on to Phase 3 I will be looking to you all for help. We will need as many voters as possible.

What makes this so spectacular is the story behind it though. My friend's Angie and Liz's daughters (who are friends of my 13 year old, Bail) have spearheaded this whole thing for the CMHS, and I invite you all to go check out their story (it is been in the papers, on the radio, on local TV shows, and on the local news channels). Also, the CMHS site has a compilation of everything.

The Eagles

Don and I had the fortunate pleasure of receiving two tickets to the Eagles concert last night. This is a concert that he & I wanted to go to but weren't willing to pay the high ticket prices of $75 for nosebleeds all the way up to about $180 or so for the floor seats. Many times Mizzou is able to get several comp tickets to give out but we were told this wouldn't be the case for this concert. Many other time Don's friend is able to get us really amazing tickets through his production company, but unfortunately they weren't the company on this tour so we came to terms with just not going. We learned the day before that ticket sales were not got and the just needed to give tickets away to fill the seats...Don & I lucked out. We ended up with really great seats...section 114, row 7, seats 3&4 and had a really great time! It was  fun to hear all of their classics, many of which reminded my of my childhood, and boy are those guys looking old but they can sure jam still!

Unfortunatly my phone doesn't have a zoom function but if double click on the photo you can see it better.

Don & I before the concert in Don's office...

My wonderful date...

Hotel California...

Take It To the Limit....

Glen Frey...

First Meet

This past Saturday Olivia had her very 1st gymnastics meet. She has been in gymnastics since she was about 2 years old...we started off in a parent/tot class with some friends and she has worked her way up to level 4. Liv goes 1 night a week for 3 hours (her coach wants her their 2 nights but we said no for now), and she has come along way in her skills since school has started. I think this girl is on her hands doing handstands more then she's on her feet...it's obvious that she loves it!

This weekend Liv decided that she only wanted to compete in two events for her 1st time and opted for the vault and bars. On the vault she scored an 8.5  & received a blue ribbon (the best

 you can get), and on bars her score was 7.0 & received a white ribbon (3rd best ribbon you can

 get). In addition to receiving her ribbons she also got a cute sling back back-pack and a lanyard with gymnastics written on it...gifts that they all got for entering in the meet. We took video of her and if I can figure out our new video camera I will post the video...it's so cute!

The girls are stretching (Liv is the one with her back to the camera)...

The girls lined up waiting for their turn at the vault (like I said in the basketball post, no action shots because the turn out blurry with my big lens)....

Way to go Olivia, we are so proud of you...you did an AWESOME job!!

Nico's Last Game

Here are a couple of photos of Nico in his last basketball game. I don't really have many action shots as I need to figure out which setting on my camera is best to use...mine came out blurry. Basketball is Nico's favorite sport...he says "basketball is my life" and is sad that it's over (mom is kind of glad it's over because all of his games where at 8 or 9AM...too early for a Saturday morning). 

Now it's time to gear up for Baseball Season...PLAY BALL!!!!

Crazy Busy Weekend

This past weekend was FILLED, FILLED, FILLED with lots of exciting and draining events for us. Here is a taste of what our weekend was like:

Thursday:

• 11 Am - Pick up dad from airport 
• noon - Pick Bella up from school 
• 12:15-12:45 PM- Grad lunch & shove it down throat
• 1 PM - Pick the older ones up (early out & no school on Friday because of conferences)
• Come home and work on auction stuff
• 3:30 - 9 PM - Don at work (football practice, laundry & whatever else they take care of post practice)
• 4-5 PM - go to the older 3's parent-teacher conferences (BTW they were, for the most part, good)
• 5:30 -  Dinner @ Ruby Tuesdays with Dad, the kids, my sister & her new beau and then all back to my house
• After dinner and chillin' for awhile at home worked on auction
• Went to bed!

Friday:

• 8:30AM - back up and gone for the whole day working on the auction
• 9:00AM - Picking up stuff at CCS for the auction
• 9:45AM  - dropped Bail off at Humane Society to work their Open House for the final zootoo push (which we ended #1 in the 1st phase...YAY!)...she worked until 8PM!
• 10 AM - 10PM - was at the fairgrounds setting up for the auction
• 10:00 PM - came home and chatted with dad and then went to bed and watched the end of the Mizzou game
• 11PM - CRASHED

Saturday:

• 6AM - 3PM - Don at football
• 7AM - wake up and head to Nico's final Basketball game
• 8-9AM - Nico's Game
• 9:30 - Pick up the girls and head out again
• 10-11:30AM - Bail & Grandpa are on campus for Bail's history day project (get results and tips on how to better their project for state)
• 10:30-noon Nico has 1st Baseball practice @ CCS
• Work on power point intermittently throughout morning and early afternoon
• 3PM - I'm all clean, dressed & ready to go. Head out to fairgrounds to drop off my stuff for the event, and Bail as she is helping a friend babysit for the evening
• 3:30Pm - head to Gymnastics Meet
• Meet from 4-6PM (Don & I only get to stay until 5 because we need to get back to get ready for the auction)
• Auction from 6:30 - 12:30AM
• Home & CRASH

Sunday:

• 9:30 - noon -Back to the fairgrounds for clean-up
• Rest of the day - I DO NOTHING & TAKE A NAP!!!
• 6:30PM - Don & Ang made an awesome Italian Dinner for us

Monday:

• Back to the normal rat race and Dad headed back home

Are you tired yet?? This is the reason that this was my last year co-chairing the Auction. I have been involved with it for 8 years and it's time for some new blood to have fun with it!

Wordless (or mostly) Wednesday...

The winner of the 20pts is.....the Catons (Adriene)! I was 2 1/2 years old in this photo!

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I shared this with my facebook friends earlier, but I thought it would be fun to add it to my blog too!

The 1st one to correctly guess my age in this photo wins 20 points...

That's Just Not Being Christian

This was a conversation that Bella had with me today:

Bella: "Bail & Livia won't get me water in bed cause they say they are stuck in bed. And that's just not being Christian!"

Mom: "Well honey maybe they are tired and don't want to get up."

Bella: "No, they say don't want to get out of the covers and get me water. And that's just not being Christian mom!"

How do you argue with that?

(Mostly) Wordless Wednesday

So Sweet!! The girls were watching a movie together on a cot in our room and this resulted! 

Off to State!

Bailey had an exciting day this past Saturday! During this past school year the 7th graders were a assigned project in history...they had to research someone in history (obviously...just don't recall the specifications of it), write a paper about them and do a poster board. This weekend was History Day competition and some of the kids decided to put their assignments in the competition. Bail and her group (3 girls total) decided to enter their project on General Custer for fun and ended up winning their division....woohoo!!!  From here they will go to a judging on the 14th to find out what the judges had to say and get tips to improve their board. From there they will go to State with their board the 1st weekend in April, and if they win at State they will go to Nationals in DC!! It's so exciting and we are so PROUD of Bail and her group...great job girls!!!!