This Is The Summer Of...Take Two!!!

Family Get Togethers~ Cookouts, Swimming, 4th of July, Family Reunions...we did it all this summer! And it was Great!!!

Fulfilling Dreams~ We bought our 4th store this summer. We are so excited for the possibilities it can bring!!! Four must be our number!!!


Open Mic Nights~ or ummm....Open Mike Nights. Boy did he play. and play and play and play!
Goodbye to sweet Rosie~ Our 2 year old Rosie got very sick this summer. After weeks of trying to save her, we put her to peace on July 17th, 2011. She had what we think was a brain tumor. We loved you little girl.
Football~ Oh my goodness....Football in the morning, in evening, and at night. It has been such a big commitment, but this guy LOVES IT!
Summer Loving~ Tatum has found someone special. He really is a sweet guy. She is on cloud nine <3
As I type this Tatum and Jake are packing up for tomorrows 1st day of school. Tatum the SENIOR...ouch. And Jake the 8th grader. I still have Matt and Summer home for the day tomorrow. Our town likes to s.l.o.w.l.e.y. tease us moms :)

Regarding Henry

We have welcomed a new member to our family. He is small and sweet and 3 pounds of fur and love. After much research, with our history, we had to do this right.

Welcome Henry!!!!!

The Boys Room MakeOver

Desperate times call for desperate measures. This room has been festering. Growing and festering and harboring mess beyond what I wanted to think about, so I didn't. And I'm afraid it got out of hand.

First problem is TWO boys SHARE it. Shared space. Gah.

Second problems is two BOYS share it. I can not tell you how long it took to gut it. Or some of the things I found once deep IN to it.
My strategy was to eliminate Two headboards, Two foot boards and go with stream line frame beds to make more room. To eliminate an entire dresser by building shelves in the closet. To open it up and build a nice place to sleep, store their stuff, and have a gaming center. On top of the....DECORATE. The theme....beach...ahhh....
Pottery Barn matching beds and changed the navy walls to chocolate and sand.

recycled their navy letters by spray paint and built individual shelfs
crackle painted old shutters and hung by their window to give a beach feel
painted planks of wood for decor

Ikea table for organizing games

Ebay got us a sweet surfboard
New ceiling fan...NOT white ;)
shelves in the closet
area rug for wear and tear


Finished Room!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!! Whew!

Texting With A 13 Year Old

Jake is in Florida with a neighbor's family....This is how a recent text went

Me: Did you go ziplining today???

Jake: No..they were booked. going tomorrow.

Me: How are you??

Jake: Good

Me: Are you okay? Are you having a good time??

Jake: Ya

Me:I miss you!!! I love you!

Jake: Ya...love you too.

My heart SWELLED. Silly how having your boy Text you he LOVES you makes you smile ear to ear :)

Karma is a Bitch

{{ Complete and total disclaimer....this title is WORDS only. It is SO fitting for the post. But my very very wonderful loving sweet niece's name is Karma, and of course implies NO reference to her whatsoever. I love my Karma SOMUCH! This Karma talked about in hereafter, well... nosomuch...)

When I met Mike, SAW Mike. I was in love. I know that sounds stupid. It really sounds overused and not truly REAL, but it IS what happened. Like I was shot with cupids jolt and never looked back.

Good thing, because the adult me, the more cautious, and SMART me, would have known how careless and stupid and against the odds it was what we did! I was in High School. He was almost 30! I was a teenager. He had lived life with marriage and states and jobs. I lived at home with my parents, and he held a full time job and had supported himself for years.

When I dig deeper at the time frame, I get even more amazed. In November we started dating, by December, engaged, by January, pregnant, by February married, by March I turned 18, by May I was graduating High school. Through all of this....if you would of asked me where I wanted to be....with love glazed eyes, I would not have hesitated and said with him.

I Know this had to be hard on my parents, but it didn't seem like it was THAT big of a deal. A little glitch, and over time, Mike and I proved ourselves, and soon he didn't become the 28 year old man, but just MIKE. My family loved him.

I proudly preached through the years that age was just a number, and when I looked at him I didn't see anything but my best friend. Honest to goodness, love is blind.

My daughter is starting to fall head over heals.

She will be 18 in October.

That means she is only 17.

He is 26.

That is only an 8 year difference, and I have done nothing but try to see the awesome wonderful person he is. (and he really really is pretty awesome!)

I would be a total hypocrite if I did anything else.

But today's time's with the social network and all there is so much more in your face.

And I am not known for my thick skin.

And this time I am not the one "Blinded" by love.

This hurts.

I want nothing more than my children to be happy and healthy and succeed at what the desire. To work hard and to Love God.

Please World....be kind.

Dog Days Of Summer

It is HOT. Whew! Heat Index of 114 today. Temp is 98. We are some hot sticky people here!

This Is The Summer Of...

Learning to Swim~This is still a work in progress, but progress it IS. Summer and I have been dedicated to working and achieving this. She is now going completely underwater, holding her breath, confidant without floaties, and CAN swim some underwater. (not on top yet) We are now signed up for 8 consecutive days at the Y to get er done. Yes!!!!

Reliv~I have got Mike started on a vitamin therapy program. To help him with back and joint/muscle pain. I have read up and studied this and am hoping this will help! We are on day 27!!!!

Mastering Some Photography~ I just completed my 10 week course. It was SO worth it and I have learned alot! I am wore out though. Maybe in the fall I can chose my next step!


Overnight Camp~Matt went for the WHOLE week. After Tatum and Jake NEVER wanting to do the camp thing...to have a kid LOVE and EMBRACE and ENJOY it has been so awesome. He loves it!!!!!!!

Fire Lanterns~For the 4th of July, I was able to purchase these lanterns that reminded me of the movie "Tangled". Summer is crazy for that movie, and it was going to be super fun the the kids and us. Not only that but a fun experiment for me and my camera. We got two of them and let me just say 1. they ARE really neat, but 2. they seem SUPER sinfully unsafe to me! LOL! Oh my gosh. You light this square on FIRE inside this PAPER lantern and release it to FLOAT amongst TREES FREELY till it burns OUT on it's own. It did get past the trees and high pretty quickly, but we went to a park where there was lots of space


Happenstances~I try really hard to not get too involved in much with the kids in the summer. Not that we really achieve this, but we try not to sign up for things and just "be". We are birds of a different nature when it comes to time, and have always leaned towards being night owls. This does get a little out of hand in the summer and eventually school comes and saves us. We slide into eating dinner at past 9 pm and going to bed around 1 or 2, all of us sleeping till 10 or so. With Jake being in the slacking teenage years he has embraced this WAY to hardily and 3 pm wake ups are getting ridiculous. Luckily for him, Cross Country training starts in August, so he will have some time to get back in line before school starts.
Any ways with us enjoying HOME and the comings and goings of it, we have come across some very neat occurrences.
I woke up one morning and sat sleepily in sun while the house slept, having to rub my eyes hard when I saw this crossing the street! A HUGE, had to be 30 year old at least snapping turtle. I have heard they can take your finger off! And this guy wasn't one to test the theory on. He acted slow, but when he wanted could JUMP. With Mike , 2 snow shovels, and the recycling bin we got him into the pond.
Our town in known for the hot air balloons. The other night one had an emergency landing. ON OUR STREET! Lucky Matt and his buddy got to even get in the basket as they moved it to pack it up!




Summer is only half way through...So much more to come! This is the surely the Summer of goodness!

Thumbprints

Tatum has been in art for years and we are simply amazed at the gift she has and the talent she comes home with.

Her last project at school was to duplicate a picture with just ink and thumbprints. This was all done in thumbprints.

I am asking her to make one of each of the children's baby pictures now, seeing how very cool it turned out!

Say

I had a friend from my teenage years get a hold of me.

She and I lived through some times, I'll tell ya. She knew me like no one did at that time of my life, and loved me still. We had heartache and coming of age. Raw learning of life and laughter and tears. We worked together and shared toothbrushes and clothes. We dated guys and snuck out of windows, pushing unstarted cars down moonlit roads. We did stuff that would make my Mama cringe, and as a Mom makes me cringe now, but oh it was fun.

We kept it up through my evolution of marriage and a baby and even to the point of her having her first child, but for me it grew hard. I felt torn being a young teenage mom, and at some point wanted, a clean break into a new life? How can I put that graceful. I guess I can't. But, I didn't fit in with my old definitions, and she almost made me fell guilty of my new ones.

I clunked into trying to keep house and be a wife and as the kids and responsibilities grew, I did to. I had...I had to turn a blind eye to all of the other kids my age. They were living at home, or in college, or living with guys. They were smoking pot and going to parties, and going to concerts, and SURE, I could of too, but I wanted to make a niche into the new life I was trying to live, and I guess somehow, she made me feel bad. I remember she would say "oh my gosh, you're like Martha Stewart now!", and that probably was MEANT to be a compliment, but a part of me felt like a betraying to the cool Becky. I just felt misplaced and bad, and therefore....moved on with my life without her :(

It wasn't really her, I guess it was how I felt about me...or how she made me feel about me, or how lame I handled the whole transition...

Apparently, it still is.

I've been afraid of getting back together with her. I haven't wanted to. I wanted to a}} know how special a time it was then, and b}} be okay with where I am now. What I need to learn to do, and what she is asking me to do it combine the two.

We Are The Griswalds

{{My music player and I are in a fight at the moment...this blog is NOT worthy of reading unless you read it while being serenaded by the Chevy Chase vacation theme song "Holiday Road". Please scroll to the bottom and click on the arrow to PLAY and then you may proceed. Thank you....}}

We are baaaaccckkk.

From Disney. And I am going to tell you, not only the state of Florida has GOT to be relieved...but they CANNOT be as relieved as I am.

We bonded. We had fun. We trudged waist high in the muck called teenage angst, and family turmoil...but mainly we did the mandatory princess trip and awesome togetherness, that only we can pull together.

Jake at one point did grab the hand of someone **ELSE"S** preschooler and try to take her in to the seating of the The Little Mermaid, thinking it was Summer, only to be boxed in the head by her mother. (rightfully so! We laughed hard about that one)

Summer did get to attend a princess breakfast (well we ALL did, but the boys were not impressed ) only to FREAKOUT when Sleeping Beauty came up to table and then proceeded to cry. Luckily, she pulled it together for Snow White, Belle, and Cinderella. Oh! and Mary Poppins...who is NOT a princess at all, and who is INTIMIDATING as heck! She told us to "spit spot!" and to "stand up straight!"

We lost Matthew for a moment in the Orlando International Airport, only to find him way ahead, standing upon the the luggage carousal, throwing our suitcases out onto the floor one by one. Heart attack, followed by relief, followed by irritation, followed by pride. Typical Matthew.

At one point we all kind of fell apart with the heat and Mike got like a flu, and Jake had a pulled muscle in his stomach, and Matt had an infected hand, and blah, blah, blah, so we left to go back to the resort to sleep some during the day, in which it seemed unfair to Tate. I encouraged her to stay at Epcot! She was almost 18 and could pretend she was an exchange student or something. Go explore! She had her phone. Be Brave! She was worried to be alone and have to ride rides alone, but she did! I'm so glad! What adventures she must have had!

We had alot we saw and did, still hand down...HANDS DOWN.. Soaring is my favorite ride. Love that feeling. Flying free. Siiighhh. Wish I could do that ride over and over. Matt's was Tower of Terror. Mike...the Arrowsmith RollarCoaster.

Definitely BEST place to eat was the Japanese place Tepan Edo. Really good. Oh my. Really good. Never had such awesome noodles.

Love Disney. Think we are Beach people though. Frozen Drinks. Sun. Lounge. No agenda. Sleep. Salty air. Breeze. Kids Laughing. Oy...I need a vacation...LOL!