Sing, Sing, Sing!

Blake's 3rd grade musical program was all jazz!  It was awesome!  And I'm happy to say that after THREE years of auditioning for one, Blake FINALLY got a solo!  It's not a super long solo but he got it!  He was very nervous!  But he did a great job!  I'm so proud of him.  There's NOTHING he cannot do! :)

I could only get a couple of pictures that are even remotely clear.  I didn't have a great seat and couldn't really move around with Lola.  So here are the only two pictures I took.  And here is the link to Blake's solo!  You're welcome! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1czn_8b36e4&feature=youtu.be

Soccer Season Started!

And what a start it was!  The boys played a team they have never faced!  I was a little nervous!  But they did great!  I wish I could tape Blake but chasing around after Lola just doesn't offer me that luxury!  Blah.  Anyway, I did get to watch most of the game!  My little guy scored 3 (1 goal was scored while he was playing defense).  HOORAY! 

Funny thing is he asked me the day before if he could eat at Chili's or O'Charley's.  I told him no because I can't handle that kind of crazy by myself.  He asked me if we could eat there if he scored 3 goals in his game.  I chuckled to myself.  Scoring 3 goals in a game isn't quite as easy as it used to be.  I figured it wouldn't happen.  Well look who had to eat her words (THIS GAL)!!!!!  I really didn't want to go to Chili's.  But I also didn't want to go back on what I promised.  So I bucked up and took two kids to a sit-down restaurant (GASP).  Guess what?  It wasn't bad!  I survived and am here to blog about it!

Anyway, the season has started.  Next game is in a couple days!  I LOVE THIS TIME OF YEAR!  And any other time of year that includes watching Blake play soccer!  WOO HOO!!!

Billy's Birthday Weekend!

I'm giving my post a title about celebrating Billy's birthday.  It's probably because I feel super bad that NO pictures were taken of anything to do with Billy's birthday (opening gifts, blowing out candles, eating cake, the decorations we put up....).  Epic fail.  Sorry, babe (that's Billy I'm talking to)!  I should also let you know that Billy's birthday was during the week but since we couldn't be together then, we had to celebrate a few days late!  Also, I was out of town until Sunday.  It's ironic.  I spent the weekend in Louisville helping my sister with a wedding.  Billy was in Indy taking care of the kiddos!  Funny how that works!

Anyway, as I mentioned, I was in Louisville.  Friday I was able to help my sister with a wedding rehearsal.  Then I was able to go to a baseball game (Louisville Bats) with my friends Susan, Chad, and Becca.  We had a great time!  And the seats were awesome!  We were also able to meet up with our friend Adam a little later!  Susan scored us free tickets (THANK YOU)!  So that's always fun!  The weather was perfect and it was fun to get some time away and enjoy the night with my pals!

One light picture!

One dark picture!

Saturday was a day FULL of wedding fun.  I left my parent's house at 11 AM and didn't return until almost midnight.  It was a LONG day but the wedding was fabulous!  Also....my sister is an AMAZING wedding planner (name dropping...Bella Vita Weddings)!  Remember that if any of you people in Louisville are getting married soon!  :)  After the long day of wedding festivities, I got rested up and left Sunday morning for the drive back to Indy.

Tables we set up!

The tent at night....bad lighting for the picture....I know!

Beautiful bridesmaid, Jess!

As you know, we were just back from vacation on Easter.  So we still had to do the Easter egg hunt at the house.  That happened right when I got home.  Then we colored Easter eggs.  I should have taken a picture when Lola spilled the ENTIRE bowl of blue dye all over herself, Billy, the table, and the floor.  But I didn't.  I wasn't all that mad (considering...).  I just thought it was her wonderful way of welcoming me home! ;)  After that mess was cleaned up, it was on to Billy!  Again, I have no pictures.  But he opened up his gifts and then ate the cupcakes he requested! 

One picture of Billy!! Pay no attention to me! :)

It was a great weekend.  I got to see friends.  I got to see family (including my sister, Jess, her hubby and little Genevieve)!  And I got to spend a lovely day at home with my little family!  Hooray for beautiful weekends and for making awesome memories! :)

Concluding Day 12 With a Totally RANDOM Post!

Motorcycle Gangs and Insects!

Yup.  That's my title and I'm sticking to it.  I kinda don't really mean motorcycle "gangs" per se.  But what I really want to talk about is the fact that if you have a motorcycle, you're automatically friends with TONS of people.  Maybe I should call it the motorcycle "club."  I noticed the other day (and every other time I see multiple bikes on the road) that all motorcycle drivers wave to the other motorcycle drivers.  I kinda think that it should be bike specific. For example, if you're rollin' on a Harley, you shouldn't be doing the low wave to the Ninja drivers.  Those guys are a TOTALLY different type of people.  Right?

Well, anyway, they don't seem to discriminate.  So I wish I had a motorcycle (do you think a moped would count?).  The return to warm weather has brought out more bikes.  And with more bikes, there are more waves.  Or head nods.  Or whatever cool thing they feel like doing.  And I'm always jealous.  For reals.  I'm gonna start that up with the other Chevy HHR drivers out there.  Why the heck not?  Why should it only be motorcycles?  Be lookin' for me, HHRs.  I'm coming.  And I'm coming with a smile AND a wave! :)

Now about the insects.  OH MY STARS.  Why are there so many bugs out SO EARLY?  What's that you say?  It was never cold enough to wipe them all out?  Oh yeah.  Well then somebody needs to buy me a flipping bee keeper suit so I can get to my mailbox in one piece.  That ain't no jive.  I'm kinda (super) scared to get the mail every day.  I open the door and am immediately engulfed in a circle of swarming bugs.  There are flies, spiders, wasps, bees, bigger bees, etc....It takes all the nerve I have to get to the mailbox and back!  I HATE things that chase me.  And when things are chasing me, I'm going to run.  I don't care if it's a fly, a bee, a bear....Whatever it is, I'm going to run.

I hope I can figure out a way to dodge the bugs and get to the mailbox without looking like a huge idiot on a daily basis.  Maybe some bug spray?  Or maybe I'll just keep looking for the bee keeper suit.  I think that would be pretty cool.  Almost as cool as being part of a motorcycle "club."

And that's what I have to say about two totally unrelated (random) topics!  I hope you've enjoyed the 12 days of blogging...brought to you by Simply Sarah!  Feel free to leave (nice) comments!  I'm totally missing those lately.  You people know I don't have much daily adult interaction, right?  So I'll take what I can get.....even if it is a comment on a blog!  Thank YOU in advance for your many, many comments!  G'night! :)

Day 11: The Return to Normal (if there ever really was a normal....)

I'm pretty sure I needed a vacation from my vacation!  We were up early every day and we stayed up way too late every night.  I knew the first week home was going to be rough!  It started when Lola decided to cry for an HOUR on the way home.  And unfortunately, it wasn't a quiet sniffle.  It was a moaning and wailing type of cry.  I would rather walk across shards of broken glass than listen to that for a consecutive number of miles (yes.....I was counting the miles).  I was also checking for mental hospitals along the way (I didn't find one or I might have checked in....).

Ok so we made it home.  I spent the first day home doing gobs of laundry and unpacking.  And I should admit to you now that I didn't unpack my own suitcase for several days.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe I was in denial that vacation was over?  Maybe I was lazy (it's probably this one).  Or maybe I was too busy unpacking everything else!  But I did get the kids taken care of.  And that's kinda the most important thing, eh?

Day one of the return home also meant the return to the treadmill.  I know I've had injury upon injury but I decided I was gonna bang out 10 miles.  I knew I couldn't run the whole thing.  And I know I can't run the whole mini in a little over a week.  So I decided to give myself (and my poor injured leg) a break.  I have never done anything more than 6 miles at a time (walking or running or both...).  I ran 6 miles and then walked 4 on Monday.  My legs felt like jelly.  But I did it.  YAY!  I also liked that my treadmill said I burned more than 1,000 calories.  That should about cover the millions of candy I ate from the Easter basket the day before, right?  Sadly....not the case!

So we're back.  We're in the zone!  Blake's ready to knock out the last 6 weeks of school!  I'm ready to run this race....with a new goal.  Nobody ask what my finish time is.  I'm not telling.  I had a goal of 2 1/2 hours.  Then I got hurt.  Then I got hurt again.  My new goal is to FINISH the race (even if I'm dead last....hopefully not just dead).  My other goal is to actually finish and not be golf carted off by the medical staff. 

Hooray for being home (blarg)! We had such a fun vacation.  I'm sad it ended.  I'm sad that I no longer get to see my husband every day.  The kids are sad, too!  But it is what it is!  I hope you all had a wonderful Spring break!  Thanks for keeping up with ours!  There will be one more blog to complete the 12 days of blogging!  Tune in tomorrow!  This has been such a challenge that I might not blog again afterwards! ;)  Or maybe I will.....

Day 10: Easter!

The Easter Bunny managed to find us at my parent's house! YAY! Blake was wondering if the Easter Bunny is a man in a bunny suit or a real rabbit.  I told him it is a rabbit.  He wondered how a small rabbit could carry all that candy and stuff.  I had no answer.  But inside I was laughing.  Pretty hard.

Anyway, we were excited to see our goodies!  The kids got a bunch of candy (yum).  I got a little bit of candy (still in training mode).  Billy got lots of candy!  Lola got The Muppets and Blake got Treasure Buddies.  Apparently he's still into the talking dog movies!

We got dressed and rushed off to church!  My dad gave an EXCELLENT talk and my mom sang in the choir!  We had a lovely afternoon!  I will say it was lovely until we had to go pick up Billy's car from his office.  Yes, we were those people who left a vehicle while we were on vacation.  It made more sense to leave straight from Billy's office than it did to drive an hour out of our way to drop the car off.

Well apparently that hour of our time was probably worth it!  And of course this is our luck.  I wouldn't have expected anything different.  The back windshield was completely busted out.  The front window had giant holes smashed into it (all over).  And the back rear passenger window was also completely busted out.  Word.  We were pretty much speechless.  We decided, since it was Easter, we would head back home and Billy would file a police report when he arrived to work on Monday morning.

When he arrived to work on Monday morning, the car was gone.  We figured somebody stole it.  But then we found out it had been towed to the police impound lot.  We had to pay $125 to get it out.  That was also really cool.  Oh and when it was being towed, the muffler was jacked up.  Unfortunately for us, the amount of damage (over $1100) is about the same as we would have to pay for our deductible.  Totally awesome.

Despite all that, here are the pictures before we realized that things were gonna get CRAZY! 

Day 9: STILL On The Road!

We slept in a little on day 9, too.  But just a little.  We knew we'd hit traffic again (and we did).  CURSE YOU, ATLANTA (I say while raising an angry fist in the air).  I drove almost the whole day.  Until I felt like I was having a heart attack.  Probably just a minor panic attack at the end of a vacation.  You know....that's normal, right?  Anyway, we were headed back to "'Tucky," as the kids call it.  So we were pretty happy about that!

We went through Knoxville instead of Nashville for a change of scenery!  I'm glad we did.  Traffic wasn't that bad (once outside of Atlanta).  So we made okay time.  We were even able to stop off and see some wonderful friends in Georgetown.  We were passing right by to get from I-75 to I-64 so we thought it would be silly not to stop for a brief bit of time!  We love the Boltons! :)

After the visit to the Boltons, I had Billy drive.  That's when I started feeling weird.  Well apparently it wasn't anything Taco John's couldn't fix.  I can't pass by without stopping for some potato oles and sopapillas!  *mouth watering just thinking about it* YUM!

Then we were back to my parent's house.  I unloaded the car, started laundry, and did something different....got BACK in the car to get some last minute Easter things at my favorite (LEAST FAVORITE) store, Walmart!  And that was that!  Again....no photos!  BORING!!

Day 8....On The ROAD Again!

Universal was our last day in Florida.  We slept in a little (after being SERIOUSLY sleep deprived all week) and then we were off!  I didn't drive at all (again).  And this time the snack stash was way too tempting.  I think I ate just about everything that was left!  Oops.

The kids were wild and crazy (again).  It rained a little (again).  And we sat in lots of traffic (again).  The good news is that we arrived in Atlanta early enough to swim.  And I even ran a quick 5K on the treadmill at the hotel.  We were in bed early so we could finish up the rest of the long drive!

Best part of the day?  The Stache 'Tastic bumper sticker I saw.  I'm currently really into the moustache thing.  I even have a board of party ideas for my stache bash over on Pinterest.  So I giggled when I saw that AWESOME bumper sticker.  I wish I had one.

Something else I observed?  The ridiculous amounts of anti abortion billboards through Florida and Georgia.  And to contrast with those, there were also PLENTY of "adult" advertising, as well.  What the hay?  Kids can READ.  I felt like I had to keep distracting Blake so he wouldn't look out his window.  Yeah.  It was that bad.  The scenery was beautiful and then every ten seconds, I'd have to look at a XXX billboard.  Thanks for that (sarcasm).

Anyway, that was our relatively non eventful day 8!  And guess what? I don't think I have a single picture!  I know you're in shock! :)

Day 7 of Universal Awesomeness!

Can we just say HARRY POTTER?!?  Can we say that JK Rowling is a genius beyond all geniuses?  I know I'm a recent convert to all things Harry Potter.  But I can't help it.  Everything in the Harry Potter land at Universal was INCREDIBLE!  I was in awe.  I was also irritated with the 80 billion people around us.  There were so many people that I couldn't even move the stroller without clipping a few ankles (sorry if any of those ankles were yours...)!  However, the good DEFINITELY outweighed the bad!

I should side note in here that Billy's Uncle Casey (who I mentioned in an earlier post) is the master planner for Universal.  Yes it was him and his genius team who put together the entire land of Potter.  He's also a genius beyond all geniuses (perhaps he and Ms. Rowling should collaborate...)!  So Uncle Casey brought us into the park as his VIP guests.  We didn't have to wait in any lines.  We got all the back stories on the building of the projects!  And he also spoiled us with many gifts from the shops by Hogwarts.  Yes, Billy and Blake got wands.  Blake also got a quidditch jersey, a snitch, and a broom.  I, of course, had to have my tri-wizard cup and Hedwig, the owl.  Now I can send Billy all kinds of owl post...when I just get tired of texting or calling, that is!

Okay back to the day at Universal.  We immediately got in line for a ride called Forbidden Journey.  I didn't research anything.  I just saw that the line was massive.  So I figured it had to be pretty fantastic.  I forced Blake to ride it with me.  A million apologies now go out to my son.  I thought I was sick after the Star Wars ride?  I'm serious that the only thing I thought of while sitting on the ride was what would happen to my vomit.....I just knew I was gonna throw up.  Oh my land.  If anybody needs to know of a way to torture me to get me to talk?  That's it.  Stick me on that ride and my life will become an open book!  Blake closed his eyes the whole time and I eventually had to do the same.  I guess I wouldn't survive as a wizard because flying around on a broom was NOT my cup of tea!

After being nauseous for about an hour after that ride, I was finally somewhat back to normal!  We were able to drink some butterbeer.  It was kinda like glorified cream soda.  But what a glorified cream soda it was.  YUM!  We also made our way to Dr. Seuss Landing.  Lola had a blast.  And so did I.  Apparently the kiddie rides are about all I can handle.  And probably not even all of those....Man I'm old. 

Billy rode the Hulk.  Blake wouldn't go with me so I didn't get the chance.  But I made Blake (again...I'm usually not so forceful) ride the Jurassic Park splash ride.  We were drenched.  He closed his eyes the whole time (again).  I guess he didn't dig the huge TRex head attempting to eat our "boat."  Hmmm.....

But after that, Blake decided he would dabble in lots of extreme roller coaster riding. He rode the Dragon Challenge THREE times.  It had lots of loops and scary things.  He rode the Dr. Doom Free Fall.  Which is basically like the Tower of Terror that he refused to go on at Disney World.  Go figure.  He rode Spider Man.  And our favorite ride?  The Flight of the Hippogriff.  Lola rode it  twice.  She didn't love it either time.  I am actually quite surprised she was tall enough to go on it!  But it was pretty fun!

We are so thankful that we were able to spend time with Uncle Casey.  We're thankful for his generosity and his kindness!  We definitely recommend Universal!  We had a BLAST and can't wait to go back!  And once again, I apologize for mass amounts of photos.  What's a girl to do???  ;)