Irene and the weekend

We spent a few days under the impression that we would get a direct hit from Hurricane Irene. Thankfully, that did not occur. My heart and prayers go out to those hit by Irene and I think it goes without saying that we are all so thankful Irene weakened some before making landfall in the northeast. Irene was a larger than usual hurricane (so we hear) and so even though it stayed well offshore of FL, we did see some very brief activity from Irene.

All we had was 2 quick storms go through with gusty wind and heavy rain. When I say quick, I mean quick....each lasted only 5-10 minutes.

I watched Irene for days keeping an eye one where it was and where they expected it to go. Florida has an area of high pressure that tends to steer hurricanes away from it. I'm glad that we are blessed by that. I do love storms especially thunderstorms with moderate winds. A tropical depression or storm would be neat to see but a hurricane might be a bit much..

I have been bad about taking pictures of our activities lately. We took the kids to the pool yesterday and they had a blast but I didn't even bring the camera. Maybe next time I'll think to grab it. I hope everyone stayed safe this weekend and that those not affected by Irene had a nice weekend. Those affected by Irene, my thoughts and prayers are with you and I am praying that the clean-up is quick.

I'm singing in the rain!!! ...

Wait...no...that's not right. Fighting bad guys is more like it! But, we will get to that in a minute. I like the warmth. I really do and it's definitely the lesser of two evils (hot and cold) in my book. However, this incredible FL heat is starting to drain me. I'm starting to get tired of it after 3 months of it and now that school has started....well I feel like we need a break. Thankfully, the almost daily rain we get brings relief, short relief, but relief just the same. That's one good thing about rain in FL. The other good thing is that even though it's raining, the rain isn't cold and you don't freeze once wet. So, bearing that in mind, I let the boys play in the rain for awhile a few days ago. Doc and GQ had a blast! Mr. X prefers not to be rained on so after experimenting with his mini weather station, he went back inside.

Mr. X's rain gauge. He filled and emptied it at least 3 times!

 We had a puddle that was more like a stream at the end of the driveway.

The kiddos filled up water guns and used those to fight the "bad guys". Basically they filled it up at the end of the driveway and ran up to the garage. Then they would spray the water out at the driveway to get the bad guys. Doesn't GQ look like he's having a blast?!

Doc was concentrating hard on filling the water gun up.

The boys did not want to go inside. Finally, I told them they needed to go inside after fighting one more bad guy. Doc told me he got him. He then proceeded to peak out of the garage to the side yard and said "Oh the alligator just got the last bad guy!" Apparently we now have bad guy fighting alligators teaming up with our boys. (For the record, we have not seen an alligator nearby since the one was removed from the pond.)

MI Part 2

The last couple nights of our trip we stayed with my in-laws. They too live in the country but about an hour south of my folks.

My in-laws live on a hill that is one of the highest points in the county so you can see for miles.

My father-in-law has a motorcycle and the kids got kick out of playing with the helmets.

All the fresh country air and the playing hard wore out GQ. At one point he went upstairs grumping all the way and passed out.....all on his own!

Look at that sweet boy!

We also went to the zoo with some friends! It was so good to see them! The kids had a blast and the weather was very conducive to outside time at the zoo!

This is Lochie. He resides at the zoo now but was part of an art thing around town a few years ago.

This was our first time seeing Lochie in person.

They had a bird cage you could go inside. You could buy sticks of bird feed and some of the birds would land on you. The boys got a kick out of it.

Doc always climbing.

They had a petting zoo area. Doc and GQ went in to pet some of the goats.

Komodo Dragon

After the zoo we drove past our old house because the boys wanted to and stopped at our old daycare providers house. The kids played with her son and we caught up a little bit. She closed down her daycare recently so she sent us with a whole box of Thomas trains. The kids love them! Mr. X's old school is just a block away from our daycare provider's house so we walked over there so he could see some of his old teachers. He loved the people at that school and they love him to death! They miss him and light up so much when he visits. It's really great to see them invest so much in the kids they work with. Mr. X was able to see his old Kindergarten teacher, art teacher, principle, school nurse, secretary.

Mr. X fixing the putty on the calendar. This was a regular thing for him to do in his old kindergarten class.

Doc and GQ playing with the trucks that Mr. X use to gravitate to. His teacher said he would sit and play with those all day if she would've let him.

We spent time with WB's brothers and their wives. We got to see his brother's new house. The kids got to play with their cousin. Overall it was a great visit!

Our trip back to FL was not so great. The kids were cranky and tired but yet didn't sleep. We got on the road at 1:30 am hoping to be home by 9-10 pm. An hour down the road we got a flat tire. Poor WB unloaded the entire trunk to get to the spare and put it on. We spent the next hour or so trying to find someone to fix the flat but of course nobody would at 3-4 am. So we drove on the spare for a good 4 hours before we were able to get the flat fixed. That put us way behind schedule and we hit some not so great traffic. It took us 25 hrs to get home instead of 19! It was not a fun day. That said, the time in MI was worth it and I imagine we will do it again. :)

MI Part 1

We just spent 6 days on a trip to MI that was so worth it! The kids loved every minute! We left at about 1:30 am on Friday and arrived about 10 pm. It was a long day but the kiddos did amazing! They didn't complain much and just sat quietly or slept. Mr. X didn't sleep a lot and Saturday you could tell. Underneath his eyes were so reddish-purple. I haven't ever really seen anything like it. The drive takes us through the mountains in Tennessee and it is a pretty drive.

These are pictures we took at a rest stop crossing into Tennessee. It would've been a perfect place for a picnic lunch but alas it was 9 am and we had already eaten breakfast.

Passing through Indiana, we went through miles and miles of wind turbine things. It was so cool to see but no picture to show you. We stayed at my parents' house for the first couple nights. Saturday we went into town so Mr. X could pick out something for his birthday and I could find a book I wanted. Then we just hung around at my parents' house and played pinochle that night. My parents live in the country and the kids love running around outside. They helped with the horses, and Mr. X wrote a letter to his cousin so we walked down the quarter mile driveway to put it in the mailbox.

Sunday afternoon, we went to a small little beach where a river/stream runs out into the lake. The kids had a blast. No life vests needed because they could touch the bottom of the little river.

The guys walking down into the river.

Mr. X started giggling right away with walking down the river.

Doc pretended to swim with his belly on the bottom.

GQ kept getting cold so he wrapped up in my dad's shirt while I went to go get his towel. He would then warm up a bit and run back out. He wanted to badly to be in the water but he would just shiver constantly.

Mr. X had such a good time. He was the only one of the little guys that didn't get cold. He didn't want to leave!

WB was doing a cheeser because that's what GQ usually does for the camera. You can practically see how cold GQ was.

Wrapped up and trying to get warm.

Doc got a bit chilled too. He was telling me he didn't want any more pictures.

We walked back to the car through the river and carried the two little ones.

It was a fun day with my folks. We left their house that evening to spend time with WB's family. I will do a post of the second part of our trip another day.

Party Time and Tangled!

Saturday we did a small birthday party for Mr. X. The kids were mostly from the neighborhood and invited per Mr. X's request. Everything we did was per his request. We were going to do it outside and have water balloons but somehow everyone congregated in the house and the kids played. They all had fun so it was worth it. The clean up took a couple hours and wasn't horrible but it gave me a chance to reorganize the kids' toys since they were all dumped out pretty much. Mr. X originally wanted chocolate cupcakes but brownies were on sale so he said that was OK instead. I made 2 pans and frosted one with vanilla frosting with sprinkles. Picked out by Mr. X of course. We wrote "Happy B-day" in blue and his name in black. We did pigs in a blanket, fresh salsa & tortilla chips, and grapes for food. We had pink lemonade to drink.

 Our decorations were in this theme.

This is what Mr. X picked out for the goody bags for the kids.

His new Hero Factory from Z & M.

The birthday boy had a great time!

After the party we cleaned up and headed out. We went to meet my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew for dinner at Moe's. It was good food. After that we went to a movie in the park event. The flies were horrendous but otherwise it wasn't too bad outside. They had blow-up jumping rooms for the kids.

GQ seemed to like it!

Mr. X and Doc went down a blow-up slide but we didn't let GQ because we felt he was maybe a bit too young for it. Then we walked around a bit and got settled in for the movie. We watched Tangled. The kids really seemed to enjoy and sat really well. GQ laughed a few times. It was a great time with our family. They even had free popcorn! There is another event in August but I'm not sure we will go to that one. The movie was unfamiliar to me and I can't remember the name of it. Oh well! It was a busy day but lots of fun.