Summer Happenings!

Abigail had a waterful birthday!  We had about a dozen kids there even though some of our friends were out of town.  This seems to happen to poor Abi every year since her birthday falls near a holiday.  We also had two families that we are friends with out of town with their kids to play at the State Softball tournament so we will excuse them this year.  Haha! 

We just got back from the beach and I think all 4 of us are glad to be back.  We did have fun and the girls were able to do lots of fun things while we were there.  It just bothers me that you drive all the way to the beach and all they want to do is go to the pool.  I can drive 15 minutes from home and have them at a pool!  If I am at the beach, I want to be ON the beach, but I am the only on that feels that way I guess.  The water was too rough to get in and while the lifeguards were on duty at the beach there was no swimming signs out.  Depending on which lifeguard was out there you could only go shin deep to make waist deep if they were not looking.  The water was the roughest I had ever seen it and at waist deep it would beat you and pull you to death!   We did spend one day at the Alligator Adventure place.  I personally thought it was a waste of time and money, but Brandon seemed to like it.  The best part of that day was watching a dead alligator being eaten by 2 other ones!  I am not sure if the public was supposed to see that or not...

I guess we will gear up now and get ready for our summer vacation to Georgia.  Can't wait to spend some time with the Johnson family and catch up with them.

Tyler Graduated!!! And Other Tidbits...

My nephew graduated this year from high school and will be off to Utah to work out of town with my brother's company until he saves enough money to send himself to college.  So proud that he is done and moving on to another stage in life.

We have started the summer off with a bang.  We are never at home so don't try to catch up with us there!  Leave a message and we may get back to you before the fall!!!  Emily went to softball camp at UNC-Charlotte the first 2 weeks that she was out of school.  They worked her hard and she got her exercise that's for sure.  We traveled several nights this past week to see the West Stanly All Stars play softball in Rockingham.  Congrats to them on their district win and they are going to Wilmington for the state tournament!  Even though Emily and Abigail weren't a part of the teams it was still good to get to go see them win.
We bought Abigail's birthday present a little early (the waterslide) so we could get as much use out of it as we could this summer.  Every weekend we have someone new over to play with them on it.  It was a good investment for the entertainment department.
We went to Wet and Wild Emerald Point this past Tuesday and we got rained out around 3:30 so we collected our rain check and went home.  We went home took showers and headed to the Speedway for the Summer Shootout because my brothers wife got us free tickets, but then it was rained out.  So our backup plan was to go eat at Hooters.  Brandon got into a game of trivia that lasted 1 1/2 hours and he won us free Intimidators tickets for the following night.  So Wednesday night went went to the baseball game and were handed free coupons for Arbys roast beef sandwiches.  At the rate we are going we are going to have a summer filled with free activities!  Aww Right!!!  Thursday night Abigail went with a friend to the Oakboro festival  to ride carnival rides and she got home at midnight.  Tonight both girls are with Brandon's sister at the Oakboro festival.  Tomorrow we are going with a friend to use a pool at the house of a Nascar driver! No I am not making this stuff up!  It's crazy fun around here.  I am wondering how long we can keep this up before we crash!  Well this is our past few weeks in a nutshell.  Hope everyone has a wonderful summer.

Fun Packed Weekend

We started out the weekend at Abigail's "Fun Awards" Day for her Kindergarten class.  Her fun personality awards included "Most Helpful" and "Most Likely to Grow Up to Run an Organic Farm"  Apparently she brings to class every day a fun tid bit of info from what she has learned from Brandon!  She also won what Abi calls the "Office Award"  Its given by the school to a child in each class and is based on several criteria which I don't really know.  It came with a little plaque with her name engraved on it.  Emily has never won one and she is a little bit jealous.  Emily told me she was working on getting her plaque because she has been running errands fore her teacher.  I sure hope she gets one this year or she is going to be crushed!  Friday evening we had our last softball game for Abigail and it was followed by an end of the season party with trophies and food.  Then Satuday morning Emily has her last softball game and we went home and packed up the truck and went to the river.  We camped out with Mellie and some of her friends and family.  There was a 7 year old little girl down there that my girls enjoyed playing with in the river.  They were in there all evening and they were back in there after breakfast on Sunday morning.  We had a good time watching the guys play on the waverunner and jetski while others fished.  To say the least, we had an actioned packed weekend. 



Emi posing on the pier



Brandon, his dad, and aunt

Good ole crawdad hunters

Memorial Day Weekend

We had a very active weekend.  We started by going to Abigail's Kindergarten Author's Tea on Friday afternoon.  Each kid had put together a book of their writing samples from the beginning of the year up through the last couple of weeks.  We went out to dinner at Emily's favorite restaurant because she passed her first EOG (end of grade) tests.  We were going to the movies, but the movie we wanted didn't start until 10:15pm and me and Brandon were tired.  We owe her a trip to see Rio now. 
Saturday Brandon worked on his chimney project (long story), our DVD player quit working, and the AC downstairs quit working.  WOW...  I decided to pack the kids up and go to the pool (we left Brandon on the roof by himself).
Sunday we went to church and were supposed to have a cookout at a friends house but they had to cancel so we grilled out with some friends at our house instead.  Brandon called his step dad to see if he had any ideas about the AC and he came over and looked at some things Brandon never would have checked and apparently some trash got between two contacts and stopped the flow of juice.  They scraped it off and AC was working again.  YAY!!!  Brandon did destroy a $100 gadget that he was using to check the amperage on the AC unit, but at least we didn't have to get the AC repair people involved.  Later on that night Brandon figured out how to bypass DVD controller and control the DVD player with the TV instead. YAY!!!
Monday our neighbor came over and helped Brandon finish the chimney, siding, and tin on roof.  YAY!!! We cleaned up the construction area that has been trashing our yard for the past several months ( I told you it was along story)  and then we talked Brandon into going to the pool with us.  We went and picked up some canteloupe and watermelon plants and a new $100 gadget thingy.  We came home and tonight I planted the plants while Brandon changed the oil in my car.  YAY!!!
So thanks to all the people that helped us with our problems this weekend.  We have accomplished a lot this weekend while having a blast!

National Whitewater Center

I took off several days while the girls were on Spring Break and we took day trips here and there.  One of the best places we went was the National Whitewater Center.  Abigail wasn't old enough to do the rafting and kayaking and I wasn't healed up well enough to do anything really, so the girls purchased a climbing pass to do all of the other things available.  Abigail got scared and then overcame her fears, then Emily got scared and the adrenaline got her through her fears.  It was an absolutely amazing experience to be able to watch them overcome "obstacles"  mentally and physically.  They truly are amazing little machines!  Emily did so much that the day after we went she was sore and could barely move!  HaHa!  Here are a few pictures and videos of some of the highlights.  Brandon was terrified by just watching the short clips of "the danger that I put my children in!"  He is scared of heights and I am going to try to make it to where the kids don't grow up to be just like him!

Easter 2011

We didn't venture away from home all day Sunday.  We messed around outside and the kids came up with an advanced game for hiding Easter eggs.  We also did this little nest craft and put some of our dyed eggs in them.  Aren't they cute!