more from st. pete

Well, of course I had a wonderful time on vacation with my girlfriends. I can't believe its all over. The resort was great, the weather was hot and beautiful, and the company was the best of all. We spent a lot of time in the pool, on the beach, in the ocean and sitting on our balcony. We enjoyed a few nice meals, yummy snacks in our suite, and margaritas by the sea.
Thanks to Amy for taking the pictures, once again.

One of our favorite things was the sunset swim we took on Saturday and Sunday. Here we are toasting the coming sunset with our margaritas! Amy is missing because she's taking the picture. From the left, Marlene, Nancy, Trish, Sally, Dee, me and Joanna.

The St. Pete sunset Sunday evening.

We are standing in front of a mural at Hurricane's, the restaurant we ate at Sunday night. It was the only place we could find still serving after 10pm, but was good nonetheless. Nancy is missing because she was a bit tired (as we all were, I think). From the left, Marlene and Dee are in front, Sally, Amy, me, Trish and Joanna in back.

st. pete

Greetings from St. Pete Beach, FL! Having a great time. Here we are last night at Sterlings, a restaurant across the street from the resort. We had a great dinner celebrating my 40th and Nancy and Dee's 30 something birthdays.

The view from our balcony!

I know I haven't updated this blog in the last couple of weeks, so I thought I'd share a few pictures of what we've been up to.

Tomorrow morning (actually in just a few hours) I leave for my long anticipated trip to St. Pete, FL with my girlfriends.

Cooper at the children's museum in Bloomington (OK - actually Normal) on Tuesday. I needed to get a number of errands done and I bribed him with a trip to the museum if he cooperated. He loves museums!

Kestrel watching Cooper's T-ball game a couple of weeks ago.

Cooper batting at his last T-ball practice a couple weeks ago.

A couple of weeks ago I had to take my car to the dealership in Danville (long story) and Cooper came with me. He kept asking if we could go to a museum when we were there. I guess to him, going out of town often means going to a museum. I kept trying to explain that I didn't think there were any museums in Danville, but he kept begging, "try to find one, mommy, try!" Well, I happened to drive by a small building with a sign that said "Vermillion County Museum" out front, so we stopped. It was just a little museum with historical artifacts from Vermillion County, but Cooper was thrilled. The woman working in the museum seemed surprised we were there, but friendly. Here he is above with an old saddle in the museum.Cooper is standing in front of a mastodon skull in the museum. Its hard to tell from here, but it was huge.

Recently Kestrel's school had "Back To School Night". Her class sang some songs about bugs for the parents (they are studying insects). I know the picture is hard to see because the sun was shining right at me through the window, but I wanted to put it in because it makes me smile. Notice Kestrel is standing out in front of everyone? That wasn't planned. She just wanted to stand front and center, but the rest of the class all shied towards the back. That's our girl!

Have a great weekend everyone! I'll think about you while I'm sunning on the gulf coast...

friends visit!

We had a great visit a few weeks ago from my friends Caroline and Bob and their 3 kids. It was so great to see them! Caroline is one of my closest friends from high school (Caroline, Jane and I were a very tight threesome). She lives in Georgia now, so we don't get to see each other very often. They were taking a road trip to visit several friends and family, and stopped by here for a couple of days. They were here right before we left for vacation. I tried to post a blurb about the visit from my phone while we were away but it didn't come through. Caroline just sent me the pictures. I wish I could say I took some of these great shots, but she took them all (except for the one of the two of us, of course).

The kids all got along great. Cooper took an exceptional liking to Nathan and Bob. I think he enjoyed having a couple more guys in the house. They came bearing gifts: a new Webkinz each for Kestrel and Cooper, which was just about the most exciting gifts they could have given them.

Erica, Maya and Kestrel

Bob and the kids exploring one of the sculptures at Meadowbrook.

Me and Caroline

In the flower garden at Meadowbrook. Clockwise from the top: Nathan, Kestrel, Maya, Erica and Cooper

Maya and Cooper in the Dino Dig at the Orpheum Museum.

kestrel's family

Kestrel started school last week. 2nd grade! Her first homework is to put together an album page with pictures of her family and friends. They are putting them together in a class album. She's been taking pictures of Cooper, Huxley, Sparkle Toe (her hermit crab), and tonight she took this picture of all of us (minus herself). I think its a great picture! I only wish Kestrel were in it.

Speaking of school, Kestrel is loving it so far this year (the three and a half days she's been there). She has Mrs. Ellis for a teacher, and and thinks she is sooo nice. Her good friend Amy is also in her class, and she told me that she and Amy decided that each year is better than the last.

candles on my cake

40 of them!
Thursday I celebrated my 40th birthday. I had a great day! After a nice breakfast, I decided to treat myself to a manicure & pedicure. When I went to pick my nail colors, the very first color that caught my eye was this reddish color (which is a little unusual because I don't usually go for red nails). I turned the bottle over to see what the color was called (I love to do that because they always have crazy names) and discovered it was called "Candles on My Cake". What are the chances of that? Of course I had to have that color.
Later in the afternoon I met my friend Amy at Body Jam. I love that class! Then Paul and the kids and I went out for a nice dinner at Escobar. Paul handed me a present when he sat down, which I really didn't expect because I thought my trip to Florida in a few weeks was present enough. I opened it to find he bought me a fun new phone. Even though I got a new phone recently, Paul knew I was having phone envy lately. Maybe that's why he decided to get me the LG enV.
What a nice day!
And what's more, this is just the beginning of my celebration. I have my trip to Florida with the girls coming up in a few weeks. Can't wait!
I love birthdays.

Watch out, I'll be sending you text messages.

t-ball

Monday Cooper started Little Sluggers Tee-ball, a pretty low key program run by the small town next to us. They actually started last week, but we were on vacation so Cooper missed the first practice.

Maybe I was distracted because we were on vacation and just barely got home, but for some reason it didn't occur to me that Cooper should have a glove until right before we were leaving to go to T-ball. Duh! I quickly stopped in at Wal-Mart on our way there to try to get a glove. Surprisingly, they didn't have a kid sized glove, only adult gloves. When I asked, the store clerk showed me the only kid glove they had, which was actually a very cheap, plastic, velcro covered thing that came with a velcro ball. I tried to tell Cooper he'd be OK this time without one, and we'd get him one for next week, but he started getting worried that "they" would be mad at him if he didn't have a glove (and I couldn't seem to convince him otherwise), so I got him the plastic-velcro thing and he seemed satisfied with it. However, once we were at the field, he noticed the other kids' gloves and commented that they had real gloves. I felt terrible!

It all worked out fine though. He was a trooper with his velcro glove, and seemed to have fun. I praised him afterwards for doing a great job throwing, and he acted so proud and couldn't wait "to show Daddy!"

And yes, I did go get him a "real" glove, and bought one for Kestrel too so they could play catch together.

smore please

Here we are in Cleveland. We left the beach yesterday and drove here to see Paul's Mom, Debra and Jim, and Erica and Gillian. We are at Debra & Jim's now where we cooked out and roasted marshmallows. Earlier today we took the dogs (and kids) to a dog park called "Bow Wow Beach".

Cooper and Uncle Jim. Cooper was a little wary of getting too close to the fire at first.

Love that smore!

Kestrel, Gillian and Erica.

Here we are at The Rainforest Cafe with the crocodile. I tried to get a picture with the elephants, because apparently they are one of Kestrel`s 3 favorite animals (the others being horses and dogs), but it was too dark. Cooper told us he is no longer scared of the storms there, but he is still afraid of real storms.

Just a couple more pictures from this morning. I am posting these from my phone so I can only send 1 or 2 pics at a time (no internet access).

Paul took the kids to the beach this morning to get a little beach time before the rain came. I was out rollerblading this morning. I've also been able to take a couple of long walls on the beach and around town which has been nice. Right now were on our way to Burlington to take the kids to The Rainforest Cafe, and oh yeah I may get to go to Sephora...

more fun in the sun!

This was taken yesterday. After a little while at the beach we went to the South Shore Plaza and had lunch at The Cheesecake Factory.

surfs up!

More beach pictures. These I took today.

We arrived at my parent's beach house sunday after a long all night drive. We have been at the beach every day. This was yesterday.

more swimming

Saturday Kestrel swam in her 2nd (and final) swim meet of the season.

Kestrel and Olivia

swimmer

Kestrel joined the Pre-swim Team this summer. Meets are optional, and at first she wasn't interested in attending them. The last few weeks she's been hearing the other kids talk about the meets and she decided she wanted to go. So, earlier this week she came home saying she told her coach she would be at the meet Saturday, then told me we had to be in Charleston (an hour drive) at 7:15 am!! We woke up at 5:30 Saturday morning to make it to the meet on time. Kestrel swam in 4 events: The medley relay, 25 freestyle, 25 backstroke, and freestyle relay. I was so proud of her, and every time she came out of the water she said it was really fun. This was my first time attending a meet as well, and I never realized how long they were. The waiting was tough at times, but it was worth it.

Kestrel lost a tooth while waiting for one of her events. She thought that made the meet extra exciting.

Kestrel is waiting for her turn during the relay.

one more parade

Kestrel and Cooper go to camp at Indian Day Camp, at a local swim club. Today they had their annual 4th of July parade. The kids have been making things for the parade all week at camp, and parents came to watch the parade this morning.

Kestrel with her friends Olivia (left) and Caitlin (center).

celebrating the 4th with friends

Later in the afternoon we had some friends over to celebrate. Everyone had fun, especially the kids who got a little wild! After eating, drinking and getting wet (from the rain, sprinkler and water balloons) we headed over to Kylla's house to watch fireworks.

An angry mob is demanding more water balloons!

Thanks to Paul for doing all the delicious cooking - and to everyone else for bringing their wonderful creations and goodies. And thank you Amy for taking all the pictures. I handed over my camera and she snapped pictures all afternoon.

happy 4th of july!

Neighborhood Celebration

In the morning there was a parade and celebration for the kids in our neighborhood. They decorated their bikes, and followed a fire truck around the park. After the parade they played in the bounce houses, got tattoos on their faces and ate ice pops. They loved it!

Cooper was excited he got to sit in the fire truck.