Saying Goodbye.......

Today we spent the day packing, cleaning, and saying goodbye. We had to do normal stuff; take trash off, visit Hales, take back the movies and clean up......

The week has flown by and we did not get to do as much as we wanted to do but at least we got to swim all week and got the floor done. It was really fun doing the floor with mom and the boys and I am so glad we were able to do it!

I talked to Uncle Ronnie today and he is getting us a room for tomorrow night in Gainsville where we will hopefully meet up with he and Mikey for dinner. I am looking forward to seeing them both.

Dad has spend the week welding on his trailer and things are progressing very well it seems. He has been updating us via email and it is fun to see it coming along step by step.

I have 3 more articles to write and have to get on those so I guess this is goodbye until Sunday night when we get back in GA! Love to all!~ Happy travels!

New Room! It is Done!!

Well we got sidetracked yesterday with Zachary's misfortune but today we got an early start and met with the roofing guy at 7:30am because of the leaks and gave him the okay to fix the leaking issue in the florida room.
After a couple hours of moping, scrubbing and moping some more we finally took a break to visit with Don and Evelin who came over to check on progress and visit for a short time before they headed off for a special lunch.

I moped up one last time and we got our suites on and headed to the pool where we enjoyed a very long swim and I actually got an article written while up at the club house.

When we got back we headed out for an early dinner and then came back to put curtains up and a few things out in the florida room.

We will drag the couch out tomorrow and it will be as complete as it is going to be until Grammie and Poppie come down! They are missing the TV and a dresser and two of Great-Grandma Palmer's chairs....... Other than that it We are done... It looks so nice..!!!

Leaving Saturday morning, we need all day tomorrow to put everything back together in "Grammie Style" -- But don't you worry, we took photos so we can put all the knick knacks back where they belong and clean! LOL.... Everyone that knows her knows how great she places knick knacks around and how she will know if they have been moved~~~!!!.....

After our day we went out for Italian..... Yummy!

Lunch, Beach, Man O' War.....

Today I worked on the floor and then we had a lunch date with the couple next door. Mom and I had a great time chatting with Don and Evelin and while we ate lunch the boys swam in the pool. The park has a lunch thing every Wednesday and we were invited to join, known as "The Skilton Kids" we talked Don and Evelin into eating up at the club house and it was nice to sit and chat with everyone from the park.

After lunch one of the ladies offered to give the kids a ride in the golf cart and they enjoyed the ride through the park while mom and I walked home. The boys loved the cart and enjoyed it.

When we gathered some stuff up we headed down to the ocean to play in the water. Of course it looks like the boys are having a great time, they had not even really gotten wet when Zachary started screaming for all he was worth. SCREAMING. My first thought was that he had maybe cut his foot or hand on something and I was looking for blood. Nope, the child bent down to pick up the prettiest blue/clear/purple blob of something in the sand. It turns out that the Man O' War had invaded the beach and about the time he tried to pick one up, one of the surfers had gotten stung.

We went to the life guard stand where they naturalized it with vinegar and put hot packs on it immediately. Not knowing really how it was going to effect him, we swung by the fire station where there were several EMT's on duty and they came out and talked to him. He is now full of ibuprofen, sitting with his hand in HOT water. From what I read the severe pain can last 2-8 hours and it will start to hurt him under his arms and in his groin as the poison works its way through out his body.

Mom and Quentin left to get some HB rolls and a movie and hopefully we will have a quiet night. Zachary says his hands (yes, he got both of them) feel better but they hurt pretty bad now and then as the poison works its way through. I remember the years of the jelly fish but I understand this is pretty much worse.

Wish us luck..... Lots of painkiller and him getting spoiled is going to be the way tonight and tomorrow... poor little Zach, said he does not care to go back to that beach again..... :(:(

Luv'n the grouting..... HAHA

Today the boys did some school work (dialup FTW.... lol) while I started grouting. I love to grout, I love the clean lines, the way the float moves across the tile and how nice it looks as your working your way over the floor. Stage 3 complete.... Grout is done and tomorrow we will do the "cleaning up" and wiping all the film away.... Making the floor that much closer to being done.
Had another visitor today, one of grammie and popey's neighbors came to check out the progress. She is a very nice lady and I have enjoyed talking with her.

Missed out on the swim today... Not great news about Popey... Our thoughts are with him and Grammie up there... Popey had his heart Dr appointment today and look like they are going to have to shock him after the first of the year so that his heart slows down.. The meds are not working the way they thought. Anyone that can get by there really should to say hello.

While mom and I were grouting the boys decided to take all the spacers and "map" out a note to everyone! I thought it was cute... they included a flag in the corner...
Hope everyone is well....
I'm tired.. my arm feels like it is about to fall off right now but today went well..... More work tomorrow.. Big ole' long swim tomorrow and maybe take the boys to the ocean! That would be fun!

While we were slaving away down here, dad was working on his trailer and got one fender on. The cat took a minute to watch him fly his plane...
He has two new cats and they are very cute...

Cold everywhere.... Taking the Day off in Florida

Monday came warm and sunny and very muggy..... We have been swimming every night but today we took the day off to relax, do a little shopping and enjoy the pool for as long as the boys wanted.
Thankfully dad lent us his laptop and I was able to sit down by the pool and do some articles while the boys enjoyed the water and Nana swam a bit before laying in the sun!

Quentin has been enjoying the scooter that the boys borrowed from Jeffery. He and Zach have been riding it all over the park and Quentin loves riding it to the pool and back.

I called home and everyone has complained about how cold it has been in GA the last few days. Today was misty, raw and chilly. Dad sent me photos of his project today and the very chilly looking day......

Tomorrow we will begin grouting the floor and hopefully it will go down well and easily. I have articles to write, the boys will do some schoolwork and then I'm sure that there will be a swim in the afternoon. There is no pressure to rush and get it done, we will take it easy and just get it done.

Helping Out

The boys have been great in helping out...... The floor is down and now it is waiting... waiting for grout which will come in a couple of days....

The boys put down the first piece and the last piece. They mixed the mortar and helped with tile... then went away... They have been having fun and entertaining themselves.

Enjoy the photos..... I'm so glad this part is done... Mom and I are tired but very glad that we are on our way to completion!

The Ride, and extras

We are done with phase 1 of our tile floor. During the layout and the planning we had a couple visitors from next door and the boys met a nice little dog named "tyler"..... Made us laugh.

The boys finally gave it up about 1am on our trip and I got a shot of them sleeping.... Because I love taking photos of them sleeping!

Here is the line at "Coach"... We stopping in at the Goodwill and got a couple great deals but while we were in there the boys saw a sign that said "Pocket Books 1/2 off!" They each commented that they were sure that those pocket books were not "hundreds of dollars...".... Nope, bet they were not!

Thursday, Friday

Hello all! Coming to you from Sunny Florida! Thanks to dad, we have a laptop and thanks to Kati and Uncle Ronny for coming up with the free AOL thing to get me online (dialup mind you..) access, I am still able to work... Don't know about the boys doing schooling yet but we shall see.
We left about 4:30 on Thursday night and arrived at Grammie and Popey's a little before 2am. The trip was fine, filled with orange barrles, a little bit of traffic, a few to many stops and one very funny event!
We were on our last stop sometime around 11pm and just before we got off the exit I looked over and saw lines and lines of cars and lots of people. We got gas and decided to see what was going on and ended up getting into a traffic jam to get into an outlet mall. Mom and I figured that there had to have been some kind of electronic or toy sale that was beginning at midnight. We were both wrong.
We passed the rows and rows of people waiting in line and finally we asked what the deal was. Seems there was some kind of sale at a store called "Coach"...... Then we noticed that everyone in line was women! Coach is some type of handbag? Several hundreds of dollars of hand bag.... so many women, lined up to buy them.
Mom and I had a laugh here and there for the rest of the way....
We slept, for a little bit and got up this morning and headed to breakfast and then to home depot and Publix.. When we got back this afternoon we started laying out the tile and trying to figure it out. Tomorrow we will be renting a saw and starting the process...
I am not sure how to download photos but I will work on that maybe tonight....
I have some assignments to do at night so I should stay pretty busy.. The boys have some school work but we plan on going to a couple science centers and also to Kennedy Space Center and that will be great fun! Also plan on swimming everyday and getting the tile laid out....
Might be meeting up with Uncle Ron and Mike in N. Florida next weekend.... We shall see...
email me at my regular email or call the cell if you need me..... Hope everyone has a great week... Keep posted on Floor progress.
/hugs, /smiles........

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is the appointed time
for focusing on the good in our lives.
In each of our days,
we can find small blessings,
but too often we overlook them,
choosing instead to spend our time
paying attention to problems.
We give our energy
to those who cause us trouble
instead of those who bring peace.
Starting now,
let's be on the lookout
for the bits of pleasure in each hour,
and appreciate the people who
bring love and light to everyone
who is blessed to know them.
You are one of those people.
On Thanksgiving,
I'm thankful for you.

Author Unknown

Boys Get New Belts! Grandpa Gets his Suit!

The boys passed their Belt tests in Karate! Q moved on to an Adult yellow belt and Z moved on to a green/black stripped belt. Dad has been taking class with Q and got his new suit today. B stayed for class and had his first Karate class and really enjoyed it! I met Kati half way between her house and ours..... Mr. X and Pamela here to watch Heroes with us......

Busy week, Athens Tuesday, Cub Scout meeting Tuesday night.
Wednesday I go to our Company Thanksgiving party.
Thursday is Thanksgiving but we are postponing it until we get back so we will be packing.
Friday the boys, Nana and I are leaving for Florida! YAY!

Science with dad

The boys have been waiting for the opportunity to do a science project with Scott. Since all three boys do T4L we picked today to do the mentos in the coke project.... B spent the night and he was excited to see the reaction of mentos and diet coke as well....

Jeffery stopped by and when he heard we were going to do it he stuck around until scott got home.

The boys gathered the materials and we did several test runs with some soda that was way past the date.... Then we did the Diet Coke one.... It was cool.

After it was over Scott called the boys over to "look" inside and Q rushed over, when Q bent down Scott yelled "boo!" really loud and I managed to get the photo! It was really funny!

SleepOvers are fun!

The boys have their friend over tonight for a sleep over...... They have been so excited to have him over and he is finally going to stay for the night. Right now they are in their room "making a tent"......... Just after pizza (because what is better than pizza for a sleepover?) and before some kind of "snack" they posed for a photo so that Bailey could send mom a big ole' hi.... Then the boys joined...... It does not matter what your doing when a friend is having a sleep-over, everything is exciting.. Even taking a minute to say hi to a friends mom! Of course there is so much more to sleep overs than actually sleeping.... Making a tent on your bed, playing outside until after dark, playing on the computer, and running through the house like banshees with swords; dressed in different costumes!

had to make a little bedding arrangements so that everyone was comfortable so I arranged the dining room, putting the cot in there, moving Zach's mattress in there and moving the TV so everyone could see. Not only was it special for my boys to have a friend over for a sleep over but they got to watch TV as they fell asleep; something they don't get to do normally..... Oh the life as a home school kid, Pizza as a late night snack at 11:30pm (yes, after the teeth brushing.. goodness) and Midnight on a Sunday night and the last one finally closed his eyes and rolled over... Can you guess which child??

Send a Soldier a Card or box........

Ok.... So the whole send a soldier thing made me so mad that I found someone that is close to the family overseas. His name is Justin and he is serving in the thick of things in combat and has been serving since April and will be home in April. He might have to go back in August, they don't know yet. He is in special forces.
There are 130 guys that are stationed with him and if anyone wants to send them anything please email me and let me know and I will send you the address.
He and the other guys are through Camp Falujah. I checked with Justin's mom who contacted his commander and you can either send something (card or w/e) via Camp Falujah, "to any Soldier in Unit" or I can give you specific names if you feel more comfortable doing that. (Justin's mom has the complete list of the 130 guys/woman serving with Justin and she is going to get me a few names this week)

We are sending two special overseas boxes to Justin, they will cost just under $10 to ship each box and can hold a bit of stuff. If anyone wants to put anything in the boxes that is fine to, just let me know... I might send them from Florida so I have time to do some shopping... The S's are doing it with us as well.

Friday....... A day on the Run!

So Friday I knew that I would be busy.... We had such a great day even though we were super crammed......

The boys did schoolwork in the morning with very little fuss even though they had so much in their heads about what was coming.
We had planned to meet at the Park with the home school group and the kids were going to play for a while and then we were going to get a kick ball game going.
The S's arrived and of course we were all running late. We flew to the Park and some were already there and some arrived after. The kids had a great time playing and then started a pick up game of soccer on their own. The adults joined and we started a kick ball game. It was so much fun!


K. and I had some shopping to do and then had to go home to write and Zach needed to go back to the park to go to his team party. Scott took him and he had fun but he knew we had a big night planned so they did not stay long.

Scott came home with Zach and started dinner.
K, W and I were writing to get our stuff done and handed in. We planned a breakfast for dinner night with the movie Ratatouille..... It was fun. We invited Pamela and Mr. X to come up but I'm sure they were going to bed early because they were going to see Shazz compete on Sat morning.


We watched the movie and then hung out. Little B got cranky after the movie and I gave him a sucker... Not just any sucker... One the size of his HEAD! Baby crack.... it was funny watching him eat it... Walter was the first one... "OMG, it is almost 1am!" Another full day gone and they were leaving....

Other than having to work it was a really quick day that went by to fast.....