Pictures from a Breezy Sunday...

Coming to Terms with Playing the Scare Crow

My frilly glittery princess of a girl had such a hard time at her ballet/tap class today. Her dance class got their dance costumes for pictures. They have a recital in two weeks. One costume was fine because it was dainty and pretty and all the girls had the same outfit for "Beauty and the Beast." They all get to be 'Belle'. The other costume, for the tap dance to the "Wizard of Oz," however, was not so acceptable. I couldn't blame her since all the other girls' costumes had some sort of sparkle or glitter to them. Just how do you convince your four year old princess that it's really fun and cute to play a Scare Crow? Really a great part if you understand dance. Her outfit was adorable. She didn't think so. She wanted glitter and sparkles. She really wanted to be Dorothy. But the Scare Crow is such a fun part. She didn't care. It was so hard to get her to come out of the bathroom and participate in the photo shoot. She did rise to the occasion though and did great for the photos. I was proud of her for that.

Click on the Wizard of Oz group shot to see more closely how adorable they all were!

More On Our New Place...

Here is another picture from inside our new place. The thing that first struck me was the beautiful kitchen. It's totally redone. The house also has a lot of storage (which we lack in the present place) as well as new fixtures. It is also the first time I'll have a dishwasher in my married life! I am really happy about that.

One side of the complex is also situated on a deep water canal with boat moorage. We are an eight minute walk from the beach! Something I never imagined we would be. I think I am in denial about the work of moving though. I haven't really thought about all the details. It will be so nice to be on the other side of the move and into our new place.

Weekend With a Sickie

This weekend isn't going as planned. Oh well. Sick husband. Enough said! Poor guy though; I don't think I've ever seen him so miserable with a high fever. I even made him get in the shower yesterday because his temperature was going up and he looked awful. He's a little better today, but not well enough to do anything other than sleep. Poor him. Poor me! I have way too much to do for him to get sick on me. I guess these things happen and we should just be thankful that we normally enjoy good health. I always feel guilty for complaining about a passing illness when so many people are facing things much worse.

New Home Sweet Home

Our new home.

Well, we have a new place to call home. We are moving in a few days. We were approved today and are very happy with the prospect of a new beginning in a new home. Though we will sorely miss being close to our dear friends next door on both sides and across the street. At least we won't be far away. We have been so blessed with dear neighbors who have become dear friends. That's probably the worst part about moving. Other than that, we are thankful for a fun place to move to, in a great location!

More later...

Happy Birthday Liam!

Our sweet boy is 7 years old tomorrow (Sunday)! I can hardly believe it. We celebrated today with some friends at none other than Chuck E. Cheese's. Here are some photos from the day:









We celebrated with Liam's class on Friday at school:



Oh...and the fun you can have with a multi-faced SpongeBob napkin:

Home from SeaWorld

The stars of the show - Our friend, Anthony (top), whose birthday we went to SeaWorld to celebrate (three families totalling 15 of us!) And of course, Shamu.

I didn't know how close you'd get to start growing gills or a spout when you go to SeaWorld. It'd been so many years since I'd been there. I learned it would be a good idea to wear your bathing suit, or some other type of clothing that dries quickly. Because if you really want to experience it all there, you certainly are likely to get saturated. We did! It was a lot of fun. I don't have a lot of time now to write about it, but we, especially Isabella and me (thanks to the ride, Atlantis), were soaked to our underwear and socks by the end of the day. Some pictures:

Arriving at the park all fresh and ready to go.

Liam insisted on moving down to the very front during the Shamu show, to be sure that he got splashed by Shamu. The splash zone is probably from row one until row 40. But he wanted to be all the way down in front. So, his faithful father took him down to the front. Isabella thought she would like it down there too. She changed her mind soon though, and moved about 8 rows back with me. Still in the splash zone, mind you!

The funny part was, Liam kept thinking Shamu was not going to indulge him in a good splash in the face. After having splashed most of the others in the front row of the rest of the stands, and seeming to ignore entirely our side, Shamu finally gave a couple of good splashes at our end. Liam was delighted!


And check it out. We were several rows back from Liam and Edilberto, and we were drenched! Miss Isa was not too happy about it either!

Feeling rather special to have been splashed by a whale!

Moving right along..... The kids find yet another way to get totally drenched. See the pair of them running from the "wave" that just came over the rocks (simulated for kids to play in along with other splasy things.)

O.K., enough of those waves! Let's go get dry. We had to drag them off.

Time to dry-off and eat, and play games with Papai.

All the kids (and a couple of moms) together for a picture!