Reunion Name Tags

So, our reunion organizers went to the trouble of creating name tags for all of us attending - with our Senior picture from the yearbook on the tag. Here is what mine looks like...the only thing that eased the blow of wearing that all night...is that there was not one girl among us who didn't have ginormous hair on her name tag. Such an 80's girl!!

Floor update

The family room floor is one strip away from being completed!!! Tim and Justin worked on it all day yesterday - and we've got Greg, Kevin and Keith helping out today and tomorrow...hopefully we can get the dining area and hallway done this weekend. Man-oh-man, it looks awesome!

Tear out on the dining area linoleum - getting it ready for the hardwood

Speaking of hard floors...Silas wiped out on the concrete yesterday and took one on the chin...

20 Years - Seriously?!?

I have spent the last 2 evenings catching up with so many friends and classmates - and if I had a dime for every time someone asked - "can you believe it's been 20 years?" - well, these hardwood floors would be paid for! I was amazed at how easy it was to slip right back into the same friendships without missing a beat - felt like we'd been hanging out at each others' lockers the day before.

Of course, I wanted to look good for the reunion, so I asked for some help in taming my crazy-girl hair (as we call Ella's when it's going nuts).

Courtney was a doll and played hairdresser for me at Beth's

Me, Sherry and Gretchen - 2 of the reunion planners and my running around pals from the day.
Rob B - (one of my best pals from HHS) - and Me

It was a ton of fun both nights and I am sad that it will be another 5 to 10 years before I see most of them again...

I love...

having someone to walk to school again in the mornings now that Miss Boo is in the big K. I love the back-to-school atmosphere. She is adjusting very well to the new schedule and to getting up early every morning. She is always full of news when she gets home. Yesterday she told me that she made 2 new friends in class - Cloe and a boy (but she doesn't know his name).

This morning Si was still sleeping when I walked Ella to school, so Justin stayed home while I took Ella. As I was coming out of the school, I saw a very sleepy looking Si walking with Justin towards the school. He was still in his Bob the Builder jammies and was wearing his beaded turquoise flip-flops. Justin said he didn't want to get dressed, he just wanted to walk to the school "right now!" I wish I had taken a picture of the goofy boy.

Drama Queen!

Mason got another haircut - the cut from the beach wasn't short enough for him

Siley J.

Here is the current state of my office while we are putting down the hardwood. How can I be productive working in this mess? (I always have an excuse!)

Weekend Outlook:
~ Hope to make major progress on the flooring over the 3 day weekend - it is LABOR DAY isn't it??
~ First OSU game - Go Bucks!!
~ It's my high school 20 year reunion weekend!! How can this be??
Tonight is an informal gathering at Otie's (of course!) and then tomorrow night we will have the official shin-dig at the Buckeye Hall of Fame. I bought a "new" camera on eBay - a handy little point & shoot so I should have lots of pictures as I play with it.

Nags Head pictures - slide show

This is LONG....11 minutes - so only the most dedicated and/or bored of you will probably make it through the entire slide show (with tunes). This is only about 300 of the 826 pictures but I tried to capture a sampling of all that we did while in Nags Head.

Blood, Sweat and Tears...

Blood and sweat - as Justin hammered his finger and worked his butt off all weekend.

Oh man...what a project. I knew it was going to be bad but in the back of my mind, I was thinking that I was just Thinking it was going to be bad and in real life...it wouldn't be so bad...no, it IS as bad as I dreaded it would be!


So here's our weekend in pictures:

Friday night we boxed things up, moved things out of the family room

Saturday morning the carpet got ripped up - the furniture got moved out.

Ella decided that she'd do some helping in her snazzy little sandals. These are NOT OSHA compliant!

This is the very worst part for me ... the major furniture pile-up. That is where the "tears" come into play.
Ella and Si being silly helpers

After the "helpers" were no longer helping, we went to the James' to hang out - lots and lots of pool time!

Ella and Si were SO tuckered out after hours and hours of swimming.

This is what the floors look like so far - about 1/2 of the family room is completed - actually less than 1/2 - so it's very slow going but they look fantastic!!

Everyone is super tired and Ella had a temp of 102.2 when I put her to bed tonight. Not sure if she has caught a bug or if she is just wiped from the weekend. She'll be disappointed if she has to miss the Big K tomorrow!

How to Impress a Kindergartener

Ella had her 2nd day of kindergarten on Friday (they did staggered starts for the kids the first week). She came home just babbling away about what they did and how much fun it was. She looked at me with the most serious expression and said:

"And Mrs. S wore flip-flops to school today. We went on the playground and she didn't even get mulch in her shoes!!" She was incredibly impressed by that feat! (no pun intended :)

I think it's going to be a very good year for Miss Boo.



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Today we start the HUGE project of getting all the hardwood floors down on the first floor. I am really dreading the entire process. Last night we packed up everything on the shelves in the family room to make the furniture moving easier. I was hoping this would be a 3 weekend or less project...I'm doubting that will be possible with how much work will need to be done! The only thing that makes it all better is envisioning how beautiful it will look when completed. And I'm looking forward to doing a "clean sweep" of each of the rooms in the process.

86 the Training Wheels!

Yesterday was a big day for Miss Boo! She had a wonderful time at school - loves her teacher, had fun at recess and loved riding the bus home.

Last night after dinner, we took the kids down to the school to play. Ella has been asking for the last month to take the training wheels off of her bike. So Justin took them off and after about 20 minutes of the wobbles and Justin running beside her, she got the hang of it and took off.

Here's a short video of her sans training wheels!

The Big K

Last week, the Big K was the Big Kangaroo - apparently a common carry out in the Outer Banks. THIS week, the Big K is KINDERGARTEN! Today was Ella's first day - and she woke up at the crack of dawn, ready to get ready to go! We had her clothes all laid out for this morning, had talked about how she wanted her hair (she calls it her Valentine's Day flip) and what she would want for breakfast. So this morning, it was smooth sailing.

My big girl posing for a couple pictures

Walking to school - Silas wanted to bring his backpack too

a Video of the walk to school - a big hug and Sir Stomp-a-lot





Posing for a picture in the school

Heading to the classroom with Mrs. S

She saw her neighborhood friends, Ashlee, Allysa, Abbi and Alli too which was fun for her.
The bus will bring her home after school. She is very excited to ride a bus!

Turn to the right - part 2

The movie clip I was talking about - gotta love YouTube!

And the Winner is....

Netters!! Annette guessed 800 pictures - I took 826 during our vacation - see, I DID take some time to relax on the beach!

Turn to the RIGHT!

Today is Mason's first day of school - I wanted to get a couple pictures of the big day - 8th grade! He was less than cooperative of course.

This first one isn't bad...

This one reminded me of a mug shot...

Ever seen the movie Raising Arizona? When Hi is getting his mug shots? Edwina yells at him "Turn to the Right!"

The Weekend Marathon

We have survived the weekend marathon - unpacking (kind of), the 4 Saturday parties, more unpacking and the Clippers game this evening. Justin and I are beyond exhausted, the kids are wiped out and will hopefully get back on schedule this week. School starts on Tuesday for Mason and Wednesday (I think) for Ella.

A weekend overview:

Saturday morning Silas decided he was still on vacation and took his oatmeal and juice out on the deck to eat (in his pj's of course).

This is how the sunflower looked upon our return. We did miss the peak bloom but it's still cool looking.
Today Justin and I both went into the garden and picked. We ended up with 6 HUGE cucumbers and 2 massive salad bowls full of Cherry tomatoes. YUM!
Ella and Jaden at their cousin Aliyah's 2nd birthday party (party #1 of the day) - they are the best of friends!

We then rushed over to party #2 - Kelly's 6th birthday party. Great fun!

Party #3 was a pool party for Abbi and Alli - they have a January birthday and decided it's be fun to celebrate it (as well as going back to school) with an end of summer pool party. (Thanks Beth for the picture!)
Birthday party #4 was great fun - we helped Sam celebrate his 1st birthday!! As you can tell, he had a great time!

We ended the weekend with a Sunday evening Clipper's baseball game. We lost but it was a great game with loads of stadium junk food (hot dogs, cotton candy, ice cream...yum!)And now I am going to bed early, before I turn into a pumpkin. Looking around at the house and at the week ahead, I've got that stressed out feeling that only a good night's sleep can repair!

OH - IO

Slowly but surely making our way there...we just entered OH - IO! Ella took an hour nap but Silas has not closed his eyeballs at all.

Ella and Silas have been amusing themselves with scotch tape for the last hour. They are using it as bandaids, mustaches, rings, walrus tusks. It'll probably take me an hour to peel it off of them once we get home but well worth the peace and quiet on the long drive!

OBX - a Contest - extended

We're a little over 8 hours from home - we hit a stand-still traffic jam in Newport News that lasted for about 45 minutes. My knees are killing me and I'm bored to death - so I'm looking for ways to amuse myself (besides driving).

I'm having a contest - leave a comment and take a guess at how many photos I took while we were on our trip.
The winner will get an official OBX souvenir!! I'll even pay the postage to mail it to you if you aren't close by :)

Please leave your comment by midnight on Sunday - winner will be announced Monday morning. - I'M EXTENDING THIS - ENTER MY MONDAY AT MIDNIGHT AND WINNER ANNOUNCED ON TUESDAY!

Exiting the OBX

I got up early enough to catch one last sunrise. And then the tedious work of packing up all the stuff - and leaving the place like we found it - NO fun! We got on the road by about 9am.



I wanted to get one group photo before we left. The first time I had the tripod on the street and set the timer - as you can tell...I'm missing. I wasn't able to get into place before the camera clicked. I tried twice and gave up.

So we tried a different angle where I didn't have so far to go to get into place. Not great but it'll have to do!

Wrapping up with mixed emotions

Our final day went very fast....

A few pictures (surprise, surprise!)

Me and Margie taking a walk on the beach this afternoon

We saw Mr. Crabs while we were out - he's quite the grouch and I do not like his beady little eyeballs!

The kids had some final playtime in the ocean before dinner. It was still pretty rough and uneven this evening. By tonight, when the kids went crab hunting again, it was all starting to even out and look like 2 days ago. Amazing to me!

The waves today were breaking at different points on the beach and often would collide into each other and create huge waves. It was nerve racking keeping track of all 3 kids when they were out in it.

You can see my finger on the left as I'm trying to tell Silas to please come up here a little closer (for the 90th time!)

Right now, I am sitting up on the widow's walk, listening to the ocean, having a glass of wine and looking at what appears to be a full or at least, mostly full, moon. I am sad that we are leaving tomorrow but I miss my house, garden, friends/neighbors and Zoe. I love to visit places but I love my home more and get homesick after about a week!

This was the perfect family vacation. The kids had SO much fun. This house is perfect for us. I realized yesterday that even though this is only our 3rd trip here, I feel so at home. Earlier today as I was looking around I figured out why it feels so familiar and comfy. When I first worked with Colleen in our Grandview office, all the furniture that was in the condo/office is the furniture that is here at the beach house. Couches, dining table, end tables, pictures on the walls,
and even some of the same coffee mugs and cooking utensils.

This is a family vacation (much like our Dale Hollow houseboat vacations) that I feel create such strong, lasting memories for the kids - the things that they will want to do with their kids and that we'll hopefully get to do with our grandkids. I see so many grandparents out on the beach with their grandchildren and can't help but think that will be me and Justin someday...gray, beer/wine bellies and running up and down the beach with munchkins that will remind us of our days here with Mason, Ella and Silas.

And it was wonderful to have aunt Maw-gee (as Ella and Si say) and Uncle Bim, Mam-ma and Pap-pa here too. Like I said - a wonderful family vacation.

So, I wrap up the OBX writings anxious to get home but sad to see such a great week come to an end.