Some Pics From Our Vermont Vacation 2009

Adam and I had a GREAT time in Vermont. Now we are back and there is so much to Blog about I don't even know where to start. I took hundreds of pictures (big surprise). I'm going to start with some nature shots and add more as I can. When y'all get sick of hearing about Vermont just let me know :-)

1 The Family House. Well loved and appreciated by lots of family members.
2 Queechee Gorge - White River Junction VT
3 One of the many Brooks that you find all over this area
4 Texas Falls - Hancock, VT - spectacular!
5 It rained almost everyday
6 The temperatures were cool during our stay. Sweet Adam built a fire in the wood stove on the cold nights to keep me toasty.
7 The meadow behind the house.
8 My cool boots. They may not be stylish, but they kept my feet dry in the many puddles caused by all of the rain.
9 A great wildlife hangout - we just never happen to see any when we're there. I really wanted to see a Moose, but no such luck.
10 Adam and I had a picnic lunch here on our way to Cabot, VT.
11 Scenic spot - this is a bigger picture of the wildlife hangout in picture #9.
12 Another scenic spot - this one is less than half a mile down the road from the house. The picture does it NO justice. It is a breathtaking valley with low hanging clouds and the cutest little red roofed house.

Friday Fun

Hayden and Blain had fun at the music store on Friday. Playground Music hosts a Guitar Hero competition during the summer. Each Friday kids sign up to compete. The winner gets a $25 gift certificate and a chance to compete in the finals at the end of the summer. Last year's winner got an autographed guitar (can't remember who autographed it). Hayden and Blain were both eliminated in their first round, but they had a good time anyway. There's always next week :-)

Hayden and his competition go head to head on "Expert." The song was by Metallica (can't remember the name).

Blain and his competition go at it on "Medium" to "Toxicity" by System of a Down.

After dinner we went "Cosmic" bowling (blacklights and loud music). It was a lot fun! Everyone did pretty darn good, and no one fell on their rears (the floor was really slippery). I did sustain a sports injury :-( The ball thumbhole tore a chunk of my skin off. I had to get a band-aid from the snack bar :-)

This pic was taken before the blacklights got turned on.

We had to call on our technical experts (the boys) a time or two when the computer got our scores wrong.

Summer's Here

And we are in full swing!! Adam and Blain got back from Parker's Baseball tournament (pics to follow) on Monday. Blain will be staying with us for 2 weeks. So far we have been to the Base Pool, the Skating Rink, the Library and today it's the Golf Course (I'm staying home for that one - too hot!!)

Being Goofy at the Pool

Of course the boys have also managed to squeeze in time to play Guitar Hero and whatever shoot 'em up games they are into these days. I can't even watch those :-(

Last night we played "LIFE". The new edition "Twists and Turns" is so much more fun than the version from back in the day. I recommend it! There's no money, or paper to keep track of. It's all done with a hand held gizmo and debit cards.

I started out as a Strawberry Picker. As the game progressed, I got "promoted" to a Homemaker, a Nanny, a Clown, a Wedding/Event Planner, an International Translator, and was just about to be a Television Minister when the game ended.

Hayden got a major haircut yesterday. It's still not short, but it is shorter than it was and cooler for summer. She also thinned it out quite a bit. That boy has thick, thick hair!

Before

During - another lady was absent mindedly sweeping the floor. She suddenly looked up and said to Hayden, "Is all of this hair YOURS"? WOW! This was taken when he was about 3/4 finished.

After - so thrilled to be having his picture taken - NOT!

Out to dinner at Logan's. They were out of big tables, so Adam and I sat at our own table next to the kiddo's table.

WGI (World Guard International) 2009

Christian and I after Choctaw's Finals performance

Here is another of my catch up posts :-) Last month, I went to Dayton, OH as a chaperone for Choctaw's Indoor Percussion unit. Each year they go to compete at WGI - World Guard International. It is the culmination of a lot of hardwork for young people from across the country, and in fact the world.

For those of you that aren't familiar with Indoor Percussion, you're not alone. I had never heard of it before last year. But, lemme' tell you, you gotta' check it out!! In a nutshell, drummers gotta' drum. They gotta' do it because it's in their blood. But what do you do when Marching Season is over? How do you improve without driving your parents crazy banging on everything in the house that isn't nailed down (and lots of stuff that is). Well, you just take the Drumline and the Pit and you move them inside. Roll out a vinyl floor big enough to cover an entire basketball court. Learn some awesome music, choreograph an intricate show, and practice, practice, practice. Go to several competition during the winter. Qualify to go to the World Championship. Then, come April, head to Dayton and strut your stuff! :-)

So that's what they do - Here are some pics:

• The Base Line practicing in "The Lot" (the parking lot at the University of Dayton Arena).
• Ashley applying eyeliner to Christian. All of the kids had to wear eyeliner to make their eyes stand out more during the competition. There were several boys that took a bit of persuading, but most were really good sports about it (and I think they gained a bit of appreciation for what we girls go through :-)
• About to perform. A moment of prayer before Finals.
• The Base Line after Finals.
• Practicing in "The Lot" before Prelims
• Backstage waiting for our turn at Prelims.
• Full Retreat after Finals. 30 units (15 from Percussion Scholastic World and 15 from Independent World) await the judges decisions. It's almost midnight and the everyone is anxious to see where they placed.
• Performing during Finals.
• The places have all been announced and a year of hard work has come to an end. The air is full of confetti thrown from 4 confetti cannons. All of these kids have so much to be proud of.
• Bags are packed and down in the hotel lobby waiting to be loaded on the bus.
• A packed house in Dayton arena watches the final performances.

• Bowling is a great way for the kids to wind down from a day of competition and keep their minds off of the next day's competition.
• 11:00 is lights out, although very few of them actually go to bed, they do get "taped in" to make sure no one wanders anywhere they are not supposed to be. They can still get out of their room and back in, but the broken tape will rat them out. So far, never a problem.
• A quick buffet in the parking lot. These guys have worked hard and they are hungry.
• Taking a break after yet another practice. This one was at an indoor Track field. The mats they are laying on are underneath a pole vaulting bar.
• Chaperones/Pit Crew sitting down to watch our kids perform. We can only rest for a minute though, we have to pop right back up after their performance to help the kids clear everything within their time limit.
• Susan and I mugging it up in the parking lot while the kids practice.
• Another outdoor buffet, this time it was KFC. The kids really liked that, it was a nice change from our usual offerings. Huge pans of chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, macaroni and cheese, coleslaw, and biscuits. YUM!!
• Another chance to unwind before a competition. An impromptu Halo tournament. Yes, they bring their video games with them on these trips :-)
• Our last group meal of the trip. A Golden Corral in Alabama. We left Ohio at midnight (Eastern Time) the night before. Now it's 9:00 am (Central Time). These guys are worn out, hungry, and ready to get home.
  

So, if you wanna' see a bit more about this thing called Indoor Percussion and WGI. I have attached a link to a video. I tried to embed it into this post. But, for some reason I can't get the code to work. Choctaw competes in the PSW (Percussion Scholastic World) category. The link is to a video of several of the units in their category. Choctaw is featured 5 times (although don't blink :-) The video is 2 minutes and 02 seconds long. You can see Christian at 1:25 (again, don't blink).

Percussion Scholastic World Montage Video

Hayden's Spring Concert

Last week Hayden's school had their Spring Concert. It is always a very nice time with many different groups performing. The concert is held at "The Landing." The water you see in the background is Santa Rosa Sound (part of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway). The land behind the water is Okaloosa Island. Although it didn't rain, it was overcast so the water doesn't look as pretty as it normally does.

During the concert 5 groups performed - Beginning Band, Football/Symphonic Band, Jazz Band, Strings, and Guitar. It amazing to see how much progress all of the classes have made since their Fall concert.

Hayden has really enjoyed the whole band experience. He is really looking forward to kicking it up a notch next year.

Beginning Band

Hayden is to the right of Mr. Phillip's, in front of the Bass Drum.

Mr. Phillips is such a great teacher and a good sport. See his two toned hair? Well, he is normally a brunette. But, he told the kids that if they raised "X" amount of dollars during their last fundraiser, then he would die his hair blonde. They did their part, and he kept his end of the bargain. Poor thing, he didn't realize what a process it is to turn brown hair blonde. It took three hours to make the transformation. He says next time he will have to find another incentive :-)

Get a Job!

Christian has his first job!! He has wanted to work at Chick-fil-A for quite a while now. He loves the food, the people are nice, and it's close enough to the house that he could walk to work if he needed to.
We're really glad he found such a great place for his first job. The employees there are always very friendly and helpful, there's a good mix of teenage and older employees, and many employees have been there for several years. So far he is loving it. Of course, I'm starting to worry about his cholesterol :-) Eating Chick-fil-A for dinner 3x's a week can't be good for you. But, we're hoping that will get old soon.

Home after his first hard night's work :-)

First paycheck!!

Spring Break and April Fool's

Here is one of my "catch up" posts about the fun we had over Spring Break and April Fool's Day.

The last week of March was the beginning of Spring Break for all 4 boys. Parker and Blain got to come down for the whole week. It was not a great week weather wise (rain, rain, rain and even tornado warnings), but we had a good time anyway.

We did manage to get to the beach on one nice day. It was a little chilly and windy, but still sunny and clear.

The boys had fun burying their feet in the sand and running from the waves.

Chillin Out!

As I said it rained a LOT that week. Adam and Blain did manage to get out to the golf course for 9 holes. Blain is on the golf team this year at school.
We also got a chance to go see the movie Monsters vs. Aliens. We had to call ahead to see what their policy was for dealing with Tornado Warnings. They didn't seem too concerned so we took a walk on the wild side :-) Poor Adam dropped us off to go park and got pretty wet walking from the car to the theater.

Christian and his friends had fun hanging out during Spring Break. A bunch of band kids went over to Ashley's house to eat dinner and watch a movie. Ashley is very artistic and she decided to have a little fun!! Christian came home with blue eyes. FREAKY!! His eyes are completely shut and his eyelids are painted.

Of course April Fool's day just happened to fall during Spring Break - mwahhhh hahhhhh hahhhhh hahhhhh. Adam and I had lots of fun coming up with fun pranks to pull on the boys.

For breakfast, I offered them a choice of cereal or cinammon toast. Well, of course they chose the toast. So I toasted the bread, buttered it and then let them doctor it up with the cinnamon sugar. I had dumped out the real mixture and replaced it with cinnamon SALT. It was great! Looked real, smelled real, tasted AWFUL. The best part was they all woke up at different times, so I was able to get several of them. I had to leave the kitchen a couple of times to keep from cracking up prematurely.

Adam made a plateful of yummy chocolates. He told the boys he had to take them to work, but that there were some leftover that they could enjoy. Here is what they looked like.
Delicious, right? Except that they were chocolate covered styrofoam. A little chewy and totally hilarious!!

Hayden was the unlucky one to fall victim to the kool-aid shower. Adam had removed the shower head and loaded it with drink mix powder. Hayden was the perfect target. Most people run the water from the shower head before they get in. Not him, he ran the water from the tub faucet, then got in, then pulled the lever that switches the water to the shower head. Hey Kool-AID!!! :-) Of course, several minutes later Christian decided to add insult to injury by dumping a full glass of cold water on Hayden's head.

Things settled down a bit after the morning craziness. Then that night, Adam and I went to bed. Apparently the boys stayed up for a bit. I woke up to find bowls of water in the bathroom. Plain evidence that someone tried to make someone else pee in their sleep. Thankfully they were not successful. And Parker woke up to this:

Guess who fell asleep first?

I'm Baaaaack!!

Some of you might have thought I dropped off the face of the planet. Nope, not yet anyway. Life has been busy, as usual. So now it's time to catch up. This might take a few posts :-) Adam recently went out to Las Vegas on business and I got to go with him for a couple of days. It was WONDERFUL! I really didn't think it was going to happen until the very last minute. But, everything fell into place! YEAH!!

We got to do quite a bit of sight seeing on the strip, went to see Cirque du Soleil, and had a few meals with my Mom and Tony. It was very enjoyable. Hope you enjoy the pictures. Of course these are only 10 of the hundreds I took :-) To see the rest go to my SmugMug account.

We went to see Cirque du Soleil's "Ka." It was EXTRAORDINARY!! The performers were exceptional and defied gravity (my hands were literally sweating through more than half of the show). Even more so, the set . . . . OMG I don't even know how to begin to describe it. After all it was just a stage floor and some props. Oh, but did I mention that the stage floor not only lay flat, but also rotated from 0 to 90 degrees. All while performers were ON it!! And then there were the performers who didn't even use the stage, because they were above us, beside us, crawling on the theatre seats. AMAZING!! I would go again tomorrow to the same exact show. Problem is there are 3 other ones playing in Vegas on any given day that I would love to see as well.
The lobby of the MGM Grand Hotel. The "Ka" theatre is at the MGM Grand.

After the show we went to "The Paris" hotel. I wanted to go up in the Eiffel Tower and see the city. The Paris has a half size replica of the actual Eiffel Tower. Hello, did I not remember the hand sweating from the show we just saw?? I'm afraid of heights!! Fortunately,
I didn't remember that until the elvator doors were closed and we were on our way up. That's when the hand sweating started up again. I'm glad we went though! And I'm glad Adam was able to get these beautiful pictures as I stayed a few steps back :-)

The Bellagio's water show was exquisite from this vantage point. We could hear the accompanying music (All That Jazz) as clearly as if we had been on the ground.

Inside "The Venetian" hotel. You can actually take a gondola ride through the hotel. They even sing for you :-)

Each hour The Venetian has a Living Garden show. It is quite entertaining. These "statues" are REAL people. They pose in the fountain you see in the background and perform a very graceful series of poses as music plays in the background. They even have water that sprays out of their fingertips. It is really something to see. Afterwards they come out (where you see them now) and people can have their pictures taken with them. These girls were amazing and in character the entire time!

We stopped for a drink at "Dirty Dick's." A joint famous for having attitude and hurling insults at their guests. Half of the patrons were wearing hats with various declarations on them. This is the one the bartender made for Adam. Trust me, he got off easy. Some of the hats were quite a bit more "descriptive."

Me and Sponge Bob!! Turns out Sponge Bob wasn't the only celebrity I would run into. I sat next to Evander Holyfield at the airport while waiting to catch the red eye out of Vegas. Of course, dumb me didn't even realize it was him until 5 minutes before I had to board. When I sat down, I thought he looked familiar. But, it was midnight, I was tired, didn't think twice about it. Then about a half an hour later I overheard a conversation and put two and two together. I guess he's into NASCAR now and that's why he was out there.

Adam and I at the beautiful Bellagio Conservatory. This was the last day for the "Chinese New Year" theme. I'm glad we got to see it! I'm sure by now Tony and his crew have completely recreated the space into something equally extraordinary!!

The view from the outside of "The Paris." Yeah, this view doesn't make me nervous :-)

More posts soon!!

Week in Pictures

This week we celebrated Adam's Birthday. He has recovered from his surgery very quickly, so we were able to go to McGuire's for dinner - Yum! It was wonderful. The best steak I have EVER had. We ordered appetizers too and ended up coming home with 5 take out boxes!! No one could finish their dinner. We came home and sang Happy Birthday to Adam. For some reason he didn't want me to metion his birthday to our waiter. Something about the way they make you kiss a big stuffed moose on your birthday. Some people are such babies :-)

Adam's cake - Orange flavored with white icing and LOTS of sprinkles

Hayden got to go to Super Science Saturday. The science department at the high school invites middle school kids over once a month to do fun science projects and experiments. Oh yeah, they get pizza and soda too. This month was all about aerodynamics. They made lots of different flying "machines".

Hayden's flying toys. They don't look like any big deal in the pic, but in action they are really cool. It's neat how 5 simple objects can all fly with such different styles.

One of Christian's favorite shows lately is "That 70's Show" Here he is "chillin'" and watching TV.

Adam's Doing Great

Adam's surgery went really well. It was both a little more work than the doc thought and a little less. You see, the gall bladder removal that should have taken 20 minutes took 2 hours. That was the more work part. Then, Adam's appendix decided to hide behind his colon so taking it out would have meant making a large incision - in addition to the 6 laparoscopic holes they had already made. Since, it wasn't imperative that they take it out, the Dr. decided to leave it in.

Even with the longer surgery, I couldn't believe that we were in the car on our way back home so quickly. Check out this timeline:

6:30: We arrive at the Surgery Center
8:00: The nurses wheel Adam back to the Operating Room
12:00: We are back at home with a slightly groggy Adam tucked in bed and me sending out a mass email to let everyone know that everything was A-okay.

It was practically drive-thru service :-)

Adam has been such a GREAT patient! None of the meds made him sick and he has been managing his pain very well. He has also kept a really good balance between rest (to promote healing) and activity (to prevent complications from the anesthesia).

He has been back to the Dr. to have the post-op drainage tube removed, and will go back for a follow-up next week. Looks like he will have some pretty good bruises over the next week or so. And of course a scar or two (okay 6).

Thanks to everyone for being so supportive and thoughtful!! We are very thankful to have so many caring people in our lives.

All A's

Hayden's middle school lunchroom has a wall devoted to displaying the names of the 6th, 7th and 8th graders who did well on their nine week report cards.

There is a section of the wall devoted to "All A's." There is another section for "All A's and B's." And still another section for "All A's, B's and 1 C."

Hayden made all A's again this nine weeks and got to be 1 of the 37 6th-8th graders on this section of the wall. Go Hayden!!

Hayden's Tooth

Hayden has had half of a baby tooth that has been hanging on for the last year and a half. Yes, I said half of a baby tooth. Somehow, the baby tooth cracked and half of it came out. The rest stayed put, and the adult tooth has been coming in above it. Every time we go to the dentist I asked them to whack it lose. This time they finally did. So here is Hayden numbed (he had to get a filling too) and guazed, and holding his tooth. Well, actually he's holding a tooth shaped box that his actual tooth is in :-)

When we got in the car Hayden told me that the hygienist had told him that just because it was a half of a tooth didn't mean he should get half a visit from the Tooth Fairy. I said, Oh really? Well what if the Tooth Fairy doesn't have any cash on her? He said she could always transfer it into my Debit Card Account. I told him - Buddy, if you're old enough to know how to electronically transfer funds to a debit card account, I think you're a bit too old for the Tooth Fairy. He sheepishly agreed. Funny what kind of angles you'll try to work when you're saving up for an iPod Touch :-)

Celebrity Servers

Last Night we had a fundraiser at Golden Corral. The Percussion section pre-sold tickets for dinner at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Then several of the kids were our waiters for the evening. It was a good time and the kids walked away with a few bucks in their pockets.

Christian and Co. - Sarah is standing on a chair and Christian is crouching down. Guess they wanted to try something other than being the tallest and the shortest.

I made TIP jars out of recycled peanut butter jars. I didn't realize how many we had! We made a lot of PB&J's during football season.

It's funny how a kid who has to be asked to clear the table at home will clear your plate every 6 minutes when there is $$ involved :-)

Make and Take - Birthday Gift Card Holder

Recently Hayden and I went to a Make and Take. For my non-crafty folks :-) a Make and Take is where you go to a craft get together, learn how to make something and then take it home with you. They are so cool, and Hayden and I had a really good time.

The project was a gift card holder. I had seen pictures of one online, but never tried my hand at it. It was sooo easy, and fun, and they turned out super cute.

Hayden's (standing up) and my (laying down) gift card holder.

I was so proud of Hayden's creativity. He really went all out - inking the edges of his white cardstock, using two sentiments, making his candle multi colored, coloring in his sprinkles, and he even got his candle perfect. As you can see one of mine is kinda' floating. Oh well, I still like it.

Inside (open) view. You can decorate the inside too, we just didn't.

Another inside view. The gift card fits perfectly!

View from the top.