Summer is Flying By

Summer is more than 1/2 over, and I feel like it just started!

The end of May was busy with end of the school year stuff.
Leila 'graduated' from preschool.

She's a big 'kindergartener' now.

We had our Bible School that same week.
Lots of fun, but busy busy busy.
We all had jobs this time.
Darrell taught a class, I was the photographer, and David helped with music.
As always, the week ended with a program, food and a water slide.
Darrell decided to 'surf' the slide, rather than slide the slide. Hence, a trip to the ER and a concussion later ensued.

The beginning of June brought Austin's 20th birthday.

Leila had her 1st Dance Recital that same night.
I'm sure a dance recital was NOT how he had originally planned to spend his birthday, but he went and was good about it.
And I LOVED it.
She did SO good, and was just so darn cute doing it.

The end of June, Darrell went to CA.
This was a trip with FBLA.
To get the money to go, he had to do fund-raising - which he did everything they offered for the last several months.
Then he worked on his own, to make up the difference. (He really wanted to go.)
He has been mowing (our yard and the church), teaching swimming lessons, house-sitting, and whatever odd jobs came his way.
It all paid off though, because he got to spend almost a week in CA.
He competed at FLBA Nationals, went to Disneyland, took a tour of Hollywood, and went to Huntington Beach.

In addition to teaching swimming lessons to little kids, he's been swimming in a summer league (which is also almost over).

He leaves on Sunday for Camp Electric - a Christian music camp.
This is his 4th year to go. (And probably his last.)

He's such a good kid. I'm very proud of him.

On July 1, Leila had her Pharyngeal Flap (p-flap) surgery in Columbus.
I was really dreading it, but she did amazing.
She was SO brave going into surgery.
We were there from Monday - Thursday.
She has recovered from this so much better than I anticipated.
Although this surgery is supposed to be so much more difficult - she actually did better with this one than she did with her tonsils back in Nov.

Austin and Casey have been dating over a year now, so last week they went to Kings Island for the day - and he proposed.
Of course, she said yes.
They say they're going to have a 'long' engagement.
I asked what 'long' means.
Welllll, that's anywhere from 1-3 years.
We'll see.

Travel

We've done a bit of traveling lately.

We went to Disney World for spring break.
This was our first 'big' family vacation since we went to China 4 1/2 yrs ago.
Weather was great. It was warm enough to swim at the hotel pool in the evenings, and only rained part of one day.
It was a bit more crowded than I originally thought it would be. Apparently everyone thinks spring break is a good time to go!
Leila LOVED the 'big' rides. Dark ones like the Haunted Mansion scared her, but the bigger and faster ones (like roller coasters) were super great.
We went to a Princess breakfast in Cinderella's castle - very cool.
And we ate another breakfast with Mickey Mouse and his friends. (The big kids really liked that one.)
Wouldn't it be nice to go to Disney with at least a month and an unlimited bank account?



The weekend after we home from Disney, I went on a one-night trip to Indiana.
This was just my mom, my mother-in-law, my friend from church and her mom.
It was Vera Bradley's annual factory outlet sale.
It was in a coliseum and was a huge affair. And a fun little break.
My friend and I had been talking about going for a year now - ever since we heard about it.
It was bad timing for me that it just happened to fall right after Disney (no $), but David said to go ahead and go - it would be fun (and it was).

2 weeks later, my very talented (and handsome) cousin was in from NC and playing in Charleston.
We went to see him, and it was like a family reunion.
Trust me - he's going to be big!
He's not on iTunes - yet, but I'm sure he will be. Right now, you can check him out on www.reverbnation.com Go to The Mikele Buck Band to see.



Then ... 2 weeks after that - was our annual 'girls week' at the beach!
6 of us ended up going this year.
We were originally supposed to go to Carolina Beach. (We've been trying to go somewhere different every year.) We got to Carolina Beach, and things weren't as they were supposed to be. They were doing construction - putting in a pipeline - and we couldn't get to the beach!
We called our 'travel people' and early the next morning packed up and moved south to Myrtle Beach.
Weather was great. Resort was nicer. But most importantly - beach was accessible.








Just after coming home from Disney, Austin started a new job.
He got on at Toyota!
They have a plant just about 20-25 minutes up the road.
It's an amazing job at a fantastic company.
I'm SO very proud of him.
To get on with a job like that at only 19 years old - he has a great future ahead of him.
I know Rural King hated to lose him, and he'll miss some of the friends he made there, but what a great step for him.

I know I've had a great couple of months - but, gosh ... now I have nowhere else to look forward to for another whole year!

Dec 2012

Dec (and most of Jan) has already passed by.
Dec was full of all the crazy-busy that Christmas always brings.

Darrell started his swim meets.
With being the 1st swim team PP has ever had, no matter what - these kids are setting school records at almost every meet!

Leila had a Christmas program at both school and at church. She did really well. I wasn't sure if she would go up on stage in front of people, but she really turned on the 'star' quality - singing, dancing, and strutting her stuff. Yep - she's a diva.

Ready for the School Program

Church Program (What a cute Mary & Joseph)

We went to see the lights and saw Santa at the same time.
This is the 1st time Leila has ever sat on his lap - she was quite excited about it too.

Christmas eve was spent with family.
Christmas Day was actually a little relaxing, especially after all the preparation it takes to get to that point.
Dinner here at our house and then Christmas night at my mom's.

Darrell earned his varsity jacket.

Leila got the 'Doc McStuffins' doll she'd asked Santa for.

It might have been a little too early for Austin though.

She may have wanted the doll, but she has played with the make-up she got probably more than anything else.

We had a small New Year's Eve party at our house with some friends - just food and games.
My favorite way to ring in the year.

But now, Jan is here with all it's snow, slush, and cold. Bleech!

Surgery

Along with Thankgiving, Nov brought another surgery this year.
Leila had her tonsils taken out. (They also did adenoids and ear tubes.)
She wasn't having any problems with them.
They were just 'in the way' for future surgeries and procedures.
Children's Hospital in Columbus and the Ronald McDonald House are both amazing.
Leila, however, does not do so well with things like this.
She has a very low tolerance for pain.
And when she hurts, there is absolutely NO reasoning with her - at all.
Needles bring on mass hysteria.
We are now 6 days post-surgery, and I'm not seeing much relief yet.
I am NOT looking forward to future procedures!!!

To top it all off - Austin came home with strep throat yesterday!
If she ends up with strep - she'll go back to the hospital, and I'll go to the looney bin.

On a few positive notes, Christmas preparations are coming along.
I think all of my shopping is done.
We put the tree up before going to the hospital.
Austin put up our lights while we were gone.

David celebrated a birthday on Mon. We didn't get to out to eat, so I cooked one of his favorites instead.

Also, earlier in the month, Darrell, Mom and I had a last-minute opportunity to take a 'red-eye' to NYC.
It was up on Fri night, spend the day on Sat, and back on Sat night.
It was tiring trying to fit so much into one day, but we had fun.
We made it onto the 'Today' show - but no one saw us.
We went on a NBC Studio Tour - saw them setting up for Saturday Night Live. Did some 'shopping', but didn't buy anything. And I took him to a comedy show that night. (It was a little bit dirty, but he thought it was funny and enjoyed being a 'grown-up' for the weekend.) Mostly it was just being there and seeing things.

Fall Update

Fall has quickly turned into winter.

Austin is still trying to figure out his life long-term.
He's currently working 2 jobs.
He went back to the gym, and is one of the head gymnastics coaches.
He LOVES that job, and he must have a knack for it, because I've had a lot of the parents tell me how good he is.
They're talking about moving Leila up another level after the 1st of the year. That means she would be in his class. Yeah - we'll see how that goes. (She just doesn't see him as the authority figure the other little girls do.)
He also works at a store called Rural King. It's a little bit of everything type of store. They just recently opened in our area, but he's been there since before they opened - doing all the getting ready stuff too.

Darrell finished cross country, and started swim team.
Our school has never has a swim team before - we don't have a pool.
A new teacher has worked it out with a neighboring community college to have practice at their pool and has agreed to coach.
Darrell was very excited.
Biggest problem is that it's 20-25 minutes away, and practice is 4-5 days a week - at 7:00 in the evening.
We told him that as long as we could work out a carpool, he could do it.
He did, and we carpool with 4 other kids. We only have to drive one day a week, and so far, he's loving it.

Oct brought Halloween and birthdays.

Leila turned 5!

We had cake here and celebrated by going to Camden Park (an amusement park in nearby Huntington) and to the famous Pumpkin House.

2 days later, Darrell turned 16 and got his drivers license!
Not sure I was ready for that, but I must admit - the convenience is sure nice at times.

Halloween was carving pumpkins, Trick-or-Treat and the Block Party.

Cruise

Sept was busy.
In addition to getting back in to the school routine, cross-country track, gymnastics, ballet, 2 family reunions, etc - I went on a trip.

Mom and I went on a Carribean cruise.
We flew to Miami and boarded the ship there.
It was a 7 day cruise, with 4 ports - Half Moon Cay, St. Thomas, San Juan & Grand Turk.
It was beautiful - the water, the islands, the ship - all of it.
Weather was great.

We went on a Harbor Tour in Miami. We was 'stars' houses. They were completely unbelievable. We could probably live in just one room of some of these houses. It was hard to believe we were only seeing the backs of these houses. Also, these are probably just summer or vacation homes.

P Diddy's House

Shaquille O'Neal's House

At Half Moon Cay, we went 'swimming' with the stingrays. I thought it would be neat, but I had no idea just how neat. It was fantastic. They are such gentle creatures, and they were everywhere. Just standing in the water - they swam around you, between your legs, and didn't mind being touched (or even held).
There were also starfish, sea slugs, conch, and plain pretty fish.

At St. Thomas, we went to Magen's Beach. Magen's Beach is supposed to be one of the top 10 beaches in the world. It was nice, it was pretty, but I'm not sure I think it was all that. I've actually seen some I thought were better, so I'm not sure how they do those ratings.
We also went on a city tour. We went to BlackBeard's castle and an amber museum.

Magens Beach

Amber Waterfall

BlackBeard's Castle

Our next stop was San Juan, Puerto Rico. We did another tour there, which included a rainforest. They said it was the only rainforest in US jurisdiction. That confused me because I really thought Hawaii had one too, but I don't know.

Grand Turk was our last port.
We originally had 2 excursions booked there, but for various reasons both were cancelled. So we shopped instead.
Grand Turk was small but very pretty.

Great week.

Although I missed David and the kids terribly - I didn't want to come home to the rainy, cool weather and the housework and the daily grind.

I've decided to be a professional tourist when I grow up.