I had planned on going to church today. The boys took showers last night, picked out their clothes and everything. The trouble is that George has been out of town since Thursday. While he's out of town, I don't sleep. I think since he's been gone, I've slept about 11 hours. I literally lay in bed all night with my eyes wide open. I read, fold clothes, watch TV, and listen to the radio, but cannot fall asleep. Needless to say, when my alarm went off this morning, I think I rolled over and turned it off. We didn't wake up until 8:45; Sunday school starts at 9:30 and we're 20 minutes from the church. Maybe if I were a little lower maintenance, we could've made it.
I'm glad this is George's last trip. I'm whooped.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Saturday, July 26, 2008
An hour or two at the beach. Plus mother-of-the-year
Before we left BSL we took the kids to the beach. Here's the evidence:
My "artistic" photo.
If you look vvveeerrry closely, you can see a tiny crab at the top of the inside of that shell.
Hermit Crab.
And now on to Mother-of-the-year. I have an on-going bid for this title. Sometimes it's legit, sometimes snarky. On Thursday and Friday, I must say it was legit. After we got up and lounged around all morning Thursday, I took the boys to the skate park. Jake has been dying to go. Check out Jakey Hawk. Hey, everyone's got to start somewhere!
And his brother, Zac-Luc Gagnon.
Zac's rockin' the Razor scooter. He's not much for extreme sports.
As if that wasn't enough, I took the kids to McD's for lunch, then *back* to the park until almost dark!
To help the kids remember that I am most certainly not Mommy Dearest, after work Friday, we went to the store for some groceries, then they each had a friend over to stay the night. Jake's friend got sick around 10:30 and had to go home, but everyone had a great time. Oh, yea. I took all the boys to the skate park yesterday evening too, then home for swimming and pizza. Did I already tell you this, internet? I guess if I did, I'm repeating myself, as it's not so very often that I get to revel in my awesomeness.
Anyway, the mom of the boys who stayed over last night came by and picked everyone up to take them back to the skate park and lunch.
Just livin' the dream out here in suburbia.
My "artistic" photo.
If you look vvveeerrry closely, you can see a tiny crab at the top of the inside of that shell.
Hermit Crab.
And now on to Mother-of-the-year. I have an on-going bid for this title. Sometimes it's legit, sometimes snarky. On Thursday and Friday, I must say it was legit. After we got up and lounged around all morning Thursday, I took the boys to the skate park. Jake has been dying to go. Check out Jakey Hawk. Hey, everyone's got to start somewhere!
And his brother, Zac-Luc Gagnon.
Zac's rockin' the Razor scooter. He's not much for extreme sports.
As if that wasn't enough, I took the kids to McD's for lunch, then *back* to the park until almost dark!
To help the kids remember that I am most certainly not Mommy Dearest, after work Friday, we went to the store for some groceries, then they each had a friend over to stay the night. Jake's friend got sick around 10:30 and had to go home, but everyone had a great time. Oh, yea. I took all the boys to the skate park yesterday evening too, then home for swimming and pizza. Did I already tell you this, internet? I guess if I did, I'm repeating myself, as it's not so very often that I get to revel in my awesomeness.
Anyway, the mom of the boys who stayed over last night came by and picked everyone up to take them back to the skate park and lunch.
Just livin' the dream out here in suburbia.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Photos
Jake at the welcome dinner on Thursday night with our brown brothers. I say this because Jake noticed that the family we were sharing the condo with were "African American." He said, "Mom, the Bs are black and we're white, but we're sharing this condo." I said, "Sure." He thought a moment and said, "So we're one big black and white family!"
First at bat in the first game.
And the winner for individual synchronized swimming...
Hopefully you can tell that these are cattails. Jake called them Hot Dog plants!
Sly and the Family Stones
George trying to hide behind a pole. "No photos, please."
Big Family Fun
Bay St. Louis style. The Zachary BluZe came in either 7th or 8th in the SW regional tournament. Zac pitched 2 of the 4 games and was awesome! Once you get into these older boys' leagues, the boys get used to hitting really fast balls thrown by their coaches and stud 11-12 y.o. boys. That being said, when my five-foot-nuthin', 80 lb. soaking wet boy throws butterflies down the lane, it shakes the big boys up!
The team who beat us in the first round of the elimination tournament were a bunch of boys from some distant planet recruited by local Arkansas men who need to re-live their childhood baseball disappointments. At one point, Zac was playing 2nd base and was standing next to this HUGE kid and we saw Zac talking to him. When he came in after the inning, we asked him what they were talking about. Zac said, "I said, 'Dude, just how old are you, really?' and the kid said (a bit indignantly), 'I'm just 11. My dad is really tall-he's over there; and my mom is almost as tall as my dad.'" I thought that was pretty funny.
We stayed in some condos in Diamond Head, MS which, back in the day, were all the shizz. Some of them are still pretty nice, but the one we shared with another family was stuck in the 80's. It was still waaaaay better than a hotel. We cooked at our own place, swam, had bedrooms and bathrooms. Just generally a place to be not on top of each other.
George and I had a Texas Monthly moment Saturday night. The other couple staying in the condo and us traded nights with the kids and each took a date night. George and I headed out to BSL in search of dinner. We chanced upon a cool restaurant, the Mockingbird Cafe (http://www.mockingbirdcafe.com/). Had the very best burger I've had in ages, some beer from a local brewery and listened to a local band out under the stars. There weren't any open tables, so George got our chairs from the car and we ate our burgers in our laps. A local guy came over and shared stories of hurricane Katrina and how the town is shaping back up.
BSL and Pass Christian are still very torn up. The eye of the storm passed right over that area and took out the BSL bridge connecting the two towns over the bay as well as the entire beach front developments. You can definitely tell who was properly insured by whose homes are rebuilt. There is a lot of commercial development coming along as well, but not enough that we could find a restaurant for dinner Monday evening on our way home.
The photo log of the weekend will follow since I can't figure out how to post my pix.
Oh, yea, by the way, the score of our last game was 8-4. We played Fayetteville, AR who, in their last 30 games had only given up 1 run and hadn't played an entire game because of the 10-run mercy rule!
The team who beat us in the first round of the elimination tournament were a bunch of boys from some distant planet recruited by local Arkansas men who need to re-live their childhood baseball disappointments. At one point, Zac was playing 2nd base and was standing next to this HUGE kid and we saw Zac talking to him. When he came in after the inning, we asked him what they were talking about. Zac said, "I said, 'Dude, just how old are you, really?' and the kid said (a bit indignantly), 'I'm just 11. My dad is really tall-he's over there; and my mom is almost as tall as my dad.'" I thought that was pretty funny.
We stayed in some condos in Diamond Head, MS which, back in the day, were all the shizz. Some of them are still pretty nice, but the one we shared with another family was stuck in the 80's. It was still waaaaay better than a hotel. We cooked at our own place, swam, had bedrooms and bathrooms. Just generally a place to be not on top of each other.
George and I had a Texas Monthly moment Saturday night. The other couple staying in the condo and us traded nights with the kids and each took a date night. George and I headed out to BSL in search of dinner. We chanced upon a cool restaurant, the Mockingbird Cafe (http://www.mockingbirdcafe.com/). Had the very best burger I've had in ages, some beer from a local brewery and listened to a local band out under the stars. There weren't any open tables, so George got our chairs from the car and we ate our burgers in our laps. A local guy came over and shared stories of hurricane Katrina and how the town is shaping back up.
BSL and Pass Christian are still very torn up. The eye of the storm passed right over that area and took out the BSL bridge connecting the two towns over the bay as well as the entire beach front developments. You can definitely tell who was properly insured by whose homes are rebuilt. There is a lot of commercial development coming along as well, but not enough that we could find a restaurant for dinner Monday evening on our way home.
The photo log of the weekend will follow since I can't figure out how to post my pix.
Oh, yea, by the way, the score of our last game was 8-4. We played Fayetteville, AR who, in their last 30 games had only given up 1 run and hadn't played an entire game because of the 10-run mercy rule!
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Wordle
http://wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/87298/Summer
Hopefully this link will work so you can check out my wordle. I used the URL for Ragsland to see what it would build. It seemed to catch all of the words to describe the summer so far.
Stay tuned for pix of the weekend in Bay St. Louis over the weekend. And also, I should be mother of the year today. We slept in and lounged around until about 1:00, then I took the kids to the skate park, to lunch at McDonald's, then back to the skate park, then home to swim. I'll post the pix of the future Tony Hawks shortly.
Hopefully this link will work so you can check out my wordle. I used the URL for Ragsland to see what it would build. It seemed to catch all of the words to describe the summer so far.
Stay tuned for pix of the weekend in Bay St. Louis over the weekend. And also, I should be mother of the year today. We slept in and lounged around until about 1:00, then I took the kids to the skate park, to lunch at McDonald's, then back to the skate park, then home to swim. I'll post the pix of the future Tony Hawks shortly.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
C is for cookie...
...that's good enough for me.
How was my first attempt at food photography? If I may toot my own horn a moment, I make the very best chocolate chip cookies on the planet. I need not ever buy slice-and-bake again; even if they are the Toll House brand.
We leave tomorrow for Bay St. Louis for the regional tournament. We're sharing a condo with another family who has 3 boys. The oldest and youngest are Zac and Jake's ages, there's one in between too, but they all get along really well and have fun together. I'll try to get George to bring his laptop so I can post pix of all the fun.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
How could I almost forget this?
Zac's 11 year-old baseball team, the Zachary BluZe, won their district and wound up placing third in the state tournament in Abbeville, LA last weekend. Not my first choice for family vacation, but we were in a nice hotel, got to sleep in a couple of days, spent quality family time, yada yada. Anyway, the good part.
In the last game Monday evening, we lost, but it was the most exciting game. Exciting because Zac pitched the 5 and 1/3 inning (for those of you who haven't been spending your summer vacation at the youth ballpark, that means he pitched 5 innings and the first out of the 6th). He threw 104 pitches total. It was awesome! He didn't get to completely finish the game because he twisted his ankle and couldn't shake it off. Here's a picture of him on the mound about to release his pitch.
We placed 3rd in the tournament out of about 8 teams, I think, which qualifies us to play in the regional tournament in Bay St. Louis, MS next weekend. Another fun-filled family vacation at the ballpark.
In the last game Monday evening, we lost, but it was the most exciting game. Exciting because Zac pitched the 5 and 1/3 inning (for those of you who haven't been spending your summer vacation at the youth ballpark, that means he pitched 5 innings and the first out of the 6th). He threw 104 pitches total. It was awesome! He didn't get to completely finish the game because he twisted his ankle and couldn't shake it off. Here's a picture of him on the mound about to release his pitch.
We placed 3rd in the tournament out of about 8 teams, I think, which qualifies us to play in the regional tournament in Bay St. Louis, MS next weekend. Another fun-filled family vacation at the ballpark.
Just exactly how many bats do we need scattered around the backyard?
These are the bats we picked up this morning before getting the lawn mowed. For every bat, also figure at least 1 tennis ball, 2 baseballs, and 4 whiffle balls. There were also 2 footballs, a soccer ball, and a playground ball.
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