Happy Birthday, Mom

I wish I could be with my mom to celebrate her special day. So I thought I would chose some of my mom's favorite things to highlight. (Notice I said highlight and not likes.) First, my mom does not like birds. She even doesn't like those cute pink flamingos. However, my dad enjoys flamingos so several years ago my brother and sister decided to get some flamingo "yard art" for my dad. Of course, my dad loved it, but my mom wasn't so happy about the flamingo. Soooo. . .that just started something. Every year for Christmas an Elf always brings mom or dad a special gift having something to do with a flamingo. Over time we have even named the flamingos that have joined our family.

(Notice she is even having a hard time smiling and looking at the camera.)

Next, my mom loves to travel and last year I was able to travel a lot with my mom and family. Over spring break, we went on a cruise together. We had a great time. I was so blessed to be able to go on a cruise with my parents. Even through the rain we were laughing and creating memories.


Over the summer, I went on a road trip with my mom and grandma. I flew to South Carolina and then drove to Ohio and Kentucky to visit family and friends. I got to meet some family and long time family friends that I had never met before. I have now meet all of my grandma's siblings--praising the Lord--all of her siblings are still living. They all love to get together. It was a grand memory that I hope I never forget. I love to hear the stories and what life was like when they were growing up.

I also traveled with my mom and family to Disney World. My family is NUTS about Mickey Mouse. We celebrated July 4th at the Magic Kingdom and spent a week celebrating birthday's and being together. There's no better way to enjoy the magic than to eat with the characters. When they come to your table, it just makes you feel like a kid again. Even my mom got a special hug from Tigger!!

We were waiting for the speechless 360 degree fireworks on the 4th of July. (Yes, it isn't dark yet, but we wanted to make sure we had a great view of the castle for the fireworks at the Magic Kingdom.)

Happy Birthday, Mom!! I hope you have had a special day just as you have brought me a year full of special memories!
I love you!!

January 2011

January has had lots of visitors and fun activities. The Chaplain of the Rays and Matt Joyce from the Tampa Bay Rays MLB team came and spoke to all the students at my school in January. He talked about respect and how when we respect someone it not only effects ourselves, but others. My class was able to stay after chapel and pose for a class picture. Then after school, I was able to take my picture with him.
THEN--a hugs snow storm hit up north and my parents made a surprise visit to Disney World. Mike and I were able to take the day off and join them at Disney. Maggie was surprised to see us and talked non-stop for the rest of the day. It was fun to see them for the day, but it was hard to stay good bye knowing they were going to be there for the rest of the weekend. While we were at Disney we "ran into" some friends of ours that we hadn't seen in about 10 years! They moved from Florida and it was fun to see them and catch up on what has been happening in their lives. So we just had to stop and get a picture.
That same weekend we had some family in town. Mike's Grandma's two sisters came for a week long visit. We had fun talking and telling stories. Its so fun to see the sisters together since they don't get to see each other often. We enjoyed talking, eating and shopping together.
Our last visitors for January were Mike's brother and 3 nephews. They were excited to be here for the weekend and we were happy to see them. We enjoyed the day out at Touch a Truck. This event is unbelievable. There are a number of trucks, machinery, activities, and cars all available for kids to climb into. They are welcome to get in and blow the horn, act like they are driving the vehicle, and lots of free gifts for the kids. It was a fun and FREE day!

January had lots of visitors. . .I wonder what February will bring???

Christmas and Beyond

Behind in my blog, so I thought I would update with some fun pictures. Let me start by saying that I LOVE my Grandma to pieces. However, she goes through stages where she wears the same shirt/sweater over and over again. It just so happened when we arrived in SC for Christmas, she and I were dressed the same--lots of laughs for this.

We arrived in SC Christmas Eve and it snowed on Christmas Day so we enjoyed playing out in the snow. I taught my niece how to throw snowballs ( I don't know if that was the best thing to do, but it was fun.) She wanted to bring the snowballs inside and throw them at Uncle Mike.
I even got the chance to babysit my niece and nephew for an hour or so. We played, ate and took a nap--thanks to Mimi for helping.
Came back to Florida just in time for New Year's Eve. Shortly after arriving back in Florida my uncle called me with the news that he was in Pinellas county. He was in town driving for Penn State who was in the Outback Bowl. Mike and I meet up with him at his hotel. He has a fun job driving buses (or I should say motor coach) for different NFL and MLB teams, churches, schools, etc. I was so excited that he was in town. I couldn't see him much due to his busy driving schedule, but glad it worked out for us to see each other.
We celebrated Christmas with Mike's family on New Year's Day. Our other new nephew enjoyed his first Christmas and he had just figured out he could get on his hands and knees, but couldn't crawl. He was loving being on Cooper's level. He couldn't crawl, but he would roll quite quickly to get to where Cooper was hanging out.
After we opened our Christmas gifts and ate, we started playing our annual traditional Rob Your Neighbor game. We bring white elephant gifts or things you don't want any more or dollar store gifts. So some gifts can be great and others can be not so great. We place all the gifts in the middle of the table and play BINGO. If you win a BINGO game, you get to pick a gift. After all the gifts are gone, we set a time limit and this time if you win BINGO you can steal a gift from someone. After the time is up, we go around and open all the gifts. . .the one rule is, if you can wear it you have to try it on. BIG LAUGHS!!! I did really well playing Rob Your Neighbor--I got lots of things for my classroom--pencils, erasers, candy, goodie bags with toys. Now just saving up items for next year's game of Rob Your Neighbor. This is the only time when playing BINGO that you don't want to win. :-) Fun times during the holidays!!