Merry Belated Christmas and Happy New Year

Where to begin...the last few weeks of December were quite busy at our house.

First there was Grace's birthday.  After a fun filled day at school, dinner at a local Mexican restaurant and cookies with her Pom class we geared up for her party.  This year we had a How to Train Your Dragon party at the karate studio.  The kids played some games, learned some karate moves and enjoyed cake and ice cream.

A week later we hosted our annual Family Christmas Party.  We used to have a party every year when we lived in Huntersville but stopped when we moved.  Last year we tried it and since everyone had so much fun, we decided it was time to bring it back to our calendar.  Several of our friends and their kids came over for food, drink and catching up.  Adam didn't want to miss a second and stayed up until the last person left around midnight only to fall asleep shortly thereafter with a sucker in his mouth.

Christmas this year was a ton of fun!  Both Grace and Adam couldn't wait to see what Santa was going to bring them.  In the weeks leading up to the big day, they woke up each morning to search for their Elf "Gingy".  Grace even sent Santa a few notes by way of Gingy thinking Santa would see them quicker.  Then on Christmas eve, they got a call from Santa while he was on his sleigh!!  Thanks to the magic of Santa, they were both in bed a little after 8.  Unfortunately Grace couldn't sleep and was very worried that Santa might pass by our house because of it.  Luckily she fell asleep a couple hours later and Santa was able to drop by.

Both of the kids awoke to a candy cane by their beds and plenty of gifts under the tree.  Adam asked for all sorts of trucks and that's what he got.  Grace was more specific requesting the How to Train Your Dragon DS game, but since our babysitter gave her that on Christmas Eve, Santa brought her the first three books of the How to Train Your Dragon series along with the CD from the movie.  They were also fortunate to receive lots of other gifts from family and friends.

The next few days, both kids went to their "daycare" centers so mom could straighten up and organize and so dad could go to work.  On New Year's Eve, Grace and I had a mini girls day when I got home from work.  We did lunch, got her hair done and saw Rise of the Guardians.  And then that evening we all hunkered down in the garage with our respective electronic devices and waited for the New Year.  Adam didn't make it to midnight but Grace did and caught her second wind.

Now that 2013 is upon us we are hoping everyone is blessed with health, wealth and happiness!  We will do our best to keep you updated on the happenings with us.

Someone is 9 Today!

Hard to believe that today is Grace's 9th birthday!  She's been sick the past few days but was able to go back to school today.  I'm going to meet her for lunch so we can have cupcakes with her class.  After school, we're going to go out for tacos before she has Pom.  Then she'll have more cupcakes before coming home to open presents!  Happy Birthday Grace!!

Vegas Trip

This past weekend, Marianna and I finally took our birthday trip to Vegas.  This was to celebrate our 21st and 40th birthdays - and was also a gift I promised her a few years ago.

We only had two full days to take in all that's great about Vegas.  We visited Madame Tussaud's wax museum, the Venetian, walked the strip, visited Caesar's and the Bellagio plus enjoyed our hotel the MGM Grand.  While in the Studio City wing of the hotel, we were able to preview and give feedback on a new tv show.  And of course we enjoyed fabulous food, drinks and gaming.  It was a shame it had to end but we did have a great time!

This picture was taken at the atrium of the Bellagio - they had a fabulous display of fall flowers and it was the perfect place to capture us.

Report Card Time

Third grade is the start of real grades in school and Grace just received her first report card of the year.  While there were a few changes from her mid-term report we're happy to report that Grace made the A-B Honor Roll with 2 As (Science and Social Studies) and 2 Bs (Math and Language Arts).  She also had perfect attendance for the first quarter but that won't happen next quarter since she was sick two days last week.  She did however make it back to school in time for the assembly to recognize students on the honor roll.  She received a certificate along with a bag of goodies.  We're proud of her and hope she keeps up the good work!

Halloween

While our family and friends up North have to wait a few more days before they can don their costumes and collect candy - things were on the normal schedule in these parts.  This year after spending weeks telling us he was going to be a dinosaur, Adam opted to be Ironman; while Grace, who is into mystical things and creates, chose Astrid from How to Train your Dragon.

They went out with David around 6:00 and circled the neighborhood.  In Adam's words "we rang the bell and it said ding dong, then the peoples gave us candy and we said thank you and happy halloween".  When they came home around 7:30 both kids helped me hand out the rest of our candy before calling it a night at 8:00.  That's the one thing I love about our neighborhood, we all seem to be on the same schedule when it comes to these activities as most people were out from 6-8.

September Wrap Up

We started the month with a trip to NJ for Labor Day weekend.  The kids had a blast visiting with their cousins and hanging out.  Once we got back we rolled right into our normal routine.

Adam is doing great.  He spends his days with our sitter Tanya but three days each week he goes to pre-school in the afternoon.  He's been doing well and we are hoping that we can get him back into a full day pre-school setting by his fourth birthday so he will have time to prepare for kindergarten.  Other than that he loves dinosaurs, trucks and driving his sister crazy.

Grace is a busy girl.  Of course there's school but she also continues to study karate and is taking Pom this year which is cheering with dance.  Her first quarter progress report came home yesterday and she is doing well.  Her current grades are reading 94 (A), math 97 (A), science 91 (B) and social studies 93 (A).  Hopefully she will keep her grades up for when her report card comes home the end of October.

This past weekend we took a trip to the beach with some friends to celebrate my last weekend in my 30s.  There were four couples plus six kids.  We stayed at Ocean Lakes campground in Surfside Beach which is on the south side of Myrtle Beach.  Now don't think I've gone crazy or anything - we didn't camp, they have houses there to rent and we had a 7 bedroom place that was a short walk to the beach.  The weather was perfect and we were able to hang out on the beach and at the pool.  Of course things got a little exciting on Saturday when someone caught a 3 ft shark but that didn't deter us from our beach fun.

That's about all for now.  We'll see what October brings with Fall Festival and Halloween.

DNC Update

I know a lot of you were excited when I shared the news that David & I were going to be attending the President's speech on Thursday evening in Charlotte.  A friend of mine from Coker is head of the Kansas Democratic Party and had offered us tickets and we jumped at the chance to witness history.  Regardless of political affiliation, this was an opportunity that we couldn't pass up.

Unfortunately, Mother Nature is rearing her ugly side in the area this week and as a precaution, the event is being moved into the Time Warner Cable arena which holds far less people than the stadium.  As a result, the tickets that my friend had to share are now voided.  So we will be watching from home.

But there is some fun news to share about the DNC - the group of third graders that opened the event yesterday with the Pledge of Allegiance was from Grace's school.  It wasn't her class but several of her friends took part.

Maybe we'll get to experience a political convention another time.