Back to School

Today was the first day of the new school year and also my little guy's first day of kindergarten!!!!! What an exciting day. The kids were up before their alarm clocks went off and they were dressed and raring to go. After a lot of waiting around it was time to get out the camera for some photos and then head off to the school.

There was a lot of excitement outside of school and a lot of parents and the local news photographer were taking photos of their little munchkins before they headed to their classrooms. This is Joe telling me to quit taking pictures. Do you think I was cramping his style???

All of the kindergartners were herded into the cafeteria until they were all there and then each teacher took their own group down to their classroom. Joe was quite happy to sit with his new friends as I said goodbye to him. I then saw Amy off as she joined the 3rd graders (it doesn't seem long since she had her first day at kindergarten) and I left to head home without any tears:) It's hard to be sad when your child is so excited to be there. When I got home it was so strange being in a house so quiet! Shaun is in VA all week so I don't even have his noise to distract me.

So what did I do with all of my new found freedom? I baked and decorated Back to School cookies ready for the kids coming home of course. I went back to the school at 11.25am to help out with kindergarten lunches which is always chaotic the first week or so. Joe said he was having a great time and really liked his teacher. He was settled next to his classmates and had a good time eating his lunch and watching all of the comings of goings. After that it was a quick run to Walmart for me and then back home to decorate the cookies. I just got them finished in time for picking the kids up. Phew!

Their verdict on the day was that it was great. Joe said it was the best day ever! He loves his teacher, Mrs Morrow and liked having so many kids his age around him. His favorite thing of course was recess - who would've thought??? Amy loves her new teacher too. She has Mrs Ellis and she said she is a lot of fun and really, really nice. She said a lot of today was boring as they were going over the rules for everything with each teacher they visited - hopefully tomorrow will be a bit more exciting. She also said she spent a lot of the day feeling nervous about whether or not Joe was okay or whether he might be hurt or upset or whatever. We told her not to worry herself about that - if anything is wrong they will call us - not her!

Tomorrow I'm hoping to get some time to get the house in better shape. I have a ton of laundry (does it ever end?) and I need to take a lot of stuff to Goodwill and to the dump. Sounds like fun don't you think? Tomorrow night we have soccer practice with Amy's team and I hope everyone is not too tired now that school has started up. It usually takes a few weeks for everyone to get adjusted to their new routines.

Well that's about it from me. What a crazy day!!!!! How was yours?

Wacky Wednesday

Another busy day ahead and I guess it's just giving us a taste of things to come with soccer season and school almost upon us. Amy has practice again tonight and they are doing goalie training. I have to go back to ref training tonight for the second night this week. I have another class on Friday night and then all day Saturday from 9-4pm. By that time hopefully I'll have passed the test and will be a qualified Referee.

Amy's team scrimmaged a boys U9 team last night and although we didn't win we were really happy with how they played and how they battled on until the game was over. We scored a great goal and had a couple of really close calls. We have another scrimmage tomorrow night against the other U9 girls team. We will hopefully win that one - they are a newly formed team and haven't had much time to practice.

This morning the kids and I will run along to the school and drop in Joe's medical forms with his shot records so that he can start kindergarten. He had his appointment at the Drs yesterday and had to get three shots in his leg. He was really brave and did great. As a reward I took him to Kmart and let him pick out a small toy. This was more a lesson for Amy on how to behave at the Drs instead of freaking out and not letting anyone near her. Hopefully she's learned that good behavior = a reward. Time will tell :) We also need to run to the grocery store this morning and get a few supplies for dinner and then later this afternoon Amy has a dentist appointment. We will hopefully get time to swim between all of that.

My Mam had her surgery yesterday and everything went very well. So well in fact that she is already home :) She goes back on Aug 18th to get the results of the lymph node biopsy and then she will start her radiotherapy but all in all, prognosis is good.

Ok, we are off to get moving on our list of things to do. Have a great day!

Back to Reality

Our vacation is over already and it's back into the swing of things this week which I'm not quite ready for to be honest. I love being in vacation mode and even though the kids are still on summer break it's back to the routine of laundry, cooking dinner every night, bills etc etc.

We had a great time at the beach and although Shaun and I weren't expecting much we had a really good time. The kids were in their element playing in the ocean waves every day and they really had a lot of fun and they are already asking to go back next year! As tacky as the beach is it's really a perfect place for families as it's really easy entertainment and there's so much to do.

We arrived there last Sunday afternoon and the first big surprise for the kids was that their bedroom had bunk beds - how exciting is that? The top bunk was twin size and the bottom was a full size bed. Joe told Amy she could sleep on the top the first night and then they'd take turns and switch every day which worked out perfectly.

We were staying at a friends condo in a really nice part of Ocean City (at the Delaware end) overlooking North Side Park and Assawoman Bay. The view from the balcony was perfect. The first thing we had noticed when getting out of the car was the cool ocean breeze and it felt so good having come from sweltering humidity back home. Once we were unpacked and organized we headed straight for the beach! The waves were pretty strong and it was surprising how easily the kids were wiped out! They thought it was great fun though and they enjoyed just jumping waves, digging in the sand and all of that good stuff.

After a couple of hours we headed back to the condo but not before taking a quick dip in the pool to wash off all of the sand. After getting showered we then headed out to Nick's Ribs for dinner and had an hour long wait. We were so hungry by the time we finally got a table and we devoured the bread! Dinner was good and we headed back home to relax before bed.

Monday was another day at the beach for us and what a great time we had once again. Amy enjoyed being buried up to her neck in sand and Joe found a friend to boss around! Shaun took to Boogie Boarding and I sat and watched and photographed everything while baking on the sand. Once we made it back to the apartment Shaun took the kids over to the park and I snapped a picture of them walking back after playing at the playground. We then sat and watched the sunset - how beautiful it was.

Tuesday started off drizzly in OC but when I checked the weather radar it was clear up in Rehoboth so we took a drive up there and checked out the Outlets. Shaun was after a pair of Crocks as his feet were hurting and I got my self a nice pair of Nike flip flops. We drove back through Bethany Beach which seemed nice and we stopped at Delaware State Park for the beach as there were bathrooms and concessions here and we all needed to get changed. The beach here was nice and still fairly busy for a week day. The best part - the dolphins that were swimming really close to shore and they were jumping out and people on the beach were clapping and cheering. And guess what I did? - I cried!!!!! I've never seen dolphins just swimming like that in their natural habitat and it made me so happy to finally see them. Of course, this was the only day I didn't have my camera but I did manage to see them again the next day at our regular beach. On the way home we also stopped at a fishing tackle shop and got some crabbing nets and supplies as Amy and Joe were dying to catch some crabs off our pier.

So Wednesday started early with Shaun walking the kids to the park for their first crabbing experience. They absolutely loved doing this and Joe could not stop talking! They caught a number of Blue Crabs and kept the biggest ones bringing 3 decent sized ones home. I had the pleasure of cooking the smelly things (gross!) and Shaun and Joe sat on the balcony and ate them. Joe was keen to try it but quickly stated he didn't like the meat at all so Shaun was left to devour the stash himself. We went to play mini golf and bumped into some friends from home which was quite the surprise and then we headed back to the beach again for a few hours of sandy fun and then out to dinner to refuel.

Thursday was our last full day. The kids went crabbing again and caught 6 crabs fairly quickly. They had already decided before going that they wouldn't keep their catch today but they still stored them in their bucket until we were ready to pack up and then they set them free. We decided to go back to the boardwalk (I forgot to mention that we'd already been one day earlier in the week) to get some things we wanted to take home with us. This time we rode the train along 2 miles of the boardwalk before getting off and then making our way back stopping at the stores. Shaun had told the kids earlier in the week that they could buy hermit crabs as pets and it was what the had talked about the whole week. The day had finally come thank goodness and they got to pick out their prized possessions. Here are what they chose.

I had wanted to go to the souvenir store as they had lots of really nice beach decor that I wanted to get for Amy's room. We decided while we were on vacation that a beach theme would be really nice for her bedroom. I got quite a lot of goodies but haven't shown them to her yet. Considering how much I spent we're thinking of keeping it all for her birthday which is in a months time. We had our last trip to the beach once again and we were all sad when it was time to leave. Dinner that night was at Hooters!

On Friday morning we basically packed up and cleaned the condo and then set off for home around 10am or so. We had an easy drive back and although none of us were ready to come back we were all very happy to be in our own beds again! Since we got home we have spent most of our time at Hallowing Point Park in Prince Frederick watching soccer. The Trinidad and Tobago U17 & U19 southern national team are here playing exhibition games which our club had organized. The kids have enjoyed helping out and being flag bearers at the opening ceremonies. The Calvert Recorder photographer and reporter were there on Saturday so the kids may even have their picture in the paper later this week.

This week I am taking a referee class! Our club has a rule that every team has to have at least one qualified referee and as we don't have one as yet I organized a class so myself and other team reps could take it. I have class on M,W,F from 6-9pm and then on Sat from 9-4pm. I'll be glad when it's done! Shaun has goalkeeper training tonight with Amy's team and again on Wednesday night and then Tuesday and Thursday we have organized scrimmages against the other U9 teams. We have a busy week ahead.

This week is also a very important one for my Mam and family. She is going into hospital today to have a lumpectomy tomorrow. Today there are injecting the radioactive dye and tomorrow she will have the surgery. I'm praying all goes well and she gets a clean bill of health once this is all over with. She will have to have radiotherapy for about a month just to make sure every last cancer cell gets killed off. Please keep her and my family in your thoughts.

Well, this is quite the novel. I certainly didn't intend to blog so much today but at least you know exactly what we've been up to! Take care and enjoy your day:)