Back To School. Again.

After being off so many days last week, the kids are finally able to go back to school. Both Sweet Girl and Little Man absolutely LOVE their teachers and their classmates! Hopefully this will be a very good year for both of them. I did sign Little Man up for Lunch Bunch once a week. He always asks to bring his lunch box to school, like he sees his sister doing during the week. So cute... College Boy is settling down in his new apartment up in Tallahassee. They didn't experience any power outages or flooding where he was at, which is good, but with two storms brewing out in the atlantic, I'm always worried about where and when the next storm will hit. Keep everyone in the gulf coast in your prayers that they will be protected. Little man is addicted to the Wii. Did I mention that?? He asks to play it EVERYDAY which drives me nuts since he wants ME to play it with him. He asks CONSTANTLY!! I've been getting quite good at Mario Party 8 now! lol

The CLEAN-UP Begins

Today we finally were able to clean up outside and venture out to stores! You could tell school had been out by what was picked over at Target today. Sweet Girl got the LAST Miley Cyrus CD in the whole store, and Little Man got the last Wii Olympic Games that they had as well. So what does a person do when they are cooped up inside? Why shop, of course! Here is a head's-up from a friend of mine who makes the most beautiful correspondence items. I ordered one of the personalized 5x7 note pads. You can find her items here: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5062959

Catastrophic Flooding

This was the headlines in today's paper. We have had a total of 26 inches of rain so far, and it just keeps raining with the winds blowing off and on all day long. Above you can see the flooded back porch and the lovely green, overflowing pool. Yes, that is debris that somehow got into the back pool deck and you can see how high the water was until I went outside to drain it. 4 times. Around 8 inches each time. Yeah, that is alot of water! Did I mention that the kids are out of school again today and tomorrow?? They went back to school on Monday and have been home the rest of the week. Now we'll have to make up the days they lost. That won't be fun. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. We drove around a little today and the flood waters are receding which is very good news. I'm sure this will take a lot of time and money to clean up.

The Nightmare Continues...

This tropical storm has been worse than any hurricane we have had thus far. It has been a complete hellish nightmare for me...and STILL is! The flooding is horrendous - worse than a fast moving hurricane. And it is still not moving! Our pool is green, the front foyer has been flooding and I've been mopping through the night, the back porch has flooded, the ground has flooded, I've been outside dealing with the pool pump, and the rocket scientist is trying to fly in from Denver. Not good! The kids are stir crazy and out of school again today, and the cable went out. AT LEAST we still have power. Thank God for that!! Keep us in your prayers over here...

Tropical Storm Fay

Tropical storm fay is here. School started yesterday and now today it was cancelled. We are having gusty strong winds and tornado warnings right now. I hope it travels north quickly. College boy left this morning to go back to school, thinking he could outrun the storm, which he did. Of course the Rocket Scientist is out of town. At least this storm isn't very strong. Hopefully it will stay that way! Go away, Fay!!

Back from Vacation

Disney was fantastic! The whole mini vacation went so well, we couldn't have asked for a better time. Yes, it was hot, but we brought in some frozen water bottles each time and they really worked to cool us off. The first day was the hottest. We stayed at a 3 bedroom resort just outside of Disney and it was the best. Full kitchen, 3 bedroom/3 bath, free breakfast, large pool with a tiki bar. It was called World Quest Resort and was half price that week, plus we got a gas card if you stayed longer than 3 days. WooHoo!

We bought 3 day passes and broke it up during the week. SO SO glad we did that!! We live an hour away from Disney, so on Monday we drove straight to Animal Kingdom and stayed there until around 3:30. We rented a double stroller all three days because we had a large backpack filled with snacks and things...ointments for bug bites, etc. We left to go check into our hotel and it poured rain as we got to the resort, but then it stopped, so we changed into our bathing suits and swam a bit, then changed and went to Epcot that night, rode a few rides and watched the fireworks. Little Man was great, taking a nap here and there whenever he was tired. He loved the rides he could go on. He was JUST tall enough for the 40" height requirement rides and loved them all...EXCEPT...any of the 3D movie types where you had to put the 3D glasses on. He begged to go home during the Bugs Life 3D show. They were just not for him.

Tuesday we got up and went to Magic Kingdom and stayed there all day. We did get caught in the rain, but we had just gotten off of Splash Mountain and right there they had a play area that was covered so we stayed there and rode out the storm. That was like 30-40 minutes. From there we rode more rides, then left and decided to find a place to eat on the way home and swim. We ate at Macaroni Grill and it was terrible. I should have known to walk out right when they said their Bellini machine was broken. College Boy's meal was completely wrong and mine was undercooked, but that was ok. The worst fook of the trip was right there. We had reservations at the Animal Kingdom Lodge (Boma) restaurant the next day so we were excited about that and just took the pizza with us for the kids to eat the next day.

Wednesday was our day off. We slept in, then went down to the pool and swam, and ate lunch there. That afternoon we showered and changed and drove to Downtown Disney to see Wall-E at the theater. Little Man slept halfway through it which was good - he would be awake for dinner. After the movie, it started to pour and storm as we made our way to the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Our reservations at the Boma weren't until 9:45 (it was all they had) but we went early and walked around the resort and let Little Man sleep still. I guess since it was raining, people were stuck at the parks so they were able to seat us right away. Sweet Girl and I went straight to the gift shop and looked around, then Little Man woke up and they all came to where we were until they called us to be seated. I LOVE the food here - we literally ate until we could hardly move. Afterwards we went outside and saw the animals on the grounds (zebra, giraffe, etc.). What a fun and relaxing day!

Thursday we got up early and went to the Hollywood Studios park. We stayed there until 3:00 then jumped on over to Epcot until dinner time. We actually had no rain this day! We then left, ate dinner on the way home at Logan's steakhouse, and went to our resort to watch So You Think you can Dance (lol).

Friday was time to come home. Except for the minor sibbling bickering, everything went really well and the weather really cooperated on the most part. We couldn't have asked for a better time. That is definitely how you should do Disney in the heat of summer.

Les Mis

I'm SO proud of the College Boy today! He was lead trumpet in the orchestra for Les Miserables. It was put on by The Summer Fine Arts Program, which is a collaboration between Brevard County Public Schools and Brevard Community College. He acted in Oklahoma two years ago, then played lead trumpet last year and this year. Sweet girl and I went today and it was SO good! Just loved the acting, the singing and the story. They got around three standing ovations and deserved each one of them. Such great singers!! What a fabulous show! At the end, while everyone was leaving the orchestra played "Master of the House". Just LOVE that song! So upbeat and fun. Great job, son!!