Spring Break II

Okay - so, it's been really hard to make myself keep up this blogging thing, but I'm determined to do it. Or, at least determined not to give it up yet! So, I'm going to nix the attempts to arrange pictures into little groups of two or four and add captions or any of that. I don't actually know how to code in html, so when I want to do something new, I poke around the internet until I find an explanation or example and then cut and paste code to imitate it. Then, when I want to do it again later, I go in and edit an old post where I did it before and cut and paste some more. It all ends up getting pretty confusing and time consuming. The uploading of the pictures themselves is time consuming as well, but I'm hoping if I nix the embedded coding it will help. So, here we go.

I think I left off when the kids had set up a tent in my mom's backyard one night when a major storm was expected. I drove in the worst rain storm I'd ever driven through that night to the airport to pick up my sister who, as it turns out, had been rerouted to Orlando because of said storm. I had heard earlier in the evening that the kids had been spotted in Mom's cottage cooking pop-corn in the microwave and eating ice cream they found in the deep freezer. So, I assumed that is where they ended up for the night. But, it turns out all but one or two of them actually slept in the tent. This was a REALLY big storm! But, they all survived - here's the after picture. Notice the crutches in front of the tent, LOL. I promise this kid was already on crutches before we got a hold of him!

My sister, Suzanne (a.k.a. Zanny or occaaionally Aunt Zanny), did finally arrive. Here you can spot her in the background. She appears to be making a serious study of Matthew's Mario Kart techniques.


So, the next big sleepover involved a couple of neighborhood girls (that we had to import because our resident girl, Chelsea, was off gallivanting around Savannah with her gal-pals) who decided to use their hair-dressing and fashion sense on the boys. Several boys ended up updating their respective Facebook and MySpace pages after this modeling session!

It all started with Patrick...






Here he is with his hair-dressers






Now they've recruited their next victim...



Introducing..........Matthew









Ahhh...yet another customer!



They had to make a midnight run to get Devin's hair straightener before getting to work on Conner








Jono apparently needed no work at all, just some shades.



Not sure what Matthew and Jono are up to here.



Are these some kind of gang signs???



Oh right, I forgot....that's the international symbol for "Hey mama, I need a bagel!"



Hey, give me one too!


That's all I've got! We tried for a perfect sleepover record during Spring Break, but we didn't quite hit it. We had guests 8 of 10 nights though, which we all agreed was pretty impressive, and most importantly...lots of FUN!

Haircut

Before



After

Spring Break

So - the kids are on Spring Break, and you know what that means. Sleepover City! I must admit we did have one night with no extra kids at our house. And, if you don't count the ones in my mom's backyard, we have no kids at all tonight! Although I have a sneaking suspicion we could have some before morning!




Here's the tent after preparing for the thunderstorms scheduled to roll in tonight....



Meanwhile, Chelsea has been jet setting around with her friends - spending the front part of her break in Daytona Beach, then 2 nights at home before heading off to Savannah for more girl time. I had to miss out on this mother/daughter trip with a few other families because I was away from work 3 days last week on jury duty.

Patrick, in his typical social director fashion, has been arranging for there to be friends around at all times.




Andy took a gang of kids up to the baseball field on Monday and Tuesday afternoon for some fun (but took no pictures...boo!!) We also headed downtown on Tuesday night with group of friends from Matthew's baseball team for a UF vs FSU baseball game that was being played here in town. Again...no camera! The game was called due to rain in the middle of the 5th inning, but it was fun while it lasted.

During Chelsea's brief time home between trips, she set up a facebook page. This required a little photo shoot to come up with just the right profile picture.



Here are a few more random pictures of Matthew and his friend Jack's Spring Break fun.





I'm headed out to the airport to pick up my sister now. Yea!!

A Visit from the Rusaks

Andy's youngest sister Julie came to visit this weekend with her family. We had a great time! Julie was 14 years old when I first met her. Now, she's all grown up and an amazing mom to three sweet boys as well as a cherished friend of mine. We hadn't seen the Rusaks in three years, which means we had never met this cutie pie...


Upon arrival, Jake immediately entered a nerf dart gun war zone. He was quickly trained by his cousins and placed on the front line.


After nerf guns, playing soccer, climbing in the tree house, and much chatting around the kitchen table, we headed down to San Marco on foot for dinner.


Chelsea wouldn't let anyone else near the stroller - she wanted sole responsibility for Cooper. She did a great job of putting him to sleep so that Julie could enjoy a dinner using both hands! Matthew, Henry, and Jake enjoyed having their own table at Pizza Palace.



After dinner the kids climbed around on the statues of the lions while the boring grown-ups continued our chatting. Actually, Julie and my mom were in deep conversation, Andy and Dave were talking sports, and I was eavesdropping on both conversations while taking pictures of the kids.


The more than mile walk home didn't dampen anyone's spirits!


When we got home Matthew gave a little violin concert for the crowd and Chelsea performed some gymnastics tricks. Patrick, of course, wowed us the entire evening with his texting skills.

After a liesurely breakfast and a little time on the wii on Saturday morning, we headed out to Matthew's baseball game. Matthew showed off for his extended family by pitching two scoreless innings that included his throwing a runner out at home, throwing another runner out stealing second while catching, and hitting an impressive 3 run homer. Quite a game for Matthew! Unfortunately, his team (the Knights), went down 9-8 in a hard-fought game.

A heart-felt thanks to the Rusaks for taking the time and making the effort to drive up to Jax to see us during their busy week's vacation visit to the family homestead in Central Florida. We had a blast!! Here's hoping it won't be three more years until we see them again!