Crazy couple of weeks...

I've been crazy busy the last 2 weeks.

I went from Easter and P's birthday on Sunday to M's Confirmation on Wednesday, to her play on Friday and Saturday (which precipitated out of town guests over the weekend to see her performances). In the midst of all that I had to make costumes and sets for the play, we had 8 soccer games (between the 2 girls), soccer practices, track practices, tumbling classes, faith formation classes for P who is receiving his first communion on sunday, powerwashing and painting our front porch, weeding 4 hugh flower beds, finishing my chair and loveseat that I was recovering, going out of town for a family birthday party, a broken retainer (with a piece of it being swallowed!), getting braces put on, haircuts, and getting my house in some sembelance of order for the first communion party on Sunday.

Needless to say, I have not had much time for blogging or making anything fun to share. I have not even downloaded pictures from any of these things.

But I am still alive and will be back to share some of my accomplishments next week...

A most blessed Easter and Birthday!

In addition to being Easter, today is our son P's 8th birthday!

His "Big" gift was this "grown up" radio control car that his dad picked out.


Dave and P have been playing with it most of the day (during chargings we have been able to spend some time with them).


If you can see who is holding the remote, you can see who I think the "gift" is actually for!!!


In addition to racing cars, we also spent some quality time together as a family - big Easter breakfast, Church, a glorious Easter Dinner of home made pizza (P's birthday dinner request - I think we now have a new Easter tradition on our hands) and watching a movie together... Cheaper by the Dozen 2. It is a good family movie that always makes me look forward to the lake season that I hope is just around the corner.

We also "tackled" a long overdue project. My cousin Lori has a section of her living room wall - oops now her studio - lucky girl - lined with self portraits (view her post here) of their immediate family and various extended family members and friends. She had asked us about 3 years ago to do ours and send them to her. She even gave us the canvases, and they have sat in my linen closet since then (don't even ask why they have been in the linen closet for 3 years). But with no big plans this Easter Sunday, I decided that since we were all together (and I had just spied the canvases when I was getting clean sheets the other day),that today was the day...

So here in all their glory are our self portraits... Well, just a sneak peak, since I am sending them to her in the mail this week and want there to be some surprise...

I don't think we will win any art awards or any of us be considered the next great "master", but we had fun laughing at ourselves and spending time together... "making memories" as Dave always says. I think Dave is the only one who has an actual nose. That part really stumped us!

Hope you and yours had as great a day as we had!

The Sun has Set on Another Great Vacation

We arrived home from Florida yesterday morning. We made our best driving time ever (about 18.5 hours) from south of Fort Myers. This same trip normally takes about 20 and has taken upwards of 24 hours depending upon traffic, construction, accidents, rest room stops, etc. So to make it in under 19 was amazing.

We had a wonderful vacation. We started out with 3 days at Disney, which is always fun.

It was the first visit to Disney for our youngest P. Our daughters (M & C) had been there before, but were only 5 and 2 at the time and didn't remember much. The parks were not particularly crowded - especially for spring break time. We made great use of the Fast Pass system, and never waited more than 30 minutes for any ride (our longest wait was for Dumbo - which no one really wanted to go on, but no trip to Disney is complete without!).

Day one was at Epcot - which was our least favorite park. But we managed to find plenty to keep us busy and had lots of fun.

We stayed at All-Star Music in one of their family suites which was just perfect. The kids enjoyed the pool, and the activities in the evening (dance party, Mario WII and movies on the big screen all around the pool.

Day 2 was at Magic Kingdom, complete with fireworks and the lighted parade. This was by far our favorite park.

Day 3 was at Disney Hollywood Studios which we also loved. The conclusion to the Disney portion of our trip was Dave being picked to be an extra in the Indiana Jones Stunt show! You can watch the videos of it here on YouTube. They are quite funny, especially if you know Dave. His nieces will get a big kick out of the "audition" where he put into good use his famous "butt dance" he is asked to do each time his family gets together!

The rest of our wonderful 10 day Florida vacation was spent with my parents at a condo they rent in Estero. We had lots of fun at the pool and the beach. Wave jumping, fishing, para sailing, etc... The weather was perfect! We could not have asked for a better time! Thanks mom and dad for the accommodations and all the great food and company!