Fun on the Lake

Last weekend the kids got their first taste of tubing. I used to love doing this as a child. The kids swim team had a little get together on the lake where they got to go tubing. Only a few of the kids showed up:
PM was all smiles:
He was ready to go!
There they go!
DQ enjoyed it as well:
Gotta love those faces:
All done, and they had fun!

Kindergarten

Today was DQ's first day of Kindergarten. They start on a staggered schedule. 1/3 of the class goes Monday, 1/3 Tuesday and 1/3 Wednesday, each for only half of a day. Then, the whole class starts on Thursday for their first full day. I like that they do that, for the kids and teacher, but hate it for the working parents. I worked from home yesterday, as DQ had nothing all day. Today she had her half day and tomorrow she again has nothing, but BD will be home. Here she is with her obligatory shot:
Here she is going into the school:
Here she is with her teacher:
And, lastly, here she is unpacking her backpack when she got home:

First Grade

Yesterday was PM's first day of First Grade. He did great! Here he is in the morning taking the obligatory picture before leaving for the day.
There he goes walking into school! He is in the first grade building this year. It is connected by a couple of breezeways to the main school.
Finally, here is PM and his teacher. In case you are wondering, yes, she looks very young, but this is her fourth year teaching. She taught 2nd grade at another school for the last three years.

TOUCHDOWN!

PM had his Jamboree on Saturday. For those of you who don't know what a Jamboree is, it is where all of the teams that are going to be playing one another come together and play short scrimmage games. Typically, you don't want to show everything you've got, so you only will run some of your plays. Well, PM is on the Red Offensive line. That's supposedly the good one. Anyway, he only got to play about 10 minutes, but he loved every minute of it, especially after this happened...

He was playing on the left side and I noticed at the beginning of this play that they moved him to the right position instead. I thought, they are going to give him the ball, just like in practice the other night. Then, I thought, No, they wouldn't do that... Well, here it goes (he is number 27 in these pictures).

The hand-off:
The run behind the line:
Almost there, no one in sight...
TOUCHDOWN!!! Still, no one in sight!
In case you are wondering, no it isn't your eyes. These pictures are pretty bad. I was so excited that I wasn't paying too much attention to taking pictures! PM was pretty stoked too. He is still excited about that one!

Summer Vacation 2008 - Part VI - Warren Dunes

One of the days we spent at the beach, Warren Dunes. While growing up, we spent many a day there, so I always love to take the kids there. One of the big draws, other than the beach, is the huge sand dune. You can see how large the hills are just by looking at the tiny people on the hill.
My nephew J had a slight problem with his swim trunks, they were a little too big...
PM had a blast.
So did DQ.
When we finally went to climb the hill, it took a while. Here are a few shots of the walk up. PM took a break on a fallen tree:
DQ played with the sand a bit:
As the walk up got more difficult, DQ decided crawling was easier.
And BD and PM took a break.
At the top, everyone took a much needed rest.
Everyone started on the run back down.
PM lost his footing and crashed into the sand.
He spent a little bit getting the sand out of his mouth:
DQ was moving pretty quickly too:
J ended up in a large hole and spent the afternoon digging.
The only one who really played in the water was PM. It was colder than what we are used to, and darker and dirtier... At one point BD saw two pieces of poop with corn in them floating by. Eeewww!!! I never went back in afterwards. PM did though.

Helmet

Well, he got his helmet last night at practice. It was 101 degrees when I dropped him off. I then ran DQ to her, indoor, cheerleading practice and went back to his to sit and watch (and make sure he didn't pass out or puke). Boy was it hot!
Oh, the helmet is filthy, does anyone know how to clean the inside of it?

What I did today

Gave blood... This was taken with my cell phone, so not the best shot.

Summer Vacation 2008 - Part V - Pool

After the photo shoot, we drive the kids to a public pool that my sister and I went to as children. Our memories include a high dive and Jolly Rancher sticks, neither of which are there still.
Instead of one high diving board in the middle of two lower ones, there are simply two lower ones. They also have added two water slides in another area of the pool. There are two smaller pools still there as well. It took J a while to warm up to actually getting into the water. He was content to hang out and play with some pool toys.
J eventually got tired and we couldn't keep his hands out of his mouth.
K and DQ had fun playing together:
PM was his typical water loving self. He found some boys to play with and spent the time going down the slides and jumping off the diving boards. Check out this picture. It almost looks as if the water is making earrings on each ear.
For some reason, my niece K is all about having her picture taken. First, she wanted one by herself:
Then, she wanted one with my sister, her step mom:
Oh, how old is K you may be asking? If you ask her, she will say almost 13. Her birthday is in October. Sigh... To be young again.

Mexican Rice - Well Done

Saturday evening, DQ spent the night at a friends house. PM and BD were upstairs playing Wii, while I slaved away in the kitchen making soft tacos and mexican rice with corn. While preparing the rice, I was on the phone with my mom. I was following the directions and was at the last step, placing it in the microwave for 17 to 20 minutes. I was going to add the corn when it had about a minute left. Well, at 3 minutes left, smoke started pouring out of the microwave. I yanked the door open to find a black lid on my casserole dish with smoke pouring from it. I yelled for BD to come and help me and we got it outside. He just had to take a picture with his cell phone and send it to BIL.
So, what happened, you may be asking? I re-read the directions and found my faux paus. It called for 2 2/3 cups of water. I only saw 2/3 and that is all I put in. Wow, who would have thought!

Note to self, call mom back when trying to follow directions for ingredients for dinner... At least I hadn't added the corn yet. So, we had soft tacos and corn. Oh, and in case you are wondering, yes, BD threw the entire casserole dish out and our entire house still stinks! I wanted to open all of the doors and windows yesterday, but BD refused, since it was in the upper 90's. Today 95. tomorrow 99 and Wed., 96... I may have to sneak and do it in the middle of the night, the smell is killing me!

Pizza Pro

I have got to get me one of these...