Relay 2011

Friends for LIFE 2011

I did not even take my camera this year, all the pictures I have are courtesy of my Dad :)
Color guard to lead the opening lap

Jared selling pizzas

Mommy and Ryan

Survivor/ Caregiver Lap

Mom, Nan and Tracey

Mr. Willy Wonka and the Misster Relay participants

kind of blurry but it's hard to get this shot of the luminary ceremony

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JARED

WOW #12 where has the time gone?
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Love,
Mom, Dad, Kevin and Ryan

Jared's Birthday Field Trip

Jared's Birthday Field trip 2011. All our boy wanted was to see the penguins, not the ones at the Georgia Aquarium down the street, the ones in Tennessee. Well, you only turn 12 once so we packed up with the kids plus Justin and Anthony. We had a GREAT day!!

First stop was the touch tank

The next visit was to the butterfly room. I think Ryan could have stayed in there ALL day. Butterfly Ry was like the butterfly whisperer. They LOVED her.

Kevin was getting SO frustrated because they would not land on him. He tried so hard to "hold" a butterfly. Ryan got one to land on her finger and shared with her bubby...

My personal favorite ;)

This picture absolutely cracks me up. I love Kevin's face :)

I forgot this ones name, yes I did know it for a while...I learned it during the up close Penguin encounter that we were able to go on...HAPPY BIRTHDAY JARED!!

So happy to be with his friends and hanging out with penguins. I think the day was everything he dreamed it would be. We got to observe the penguins with about 8 other kids. It was a great way to ask questions, watch up close and learn more about my boys favorite animal

I love this shot of the sea horse

sea dragon, so beautiful!

We did both aquarium buildings, two animal encounters (the penguin encounter and all about sharks), we saw the IMAX move about African Elephants and Orangutan monkeys in the wild. We indulged on Ben & Jerry's and totally enjoyed our Tennessee day.

April Recap

I started the month by telling the kids to enjoy April cause before we know it, it will be summer. April and May FLY by in the Homerhouse. I am now sitting here in my bathing suit the 2nd week of June catching up from a crazy 6 weeks...

The weekend of the 15-16th we had our 8th annual Spring Garage Sale for the Relay for Life. We raised around $1,000. Not bad, I can deal with making $500 a day :) That Sunday we went to Chattanooga for Jared's birthday present, the Tennessee Aquarium with Justin and Anthony. I have about 160 pics from the day so I will post that separate.

The next weekend was Easter at the lake. The weather was beautiful and the service was great. I really enjoyed hearing the trumpets (Daddy and Rick)...maybe next year Kevin will join in. He is looking forward to taking up the trumpet in the Fall. :)

The next weekend was a Girls Weekend in Orlando. Rob gave me a trip for my 35th birthday to head down to Ft. Myers to see my girlfriend Eva. She grabbed me at the airport and we drove on up to Orlando to stay with my high school girlfriend Staci. The tow girls had never met before but you would never know it-we all had such a great time. Friday after we hung out for a bit we got all dolled up and went to dinner at Ohana, the BEST dinner place on Disney property. I have never seen (or eaten) so much food. We laughed until we cried almost every moment of the evening, what fun! Saturday we hit the parks. Staci works at EPCOT so we we lucky to get a ticket to get into the Park (THANKS STACE!!). We walked into Epcot from the boardwalk ( I had never been back there) and spent about half the day in EPCOT. I got the kids treats there, including Duffy. Duffy needs his own post...long story short, Duff is like Flat Stanley and the "Girls gone wild" spent the day walking around Epcot with our teddy taking pictures. :) Oh yeah, we are wild ones! The plan was to get the pictures developed and put into an album for Ryan. We spent the other half of the day in MGM, so much fun and I even rode the roller coaster. EEEK! Sunday I taught the girls how to geocache...after a morning at downtown Disney. I think they are both hooked :) What a great time. Eva and I said goodbye to Staci Sunday night and drove home to Cape Coral, I had a flight out Monday at 1 pm. How I hated to leave...plus I had Relay breathing down my neck.

Speaking if Relay, that was the following weekend. I will post on that next but we really did well. I was worried that we wouldn't have enough help, but everything worked out just fine. We raised a few thousand dollars the night of and ran out of pizzas three times. The new balloo-min-aries were a HIT, so great!

Spring Break 2011

So here we are, I am all caught up on chores, sorting the stuff for the FFL garage sale next week and blogging is current.

We started the week by going up to Hartwell. No burning this time, just fishing for the Bu. The last few times we have been up there the weather has been less than stellar and we wanted to make sure he got a chance to fish. Saturday was WINDY as was Sunday and Monday. Didn't stop the boys from getting out and wetting a line. No luck.

Sunday was a bit less sunny out so we hit the movies in the afternoon, HOP for everyone except Lars and Rob, they went to see Source Code. Each group like their flick and we made it home in time for a sun set cruise. I caught my first EVER bass, the only fish seen all weekend. Poor Bu, all he wanted was a Garr like he had seen on River Monsters. That night we finished up the duck tape creations that we had started in the morning. Hair bows, flip flops and wallets for the boys were on the list of items made. Don't forget all the flowers that we made with the sticky substance. The swimmers have all gotten into using duck tape as a great art medium...Ryan can't wait to wear her shoes to the pool.

Monday was more fishing, horseshoes and hair cuts. I have to say I could pay a ton and get the same cut, my mom should go into business...
Tuesday the kids each had a dentist appointment. Ryan had a small cavity that needed to be sanded out. Apparently she only has 2 of her 6 year molars. Her front teeth are no where near the surface, looks like they might come in at Christmas after all. A round of ice cream for everyone (hey, it is Spring Break!)
Wednesday we spent the day getting ready for the garage sale. Each day we cleaned out different areas of the house. Today was basement and bed rooms. YAY de-clutter. Thursday was more of the same, just kitchen and closets. Each night we went to a park, Wednesday was the soccer fields and Thursday was JJ Biello. Had to get out and play just a bit.
Friday was play day. If it stood still this week it was either washed (laundry), cleaned or donated. A morning of blogging was on my agenda but the kids played with forts and hung out together. I LOVE when they play nice! Soul Surfer at the theater for the girls and I let the boys go see Diary of a Wimpy kid. We tried out this new Fro-Yo place called Menchies, played at the toy store and when dad got home had dinner out and another park-the castle playground at 1st Baptist. Super fun end to a great week-won't be long and we will be out for SUMMER!!! YAY!

Carrollton aka soggy wet mess

Each year we make two trips out to Carrollton to swim, once in the Fall and once in the Spring. Spring is notorious for storms in Georgia and they usually come our way via Carrollton...that meant that when we were at the swim meet, we got the brunt of the storms. Now this pool is pretty awesome, it's a glass green house. The walls and ceiling are ALL glass. It is really a cool place to swim (well-steamy is more like it) but the kids do well here. Friday night Jared didn't have any events. Saturday morning he only had three. That made me scratch my head, why would we drive out there for 3 events? Well, he actually made finals in all 3 events. This was his second Prelim/final meet, something we are still getting used to. That meant he swam in the morning, posted a top 16 time and had to come back that night and swim it all over again...aahhh, now I get it, 3+3=6. Duh. Way to go swim mom. Poor Jared, we learn everything with him.

So as I said, Jared posted a top 16 on Saturday in the 50 Breast, 100 Back and the 50 Fly. In the finals he finished 12th, 14th and 14th respectively. Pretty cool considering we had been there 14 hours by the time he warmed up til he cooled down. A LONG day.

In the mean time, Ryan had the second shift to swim. She had 4 events plus the chance to swim in relays. She usually gets bumped from a relay by a faster swimmer or there are not enough girls to make a team. This time she made the A free relay and she was super stoked, that is until the storms caused such a back up with delays that she only got to swim 3 events and the final event and the relay got cut from the meet. Boo. At least she crushed her times for the 3 events she did swim. That little fish is getting ever closer to a state cut time and she's only 8! I do have to say that even though we were stuck in a leaky greenhouse where it was raining inside and the kids were soaked and so were the parents, it was a fabulous day.

Day two was even better. Jared made 3 for 3 again and finished 16th in the 100 Free, 11th in the 100 Breast and 14th for the 50 back. Really impressive. His times were right on or lower and he was super proud of himself. Way to go Jared!

Ryan's second day was one for the memory banks. She got to swim all 4 events. She was up on her time for one and then way down on her time for another. She would crush her times or DQ, it was really strange. I think timing was off from sitting for two days as well as an impending growth spurt. Her memorable swims came from the 50 back (and the lovely corkscrew DQ), the 50 FL where she totally crushed her time and almost beat our her arch nemesis and the 25 back where she was on an 18 second pace and freaked out, slowed to a stop and went from 1st to 4th. But the pinnacle? Hands down, the medley relay. Gracie (8-back), Sammi (7-breast), Ryan (8-Fly), Ana (7-free) made up the toughest group of 7 and 8 year old girls I have ever seen. The A relay team was seeded 2nd and they pulled off a 1st beating their seed time by a second. Overall Ryan took home three 2nd place medals (25/50 Br and 50 Fl) and one each of 1st (relay), 3rd (IM), 4th (25 Bk) and 6th (50 Fr).

Spring String Jamboree

Jared decided to throw the violin onto his plate of things to do. He really picked it up fast and he seems to really enjoy it. I love the fact that he is using my old violin that I never learned how to play. I decided to chaperon the field trip over to JJ Daniel (Rob's old Middle School) and boy was that an eye opener. I know that we have exceptionally good kids and I am thankful everyday but to see some really snarky pre-teen kids REALLY made me appreciate our three wonderful children. I enjoyed my time served to the Palmer Orchestra but I was glad to get home to my rotten little monkey urchins.

Part of the fun of being there 2 hours early was that I got to watch everything unfold from one middle school group to six local schools. It was a wonder to watch everything come together and actually sound like music when the kids literally ran through each piece once before showtime.

By the time the actual concert started my battery was on it's last leg. I zoom in on the first video so you can see we are right in front of Jared just on the front of the "stage" where he is way in the back. You can always go to: thehomerhouse You Tube channel to view in non blurry full screen

Toomers Trees Field Trip

The first weekend of our break we found out that the Toomers Trees had been poisoned. For anyone who went to Auburn this is such a sickening thought. Why would someone hurt our trees? Our roots run deep in the plains and they start with those trees. Whenever we have a big win, we make an exodus to Toomer's Corner and roll the trees with toilet paper. It's a great way to celebrate and it's harmless. Why would someone do this? It is just despicable. We decided to take the kids on a field trip to see the trees before they die. Brandon is living down there so he met us for the day and we made some awesome memories.

Outside of Samford Hall


One of my favorite bookstores on campus

The trees with Toomer's in the background

Rob and Bran in front of the lesser tree

Looking back at the trees from outside of Toomers Drug store

Going in to get a lemonade

Ryan's first drink of lemonade, YUMMO!

The boys as we head over to see more of the campus.

One more shot from the other corner

Haley center. I had many classes here :)

Outside the Colosseum. I have a picture like this from when Rob graduated.

How cute will this picture be if Ryan signs on to swim for AU?

The aquatic center-utterly breathtaking.

Both kids said they want to swim here-time will tell.

Loved this display at the Auburn museum inside the new Arena

Getting tired of walking around

The boys met Aubie at a baseball game

Ryan decided to come meet him too :)

Beautiful day with great company. We won't wait so long to come back again!

Italia (Rob's pics)

Rob gets to travel quite a bit for work, great places like Turkey, Australia, maybe Estonia...you get the point. He hijacked my camera for his trip to Italy in February. I posted some of my favorites but Rob will have to add notes as to what we are looking at...I'm sure I missed something of great historical significance but maybe he can shed some light. I was never really good at history.

Vatican maybe?





This place looks huge, the people look so tiny! The statues on the top must be 15 feet tall...



I know this one. The only picture I asked him to take. It's the Bridge of Angels near the Vatican. I remembered this from my brothers travel pictures and I wanted Rob to get to see it.







Love this one...

Trevi Fountain maybe?

Rob loved this, I agree.



I am quite certain this picture does NOT do justice...