Memorial Day

Today we had a very nice and relaxing day here in Ocala. First we went to Wild Waters - this is the water park attached to Silver Springs.

Parker was the only one in our family who had been here before - with the YMCA camp last summer. We had hoped to get season passes last summer, but with Mommy's surgery it just didn't work out. Fortunately, we were able to get season passes for this year. Below is a map of the park, just click to enlarge.

The boys' favorite parts of the day were the Kids Cove and the Wave Pool. We spent the overwhelming majority of our time split between these two places. We did manage to work in some of the other rides as well though. Daddy and Parker rode Alligator Ambush together. Then Mommy and Daddy took turns sitting with the boys to ride some of the other rides. Daddy did the Hurricane and Bunyan's Bend, while Mommy did the Hurricane, Osceola's Revenge and and the Silver Bullet. The Silver Bullet wasn't so speedy today - it didn't seem to have enough water running on it and Mommy (along with several other people) came to a screeching halt and had to push herself down. But really it turned out to be a very nice and relaxing day. The crowds weren't bad and the lines weren't too long. We are looking forward to coming back quite often this summer. What makes Wild Waters so nice for us is the fact that it's five miles from the house. So we can sneak over for a couple hours here and there and if the boys get tired or the weather changes we can just come home.

We skipped lunch in the park and finally packed up/changed clothes about 3:30pm and headed out. We took the boys to Stevi B's for dinner. Afterwards, we hung around and let the boys get tokens and have fun in the gameroom. Parker earned 306 tickets and Wesley earned 331. They were so very happy to shop in the little store there! Parker came home with a plastic samurai sword, and a couple of other little things and Wesley came home with a little plastic gun that shoots ping pong balls. That was plenty of entertainment for the rest of the night!

Now we're working on getting ready to attend Annual Conference........

Hair

Sir Wesley did his own hair after getting home from school on Friday night. Here he is stylin' with the hair gel in the front!

Graduation

No not for us. But this was the scene at Daddy's church on Thursday as they prepared to host VPK graduation for two classes at Carousel Early Learning Center (where Wesley attends daycare). The teachers transformed the space into a mini auditorium. The kids came over to practice here during school on Thursday - and since the church is just around the corner, everyone walked back
and forth!

Senior Projects

Monday and Tuesday nights Mommy spent at Belleview High School with several of the ladies from Daddy's church judging Senior Project Presentations. Each senior is required to do a year long project and make a final presentation as the bulk of their English grade for the year. Local community members and business leaders come in and volunteer their time to serve as judges and grade the presentations. This is the second year that Mommy has gotten this opportunity.

On Monday night she was on a team of 3 judges who watched presentations about domestic violence, crocheting, football, choreography and scuba diving. Very diverse stuff! The young lady who did domestic violence had been a victim herself and held a fundraising drive for the local shelter. The young lady who learned how to crochet made two blankets and a scarf. The young man who was a defensive end on the football team researched what it takes to make it into the NFL and showed us the highlight tape he had made to send to college recruiters. The young lady who did choreography had been a dancer for several years and developed a dance routine and taught it to a beginning dance class. Finally the young man who had previously known how to snorkel talked about the certification class he took to learn how to scuba dive and showed pictures of some of his dives.

On Tuesday night, Mommy was the head judge on a team of four judges who listened to presentations on teen obesity, party planning, witnessing and building a guitar. One of the other judges on her team was the priest from Christ the King Anglican church in Ocala (where our good photographer friend Cindi with an Eye attends). We had fun listening to the inspiring young lady who put herself on a diet and exercise program and lost 28lbs in 12 weeks! Then we heard from a young man who had organized a Valentine's Day party at the school as a fundraiser for the American Heart Association. Next up was definitely our most unique presentation - a young lady studying to be a missionary in the Jehovah Witnesses who had plenty of reading material to hand out to everyone. Finally we had a young man who plays guitar in a band who built a brand new guitar from a kit.

It's so much fun to go and listen and to see what the enthusiasm and passion that these teenagers have and what they have invested so much of their time into during their senior year. The added bonus is that Chef Nine and all the kids from the culinary department whip up some amazing food and serve us a full dinner before judging and then some yummy desserts while we're tallying up all our scores!

Summer Plans

One of the big items on our to-do list here lately has been getting summer plans set in place for both of the boys. While we are here in town, Wesley will still be going to Carousel and Parker will be going to camp at the YMCA. Parker will be attending five weeks of regular day camp (which will be held this year at Druid Hills) and three weeks of specialty sports camps for basketball, football, and soccer actually at the YMCA.

While Mommy and Daddy are away in England in June for two weeks, the boys will be staying with grandparents in Seffner. There is a YMCA there and we're working it out so that Parker can go to day camp there during our trip. It's kind of cool because one of the weekly field trips is to MOSI, the awesome science museum across from USF. And the Y there has a half-day option for kids Wesley's age, so he will be attending two weeks of preschool gymnastics camp. The boys are also very excited that they will get to attend VBS one of those weeks in the evening with their cousins at First Seffner.

And as if that wasn't enough stuff to do, the boys are both signed up to play in the summer basketball leagues at the Y in Ocala. This will be Wesley's first time for organized sports!!!! He'll play in the 3-4 year old league and Parker will be in the 7-8 year old league. Both leagues will play on Friday nights. We can't wait to see Wesley in his basketball uniform! And of course in August we will take our annual pilgrimage to the beach. We have no plans that week except to be really lazy.

Snuggle Time

Grandma came to visit today. She watched the boys play at the house - inside and outside. We visited the Farmer's Market downtown and took her to the Chinese Buffet for lunch. When we came home everyone piled in on the couch to watch "How To Train Your Dragon." She got some awesome snuggle time with the boys, especially Wesley who slept on her lap for almost two hours.

More Fishing Pictures

One of the moms from the Cub Scout Pack emailed us these pictures of our family on the fishing trip earlier this week.

Fishing In The Park

Tonight the whole Cub Scout pack met at Tuscawilla Park downtown (near the Discovery Science Center) to go fishing. One of the dads had a lot of extra fishing poles and graciously supplied those as well as all the hooks and worms necessary.

Parker was very excited to go fishing. On the way to the park in the car he described his plan to catch four fish so we could eat them for dinner! Once he realized how slow fishing was he got a little bored. Especially after two of his fellow Tigers both caught catfish. Thankfully Parker did catch a small fish - we think it's a blue gill!! And even Wesley got a lesson in fishing.

Marion County Media Festival

Tonight we went to the Marion County Media Festival held at the Westport High School Performing Arts Center. There were TV cameras on site as the entire awards ceremony was being broadcast on several of the local cable stations. The elementary portion of the ceremony was first starting at 7pm, and then an intermission for us to clear out and the middle school and high school folks to come in for their portion.

Here we are as a family on the red carpet getting ready to go inside.

One half of the stage as viewed from our seats.

Parker with his friend Om - they are in the same regular first grade class, as well as gifted and enrichment classes together. Om decided to come sit with us while the rest of his family sat across the aisle.
Before things got going, Parker's teacher Mrs. Fritz let us know that the kids had been picked for an award in the K-2nd grade PSA (Public Service Announcement) category for their film, "Bee A Friend." But even Mrs. Fritz had no idea whether they had placed 1st, 2nd or 3rd in their category until the awards were announced.

The kids had to wait quite a while to get to their category as we waded through 1-3rd place in the K-2nd grade age group and the 3-5th grade age group for each of these categories: Animation, Book Trailer, Comedy, Documentary, Drama, Instructional, Music Video, News Feature, News Program, PSA. The only thing left to announce after their category was Best of Show.

Here's the video announcing their win and showing Parker walking across the stage.

They won first place in their age group for PSA!!!!
Here's Parker with the class trophy. This will stay in the trophy case at school for everyone to see.

At home....Parker's placement card from Mrs. Fritz, the program and his official certificate.

Congratulations, Parker! Add this to your awesome progress report this week for the fourth nine weeks and we are so very proud of you.

Random Busyness

We are in the midst of a lot of random busyness and just trying to keep our heads above water right now........

* Mommy had a funeral to officiate on Monday and has another memorial service set for the 28th of this month.
* Daddy hosted the part-time clergy of the North Central District at Druid Hills for a district meeting on Monday night. Mommy hosted the full-time clergy at Belleview for a district meeting on Tuesday morning.
* Daddy is helping to work out an agreement between Druid Hills and the YMCA to host the YMCA's summer camp at his church over the summer.
* Mommy has a seminar to lead on "Salty Service" at a district-wide meeting for pastors and lay leaders next Tuesday night.
* We keep getting school notices about testing and pictures and yearbooks and parties for Parker. He informed us tonight he only has 17 days of first grade left - how on earth did that happen?
* In the midst of trying to work through May, we are also trying to prep for a busy June which includes a four day trip to Tampa for Annual Conference and then our two weeks in England.

Bird Feeders

Monday night at Cub Scouts the boys did two things. First they spent time talking about the different things that they collect and they brought in examples of their collections. For Parker that meant Transformers and Star Wars lego figures.

The second thing was a project outside making pinecone bird feeders. There were enough materials so that Wesley could make one as well. The boys had a very good time lathering up the pinecones in peanut butter and birdseed.

And on the way home we found the perfect spot in the tree at the edge of the backyard to hang up the pinecones. The one on the left is Parker's; the one on the right is Wesley's. Wesley was a little upset when we hung his in the tree and even more upset to find out that the whole plan was for the birds to eat it. He begrudgingly left his bird feeder outside.

What Happens When You Spin Too Much

This was Wesley yesterday at Grandmommy and Grandaddy's house for our Mother's Day celebration. A little too much fun and little guy just fell out asleep right where he landed. He slept on the floor there for almost two hours!

Mother's Day

This morning Mommy received several sweet gifts from the boys that they had made at school at church. From Wesley a handmade card and a special picture magnet. From Parker a handmade card, a "basket" of flowers and an essay about Mommy. Then "the mans" presented Mommy with their big gift - a certificate for a 60 minute massage! Way to go guys - thank you!

After worship we headed home to Seffner and joined up with all of our family to celebrate Mother's Day. We ate lunch (watched the Rays win!) and then got to present Grannie, Grandmommy and Grandma with their Mother's Day presents.

It was so nice to be able to spend time with everyone and relax. The boys brought their scooters and played with their cousins in the yard for a while before all the kids headed in to cool off and play Nintendo together. It was a pretty long and tiring day but all in all a very good Mother's Day.

B.R.A.T.

No it's not an adjective for one of our children. It's the diet that Wesley has been living on for the last few days. B.R.A.T. - stands for Bananas, Rice, Applesauce and Toast. And the only thing he was supposed to drink was Gatorade.

This is what Dr. Siddiqui told us to do with Wesley when we took him into the doctor's office on Thursday morning. Because he threw up again on Wednesday night - this time in bed as he woke up from a dead sleep, poor thing. Then a few hours later he started having trouble with diarrhea. The doctor suspected it was a stomach bug but that we had not gone the bland food route long enough after his first session of throwing up on Sunday. So by reintroducing "real" and heavier foods before his tummy was ready, we kept heading back to square one.

The first stage of this diet on Thursday was small portions of Gatorade only until 2pm. The problem? Wesley was starving and couldn't understand why we would not feed him. From the time we got home at 10:00am until about 11:30am, he laid on the floor and cried inconsolably. We finally had to put him in the car and drive around Ocala for 20 minutes until he fell asleep. Then we drove around for another 10 minutes to make sure he was good and out before we headed home and put him to bed. Thankfully he slept past the 2:00pm mark so when he woke up we could start feeding him!!

We were strict with the diet all day Thursday and all day Friday, keeping him home from daycare so we could monitor him. And today we were able to slowly reintroduce real food to him and he was so happy! We are even more thrilled that he hasn't thrown up again.

Lights, Camera, Action

We received an invitation in Parker's school folder today to the Marion County Media Festival next Friday (May 13) at Westport High School. In his enrichment class at school, Parker's group made a film called "Claw the Croc-o-gator Comes to South Ocala." The students did everything themselves from beginning to end with oversight from their teacher Mrs. Fritz. She entered the film into the Marion County Media Festival and drumroll please........their film has been awarded a prize! So we will get to go to this "red-carpet" semi-formal event to find out what prize they have won. No matter what the prize is, we are thrilled that Parker has received this opportunity and are excited to go and support him along with the rest of the crew on this film.

Spoke To Soon

Perhaps we jinxed ourselves calling Wesley a character the other day on this blog. Because he has sure tried to live up to that in the last forty eight hours. It started on Sunday afternoon, when he starting throwing up everywhere. This continued on for a while and we cleaned and cleaned the boy and the house. Wesley stayed home with Mommy and Daddy on Monday and everyone ended up catching at least one much needed nap. He seemed to be ok and even managed to eat some food and keep it down for dinner. Tuesday he was doing really well and went back to daycare. He ate breakfast and lunch. Just as we were headed out the door to get dinner last night, Wesley did it again. We think he choked on one of the gummy worms he brought home from daycare as a reward. So we stayed home and cleaned some more. Fortunately today has been better. Just praying now it stays that way!

What A Character

This was the munchkin today with Daddy at the park during Parker's tee-ball party:

When we got home from tee-ball and lunch today, Wesley raided the closet and put on his Halloween costume from last year. He wanted to be Buzz Lightyear again. He ran around the house for a while before finally crashing on the futon to take a nap.

When he woke up, we needed to run a few errands. Wesley decided to keep the costume on. He accessorized it by keeping on his Monster Truck t-shirt underneath and by wearing his new red flip flops. Several people commented on his outfit while we were out - mostly to say that they had little boys or grandsons at home who loved Buzz Lightyear too!