handsful

Ridiculously behind.

Sorry.

Can’t believe Summer is over!  How did THAT happen?  We’re in school mode, with the big kids beginning their Mitchell CC classes tomorrow.  We will begin a couple of things with Lainey and Dylan this week, with their official start on August 24th.

So, what DID we do this summer?  Testify concerts, Testify tour, summer day camps, Acrofitness day camps, 5 birthdays, two kids got their braces off, family and friend visits, a family vacation to Myrtle Beach, sewing camps, boating time, sleepovers…

I realize that’s a lot to include in one blog post.  But, time is of the essence.  So below are some snapshots of some of the above.  I’ll add the rest in another post.

Enjoy :)

We’ve been blessed to be a part of Acrofitness for the last 3 years.  All 6 kids have taken classes at some point, but right now Marley, Lainey, and Dylan are enrolled.

What is Acrofitness?  From their website…

Our mission is to provide classes that inspire all children to develop a love for movement. Our state of the art programming teaches non-competitive functional skills that will last a lifetime. Our sport incorporates street tumbling, hip hop dance, cheer, parkour/free running, elements of strength and flexibility, and much more.

We’re huge fans of getting our kids MOVING and Acrofitness does all that and more.

Dylan takes the AFFR class, which teaches free running skills…you’ve seen those videos of the crazy guys flipping off park benches, jumping off steps, etc?  With D’s lack of fear and “I’ll try anything” personality, nothing stops him from running with all the guys.  We do have to protect all the gym equipment from his prosthesis (sharp edges could damage), so he wears a long soccer sock pulled up high and sweat pants.

Marley and Lainey both take 3 classes, as they’re both on Acro teams.  The teams are based on age, so Marley is on Senior and Lainey is on Freshman.  Other than their team choreography classes, they each take Fitness Plus (cardio and strength class) and Elite/Extreme tumbling.  As team members, they get to perform their routines at lots of local community events in the spring.  Performance season is just now gearing up, and they’re busy just about every weekend through May….about 12 total.  Team tryouts and camp is in June, so this is pretty much a year-round commitment.  They wouldn’t have it any other way.

A couple of weekends ago, they performed their routines in front of all the parents for the first time.  The routines are on YouTube…just search for “2015.3.21 Fit-a-thon Freshman” to see Lainey’s (she does the first tumbling pass at the beginning of the routine) and “2015.3.21 Fit-a-thon Seniors” to see Marley.  She’s at the back at the beginning, but then you’ll see her being lifted up front/left and then again at the back at the end of the routine.

Here are some pics from that day…

Marley’s Senior Team

Lainey’s Freshman Team

Lainey making the first tumbling pass

Another tumbling pass

Lainey and her friend Gracie

Our Acro girls :)

Can’t wait to watch their other routines coming up!

So, my last post was a month ago.

Oops.  Getting major slack from my kids about this.

It’s not my fault!  Summer has sped by!  I’m still waiting for those lazy summer days so I can tackle a few projects.

(The kids dual enrollment classes and Abbey’s community college classes begin Aug 18th.  Our other courses at home will begin the following week.)

Who am I kidding about projects?

But, I’ll still share a few of our favorite pics from the last month.

Buckle up.  This will be long.

I think I mentioned that I took Marley and her friends Kylie and Kailee to Hilton Head for a weekend.  It was her 16th birthday wish, rather than a big party.  Since I got to enjoy a first-ever trip to HH, I whole-heartedly agreed!

This is Marley checking out the view from the Harbour Town Lighthouse.

I also took them to go para sailing.  Randy and I did this in Mexico last summer, I knew the girls would love it.

One of the girls was a little nervous, given the height and water thing, but she immediately said she’d do it again in a heartbeat.  I’m protecting her identity ;)

Coming in for a landing!

View from our balcony…Randy’s traveling = hotel points. Our stay was free.

It was a great weekend, despite a few too many clouds.  They had their beloved beach day, we ate some delish food, and we spent both nights taking LONG walks on the beach.  I had such a great time with these girls!

Another summer highlight was our Family Weekend Vacation.  Despite our best efforts, we could never find more than 3 days that we were all available..no one working, or had other commitments with friends, etc.  I’m learning that, as they get older, they have these LIVES that don’t always include us. Makes me happy (they’re becoming independent young adults..gulp), and sad at the same time. I find myself wanting to re-live when they were all little.

Hindsight, ya know?

We decided a nice weekend in Atlanta would hit the spot…especially if we included a Braves game.  That always makes us happy! We also visited the Georgia Aquarium, which was super crowded, but also really fun.

After spending 5+ hours (yeah…) at the aquarium, we decided we were hungry.  And, since the theme for the weekend was “follow the crowd”, we had no choice but to head here.

Where is “here”, you ask?

The Varsity.  The ultra-famous burger joint that serves 2 miles worth of chili dogs per DAY.  It’s been open since 1928.  I mean, Elvis used to order cheeseburgers to-go several times a day.  It’s a legend.

But, when Randy saw that line, he gave me that “are you kidding me??”  look.  But, being the great dad that he is, we ventured in and enjoyed our Varsity lunch!  The kids were thrilled, because they’d come here on Testify tour a couple years back.

We then fought the traffic (again), and  made our way back to the hotel, and got dressed for the game..

I LOVE going to Braves games.  And, we’ve been to about 4 in the last few years.

They’ve won all 4.  We’ve got a good record :)

How much do I love this picture?  A lot.  These are the “Braves Girls”…we asked Dylan if he wanted a picture with them.  He sauntered right up there and smiled big.  Heartbreaker.

Abbey-girl.  The girl is busy being a young adult these days, and isn’t around as much as she used to be.  They’re all growing up so dang quickly.

Sigh…I digress.

I call this one “Payton contemplating entering the scary crowd of people”.  Remember the theme?  Get over your claustrophobia, dude.

Before the game, we hit the Braves store (of course, it was crowded), and picked up a few new T-shirts, etc.  Payton bought this…fans of Evan Gattis (Braves catcher) call him El Oso Blanco.  It means White Bear.  Good luck getting this back, Tater.

Braves win!!

The required pic of Randy and me, after the game.

Back to the hotel, and then we headed home in the morning.  But before we did, Randy managed to find a few locations in Atlanta where the Walking Dead is filmed.  This is one of their fav shows.  I always wimp out and go to bed when it comes on.

Zombies, ewww.

They’re sitting in front of someone’s house.  Rick’s maybe?  I dunno.  But, they were pretty psyched, as you can tell.

Ethan would have been in the pic, but he’d been sick off and on since the day before, and was feeling pretty lousy that morning.

Thankfully, he made the trip home fine.

What else this summer?  Lainey and Dylan went to a week of Y camp. Marley and Lainey had a week of Acrofitness camp.  We all had an awesome week of VBS, where the big kids helped in elementary classrooms (Ethan and Marley), a group of girls learning a dance for the week (Abbey), and as skit characters named Zip Quick, Wormy, and Billy Bass (Payton).  Marley is currently in the middle of two weeks at the beach with Kylie, and Abbey left this morning with Daniel for a few days at the beach with his family.

As is usual for us, our summer was full.

Maybe Fall will be a better time to finish those projects?  :)

We have a houseful of 16 year olds now.

Eeek.

They take their driving tests end of August.

Why do I complain about all the driving I do?  Soon I’ll just be worrying about all my kids driving THEMSELVES everywhere.

Birthday dinner…with family and friends.

They elected to skip a party this year…wanting instead to go on trips with us.  I took Marley and two of her friends to Hilton Head for a weekend.

Pics of that to come later…

The boys and Randy went to Boone to hike and white water raft.

Both trips went great…special memories made for all of us.

And, this concludes our July birthdays for 2014!

How’s that for a creative title? Maybe not…

A couple of weeks ago, Abbey, Marley, and Ethan had their voice recitals. They’ve been taking lessons from Mrs. Susan, who is also the director for Testify.

They chose two songs, one was their choice of any song, and the other had to be an older song prior to 1990. Footloose (old version), It’s a Wonderful World, and Desperado were A, M and E’s choices. Loved it!

The whole group did an impromptu version of Let It Go…I especially loved watching Ethan suffer through that!

Two days later, it was Father’s Day. The kids had a concert that morning, and then it was all about Randy. What did he wanna do?

A little lake time.

It was a perfect afternoon on the water, just what he wanted.

So, what’s new with Marley?

She’s been asking for quite a while.  Last week, I took her to a jeweler downtown and she was brave enough to sit in that chair and let the manager pierce her ear cartilage.  This is my child that HATES needles.  I mean, she’s just shy of jumping off the table at the doctor’s office when they come at her with a shot.  But, for this she was cool as a cucumber…even though people told her it would HURT.  Weird thing is, she barely flinched.  And, though it did throb and sting for a little while that night, it hasn’t bothered her much at all since.  She can’t sleep on that side yet, but she’s okay with that.  She’s more than thrilled that she did it.

Speaking of Marley, she’s been cooking a lot lately.  She found a wonderful Asian stir-fry recipe that she’s made twice for us.  It’s delish.  This time, she found a hoisin sauce recipe and used some shrimp and raman for a nice lunch for herself.

I’ve talked about our Shop meetings here…we’ve had 2 in the last 2 weeks.  Lots of snacks, plastic cups, and teens everywhere.  Last week, before the teaching time, we invited anyone in Testify who was auditioning for a role in the drama to come early for practice.

We did the same thing last night, just increased it to 2 full hours, so all the different kids/roles could practice.  It was really helpful, and gave them a chance to stand up and really act the part, like they’d do during the last audition.  Auditions were held today, and Payton (going for Marshall) and Abbey (going for Kris) feel like they did well.  Now, we wait and see.

Rather than teaching time, it was Movie night after practice…Remember the Titans.  Love that movie.  We had about 30 kids total hanging out with us.  And, as we normally do, the night ended with a bonfire.

So, those were the highlights of last week.

Oh, and Ethan now has his back handspring as of last week…and Lainey moved up to Advanced tumbling with her back handspring, and have I mentioned that Marley has hers as well?  Dylan is working hard to be next!

Next week, Randy travels for three nights, Lainey gets her spacers to prepare for braces the following week (eeek), and the trips biology class begins.

It’s never dull around here.

Did ya’ll think I totally forgot we had a blog?

About 2 weeks ago, we hosted a birthday bash here for Marley, Payton, and Ethan and their friends.  I was going to blog about that…and, then remembered that I failed to blog pics from Lainey and Dylan’s party with THEIR friends a couple of weeks before that.

So, we’re going back in time a bit.

There’s a cool place in Charlotte called Bounce U, with lots of indoor bounce houses, slides, and climbing walls.  Perfect place for a bday party with 6 and 7 year olds!

This was a big hit…the kids climbed through layers of fabric straps (kinda like webs) inside this very tall structure, and then slid down a slide.  Out of all the kids there, Lainey, Dylan (prosthetic leg) and their friend Anna (born with spina bifida) were the only ones to make it to the top…several times!  So impressed with their “never give up” attitude!  (that’s Dylan at the top in the pic)

The cupcakes were Batman theme (the kids choice), so this was just right for the party :)

Marley joined in the fun, too!

Make a wish!

Batman mask…loved it!

Thanking her friends for her presents…

Everyone agreed, it was a fabulous place to “party” for your birthday!

Approximately two weeks later…the trips finally found a date where they WEREN’T busy, and we had their birthday party.

They started the evening with a neighborhood scavenger hunt…oddly enough, no pics of that.  They were divided into 3 teams with about 6 kids on each (Marley, Payton, and Ethan as a captain on each).  We drove them to a near-by neighborhood with a list of things they had to either find and bring back OR take a picture of on their phone.  They experienced some very friendly neighbors (all three teams came back with a t-shirt) and some very unfriendly ones (a couple of doors slammed in their faces).  In the end, EJ’s team won.

Once back home, they scarfed down 6 pizzas (the kitchen looked like this, or worse, the whole night) and then it was time for the game Marley planned…

We put out sheets to cover the floor, paired everyone up guy/girl (a couple of girls paired up because several guys said “no way” to this game), and broke out the make-up and blindfolds.

Girls blindfolded, guys endure the agony…

This next part we’ll call…”the guys revenge”

After filling a trashcan full of make-up stained baby wipes, it was time for…Cake!  As usual, EJ wanted a cookies and cream ice cream cake, Marley wanted a vanilla with buttercream frosting (that her and her friends made that day), and Payton wanted a warm apple dessert.   They requested a “group” bday song this year :)

M’s cake close-up…tie dye!

Anyone up for charades?

It was around this time (midnight or so?) that I was fading fast…Randy always takes the “night shift” with these late nights, so I bid everyone goodnight.  The kids split up into two groups…one watched a movie, while the other went down to the Shop and had an impromptu dance party.  In the morning, I was up early(ish) and put out a quick breakfast for everyone cause most of us were due to be extras at a movie set at 10am.  :)

So, with July gone, the 5 birthdays are over and done with.  The next family birthday will be Jack, the top dog around here.  He’ll be 11 in September…or 77, however you wanna look at it.