Senior Prom

Last night was Alex's Senior Prom.  It was held at the Easton Club which is a beautiful location right on the water.  Everyone looked amazing.  Afterwards, the kids went to the after prom party that was held at SSPP's gym.  The theme was Arabian Nights and from what I hear, the decorating was amazing.  The kids had a blast and were picked up at 3am and taken back to Amy's house which helped me tremendously because then I didn't need to worry about Alex driving home at that time of the morning.

 They always give away prizes at the after party and this year Alex won an Acer Icinia A500 tablet.  Cool prize!  :)

Here are some pictures of their evening...

Tooth Time and Fun

Today was our 6 month checkup at the dentist.  It was complicated by the fact that our big van is having problems and we had to take it to the shop this morning.  This meant that the older boys were relegated to the bus so that we could have the 2 remaining vehicles to take us the the appt.  Our mini van  does not fit the 8 people that needed to make the trip this morning.

Everyone did great at the appt...in and out in a little over an hour.  Keari likes getting her teeth brushed but does not like it when the dentist tries to look at them.  This is the second time she's refused to let him take a peak.  Maybe the third time will be the charm.

We then headed home to finish up school.

By mid afternoon we were headed to Tuckahoe State Park.  It's a beautiful place.  Has an awesome picnic area underneath giant pine trees.  A lovely lake to go canoeing /kayaking on and fishing in.   Nice trails for hiking and bike riding.  And it's also home to the tire monster.  ;)

Tire monster with most of his face covered up

Other items of attraction are...

Adam enjoying the swings

The girls driving us around  ;)

Trying out the rope swings

Ty jumping of the pile.  A lovely view of the lake can be seen in the background.

Since the park is very close to my parents house, we made a stop there before heading home.  This is what greeted us...

What is it with the snakes lately??

Rooted in Love

I didn't consciously put a t-shirt with this wording on it...

to prompt conversation.

But that's exactly what happened.

I was waiting for my daughter to get out of dance class, when a very nice gentleman that was doing that same thing, asked me where I had gotten my shirt. 

It was a shirt I had bought last summer when I chaperoned for my oldest sons mission team trip to Mingo County, West Virginia.  The gentleman proceeded to tell me how wonderful that was and that he was a youth minister that also went on mission trips...mostly to the New York area.  How wonderful that there are people out there that will share their time and love of Christ to help others. 

Amazing how a few simple words can spark conversation.

Saying on back of shirt

May

Wow!  How did it get to be May already.  You blink and 1/3 of the year is already gone.  That just can't be.

Kind of a blecky, dreary Saturday here.  Some of the kids did archery after mass today.  Bekah did really well for only being 6.  Connor headed to mini golf, Alex to work.  Rest of the kiddos hung out until time to go to youth group.  This was Tay and Ty's first time.  I'm gathering by their grins when I went to pick them up that they had a good time.

I enjoy listening to the homily our priest gave today.  He was talking about how the act of confession has changed over time.  It's a talk I've heard him give before but I love hearing the history behind the church.  Makes me thankful, at times, to live when I do.

Color of the month

is Blue.  Tyler had his exam today for his next belt level.  He moved from green stripe to blue.  He doesn't have anything new to learn for this belt...but he is required to show that he knows everything that he's learned so far before he can advance to blue stripe.  That's 7 belts worth of information and 10 months worth of time.  They do a good job of reviewing as they move thru the levels so I'm not expecting Ty to have any problems with this.

Start of exam

Showing off kicks

Ms Candice with Ty in a bear hug

Ty escaping out of bear hug.

Receiving new belt

Showing off new belt.

Work From Home

I really like the days that I'm able to work from, but probably not for the reason you may think.  It has nothing to do with not having to get up early...or even not having to fight the traffic.  It does have everything to do with these...

I love homemade waffles and I tend to eat them each morning that I am home.  We make up a big batch of waffle batter, or "juice" as the little ones like to call it, at the beginning of the week and we us it throughout the week.  They are delicious!

Today was a little cooler than it's been the last couple of days but still beautiful nonetheless.  We took a lunchtime walk with the normal throwing of pinecones.  On our route today we saw these...

Tent caterpillars

Keari loves to play with the caterpillars and is anxiously awaiting when they are big enough to come our of the cocoon and start climbing down the tree.  The greatly extends our walk time because it's hard to get her leave and we generally end up carrying one or two of the little critters with us for the remainder of the walk.

We also saw momma duck, although her brood seems to be rapidly declining.  Today just 3 baby ducklings were with her.

taking a break to make grass whistles

Even though they older boys are on spring break, they had an away baseball game to play today.  They were playing a Jewish team and the game was stopped at the end of the 6th inning because of the Jewish Sabbath.  They will resume the game Monday afternoon, play the last inning and then play another full game with this same team.  Right now we are down 1 run. 

Tomorrow is Ty's belt exam and Connor/Kenzie's Guild performance so a slightly busy day.  Somewhere in there I need to find time to fold the mountain of laundry.  I'm not quite sure what's happened but I think it's multiplied as it's come out of the dryer.

Crazy Weather

I'm not sure what is up with the weather lately but it sure hasn't been typical spring time weather around here.  Downright cold, lots of rain...our yard is so soggy it's like walking in a marsh...and numerous storms.  There were tornado warnings posted all around the area today.  I was on a conference call this morning when a lady on the phone caused us all to jump out of our seats when she yelped.  She was in a different area, was having a huge storm go thru and had such a huge crash of thunder that she thought her house had gotten hit.  Needless to say we got her off the phone pretty quick.

These are a couple of pics took of the storm that skirted around our area last night.  They aren't quite as impressive as they were irl.

Yes, that black blob in the water is the head of the snake

If you like snakes, tonight would have been the night to go for a walk with us.  We saw not one...but two...snakes.  Now, I don't care for snakes one bit so I was not thrilled with seeing two of them tonight.  But thankfully they were contained in the water so there wasn't much chance of them climbing up the rocks to get to me before I could run away.  ;)    Keari was telling me that as I was taking the photo of the second one that it stop and started slithering it's tongue out at me.  I'm so very glad I didn't see that!

So nice of him to stop and pose for  me

I'm so happy that at the end of our walk we saw these cute little guys.  :)

No guys....mom is this way....