Beautiful Sarasota, Florida

Rick had a friend from Optometry School in town for the week so we decided to take him down to check out the Tampa area for the weekend- talk about beautiful! I've been to my share of beaches around North America, and I've never seen water and sand this color before! Our camera broke on the way down so we weren't able to take any pictures though. We had a great time relaxing on the beach, taking a boat ride around the islands and checking out the aquarium. We had been itchin' for some sun and beach time after our "winter" here, so it was fun to get away, even though we all came back a little on the pink side - Ryan is more like a shade of red, ouch!
At the aquarium we were at the viewing area of the shark and stingray tank watching as they swam around. I noticed the largest of the stingrays, who was bigger than Ashlyn, swimming towards us and quickly pointed it out to the kids to watch. It began to swim faster and faster right towards us without slowing down and just before it hit the wall it jumped out of the water and "flapped its wings" at us splashing us with the water. Needless to say we all screamed and jumped back, which caused the workers to get a good laugh at our expense. They said that for some reason that stingray does it from time to time, they aren't sure why. But what was funnier was when we were down at the viewing area below and watched the same stingray start to pick up speed and do the same thing to another group of observers. We saw it comin' and just waited for the scream, sure enough...we laughed pretty hard!

Grouchy In the Name of Science

Tonight was a full lunar eclipse - if you didn't see it ya' sure missed out! Blake and I had been talking about it the last few days and his teacher talked about it at school today. Soooooo of course our very O.C.D child obsessed about it ALL day long! It only happens every couple of years (the next one will be Dec. 2010) so since it was a good science lesson, we were nice and let him stay up to see it. We sat down and watched American Idol together and every 15 minutes paused it and ran outside to check the progress. Rick had the idea of taking pictures each time and e-mailing his teacher to share with the class tomorrow on the smart board. So if he's grouchy at school tomorrow because he's tired, Mrs. DeBarry only has herself to blame by talking it up so much at school today!

School's In Session

Blake had learned his lower and upper case ABC's a month before he turned 2 years old, not because we forced it, but because it was a game for him and he memorized things like crazy! So we decided to see if Ashlyn has the same ability. One of her favorite things to do is play on Starfall.com website. She repeats the letters along with the sounds and words as they say them and everything! So even if she doesn't learn the letters like Blake did, it's helping her develop her speech. Today Blake had the day off of school so he decided to sit down with her and help her play on the website - she obviously can't use the mouse yet, so she has to have help.

"What's for dinner Mom?"

On Sundays we always eat a later lunch after church, so we're rarely hungry for dinner. At about 7 o'clock when Blake was finally starting to get hungry he asked this ever-popular question when I responded with, "I don't know, what are ya' cookin'?" Not thinking I was serious, he got excited and asked if he could "cook" tonight. "Oops, you weren't suppose to see me lick the knife!"
Ashlyn got tired of waiting for Blake so she helped herself to a piece of sandwich cheese out of the refrigerator while she waited - yummy!
Here's the finished product.....pb&j with bbq chips and yep - those are grapes! He picked the menu himself - he discovered the other day when he gave grapes a try that he actually likes them! And what a nice big brother - he took the crust off of Ashlyn's sandwich and broke it into pieces, just like she likes! Not too shabby for a 5 3/4 year old chef, eh?

"Go to Sleep!"

Blake had his friend Myles over last night for his first sleep over! So of course we had a night filled with race cars, Playstation Cars video game and a basketball shoot out. The boys decided to campout on Blake's floor and didn't fall asleep until almost 10:30 - it's a good thing they didn't have school this morning!

Happy 32nd Birthday!

Today was Rick's birthday which we celebrated by going to Outback for dinner and came home for a cookie-cake and some Girl Scout icecream. Yesterday Blake was talking about how old Dad was going to be today and how that was really old. Then he proceeded to ask how old Rick's siblings were. Everything was fine until it got to Aunt Kristen -who will turn 39 the end of this year. Blake got really sad all of a sudden when I told him this. When asked why, he said "That's really old mom and that means she's going to die pretty soon, huh? I don't want Aunt Kristen to die!" So of course we had to call Kristen and give her our condolunces about her life coming to end in the near future!

A Day of Firsts

Ashlyn got her nails painted for the first time! The last few times I've done my nails she's bugged to have hers done too, but there's no way that she'd sit long enough for them to dry. So I decided to let her try having her toenails done instead - she sat still long enough believe it or not! She's so cute walking around the house with them!
Blake scored his first basket in a game last night! He's made quite a few during practice, but none during a game....until the 1st quarter of last night's game that is! He was HILARIOUS when it went in! He was jumpin' up and down all over the court with his hands up in the air, hootin' and hollerin' for himself with the biggest smile on his face!

An Afternoon on the Beach

We decided to head down to play on the beach in Florida for the day - we finally had a Saturday that it wasn't raining! We had to put on sweatshirts once we got there since there was a breeze but it was better than any day at the beach you could ever hope for when we lived in OregonThe boys practiced Blake's pitching for baseball that starts up next month. Blake's really doing well, he's got some strength behind it and is accurate most of the time.
Relazing in the warm sun with Dad.
Ashlyn discovered the sea foam today and had a cute little dance she would do until she had them all stomped out.
While dancing and not paying attention a wave snuck up on Ashlyn and plowed her over - brrrrr! Luckily we had brought extra clothes, but needless to say since it was so cold we had to pack up and head home.