See you at the pole

Today was see you at the pole.  I always love going and seeing the kids come together to show their love for the Lord.  In past years it has been mostly adults praying.  Last year no kids prayed.  😔 It started out the same with adults praying  and the kids were being shy.  I was super proud when Caden said he would pray.  He prayed for the kids, teachers, and staff.  It was super sweet.  And that was all it took to give other kids the courage to pray too.  After that several more stepped up also.  I let him know I was extremely proud of him for being a leader.     I wish I had gotten a picture but I forgot!  I just wanted to make sure I put this one in the memorie books!    

Sweet treat

Saturday Jimmy and Caden went shooting so I was looking for something fun to do with Paige.  We decided to try a local snow cone place with some outrageous treats.  We invited Amy and the boys for a little extra fun.  Paige got the Cookie Monster.  It was huge and she barely made a dent in it. 

Amy got something called Happy birthday.  Strawberry lemonade, sour candy, fruit and cotton candy combined to make this crazy thing.

I have started with my trainer again so I was good and got a natural snow cone. Lime and snow cone ice.  Ironically I think mine ended up being everyone's favorite! 

It was a fun place for a special treat.  Definitely not somewhere you go all the time but we had fun!

Happy Birthday Caden!

I feel like I just did this same post yesterday, but  here we are again and Caden is 11!  He is growing up so fast.  I can definitely see him entering the preteen years.  He continues to be the sweetest young man with a heart of gold.  We started the morning by letting him open his gift from us.  He has found a love of skeet shooting with his dad so we got him his first shotgun.  He was so happy.  I asked him if he had tears in his eyes.  He said if he did they were tears of joy.  Lol

After church we met family at Caden's new favorite place.  Bubbas 33.  While the food was great we were there for three hours.  They gave our tables away and after that it was downhill.  Even though it was crazy Caden loved every minute of it and had a great time.  It was nice to get everyone together.  In a few weeks I told Caden he could ask a couple of boys spend the night as part of his birthday celebration.  We are so proud of our boy.  We love you Caden!

Back to school! (For all of us)

Well, we made it thru our first week of school.  We had a little bit of a rough start but it ended up ok.  The kids went to Jimmy's dad's house the week before and they both had a severe allergic reaction to something.  Paige had an ear infection and Caden had a terrible rash head to toe.  They were both on steroids and Benadryl for a week.  We will be taking Caden to get allergy tested very soon.  His reaction was very bad and we need to figure out what it was.  Between that and just getting back into a routine they had a bumpy start.  Thankfully by the end of the week everyone was happy and seem to be settling into the new school year.  It is nice to have friends at their school who will send me pictures of them during their day.😀

Caden really was happy he is just too cool for pictures.  Ha!

I have been at my new job for a few weeks now.  Oh my it has been overwhelming.  Lol. My training has not gone according to plan due to several issues so I have been flying solo.  I don't think I have slept very much and my sister and mom have been my saving grace the last coupe of weeks.  I might have lost it a couple of times.  😜. Thankfully I really like the people I am working with.  I am confident that once I learn the job I am going to love it.  It feels good to be around people again.

Obviously I am back to blogging and I  am sure I will have so much to blog about very soon!

Blogging Blues

I realized today I have not blogged since April.  And that was to blog about our spring break vacation in March!  I have to admit I have had the blogging blues.  I have had plenty to write about but every time I tried to start a post my heart just wasn't in it.  Looking back over the past nine months or so I could pick from numerous reasons why.  It has been a challenging and emotionally draining time.  My faith in just about everything I hold close to me has been tested. Have you ever seen War Room?  There is a scene where the main character tells satan to leave her house.  I can tell you that I have had to tell satan to back off more than once the last few months.  Lol. Have  all the problems gone away?  No.  Are there more hard times ahead?  Yes.  But my God is faithful and I have seen him work in so many ways.  Mainly on my heart.  

I said all that to say I am not done blogging.  I am going to give myself the summer off.  Mainly because after this Friday I will actually have the summer off! I recently took a job at the junior high next to our house.  I will be their new bookkeeper and office clerk.  I am super excited.  I have loved working from home but at times I have felt chained to the house and lonely when the kids are in school.  This will put me back in a world with adult interaction and best of all when the kids are out of school I will be off of work.  I could work thru the summer but Jimmy and I decided I could use some time off to refocus.  I am a little nervous about the change but I am so thankful for the opportunity.  I  will be back to blogging in the fall with lots to write about!

Spring Break 2016 Part 2

The next four days we spent at Dinsey World.  We stayed at the art of animation this time.  It was very nice and the kids loved looking at all the drawings.  I am a nerd and took pictures of our hotel room.  You can tell we don't go many places.  Lol. I think staying in the hotel was one of the highlights of the trip for the kids.  Ha!

Magic Kindom was our first stop.  Last time we went they didn't have the magic bands and we did not have to schedule our fast passes ahead of time.  I was not totally happy with the way they work now but we managed.  We didn't have a fast pass for the 7 Dwarfs Mine Train so that is were we went first.  I was so sad last time we went and we realized the Snow White ride was closed.  It was one of my favorites.  So I was exited to ride the new one.  It did not disappoint and we all enjoyed it.  They even had interactive things to do along the line.  It was great. 

The next three days were a blur.  We spent a day at each of the parks.  Epcot, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kindgom. We made lots of memories and it was a great trip.  What a change just a few years make.  Caden and Paige were riding rides together instead of with us.  Lol. The first trip I remember all the trinkets, toys and snacks had their attention.  This time they were focused on what they wanted to do.  I was surprised at how much they remembered from our last trip.  They had strong opinions on what they wanted to do this time.  It's A Small World did not make the rotation this time much to my dismay.  Lol.  Time was precious and I was out voted.  We can't wait to go back but it might be a few years.  We are thinking we want to do a different type of trip like a visit to Mt. Rushmore.   We shall see!

Spring Break 2016 Part 1

Friday we headed out to Orlando for spring break.  We stopped in Mississippi the first night and ate at a wonderful pizza place.  Tony's Pizzaria.  I read good reviews about it and it did not disappoint.  Jimmy ordered the gumbo pizza.  We had our doubts but it was wonderful.  Instead of a red sauce it had a rue topped with cheese and everything you would find in gumbo. Shrimp, chicken, sausage, and much more.  It was amazing!  It was a great start to our trip.

Our first two days were spent at universal Studios.  Caden is really into big rides and this time since Paige was older we decided to give it a try.  We had never been there so we were not sure what to expect.  

We prepared by watching a few of the Harry Potter movies.  Caden started reading the books but stopped.  That is a post for another day.  Lol. We knew ahead of time we would do all the touristy Harry Potter things.  The kids bought interactive wands that could do "magic" all over Harry Potter world.  They were pretty neat.  And of course we had butter beer.  I am not a big fan but Caden loves root beer so it was his favorite.  I did try the butter beer ice cream and it was so good!  The rides were very detailed and fun.  They really did a good job of making the movie come to life.  I will say we had a giggle at some of the people walking around.  I guess it is the equivalent of what a Star Wars convention would look like.  Which is fine if that is your thing.  We liked the novelty of it but at one point even Caded asked if the people walking around thought they were really wizards.  Ha!  Both the kids thought the people around us were taking it a little too serious.  Lol. 

There were different sections to the park. Simpson land was our next stop where Paige found a giant pink donut.  Caden also had a flaming Moe.  An orange drink with dry ice in it to make it smoke.  They were both good.  Jimmy and I both watched the Simpson's as kids so we got all the details of that part of the park. 

Unfortunately since the kids have never seen the show they did not really get it and the Simpson ride was our least favorite.  I am still trying to figure out how they thought it was a good idea to make a kids show based on a rude kid who's dad drinks constantly.  Ha!

The rest of the park was great.  Most of the rides are 4d type rides that are so realistic it feels like you are on an actual roller coaster.  Spider man, Transformers, and The Minions were our favorites.  We rode all of them several times.  Caden was able to get his thrills on rides like Rip Tide and the double dragon.  The bigger and more loops the better for him.  I was a little glad Paige was just a couple of inches short of being able to ride them.  But she was able to ride the other roller coasters and loved them.  I did do a little research ahead of time and knew that their water rides got you totally soaked.  We brought ponchos in case it rained but opted instead to wear them on those rides.  Good thing we did.  One poor girl was in jeans and a sweat shirt.  Let's just say she was not happy when she got off the ride.  They had dryers set up after the rides but they did not look like they were helping people much.  We even brought our flip flops when we saw people ringing  out their socks and shoes the day before.  I wish I had pictures of it but we had to put all our belongings into lockers for those rides.  

We stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel right by the park which was great.  There was a trail that we were able to take directly to the park.  We were also able to take a boat ride when we were tired.  And since we stayed on that property we were able to get express passes.  It works similar to the fast pass at Disney.  There were only two Harry Potter rides that you could not use them on so basically we bypassed the lines all day long.  It was great! They also have a City Walk that is similar to downtown Disney.  We ate there the second night.  Overall we loved Universal studios.  I am glad we waited until the kids were older though. Some of the rides get pretty intense.  But we will be going back for sure!