Picture of the Week - 5/31/2018

This week - pictures of all my boys!

The picture of Quinn is from last Thursday night while he was all dressed up for 8th grade honors night.  He won an award for highest GPA in math.  :)  The next day he finished 8th grade - and middle school - and is now officially a Freshman in high school.  Goodness...  

The little boys got their hair cut last week and this silly picture of them is just after seeing the barber.  Shortly after this I gave Zane a buzz cut to get rid of the rest of the nits from the Great Lice Incident of 2018.  Happy to report that both boys are clean and free of unwanted "friends".  

And Spencer's picture is from the national wrestling tournament he went to in Virginia Beach last weekend.  (He's the one in the black shoes if you can't tell.)  He ran into some stiff competition - which we expected - but learned a ton, gained more confidence (which comes with experience) and came home ready to get into summer wrestling season.

Love my handsome boys!

This week the little boys are doing a camp at Forsyth County Parks & Rec.  Spencer and Quinn have kicked off summer conditioning.  Spencer is doing football and wrestling - most days he has both - and Quinn is doing wrestling and lacrosse.  It's pretty funny because Spencer's all obsessed with his "job" for the summer - which is to work out, get stronger, get ready...  and Quinn is just sore!  I'm proud of both of them for putting in the work this summer!

This weekend Quinn goes to a lacrosse tournament and Spencer is doing a Wrestling dual tournament.  (Get ready to hear that for the next 3 weekends in a row...)  We finally look like we might be breaking out of the weird, wet weather pattern we've been stuck in too!  

Happy Summer!

Picture of the Week - 5/24/2018

Today is easily one of my favorite days of the entire year.  Not only is it our anniversary (which would be reason enough to celebrate alone), but it's also CHALK full of great memories.

We have had vacations, award ceremonies, picked up puppies, celebrated milestones, attended other weddings, and generally just enjoyed May 24th SO many times over the last 21 years.  It's a great day.  I hope you are all doing something fun today to celebrate 5/24/2018!

BTW - Bob and I are celebrating 21 years married today.  We're quite proud of that and can't wait, honestly - not just saying this as is customary, wait to celebrate another 21 years - or so.  I highly recommend marrying your best friend.  Makes for a pretty fabulous life.

Last night we let the boys play hooky from jiu jitsu and went to dinner.  It was SO nice.  We so rarely get to eat together as a family of 6 - and even more rarely do it while relaxed and in good spirits.  The conversations were great.  Pleasant.  Then we had ice cream and sat outside and just enjoyed a rare, relaxed, May Wednesday night.  The boys even let me take their picture :)

Today is a BIG day for the boys too!  Quinn's 8th grade picnic is today.  Then tonight is the 8th grade honors night - which he got an official invitation to attend.  Kinda cool - and can't wait to see what he won!  

Today is also the first day of the first sleep-away camp for Zane and Beck.  It's a mini-camp at Woodlands (same place Spencer and Quinn attended).  I think I may be more excited for them than they are - but only because they have no idea how much fun they are going to have!!!

Tomorrow Bob and Spencer will fly off to Virginia Beach for a weekend of wrestling tournament.  I pick up the little guys on Saturday morning (with my mom!) and then we will probably hide in the house the rest of the day because of the weird tropical plume of moisture that's been stuck over Georgia for the last 2 weeks.  It's going to be quite rainy this weekend.  Probably a good time to do some MBA paper writing!

Next week we start the crazy and chaotic summer routine.  It mostly involves shuffling the big boys back and forth to the high school for sports practice of some sort and shuffling the little boys to a wide variety of camps.

Have a really great May 24th!  I know we will!!!

Picture of the Week - 5/18/2018

I laid down in bed last night and suddenly remembered that I had never done the POTW.  That's pretty much the way the month of May goes in general.  I like May.  There are always lots of fun reasons to celebrate.  End of season parties and performances and award ceremonies and end-of-year events.  It's a transition time between spring sports and summer sports for us - so schedules are wacky.  There are projects to complete and last minute cramming (at least for the big boys).  There are always expectations (from teachers and kids) to squeeze activities and "stuff" into the work day.  And of course the paid job has an expectation that we are, you know, actually working.  It's busy and random and pretty chaotic.  

So it's easy to forget stuff...

This week is pretty typical May.  Add in the catch-up from being gone and it's been a long week...  

Zane and Beck got sent home from school on Tuesday with head lice.  *shudder*  So we've been dealing with that all week.  Daily checks with the nurse...  many hours of Nit Picking - literally...  pretty gross, TBH, but I think we are about over it.  We have one more treatment to do and I promised both the boys and the school nurse that we would spend time every day looking for nits.  They are HARD to see.  Particularly hard in sandy blonde heads...  There's never a good time for lice, but getting them in May is kind of like double-bad.  

Wednesday night was Spencer's lacrosse banquet.  He won the "Wolverine of the Year" award for the JV team.  This is one of those "big/special" awards that the coaches pick.  They give out best attack/middie/defense and MVP awards and this one.  It's meant to be given to the kid on the team who can always be counted on to uphold the ideal of the team.  I consider it a "quality of character" award and am really very proud that Spencer won it.  He's a good kid.  :)

Tonight Quinn goes to the 8th grade formal.  It's kind of a right of passage in the transition from middle school to high school.  He's ready and excited to go.  He's going with some friends - so it should be a low key fun night for him!  

This weekend Spencer goes to the high school athletic awards ceremony.  They will be recognizing a number of things - including multi-sport athletes.  Zane has a lacrosse tournament with his summer team.  

Next week is the last week of school.  The boys have 4 days left after today.  The little boys leave next Thursday for their first sleep away camp (more on that next week) and Spencer/Bob are heading to Virginia Beach for a wrestling tournament.  If you could see the high school practice schedule on our calendars through the summer, you'd think we were crazy.  We are crazy...  Spencer will do 2-a-days most every day through the weeks because he wants to do the wrestling workouts and the football workouts until after the 4th of July, when he will focus on football.  Quinn will be doing wrestling and lacrosse...  it will be a whole summer of driving back and forth to the high school in between meetings or on conference calls.  Yay...

I thought I'd share a picture of me and Bob this week because I never really do that - and I also don't really have any good pictures of the boys.  I really need to get better about that because they are all growing up fast right now!  

Have a great week!

Picture of the Week - 5/10/2018

This is the view after my last turn on my last walk back to the hotel on my last day in Edinburgh.  It was a good sight to see!  I'm so anxious to get home!

The boys have all had a good week.  It's the last week of lacrosse for the little guys - so they got to have fun during practice with some cool games and hanging out with their friends.  Sometimes it's good to let kids be kids.  I wish I could have seen them having such a good time! 

The high school football team has their spring game today.  Spencer won't be playing, unfortunately, because he's still recovering from an injury.  I'm pretty sure Bob is taking the boys to enjoy the evening anyway.  There will be a bounce house AND Kona Ice after all!

This weekend we have a lacrosse jamboree on Saturday, but Sunday is free.  And I can't wait to be home and hanging with my boys.  Just one night and a small hop across the Atlantic to go!

Have a great week! 

Picture of the Week - 5/3/2018

Sorry...  can't pull it together enough to put together a coherent email tonight.  I'll try again next week.