First Day of School

August is here again and with that we begin a new school year and for us a couple of 'lasts'. This year Samuel begins his 5th grade year which will be his last year of elementary school and John Michael begins Pre-K which is his last year of preschool. Both boys were excited to get started with this new chapter of their lives.

Samuel with his brother on the first day of 5th grade - August 10th

John Michael on his first day of Pre-K - August 8th.

Samuel loves his teacher, Mrs. Weeks, and we are so excited to have her. We have heard great things and are looking forward to a great year. John Michael got Mrs. Jackie and I can't even begin to describe how excited I was when I heard this. She is awesome and he adores her! It's going to be an awesome year for both of our boys and I can't wait to see how they learn and grow this year. We spent the final day of summer vacation at the lake swimming and tubing.

The first few weeks of school have been great. We have enjoyed getting back in a routine. Samuel is playing flag football and his baseball team played and WON a tournament a couple of weekends ago. We made a trip to Kentucky last weekend for Labor Day and had a fabulous time catching up with some wonderful friends. We had a final summer hoo-rah at Holiday World/Splashin Safari in Santa Clause, Indiana and went Apple-picken at Reids Orchard on a nice windy, cool, Fall-like day. More on that later.

"Keep in your heart the wonders of the seashore"

"The Last Song" House on Tybee Island

Beach 2011

After a crazy 3 days at Disney - a fast & furious 3 days from beginning to bitter end- we were all ready for some R&R. Let me mention here that the Disney part of this summer vacation was very last minute. We had planned our beach trip well in advance and while driving home from our last baseball tournament, about 3 weeks before our beach vacation, Joseph asked if I knew that HHI was only about a 4 1/2 hour trip north of Orlando. No... I didn't realize that. So the wheels were turning! Since Samuel had been claiming to be the only kid in his entire 4th grade class who had not been to Disney World for an entire year, we were seriously contemplating adding a quick Disney detour to our vacation. I made a couple of calls and learned that a friend from our church is now working for a travel agency specializing in Disney vacations. I gave her the dates, told her what we had in mind, and she put the entire package together for us even down to the stroller delivery to our resort. Perfect! So we surprised the boys with the news! Now... lets get to the beach part of this trip... After leaving Disney on Tuesday morning we drove to Daytona Beach where you can drive your car right out on the beach. We spent the morning there playing in the water and sand then loaded up to find some lunch and head up the coast. I loved the beautiful scenic drive through all of the little sea-side towns finally arriving at St. Augustine. We explored around here for a while then headed north again non-stop to Hilton Head Island. That night we took the boys out crabbing and fishing and got settled in for the rest of the week. The following day we decided to explore some of the Low Country... Savannah GA, Beaufort SC, and Tybee Island. We wandered around some of these little towns, had lunch at a little bayside cafe where the boys loved watching the boats come in and out. From there we headed to Tybee Island where we found the house where "The Last Song" was filmed. Finally, we had dinner at Uncle Bubba's - a Paula Deen restaurant. Loved the food here - I had the shrimp & grits and Joseph had the Low-Country Boil which we tried to re-create once we were back home (and did a pretty good job with). The follwoing days were nothing more than beach-filled days which I absolutely love, love, love! We were all perfectly content to spend hours in the sun and water, playing and exploring. Samuel & John Michael loved riding the surf on their boogie-boards and became quite skilled by the end of the week. They built one sand castle after another, buried each other from head to toe, and tried to dig a hole to the other end of the earth. One of our favorite things about HHI is renting bikes and this being our mode of transportation around the island. The boys absolutely love riding on the beach! We spent hours playing in the sun, reading, running, and laughing. We enjoy the beach so much that we avoid going in and 'getting ready' to go to dinner every night. So some nights we cooked at the condo... steamed shrimp linguini, grilled steaks and bacon wrapped scallops... Pretty good stuff! Every night we rode the bikes down to get ice-cream and go crabbing or fishing. Needless to say... the boys, and the parents, were exhaused every night of this trip but we have so many good memories that we are already reflecting on. After about ten days on the road we headed home and we all agreed that it had been a wonderful trip but it was time. It made my heart smile that the boys wanted to get back to their home... even with all of the good times we had shared on the road.. they were ready to go home. That, my friend, is a good thing!

Downtown Disney

The T-Rex Cafe - A great place for Boys!

A late night ferry ride back to resort from Downtown Disney All Smiles with his 'ears' Woody was one of our Lego Favorites at Lego Land Buzz was another Lego favorite

Approaching Downtown Disney from the Ferry

See posts below for more Disney memories!

Port Orleans Riverside - Disney 2011

We checked in and hit the ground running! We stayed at Port Orleans Riverside and were very pleased. We chose this resort because we loved the idea of the 'Tom Sawyer-like adventure' complete with Ol' Man Island (pool and playground area) and its very own Fishin'Hole. We loved the quaint New Orleans style atmosphere, the pools & water slide, the fishin' hole, the restaurants, the marina, and loved having the ferry to Downtown Disney right outside our front door. Let me back up and say that the night we left home John Michael had a ruptured eardrum. After about a two hour delay seeing a doctor and getting antibiotics and ear drops we left Tuscaloosa and drove all night to Orlando. Joseph and I have always traveled this way and it works for us. So... we arrived, checked in, grabbed our swim suits, and hit the pool and waterslide. The challenge was that John Michael could not go under water... he could swim and splash but not go under the water for two days. So... every time he went down the slide we had to be there to catch him. Let me just say this was the biggest challenge of the entire trip. The boy is a fearless fish! But it worked out and we managed to keep him above water (for the most part). After a few hours of swimming and checking out the resort we hopped on the Ferry, which was literally a few steps from our room, and headed to Downtown Disney. The boys loved LegoLand and we had dinner at the TRex Cafe... very similar to the Rainforest Cafe but with dinosaurs. Perfect for our boys and they loved it! Every few minutes a meteor shower occurs and the dinosaurs come to life. The food was pretty good but the smiles on our boys faces were priceless. We took the ferry back to our resort and crashed to get ready for a big day at Magic Kingdom. See posts below!