Trying this again

Now that Labor Day is behind us, I thought I would jump back on the blog wagon. We have been so busy over the summer, that the blog had to go. I do enjoy reading everyone else's blogs though and always feel a twinge of guilt when I do not post.

Here's a little catch-up for everyone I don't talk to on a regular basis.

This past weekend, our good friends, Grant and Laura, came for a visit. They are Zach's Godparents. He had the time of his life. We went mini-golfing and played outside on Saturday. Sunday we went to Atlantic City and Ocean City for the day. We are exhausted. We left the beach at 11PM, both kids still awake. We spent most of the day yesterday, after the airport drop-offs, doing absolutely nothing! Waking up this morning was a bit difficult.

In Ocean City, New Jersey

with Grant and Laura

In Atlantic City at the indoor beach.

It was beautiful outside, but all the kids wanted to do

was visit the indoor beach, since we couldn't get a spot last time.

AC's beaches aren't the best anyway, so the indoor was a good compromise,
until we could make it down to Ocean City!

The Friday before school started, Zach went to his first concert. We saw the Jonas Brothers and Demi Lovato. We went with a friend of ours and her children. We had such a great time. I honestly think we may have been as excited as the kids. As we were leaving, we saw the Jonas Brothers leave in their buses. Zach was super-excited. Ryan was very sad that we went without him. Poor buddy. He cried and cried and kept taking his shoes to Jon and telling him to get in the car and see the "Jo Brothers". Jon redirected with the help of sidewalk chalk and plant watering outside. I believe a pizza bribe was also used.

Zach, Jack, Ellie and Ellie's friend Lauren at

the Jonas Brothers Concert.

The Jonas Brothers are down there. We had lawn seats,

and this is the best view I could get of them with my little digital camera.

I'm sure if I had my good Nikon Digital SLR, I could have gotten great photos.

Oh well!

Zach started first grade last week. I am having a lot of trouble digesting that I have a child in school all day. I really wish we could have him home for the half-day still. I do enjoy my time with Ryan though. He's growing so fast and the one-on-one time is a lot of fun.

Ready to leave for the first day of 1st grade!

Since I haven't blogged since November last year, here's the rest of the update in brief...

December: Christmas day we left for Puerto Rico to spend the holidays with Jon's family. We had a great time. Everyone should leave the cold for the tropics in the winter :) We spent New Year's Day on the beach. Enough said! :)

January: We got a fishtank. Hours of entertainment for our children and the cat. Hours of work for the parents. Looking back, probably not the best idea we had, but oh well. The kids love it. The cat was intrigued for months, but has now grown bored with it.

February: Snowmageddon invaded us. We literally had 60 inches of snow on the ground in a week. I think Zach may have gone to school 10 days in February. Seemed we would shovel and more would come. Ugh! I think it was payback for spending the holidays on a Caribbean island. HA!

I also turned 30 in February. I had a little trouble with the big 3-0, but realize now it is all good. Had another snowstorm on my birthday! Woo Hoo! :) The boys built me a Disney-themed snowman for my birthday with flip-flops, Mickey Mouse ears and Buzz Lightyear wings.

My mother also had a double-bypass in February. She is recovering well now, but it was extremely difficult to not be with her during her surgery. My siblings were there though, and that was comforting!

March: Zach began his service project in late February, but really went with it in March. For Lent, we decided as a family that we wanted to give back as a family. Zach took the lead on the project and made it his own. He chose to gather supplies for the Ronald McDonald House in Wilmington. He sent a letter out to all his family members and friends and asked for donations. We were so proud of him. We delivered the goods in April.

April: Easter came and went. We hosted our annual egg hunt for our friends at our house. We delivered our goods to the Ronald McDonald House. Zach even got a tour of the house. He was inspired to do more!

May: Zach turned 6! Wow! We have a 6 year old! We had a surfing/beach theme party. Zach loved it. It was supposed to have a Lilo and Stitch theme, but it is really hard to find Lilo and Stitch party supplies. We had about 25 kids in our house for the party. Thankfully it was warm outside and spent most of the time out there.

We also took a trip to Walt Disney World in May. We had such a great time. That will have to be a separate post. Jon and I love Disney World and everything about it. I love how you can get there, leave your car in the lot for the entire time and be absorbed into total family-fun with the kids. Seems like the world stops when you walk into the theme parks. It was so good for us to get away from everything and just spend time with the four of us. We had a self-imposed technology ban while we were there. Laura met us down there for a few days on Zach's birthday. It was so special for him to celebrate his birthday with Mickey!

With that said, Our first day in Disney we got the call that my mom's companion of 5 years, Angel, had passed away from a sudden heart attack. While we loved our time away, it was so hard to be away from family knowing what was going on back at home. I kept the news from the boys, since they were close with him. We thought about coming back to be with everyone, but Mom would have no such thing. So, we stayed, since we were already there. It wasn't easy to be away though and I had trouble focusing on the kids knowing how Mom was hurting. I was better the day after the funeral and enjoyed our last day in Disney, knowing that things were getting much better in Illinois.

We decided that we are going to try to take another trip to Disney in 2011 to try again. Its a good reminder that while we choose to go to this place were the world stops for us, the world outside still continues. We hope our next trip will be crisis free!

June: Zach finished Kindergarten mid-June and had an absolutely wonderful year. We had our last official act as youth group leaders for the sr. high youth at church and took the kids to Hershey Park. We had a ton of fun with our high-school kids. We will miss not doing youth group activities with them from now on. We will fill-in for a few more activities in the fall until the full-time director of youth is hired.

We left a few days after school was out to go to Illinois to spend time with the family. We spent about 3 weeks in Illinois. Jon was able to work virtually, which was a huge help. We went to see "Wicked" while we were in Illinois. "Wow," is all I can say! It was fantastic. We also did a day at the St. Louis Zoo and St. Louis Science Center. In addition to all our family, we also got to see Kate, Barth and Abbey while we were there. Everytime we leave Illinois, I always wish we lived closer. I wish the boys could spend more time with all their cousins and family and all our great friends.

July: We spent the 4th in Illinois and watched the fireworks from my dad's backyard. That was wonderful. Ryan was a little tainted by Disney though. He kept asking where the castle was! :) Fireworks always comes with a great view of Cinderella Castle, right?

My sister, Lori, came to visit during July. We had a great visit with her. She was here during our Vacation Bible School. This was the last year I volunteered as director of VBS. It was my 4th year directing. It was such a busy week, but all the campers had a great time! Its fun to run into kids from VBS around the community!

August: We had a bat in our house! We woke up at 4 AM on August 5th to a bat in Ryan's room. Another post about this in the future, but the short story...boys had to get rabies shots (a series of 4 shots in two weeks) because we didn't know if they got bit or not. Its all done now and they are healthy, even if they got bit. We'll never know if they did, but at least they are safe.

In August, we also went to a Drum Corps International festival at the local university. The boys loved watching the drum corps and cannot wait to be in one when they are older. Jon and I were very happy that they enjoyed their time. It was a great performance.

Now we are caught back up!