Trying out for the Police Academy

So I took Eli to the doctor the other day for his Kindergarten check up and he had to get 4 shots. Our doctor always gives them tokens that they can redeem in little machines. This is what Eli chose...

...need I say more?

Stories

So I found out at Gabe's Parent Teacher Conference that he is a good story writer. His teacher says he just writes and writes. He writes three stories to the other kids' one. Last week he came home with this one. I think it says it all:

My Grandma

By Gabe Noorda

My Grandma died July 26th at midnight and it was so sad. I loved her.

We slept over a lot. I mean a lot, a lot with my cousins.

She bought us a lot of things, too.

We went over every Sunday.

She would read us a lot of stories.

She got sick, very sick.

She would do anything for us and she was very nice.


I thought this story was so cute. It proves to me that my kids still know her and miss her as much as we do. I hope they never forget how much she loved them.

One year

So it has been a year since I started my blog. I am not good at blogging, or writing or posting or whatever you want to call it. This is definitely not my forte. However, I started because some very close relatives moved far away and I was kind of forced into it to keep them up to date (you know who you are). Also, my mother-in-law wanted me to so she could see pictures of the kids even though she saw them almost every day. So one year ago I gave in. A lot has changed as most of you know (everybody reading this blog knows). Nunny is no longer here to read the blog and look at the pictures. I started this for her and she isn't here anymore. It sucks! However, we finally got her headstone, it is beautiful. So for Jill and Keli who aren't here, here it is.

And to Nunny, we love you and miss you more than words can say. Who knew so much would change in this short year. One year ago today, Nunny thought we were buying a minivan and now we are posting about her headstone.

Few more pics...

The rest of the vacation was fabulous. Our next stop was in Grand Cayman. We went to stingray city and swam with the stingrays. We also did some snorkelling. I didn't like the stops we snorkelled but I got to hold a huge starfish. It was pretty cool. The stingrays were definitely my favorite but I don't have any pictures yet because I need to get them developed. We had one of the old fashioned, waterproof cameras. I will show those pictures at a later date.

Right on the side of the ocean was a little neighborhood with their own little canal. Along the canal live a whole bunch of huge Iguanas. It was crazy....they didn't even look real.

We also went to Hell! (Hell, Grand Cayman) It was a little town named Hell. We mailed postcards to the kids so they could get something from Hell. It was pretty dumb! I wouldn't recommend going to Hell....now or in the future.

Our last stop was in the Princess Cays, Bahamas. It was dumb and we were ready to be done. The best part of the day was when Troy sported his speedo. Thanks Jill...never thought I would ever see Troy in one of those. So...here, for all of you to see, Troy in his speedo (he is so embarassed but knew he would never live it down if he didn't dare do it).

He looks pretty good, doesn't he?

Last but not least, I had to put this in here for Lorin. The day before the Bahamas we had an at-sea day and Lorin fell asleep in the sun. He got so sunburned, look how fried he is. He had to walk around like Yosemite Sam because even his armpits were burned. Poor Guy!

Vacation is over, now it is time to get back to reality!

Thanks Jill, Aaron, Lorin, Jackie, Art, Amy, Nate, Stacey, Justin and Lisa for a great trip! See you next time...but not on a ship!

More from the cruise

First Stop....Jamaica

I absolutely loved Jamaica. The scenery was beautiful, the people were so nice and the beef pattys and Jerk Chicken were yummy! We had such a great time we hit Dunns River Falls and the Chukka Canopy Tour. Here are a few pics:

* All the girls in the falls. So fun!

*The whole group. All 12 of us with one guide to get us up the falls.

* Here is our guide. They call him Superman! He was, he got us all up there and he did it with no shoes on.

*On our way to the canopy tour we passed many houses that people live in. They don't have running water or windows. It was amazing.

* Here is Jill on the zip line. It was so beautiful!

* The beautiful walk back to our shuttle.

* Zip line....If you didn't know.

So thats Jamaicamon! Sorry, that was bad...I never claimed to be Jamaican and it shows!

Post-Vacation Post

So I have been reminded by many people that I need to post. So here I am. I have been a little busy getting ready for vacation, work stuff etc. Honestly, I need time to stop just so I can get caught up on everything. But, here I am back from a nice warm vacation sitting in my filthy house wanting to be back on vacation.

Pre Cruise

A little about our vacation. We had such a great time. We started out in Ft. Lauderdale Florida. We flew in at midnight so I reserved a hotel close to the airport so the taxi ride wouldn't be a fortune. We showed up and it was a dive. I was affraid to walk around the room without shoes on and I thought someone was going to rob us so we double locked the room (dead-bolt and chain). Then the air-conditioner would kick on and the whole room would vibrate. It was sooooo loud! We had to lean our suitcases on the door (it helped with the vibration of the ac and so nobody could break in). Pretty sad. To say the least, we will never stay there again.

The next day, I was glad to get out of that hotel and get back to the airport to meet the rest of our group. Jill and Aaron, Lorin and Jackie and many others met us there. We were ready for some adventures and they were all tired after an all night flight.

Later that day we headed out to the everglades (if you read Jills blog you will just hear more of the same, blah!blah!blah!). We saw 5 or 6 alligators. And, did you know that alligators can go under water for up to 19 hours. That is what our guide told us! It's true I promise because everything he says is true. He even told us that there are 11 million people in Ft. Lauderdale that are out or work. See, I told you it is true. We had fun even if everything he said was FALSE!

*Did I tell you the boat was really loud. We had to wear ear plugs. What! It was nice to wear the ear plugs so we didn't have to listen to the lies from Chuck the tour guide.

* Here I am holding a baby alligator. I loved it and Troy wouldn't touch it. Maybe he was scared!

Saturday morning before boarding the ship we drove to Miami. We had no idea where we were going but just wanted to find a beach. We found one. It was loaded with jelly fish that Jackie was playing with and naked ladies. This time we weren't even looking for the naked people, they were just there staring at us with their big, giant, sagging, tan headlights. It was nasty!

* Here we are in Miami, it was a beautiful beach with cute life guard shacks....

* And a lot of people.

**Zoom in if you would like to see the nasties.

* Or you could just look at Jackie giving her impression of the nasties.

So, that is the beginning or our vacation. I will post more later, and I promise it won't take me a month to do so.

Fire! We're on fire!

So we are slowly finishing our basement and we had our guys down there yesterday doing some framing. I was upstairs with the kids, and yes they are still off-track. I was playing a game of Life with Madison, Eli was helping me. He is such great help.

We have a very, I mean very, sensitive smoke alarm way up in our vaulted ceiling. Anytime I burn something just a little bit the smoke goes up in the vault and sets the alarm off and then you can't get the alarm to shut off until you get the smoke cleared out.

Well, yesterday during our game of Life....the alarm goes off. It didn't scare me because I knew it was probably some dust or something from down stairs. No big deal, I went over to where the alarm is and started fanning a paper to try to get the air to move around. At this point, the kids are nervous. They are all standing right under my feet (moms, you know what I mean)! As I am fanning I notice flames down in our return air vent. You know, those big vents by the floor. There were flames shooting up in there. So I ran down stairs and yelled, "Fire, We're on fire!"

As I got down there, I realized one of the guys was grinding on a piece of steel right under the return air vent. No, it wasn't fire but only sparks. Tyson ran upstairs to make sure everything was okay. Sure enough, no flames just sparks.

The alarm was still going full blast so the guys grabbed some big mats and started waving them around. We opened all the doors and finally the alarm went off.

Thanks Tyson, I'm an idiot! You can make fun of me if you want but it really looked like flames.

Madison was so funny too. When I ran down stairs I told all the kids to go outside and of course they followed me. Madison started screaming because she was so scared. The first thing she did was turn off her hearing aids, smart girl that'll at least save her ears from the alarm!