Olivia's Sleepover

 I can't believe that Olivia is turning 10 this year! Double digits!  Since "10" is a big birthday, we decided to let her have a party.  I asked her what type of party she wanted, and she answered "sleepover" without any hesitation.  We ended up hosting nine of her friends for a night of fun and celebration.  The girls rode bikes, danced, played Pie Face, did make-overs (using up every ounce of my make-up), and stayed up all. night. long. It was a loooong night, but as far as I can tell everyone had a good time.  In case your wondering Brian and Owen got out of Dodge.  They went to the movies and spent the night at a hotel.

Grandparents Lunch

 One of the kids' favorite school days is the day of the grandparents' lunch at school.  Since Olivia's and Owen's designated lunches were not on the same day of the week, their grandparents had to make a special effort to be present on two different days.  The kids are so lucky to have such loving grandparents.  Here are some pictures from this event.

Return to Ichetucknee

The kids and I made a return trip to tube on the Ichetucknee River over the Labor Day weekend. We went with the Murrays, and had a grand time.  Last year when we went, we began at the Midpoint Launch and tubed the last half of the river.  This year we began the North Launch and floated all the way til the last take-out point.  This is the first time that any of us had ever done the northern section of the river.  They cap the number of people who can go down the northern portion each day, so it was a quieter, less crowded stretch of river.  The total distance that we tubed was a little over three miles, and it took us about three hours to do.  We all had rafts or tubes, but we were in-and-out of them.  The kids liked snorkeling and swimming in the chilly water as much as they liked the tubing.  Even Julianna got out of the raft and swam in the river.  It was a full day, but lots of fun.

Summer Running

 I participated in three runs during the month of August.  I am still not running at the rate that I once was, but I am hanging on.  The first run that I did was a local 5k.  I finished in 29.43, which kind of surprised me because this is a lot faster than I thought it would be. This race was a morning run, and that same afternoon I went with Quincy and Chase to Jacksonville to complete the Jaguars Stadium Challenge 5k.  This was a really good race that takes runners all around and up-and-down Everbank Field.  You end up running through the Prowl (where the football team enters), around the field, and finish on the 50 yard line.  They also put your face up on the jumbo tron, so that was neat.  I finished in 34.04.

The final race that I completed in August was the Heels and Wheels Duathlon.  I have done the triathlon for the past three years, but I decided to go back to the Du this year because I'm a terrible swimmer and frankly I'm scared of catching a brain-eating amoeba in the lake.  There were only two in my division, so I got the second place trophy by default.  My time was 1.45.15.

Hopefully I'll be able to stick with a running program this year and my times will improve as the weather gets cooler.

Third and Fourth Graders

Another school year is upon us.  Although we love the summer, we were all excited to start back to school.  About a week before school began, I took the kids shopping to pick out a few new clothing items.  Olivia enjoyed shopping.  She tried on a lot of clothes and ended up with several new outfits.   She chose a new white dress to wear on the first day of school.  Owen did not enjoy shopping. He tried on nothing and ended up getting only one shirt.  It was like pulling teeth to get him to pick out that one thing.  Still, we paired the new shirt with some shorts that he already had and he looked great on the first day.  

When the morning of the first day came, the kids got up and got dressed pretty quickly. Brian had taken the day off so he was able to drive them to school.  Both kids reported that they had a great first day.  They like their teachers, and they both have a lot of their friends in their classes.  This is going to be a great year!

Jekyll on a Bike

The weather this past Saturday was overcast and not nearly as hot as usual.  We decided that this would be a great day to go bicycling on Jekyll Island.  Jekyll has a really good system of bike paths. Every time that I have been on the island in the past, I have thought to myself that I would like to come one day and bike around the island. We arrived around lunch, grabbed a quick bite to eat at DQ, and then proceeded to a bike rental place.  There are about 25 miles of trails, so looking at the map was a bit overwhelming.  We decided to bike down the beach side of the island to Driftwood Beach and then go back up the marsh side of the island to the Historic District.  Brian and the kids were also hunting Pokemon as we went, so we had to stop a couple to time to catch the Pokemon.  We made it to Driftwood Beach and took a break so that the kids could climb on the fallen trees.  We then began up the trails on the marsh side.  We all thought that the trails on this side of the island were better.  We didn't make it all the way to the Historic District, though, because a storm cloud was rolling in and we didn't want to be stuck out in the rain.  We ended up taking a road that cut across the island and made it back to the bike rental place before the bad part of the storm hit.  It was getting a bit dicey at the end- we just did beat the storm.  All in all, we were out for about two-and-a-half hours and we would have kept going were it not for the weather.  We all had a great time and I'm sure that a return trip will be in our future.

Apollo 13

 I don't know how they did it, but somehow our neighboring county- which is just as rural and middle-of-nowhere as we are-  got Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise (Bill Paxton played him in the movie) to come and speak to members of the community.  This was a free event.  I was unable to go due to open house, but my dad went and he took the kids.  I think it's neat just to meet someone who has been in space, but meeting a crew member from that fateful mission is super-cool in my book.  Mr. Haise showed a short video, talked to the crowd about his experiences with the space program, answered questions from the audience, and signed autographs for those in attendance.  The kids don't know much about the space program, but they still found it interesting.  I'm so glad that they were able to go.