Kid Stuff!!

Ok to start off~Allen has been playing soccer this year and his coach is really great! He coaches them like they are playing football (haha).  They have won all their games by a good bit, usually like 8 or 9 to nothing!. So they were in first place and last night was the championship game and they won!!! Yay, first place! This is the second year in a row Allen has been on the First place soccer team!

Taylor and Emma played soccer also, Taylor's team won 2nd place and she did really good also. I posted pictures in another blog so I won't post anymore. Emma's team, well we are just happy she got to play every Saturday ;)

Taylor has been doing excellent in school. Mrs. Battaglia is an awesome teacher and has made Taylor love going to school! Today they had young authors awards (not really an award banquet because all the kids got one). Mrs. Battaglia brought Taylor up first and explained to the parents what a great writer Taylor is, she explained that Taylor is what they expect the 2nd and 3rd grader to be writing at. She said Taylor is definitely the exception not the rule! I am one proud momma! Taylor writes all the time, and reads all the time. I guess she got this from her dad! Here are a few from her class today.

This is Taylor and her friend Chip (on the left), he is the sweetest little boy. One  of the stories Mrs. Battaglie read out of his book was his favorite day was the day he accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior, made me want to cry it was so sweet. Taylor needs to definitely keep in touch with this sweet young man!

And now for miss Emma, she has graduated VPK and she was so proud of herself! She is still going to school everyday until we move though. Here are a few pictures of her walking and some of her VPK classes on stage, I forgot my good lens so the pics aren't that great.

weekend fun!

Ok, since we only have one more weekend left here we have been trying to make the most of every weekend and do things we can only do in Tampa, or close by. So last weekend we went to theSalvadore Dali museum, the kids weren't too excited but once we got there they were impressed with the crazy pictures he is famous for. The museum has a scavenger hunt the kids can do to look for the pictures to make it a tad more fun!

Taylor was not in a very good picture taking mood, so she missed out on a couple! 

After we left the museum we drove over the Sunshine Skyway bridge, it was really cool, and a little scary!
That evening we went to the Pirates of the Carribean at the Imax and watched it in 3D, i love watching movies with the kids!

That Sunday we went to a Tampa Rays game, it was kids day and they got a cape for the outfielder, Sam Fuld who is supposed to be really good.  At the end of the game they got to run the bases and of course get their pics made with the Rays mascot!

We loved going to the game, it was so fun! If you ever get a chance to come to Tampa you have to go to a ball game here!

Monday is Memorial Day and Mike is headed to New York later in the day so instead of us being with all of our family and cooking out we went and bought BBQ and had lunch at home. Mike is only home on the weekends now because he is working in New York on a consulting job with JP Morgan Chase, it is a really awesome opportunity for him and he gets to live in a really nice place while he is there. He does get to come home every weekend and we are planning a few trips up this summer!

time to catch up~

Well-I finished my semester with UA, not too happy with my grades but atleast I passed! We have been staying really busy around here all the kids have done great in soccer! Allen's team is in first place, they play Tuesday for the championship game! Taylor's team came out in 2nd and I don't think anyone ever took score with Emma's team, haha.

 We drove to Alabama for a few days to visit with Granny because we were afraid we may not get to see her again if we didn't. I am so glad we did. Memaw, Tracy, Geoff, and Bailin came down with us for a little visit. We did a few cool things while they were here. 

Went to Parksdale Farms for a strawberry milkshake! This is the coolest little place, its a farmers market and has awesome strawberry shortcakes and other strawberry desserts, if you ever drive thru Plant City you HAVE to stop here!

Went to Circle B Bar Reserve, this was a pretty neat place. A huge lake to walk around with the gators everywhere! The best part was when we were leaving Mike, Allen and I spotted the cutest little armadillo he just walked around right in front of us!

We went to Busch Gardens, and Geoff Loved the roller coasters. Memaw decided it would be a good idea to stand under the coaster that gets everyone wet, with Bailin in the stroller, he did NOT think this was a good idea!

We also spent a few hours at the beach another day. Always have an awesome time there!

Bailin liked the beach, he ate the sand and played in the water a little bit. It was a tad bit cold so he didn't stay in for long.

We left Alabama on April 26th, the next day my state experienced so much devastation it breaks my heart! The place we lived and played for four years while Mike went to school at Alabama was demolished. Allen wanted to do something for the victims of the tornadoes so he asked if he could have a lemonade stand, so we had LemonAid for Bama! We had a pretty good turn out, we didn't have much advertisement and we are kindof in the middle of a neighborhood in Walden Lakes but the first customer was a girl from across the street who from the clothes I see them wear is a HUGE Gator fan and she gave a good bit of money for a cup of lemonade! The girls thought she was incredibly sweet! I am very proud of my sweet children, they stayed out in the hot sun and even took shifts to go eat lunch and give each other breaks (without an adult advising them on this).

whats been going on

We have been pretty busy the past few weeks, I have started back to school and I am taking four classes and that is a handful!!  Mike is in the busy season and works until about 7 or 8 and so we hardly see him during the week.  Taylor and Emma are registered to play soccer which will start in March and Allen is playing flag football, I really never wanted him to play this because I feel like he won't really learn how to play football but maybe I will be wrong and he might learn more because he won't be focused on the hitting part of it, and learn the basic techniques again. 

We have been doing some pretty cool things around here so I am going to put up some pictures to show what we have been doing.  These first set is Manatee Viewing Center it is a part of the Tampa Electric company.  They have a little inlet they keep warm for the manatees in the winter. We didnt really get to see any manatees up close because it was kindof warm outside anyway but we saw some sting rays and that was neat.  Allen went on a field trip a week later and it is a little bit cooler outside and he said they saw a lot of them and could see them really good!!

That was a pretty neat little place. 
Now, last weekend we went somewhere that was really cool, but a little too adult themed.  I guess I should have paid attention when one weekend was the kids Gasperilla festivities and the next was for the adults.  But, the news was talking about it so much I figured families would be going, I was somewhat wrong.  We got out of our car and I didn't see any children. We decided since we drove down we needed to see some pirates and we wouldn't stay very long.  We walked over to the Bay to see all the boats and the pirate ship that was shooting cannons, it was awesome!!

There were tons of boats around but I think there were hundreds of pirates on this ship and they all unboarded the ship right where we were standing.  The kids thought it was great!!

He was cool, you cant see it but the guy turned to the sides' face was painted like a skeleton.  They spotted the girls out of everyone waving and screaming for the beads and I think we ended up with about 15 lbs of beads!!

After we saw the ship and got our beads we decided it was time to go. 

This weekend is Taylor's birthday! She is 7 years old and she is the smarted little girl and such a sweetheart.  She is still dealing with her "issues" but she takes her meds every night like a big girl, she is so responsible about things, and really always has been.  So yesterday we gave them a choice, to either pick out a cool toy at the toy store or get season passes to Busch Gardens.  And when I say we I mean her and Allen because his birthday will be next week so we do there birthday stuff together.  Anyway-we gave them a choice and we figured one would want a toy and the other would want season passes, Allen would want a toy and Taylor would want the passes.  We sat them down and gave them the option and Taylor picked the passes and went about her business, we had to help Allen make up his mind a little bit.  So we went to Busch Gardens yesterday and it was a great day to go minus the rain. There were hardly any people there and we didnt have to wait on anything.  The girls are still a little small to ride some of the rides but Allen could and he loved it! But about an hour after we were there it started raining and he toughed it out for a little bit but after the log flume with Mike and Allen it was over, Mike was miserable and cold and so were Taylor and Emma.  Thankfully I didnt take my camera since it rained.  I didnt bring it because it is kindof big and bulky and didnt want to have to mess with it; so when we have some family down to go with us (hint, hint) I will be able to take it and get some good photos. 
Here are some pictures of Taylor and her horse cake.  We invited their friends down the street, since we are still a little new here she didn't want to invite her whole class to a birthday party, which is ok with me! Because we got to spend the whole day with her just making sure she enjoyed her day.