Bunco 113010

This month I was in charge of hosting Bunco. My theme was Christmas and I chose the non-traditional newer colors, the blues, mint green, pink, purple, etc.



Here are the prizes that I picked up.


I bought the material and made a table runner and 4 napkins to go with it. (And now just looking at the photo I folded the one napkin the wrong way! lol)

This was some cool wrapping paper that I found at Jo-Anns!

The plates and napkins...the glasses are plastic were the take home prize for everyone along with homemade peppermint cocoa.

I forgot to take pictures of the food, but I made homemade rolls and then made turkey sandwiches on them with cream cheese and cranberries. I made dill dip and had carrots and celery and ruffles potato chips. And for dessert I made one of my grandmother's tea rings. (I huge cinnamon roll made into the shape of a wreath...that is the one I am most ticked I forgot to take a picture of!) Although it didn't turn out as pretty as my grandmother's always did. It didn't taste as good, even though the rolls turned out great and it is the same recipe. Not sure. I also had kisses and M&M's to snack on on the tables.

I think everyone had a good time (after the bit of stress of finding subs) and it all turned out great!

Zoo Run Run 5k 09/25/10

Today was the day I achieved a goal I have had for a year. If you remember last year my friend Amanda asked me to do the Tower of Terror 13k race with her and her husband. I had trained for it, but then when we went to register the race was already full. So of course, we didn't end up doing it. Well a couple of weeks ago I saw that our local zoo was having a 5k run and I decided I was going to enter it. I told Kevin about it and he mentioned something about "do I need to be there?" I told him "YES, someone needed to take pictures!" Well he decided that if he had to be there he was going to enter it. I said okay but of course that left us with no one to take pictures! lol Dang it! lol

So two weeks ago I started training, not good timing, but that was all the time we had!!! lol I did a little running on the treadmill here and there at the Y to build up to it. My goal was to finish in under 1 hour. On Monday, I tested the 5k out on the treadmill at the Y and it took me 49:45. Then on Wednesday I figured it might be a good idea to get a race in on the road so our block is exactly 1k. I was able to do it in about 8 mins per 1k. My race plan was to run 3 mins and walk 1, run 3, walk 1. (We'll come back to this later. lol) On Wednesday, on the road, I actually did it faster than the treadmill surprisingly. I finished in about 48 mins. I don't know the exact time because I had to use my cell phone as my "watch". I have since bought a watch with a stop watch on it. So I was hoping I could finish the race in under 48 mins, but really my goal was still the 1 hour because I just didn't know how I would do.

We took Tye to Kevin's parent's house this morning. We took this quick photo there and then headed off to the zoo for the race.

When we got there I actually saw a couple of people I work with. We talked for a bit and I told them this was my first race and they gave me some encouragement. They said there were going to be some more people from our work who were going to be doing the race also.

Here is Kevin waiting for the race to start. He is happy now, don't know how he was feeling part way through!! lol

Off we went. I had told Kevin how to start his stop watch and he couldn't remember so I started his and then started mine when we crossed the line. So my time is off a bit.

Here we are racing with the crowd. The set up for the start wasn't the best...first they just let you line up however, so the walkers were not in the back and you were trying to fight them to get through the crowds. Plus there were stroller racers which were a pain because then you had to watch out that they didn't run you over!!! And they didn't have to start in the back either! Oh boy. But it all worked out...I didn't get run over or pushed down so it's all good in the end. Since we didn't have anyone to take our pictures, here are the few of us racing! lol

For the most part Kevin and were pretty well matched and stayed together. I kept trying to lose him, but he kept sneaking back up on me! lol His walk is a lot faster than my walk, but I can run longer than he can. So when I was walking he would walk and catch up with me. ARGH!!! lol In the end I wasted him (okay not really, but I did leave him behind! lol), when they said we only had .1 miles left I said I would not stop running until I crossed the finishline. I could see the timeclock when I got close and it was saying 46 mins and I was determined to finish before it hit 47 mins (and really before it hit 46:50). And I did just that, except I think it didn't register my time until I hit the second mat and not the first, which is what I thought it went by so I quit running at the first mat and not the second. So my official time was 46:54. Kevin doesn't know what his time was...he said it was 47 something. lol When we checked the printouts his name/time wasn't on there yet. We were too tired to wait for his results to be printed out! lol (So we will find it on the website once it is uploaded and let you know! lol) Update: Kevin's official time was 47:32. :-) Which was 732 overall.

Oh and just as I was crossing the finish line I heard someone cheering and saying "gooooo Michele!" I looked over and saw one of our friends, a guy that used to work in my department, but moved to the IT area. It was nice to have someone cheering me on at the end.

After I got my shoe tag off, I hurried back to try to get a picture of Kevin as he finshed. He had already crossed the line, but just barely (see those two blue mats, yeah the second one was the timer! lol)

Here we are after the race. Dang I look too happy! lol Maybe I was just happy it was over! lol No, this was about 10 mins after the race was over, so I guess I was doing okay at that point.

Here are my official results. I was 698 overall and 83rd in my age group. Not too bad for my first race and not a ton of training! lol Kevin and I joke that there were only 750 people racing! lol I don't know how many people actually finished, I know there was a group of about 3-4 people that crossed the line as we were leaving which was around 9:10 so they would have been 1 hour and 10 mins. (Click on the picture to see the official info.)

And we learned some other things that if we want to do it next time, no messing around before going to get the food/drinks at the after party. All the granola bars, pizza, and energy fruit shakes were gone, even the bananas were gone. We ended up getting some of those apple dippers from McDonalds, a bottle of "Smart Water" and a juicy juice can (Kevin got orange. I got berry.). That stunk! Especially when we saw people coming out with whole boxes of pizza and granola bars. ARGH! lol Lesson learned, if you want food you go immediately after you are done (and snag some for whoever you are with! ROFL)

We are very proud of ourselves and I am ready for the next one. Not sure about Kevin! lol

AMC Summer Movie Camp Madagascar1 7/6/10

AMC every summer does a movie camp, usually each Tuesday the entire summer for the kids. When I started doing it several years ago the tickets were FREE!!! Now they are $1. Still a great deal considering here in Florida the cheapest price for a ticket is like $6 for a matinee! So I am making it a point to take him to as many as we can.

However, we missed the first couple of weeks of the summer movie camp because either we have been on vacation or I have had to work. Which stinks because the movies they showed those weeks were all movies we havent' seen yet! Bummer! lol

This week we saw Madagascar. We went to the dollar store first and got some treats. Tye picked dots and I got dark chocolate covered raisins! YUMMY! We each ate half of our box and no more!

We love Madagascar! "You've got to move it, move it!" "We like to move it, move it!" lol

Summer Movie Camp 7/27/10

This week the AMC Summer Movie Camp movie was Hotel For Dogs.

I didn't remember anything about this movie and had talked to my friend the night before and she had said she hadn't seen it because she thought the commercials had dogs singing and she thought that it was going to be dumb. So I was then thinking I was going to see a dumb movie, but we went anyway since it was only $2 for us to go! lol I figured even if I didn't like it, Tye still would.

Well my review is that it is a really cute movie. No singing dogs in it. hehehe Definitely a kids movie, but a good one. :-) I am glad we went! Tye really liked it. So another bonus there. lol

Summer Movie Camp 8/3/10

This week for AMC's Summer Movie Camp was The Spiderwick Chronicles.

I was worried since I have seen this movie if it would be a little too scary for Tye. But I decided what the heck, for the most part it will be okay for him and if the one part is too scary I can cover his eyes.

So as I thought, there was luckily only one part that he was too scared, said he hated the movie and grabbed onto my arm. But as soon as the scene was over he was fine and told me after he liked the movie! lol

I had been promising him each week as we promised the ice cream shop outside the theatre that we would go there one day. Well this time I told him it was the day we would go. However before the show started this clown chick was running around throwing out candy and he got a 3 muskateers and really wanted to eat it. I told him he had to choose and after much convincing he gave up the candy bar to get the ice cream.

After the movie we went to the ice cream shop and got two yummy (and oh so bad for us) loaded milkshakes! lol Mine was a chocolate shake with Reece's Peanut Butter Cups, cookie dough and M & Ms lol. Tye just had chocolate shake with M & Ms in his. We ate half and then brought the rest home.

What a fun and yummy day! :-)

Adventure Island 8/5/10

My friend Amanda, invited Tye and I to go with her and some other friends to Adventure Island. We were so excited and said yes! We had a great time, we spent a bunch of time in the kiddie area and went around the lazy river several times. Tye ventured the big slide with Amanda while I watched her son, West. And then we hit the wave pool! It was soooooo cool, the waves were huge and it gave my legs a great workout because you kindof had to push back towards the front so you weren't on the beach before you knew it! lol

Here are Amanda and West getting used to the water.

Mary Ann, Rylee and Tye played in the kiddie wave pool.

Tye heading off to the play equipment.
The boys had to wear life vests for some of the areas so they just kept them on the whole time, much easier. They found this little rock fountain and had a seat just chillin in the water!

Tye posing on the rocks.

Rylee taking his turn.

West loves the camera, when you break it out he now gives this giant cheesy grin! :-) Love those teeth! hehehe

Loving the water of the stream as you enter the park.

Isn't this the cutest little cheeser face you have ever seen?! lol

Ahhhh, the things that make boys happy. lol

The boys found this bridge that the water would run under. They created their own "boats" from the mulch in the flower beds. They each had at least 2 large pieces of mulch and would throw it in on one side of the bridge. Then they would quickly run to the other side and lay down to watch their "boat" come out from under the bridge! lol I think they probably did this for about 30 mins.

Thanks for inviting us Amanda! We had a great time and Tye can't wait to go back (oh and he wants to go ride the roller coasters that he saw while waiting in line to go down the big slide with Amanda. lol He keeps telling me he is going to go ride those roller coasters! LOL He means Busch Gardens.) I tried really hard not to get burned, but of course I did. My shoulders and upper back and chest were burnt. Luckily not too bad and I healed pretty quickly. lol It was lots of fun and exhausting! lol We came home and took a little nap! :-)

Smarty Pants 8/20/10

Today when we got back from the YMCA, I noticed that some of the papers from the recycle bin had blown out onto the road. So I asked Tye if he would pick them up. As he was picking them up I thought I heard the garbage truck coming. I told Tye to "hurry because the garbage truck is coming!" Well it wasn't the garbage truck but the Fed Ex truck (and sadly not for us! lol). When he finished and we were walking up to the house Tye says to me, "Mommy, your hypothesis was wrong!" WHAT?! lol Where in the world did you hear that?! lol He told me Dinosaur Train (a PBS show). Too funny!!!

Then he told Kevin later, "Daddy I have a hypothesis". I don't even know what his hypothesis was because Kevin asked the same thing as me and so we got sidetracked by that! lol

By the way, there is a scientist guy on Dinosaur train that talks about hypothesises and dinosaurs. That is how he learned the word. lol

What a smarty pants! lol

Tye's Pictures 8/14/10

My friend's sister in law, Lori, came down to take the baby's pictures. He turned one in July. So while she was here I asked her pretty please to take a few of Tye. She did a great job considering he was having a hard time with it. There were lots of bugs out and the sun was in his eyes. I did not have a couple of hours of prepping him that he was going to have his pictures taken so he wasn't so cooperative.

I love this one, it looks like he is praying! :-)

Yeah this is my boy, wild and crazy! lol

Then she did this cute, collection of the pictures! Didn't it turn out cute?!
Thanks Lori!!!! We really appreciate it!

YMCA (sing it with me now! lol)

For a couple of months Kevin has been talking about doing Judo again. He really wanted Tye to do it with him. So I started researching and Kevin's old Judo instructor still has his school in town. He was very happy about that. When I looked into the price it was going to be $50 for 10 lessons for Tye and $80 for 10 lessons for Kevin, so about $50 a month for both of them to do just Judo.

But I also noticed that they said if you were a member of the local YMCA that you can do it for free there. So I started researching that too. It is more expensive per month for the Y but then all three of us can do something more than just Judo.

On Monday August 16th, we headed on down to the Y and signed up. We took a tour of the facility closest to our house. There is another one that is only about 1-2 miles further away in a different direction. So that is awesome. It has a water park there too (with slides and all sorts of kids playing area). They have a rock climbing wall. A HUGE kids area for those under 7. Then a game room for kids over 7. It really is a great place.

When we signed up I had heard about scholarships, so I decided what the heck I am going to ask about it and if we qualify great, if not, no big deal. We qualified for a pretty good scholarship based on last years tax returns (sometimes being out of work for 6 months does have its benefits! lol). So now for the same price as just the Judo we all three get to do things!!!!

I have gone at least three times a week since then. I have done two classes there that have KILLED me! lol And we get some free personal trainer type appointments to start out with! We all love it. And when I can I will post some pictures of the boys doing Judo. :-)

Summer Movie Camp 08/10/10

The final movie for the summer movie camp at AMC Theatres was How to Train Your Dragon. We had not seen this movie so we were SUPER EXCITED!!! Especially since Tye has been into dragons and dinosaurs lately.


Last week I bought tickets because I knew it was going to be a popular one. My friend Amanda had said that she wanted to go so I went ahead and bought her a ticket too (since they are only $1 it was no big deal! lol). But then she was unable to go and she had mentioned to our other friend Mary Ann about it. So I called Mary Ann and told her that I had an extra ticket and did her and her son Riley want to go with us. She thought it would be fun, so we all went together! Tye thought it was cool to have a friend with him to watch the movie. We also got the kids combo pack so he thought that was even better! lol

The movie was great, some funny parts that I think most of the kids didn't get but the adults did! lol So it was a good movie for everyone in the family! I highly recommend it if you haven't seen it!

Afterwards, I remembered that I had some coupons for free kids meals at Chick-Fil-A so we all headed there. The boys played on the playground and Mary Ann and I were able to talk. It was a great day!

Bull Riding 8/6/10

Our home teacher and friend Mark talked about wanting to go to a rodeo. So we did some researching to see if there were any around. We found one that was about an hour away and kept saying we were going to go. But we have never really gotten it pulled together. Well then I found this local rodeo that is just down the street. They do it the first and third Friday of each month. So we planned for it the first Friday in August and Mark and Kara joined us!

My only problem with it was that it started later than we had expected, but it is all good. We had fun! It was actually a bull riding tournament as opposed to an actual rodeo, but we still thought it was great. Tye thought it was way cool to see the bulls jumping and snorting! lol

When we first got there, we had some yummy food. Pulled pork sandwiches, chips and a drink and Tye had a corn dog.

Sorry it was pretty dark out and the lights were not good for picture taking. But here are a few of the pictures I got that were not in the total darkness yet.

Here are my boys!

Kara and Mark

They gave away free ice pops and Tye went hunting one down! lol

They had a calf riding opportunity for the kids, but Tye said NO WAY!!! Maybe next time. And yes, there will probably be a next time because Mark has decided he is going to train so he can do the bull riding! lol They have these amatuer riders that anyone can do it (if it is your dream or just on your bucket list they say! lol). So Mark really wants to do it. Kara said she won't be there to watch him. lol He is planning on the first of October and Kevin was joking around about doing it, but Mark thought he was serious. lol Ummmm, not Kevin! lol But we will be there to support Mark if he goes through with it. :-)

We really had a great time even if it wasn't a whole rodeo! lol

Garden update 5/31/10

A garden update for everyone!

The sweet potatos

Lettuce Square #1

The radishes


Pepper Plant #1

Pepper Plant #2

Onion square #2

Pepper Plant #3

Carrots

Lettuce square #2

Onion square #1

Onion Square #3

I was able to pick two of the radishes. Dang these things take way too long! lol It said it was supposed to be 22 days, but it has been almost 2 months!!! lol

So there you have it, our most recent garden update.