Tye's Swimming Lessons 3/30/11

Tye started taking swimming lessons at the YMCA. He is funny. He tends to freak out and start doggie paddling. When he calms down he does the strokes really good, but he always has to wear the "backpack" or else he sinks. His instructor said that he has a hard time because he has no fat on his body to keep it up so he immediately sinks! lol





He has now gone through the whole class and he really loved it! The instructor said he is learning, but still needs a lot of work. He told me he looks worse than he actually is because the other kids in his class should have actually been in a higher level class but because they didn't feel confident in their swimming their parents put them in a lower level class. Oh well. I need to figure out what we are going to do, he really needs to have a ton more classes, but that means a ton more money! lol

Ryan's Run 3/26/11

I debated about this race and really wanted to have a "redemption race" after the bad deal at Gasparilla. The boys were going to be at the Father/Son Campout and I really had wanted to sleep in. But I decided about a week before that I was going to do it. I told my friend from church Lisa about it and she said she would run with me. Also my friend, Jack was in town, so he went with us too. He was our photographer! lol

Here we are on our way to the race from the parking garage to the starting line.

This was the starting line. Kindof random! Middle of the street, no clear marking and on cobblestone.

And we are off! Not sure if you can actually see me, but I have the pony tail with my blue headband on. Too many white shirts to use that description! lol
So the whole way we were kindof at the back of the pack. But we got to the 1 mile mark at 12:30ish, which was far faster than I have ever done it in a race. We hit the 2 mile mark about 27 something. However, the last mile I fell apart...I am not sure what happened, I felt good and we ran almost the entire first two miles. I ran 20 mins without stopping...have never done that before...17 mins was the most and that was the Thursday before the race while practicing. But somehow my body gave out and Lisa wasn't overly pushing me, she was letting me call the pace. (Good and bad! lol)

It ended up that EVERY SINGLE PERSON passed us (all 338 participants). The only people behind us were the cops! ROFL Yep, the last 1/3 mile the cop followed behind us in his cruiser. lol We were the very last people to cross the finish line. My time you ask...45:05. Ummmmm yeah not the best, but certainly not a last place finish time! Every other race I have ran 45 mins has been towards the end but definitely not last!!!! lol

In the end I had to realize this was a charity race for a boy who was killed in a drive by shooting. He was a cross country and track star at the University of Tampa. So the people that knew about it were mostly serious runners. Those that run all the time and do it competitively. I was still upset that my race was slower than my personal best in a race and much slower than the time I had run it in during my practice just two days before. Not really sure exactly what happened, but hoping I can continue to practice and do better next season! Yes the season is over for me as the summer is waaaaay too hot here in FL for me to run. (This was at like 8:30am and it was pretty cool on this day and look how red my face is...could you imagine if it was 9am and 90 degrees out?!?! lol)

We enjoyed a great post race party! It started very slow (hardly any food or drink) but then it got going and they had french toast sticks, cereal, egg mcmuffins, yogurt, OJ, milk, fruit, etc. It was really good. :-)

Splash Park at the YMCA 3/21/11

Yep summer is in full swing here in Florida! This is a good and bad thing. It is fun to do lots of water activities so early in the year, but then it means it will be soooo hot very soon and I won't want to leave my air conditioning! lol So Monday afternoon we spent a day at Splash Park at the YMCA. Tye love shooting people with these water guns (well he's not the only one that loves doing that, all the kids do! lol)

Running through the water rainbow. Going down the slide!

He wanted to get dumped on by the bucket, but it spilled the opposite way of where he was standing. Then he didn't want to wait for one of the other buckets to fill so he could try again! lol

And then my camera battery died, so I didn't take any more pics and just sat on the side of the pool soaking up the sun! :-) And no Dad, I didn't get sunburned (and I hadn't even put on sunscreen! ooops! lol)

Garden update 3/19/11

I haven't updated about our garden for awhile but I have been taking pictures. So here is one of the updates. :-)

Full view of garden

The peas in their own bucket, growing good!
I am not sure if you can see it very well this small, but if you click on it you can probably see it better. In the bottom left of the box is some lettuce growing. :-)

Our other square of lettuce, obviously doing much better! However, this looks like the gourmet weed lettuce! ROFL!

One of the pepper plants

One square of radishes...we planted another square today.

Our second pepper plant, it is already blooming.

Square one of onions...growing good...just hope the actual onion is growing! lol

I just planted this square of onions today.

The carrots are starting to really green up!

The third pepper plant!

The tomato plant.

With tomatoes growing!!!! And flowers blooming!

So there you have it. Hoping for a great harvest this year! I am using organic miracle grow so hopefully that will help this year. Maybe our peppers will end up bigger than in the past! lol

St. Patrick's Day 3/17/11

I must admit, I was a bit of a slacker this year with St. Patrick's Day. I didn't decorate at all, I didn't even know what we were going to have for dinner. Luckily the thought came to me to have breakfast for dinner. Of course, it was a little weird considering we still had dessert after! lol Oh well.

On the menu: Green waffles, green eggs and green milk

For dessert we had our yummy Leprechan pie!

Here is Kevin, minus any green clothing...Tye pinched him for sure! lol

I hope you all had a fabulous St. Patrick's Day with lots of green clothes (unlike Kevin), lots of green food and maybe a few lephrechans!!

Mother Son Campout 3/12/11

Kevin went to a chess tournament in Orlando for the whole weekend. So Tye and I had lots of mother son time! He decided that he wanted us to have a campout. So I figured why not. We got his old crib mattress out and pulled the cushions off the couch for me. We had a great little set up.

Daisy even joined in on the fun!

Since Kevin doesn't really like to watch Harry Potter over and over and over again, Tye asked if we could watch it while he was out of town. So we had watched #1 and #2 on Friday and then watched #3 on Saturday.

We enjoyed our indoor campout! Thanks for the suggestion Tye! I am glad we were able to have a campout together!

DinoQuest at Lowry Park Zoo 3/12/11

I had promised Tye that we would take him to the DinoQuest exhibit at Lowry Park Zoo. So while Kevin was at his chess tournament we headed over there. Of course that was where Tye wanted to head as soon as we got in the gate.

We went around a corner and this is what we found...a huge old moving dinosaur that had busted through a building! lol

Tye did not like all the noise and the loud sounds, so he freaked out a little and kept covering his ears. lol
And now a view of the dinosaurs!

Not sure if you can see very well, but this thing spit at you!! lol The second time we came back through (we left and saw other parts of the zoo and then came back into DinoQuest) it actually spit at Tye and he just stood there all shocked so it spit at him again!! It was so funny everyone around was totally laughing! (and I missed the photo op lol)

There was this cool mechanical dinosaur that the kids could manuver. The area wasn't wide enough for me to get a good shot. He waited so patiently and then this kid butted in front of him just as it was his turn. He looked at me as if to say what do I do and I just told him it was okay he could go next. He thought it was way cool to actually move the dinosaur himself!

The Dinosaur slide

They had the Angie the llama out in Walleroo Station and they let the kids get their picture taken with her. I can't remember her name now. At first Tye didn't want to do it, but then he watched for a bit and saw she was okay so he was cool with it then. lol

Here we are on the train in Walleroo Station!

The flying bananas

He was down looking in the windows and the fish would keep swimming by it. He said they were coming to say hi to him! hehe

The giraffes on the safari ride.

We had a great time seeing all the animals during the safari ride. Tye really loves going to the zoo and I like it too. Seems like everytime we go something different can be seen. Whether it is the animals doing something funny or a new animal we get to see up close. This truly is one of the best zoos out there! :-)