It’s summer time ya’ll and school starts back August 3rd in my neck of the woods. That’s less than a month! Oh how the time fly’s by. We have had a busy summer. Come to think of it we have a busy life. So I am going to give you a break down of my summer so far in a little more detailed.
We lost a family member…my grandmother on May 13th and then welcomed a new family member baby Luke on June 10th.
Petite Fille’s last day of school was May 20th. She was so excited, I can remember those days. Well she was sick so her last day was actually the 19th. We had our 1st summer birthday party on the 21st. Followed by Baby Disco on the 22nd.
Baby Disco was in New Orleans at the Lowe Hotel and was sponsored by Macaroni Kid (http://national.macaronikid.com/) We bought tickets and they have a DJ come in and play music and get all the kids moving and dancing. They also had different games they played with music… which included the parents as well. I’m just not a big public dancer; we did however win the overall dance competition. How I don’t know, but Petite Fille won a new Wii game and she was on cloud 9. They had other activities as well face painting, sock puppets, masks, temporary tattoos, etc. They also had finger foods that were kid friendly.
On May 29th hubby and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary! Wow how time has flown by. We celebrated by going out to dinner just the two of us! This rarely happens and was a special treat. It was so nice to just be the two of us and to just be in the moment. I ♥ that man.
On June 4th Petite Fille had her 3rd dance recital. She started when she was 3 years old and each year I am amazed at how much farther she has come. They have 2 performances on the same day. This year I decided to volunteer to be a back stage mom for the 2nd show. The time flew by during that 2nd show. The girls kept us busy they whole time! I am not sure if she will be in dance again next year. We are thinking of moving into more of a gym/cheer type of program.
On June 11th went left for our second camping trip of the year. This time we went to Santa Rosa Island Florida and camped at the Fort Pickens. We went with our friends the Tanner’s again. Went spent most of our time playing at the beach, but also found time to visit the Fort. The last time that I camped at Fort Pickens was before I met my husband and was of course before Petite Fille was even born. On this camping trip hubby joined us almost at the last minute. He was unable to go on our last camping trip because he had to work. I had literally left the house on my way to meet the Tanners and decided that hubby should join us. I called him and said you are coming and you are going to miss a day of work! So I swung my car around and went and picked him up. It was so nice to have him there to be able to spend family time with us. It was so worth the day’s pay that he lost.
Petite Fille was scheduled to be on vacation with my mother in law from June 16th to the 26th. MIL was taking her to Arkansas and then to Texas to visit various family members. As her mom, I knew that Petite Fille would never make it! I wanted her to make it…the selfish part of me wanted to be able to do all those things that always take longer when she is with me….house cleaning, grocery shopping, cleaning out my car, going to visit my sister and her new baby, sleep in late, cleaning out her play room, and so on. But I knew that she would never make it that long. See Petite Fille has not made it a full night sleeping over at anyone’s house since she was a baby…and I don’t think that she even remembers that. In fact just days before she left she wanted so bad to stay at her other grandma’s, she made me call her and packed her own clothes. But low and behold at 2:30 in the morning my mom called and said that she was bringing her back home. So here is what happened they left on the 16th and she was back home by the 19th.
On June 24th she went to summer birthday party #2. She missed a pool party on the 18th, and another birthday party on the 25th.
On June 30th Petite Fille turned 6 years old! I think she thinks she turned 16 though. We send cupcakes to camp with her. When I called the camp to see how many kids were in her class you should have seen my face when she replied 75! We took her to the circus the night of her birthday. I also took her to have feather extensions put in her hair. I haven’t had her birthday party yet because she could never decide exactly where she wanted it. So she finally said she wanted to wait until after school started so she could invite her school friends.
We spent the 4th of July relaxing at my mother’s house. My brother cooked some yummy red beans and rice and my mom made cornbread casserole. We had a movie marathon day and sat around watching movies. It was a great day!
So that pretty much has been my summer in a nut shell! This weekend I plan on taking Petite Fille to the splash pad or the lake, or both.
So Petite Fille came home from camp yesterday and said...."Mom I got to see a play of Cinderella today" so I said..."Did you like it?" She said "Yeah, but I think u are Cinderella" So I go "Why?" She said "Because u have to do all the chores"
Showing posts with label Vacation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vacation. Show all posts
Friday, July 8, 2011
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
The Great Bear Hunt...
Well we survived the bear hunt! Thankfully… no bears in sight! Unless you count our kids, who ran and played like wild animals who have been keept locked indoors since birth.
I just love when something exceeds my expectations; I find this doesn’t happen very often. Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park in Robert LA, defiantly exceeded my expectations! I was a happy camper!
Petite Fille and I, along with our friends the Tanners went camping Saturday March 26 thru Tuesday March 29 while our kids were on Spring Break from school. We over planned, over packed, and stuffed our youngin’s in the car and headed out to Robert LA, a two hour drive from our house. When we pulled up the kids were so excited. They were greeted by a ginormous Yogi Bear, and they immediately started asking…can we go to the pool, can we play mini golf, can we play at the playground, can we paddle boat, can we go in the arcade, can we go in that building…then they would repeat it several times as if I had instantly developed some sort of hearing problem.
But as camping goes we had to get the tent up and get settled. We pulled out the kids bikes and let them explore (within eyesight) while we set up the tents and unpacked the millions of things that we brought but would probably never use. Once settled we gave in and let them go swimming. The pool was freezing; I of course took their word for it. I just want to say that when it comes to freezing cold pools on vacation kids seem to have no filter and dive in as if it were 90 degrees! Now fast forward to back at home and let bath water be off by a ½ degree from hot/warm…now they are all of a sudden freezing cold and are about to die. Just saying… Ok, so with the kids swimming, Leia and I decided we needed some daiquiris! Louisiana, god love them, is the only place I know (near my beloved Mississippi anyway) that you can find a dive thru daiquiri store guaranteed to be open by 8am and closes after midnight! And did I mention the drive thru! So, ok… the daiquiris were an afterthought we actually found that we needed a small grill, that wasn’t included in the million other things that we brought. The daiquiri drive through just happen to be next door. SCORE!!! So we got our grill and our super extra large supersized daiquiris and headed back to camp.
On the way back to camp I noticed a fine selection of stores. I just want to point out the selection… I found them entertaining. Keep in mind that we were camping so there wasn’t much around at all. But there was…a snowball stand, a bulk ice station, a Dollar General, a place that sold golf carts, a tire place that was never open but had a sign that read “Will not work afterhours, DON’T EVEN ASK,” and a pizza/tamale/daiquiri place. The last place mentioned was not the same daiquiri place that we visited on this trip, ours was in the same building as the Dollar General. We did try the daiquiris at the pizza/tamale/daiquiri place but they were weak, and we were girls roughing it on a camping trip….And…I was solo as hubby had to work.L Well… alone except for my friend Leia, her husband, and our combined 3 kids. Once back we started dinner which was hotdogs and for dessert… Smores of course! After having there belly’s full we then took them over to the Yogi Dome where a band was playing. A two person band so I am not really sure if that was Keroke or would actually be considered a band. Anyways it was really a bunch of kids running wild with all kinds of glow things, and balloons. Of course our kids ran wild and then towards the end of the night they played a bunch of line dancing songs so that grown folk could join in. We headed back to our campsite and the kids feel right to sleep.
We woke up early, went and rented a golf cart, then let them mine for rocks. This is where you buy a bag of sand and they have this well that pumps flowing water and the kids sifted there sand. At first I was wondering if I just paid $5.00 for some dirt/sand….but among the sand was in fact some pretty cool rocks like arrowheads with slightly worn off price stickers. They loved all their rocks! We then headed over to a pavilion and began to watch the Yogi Bear movie that just came out on DVD, but that only lasted about 15 minutes. So we had some lunch, and then took the kids to play some goofy golf. They did pretty good, much better than I expected. We then let them go swimming again. The pool ended up being much warmer the second day, thank goodness. Leia and I headed into town for some more stuff we forgot to pack, and another daiquiri. This time at the pizza/tamale/daiquiri place. It was ok, but like I had already mentioned it was weak and we sip on these suckers for a long time. It is just nice and it helped to keep us cool. That night we made chicken breasts, corn on the cob, and baked potatoes all over campfire! Yum! The kiddies fell fast asleep with their bellies full!
I just wanted to mention that by Sunday at 2:00 pm (checkout time) we were pretty much the only people left at the campground. There was no one around for at least 3 rows in any direction, and when there was a camper it was far and few between. I soon learned on Monday morning that this was not a good thing. See the campground closed everything but the pools, gift shop, and hiking trails.
We got up early on Monday had breakfast and then figured we would let the kids and big kids (that would be us grown up’s) go canoeing. We were trying to spread out all the fun buuuuuut when we got to the canoes we learned about all the closings. Canoeing was one of the many. Me and Leia Hi-tailed it to the check-in building. I am a professional arguer; I just want to put that out there. I argue with folks all day long as my job, and no I am not a lawyer… but I should probably have been one. The poor girl behind the desk just didn’t know what she had coming! I consider it job training on her part. Now let me just also say that had I been advised when I made my reservation, or when I checked in that pretty much everything was going to be closed….then my expectations would have been set and I would have promised the kids that they could go canoeing on a day when it would be closed. This was not done and not because there wasn’t someone by the canoes, not because all the canoes were put up, nooooo it was a matter of sliding them a whole two inches into the water they were already partially submerged in. Let’s just say I made my complaint known and asked her to have the park manager come and find me when he was available. We hopped in our golf cart and headed to the hiking trail one of two activities that was open. Now I know that I said above that this park exceeded my expectations, I am human enough to know that things happen, things come up, I get that…. but I find that it is how management/employees handle the issue that makes the difference. This doesn’t mean that they have to open everything that was closed which management did offer when he found me. But a simple I am sorry, we will do better thanks for bringing it to our attention so that this doesn’t happen to other Monday campers…..would have been fine. See… I was also paying MORE for Monday night than I did for Saturday night when the place was packed, and had we been told that those things were going to not be opened on Monday, again we would have just changed the order in which we did the activities. Enough Said!
So management handled it beautifully and opened the canoes for us, also offered to open anything else we wanted, but we were ok with just the canoes. All parties had such a good time on the canoes! It was one of my favorite parts of the trip, and I’m glad they opened it for us. We splashed each other, sang row row row your boat, and canoed our hearts out! When we finished we went back towards hiking. I mean hiking was about exciting as it could get. Petite Fille girl walked the trails like she was walking the runway, hands on her hip and she was strutting it! We ventured off the trail a little, and when it was suggested that we should split up by an un-named pre-teen we decided to update him on the top scary movie rules. Number 1 would be to never split up! He didn’t get it so we told him some more like….
• When it appears that you have killed the monster, never check to see if it's really dead.
• Never read a book of demon summoning aloud, even as a joke.
• If your children speak to you in Latin or any other language which they should not know, shoot them immediately. It will save you a lot of grief in the long run. However, it will probably take several rounds to kill them, so be prepared. This also applies to kids who speak with somebody else's voice…..they did not find this one amusing
• If you find a town which looks deserted, there's probably a good reason for it. Don't stop and look around.
• If you're running from the monster, expect to trip or fall down at least twice, more if you are of the female persuasion. Also note that, despite the fact that you are running and the monster is merely shambling along, it's still moving fast enough to catch up with you.
• If appliances start operating by themselves, do not check for short circuits; just get out.
• If your companions suddenly begin to exhibit uncharacteristic behavior such as hissing, fascination for blood, glowing eyes, increasing hairiness, and so on, kill them immediately.
And so on….We did end up finding our way back. It was fun…no one got poison oak, or ivy, and most importantly we managed to stay together. Next after hiking we let the kiddies drive the golf cart. Ok, so I probably don’t need to say this but I will. Our kids have 4-wheelers… they kind of just grew up riding them so we feel perfectly content allowing them to drive a golf cart while we are also riding. They had such a blast driving the golf cart and they literally rode around until the battery died. We had the whole campground to ourselves, and bless their hearts, they left with great memories of driving that golf cart. It was well worth the money we paid to rent it.
We had another great dinner that night; hamburgers, corn on the cob, baked beans, yum! The next morning we got up and cleaned up our site and headed back to civilization. It was such a nice Spring Break trip.
We are now gearing up for recital time at our house. This marks the end of “dance season” and the beginning of “recital season.” The costumes are in, they are too cute! I always get nervous of how they will look and if they will be age appropriate, and they were fine. I will state though that for the price we pay for these costumes they should come fully assembled. They don’t, I always have to add snaps or sew the straps. We also had pictures done, which went pretty smooth. Oh we also got ads done and registered for programs. We also had more pictures taken outside the studio. Recital season is a part time job! But Petite Fille sure does love it!
In case I don’t update until then…Happy Easter Ya’ll!
I just love when something exceeds my expectations; I find this doesn’t happen very often. Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park in Robert LA, defiantly exceeded my expectations! I was a happy camper!
Petite Fille and I, along with our friends the Tanners went camping Saturday March 26 thru Tuesday March 29 while our kids were on Spring Break from school. We over planned, over packed, and stuffed our youngin’s in the car and headed out to Robert LA, a two hour drive from our house. When we pulled up the kids were so excited. They were greeted by a ginormous Yogi Bear, and they immediately started asking…can we go to the pool, can we play mini golf, can we play at the playground, can we paddle boat, can we go in the arcade, can we go in that building…then they would repeat it several times as if I had instantly developed some sort of hearing problem.
But as camping goes we had to get the tent up and get settled. We pulled out the kids bikes and let them explore (within eyesight) while we set up the tents and unpacked the millions of things that we brought but would probably never use. Once settled we gave in and let them go swimming. The pool was freezing; I of course took their word for it. I just want to say that when it comes to freezing cold pools on vacation kids seem to have no filter and dive in as if it were 90 degrees! Now fast forward to back at home and let bath water be off by a ½ degree from hot/warm…now they are all of a sudden freezing cold and are about to die. Just saying… Ok, so with the kids swimming, Leia and I decided we needed some daiquiris! Louisiana, god love them, is the only place I know (near my beloved Mississippi anyway) that you can find a dive thru daiquiri store guaranteed to be open by 8am and closes after midnight! And did I mention the drive thru! So, ok… the daiquiris were an afterthought we actually found that we needed a small grill, that wasn’t included in the million other things that we brought. The daiquiri drive through just happen to be next door. SCORE!!! So we got our grill and our super extra large supersized daiquiris and headed back to camp.
On the way back to camp I noticed a fine selection of stores. I just want to point out the selection… I found them entertaining. Keep in mind that we were camping so there wasn’t much around at all. But there was…a snowball stand, a bulk ice station, a Dollar General, a place that sold golf carts, a tire place that was never open but had a sign that read “Will not work afterhours, DON’T EVEN ASK,” and a pizza/tamale/daiquiri place. The last place mentioned was not the same daiquiri place that we visited on this trip, ours was in the same building as the Dollar General. We did try the daiquiris at the pizza/tamale/daiquiri place but they were weak, and we were girls roughing it on a camping trip….And…I was solo as hubby had to work.L Well… alone except for my friend Leia, her husband, and our combined 3 kids. Once back we started dinner which was hotdogs and for dessert… Smores of course! After having there belly’s full we then took them over to the Yogi Dome where a band was playing. A two person band so I am not really sure if that was Keroke or would actually be considered a band. Anyways it was really a bunch of kids running wild with all kinds of glow things, and balloons. Of course our kids ran wild and then towards the end of the night they played a bunch of line dancing songs so that grown folk could join in. We headed back to our campsite and the kids feel right to sleep.
We woke up early, went and rented a golf cart, then let them mine for rocks. This is where you buy a bag of sand and they have this well that pumps flowing water and the kids sifted there sand. At first I was wondering if I just paid $5.00 for some dirt/sand….but among the sand was in fact some pretty cool rocks like arrowheads with slightly worn off price stickers. They loved all their rocks! We then headed over to a pavilion and began to watch the Yogi Bear movie that just came out on DVD, but that only lasted about 15 minutes. So we had some lunch, and then took the kids to play some goofy golf. They did pretty good, much better than I expected. We then let them go swimming again. The pool ended up being much warmer the second day, thank goodness. Leia and I headed into town for some more stuff we forgot to pack, and another daiquiri. This time at the pizza/tamale/daiquiri place. It was ok, but like I had already mentioned it was weak and we sip on these suckers for a long time. It is just nice and it helped to keep us cool. That night we made chicken breasts, corn on the cob, and baked potatoes all over campfire! Yum! The kiddies fell fast asleep with their bellies full!
I just wanted to mention that by Sunday at 2:00 pm (checkout time) we were pretty much the only people left at the campground. There was no one around for at least 3 rows in any direction, and when there was a camper it was far and few between. I soon learned on Monday morning that this was not a good thing. See the campground closed everything but the pools, gift shop, and hiking trails.
We got up early on Monday had breakfast and then figured we would let the kids and big kids (that would be us grown up’s) go canoeing. We were trying to spread out all the fun buuuuuut when we got to the canoes we learned about all the closings. Canoeing was one of the many. Me and Leia Hi-tailed it to the check-in building. I am a professional arguer; I just want to put that out there. I argue with folks all day long as my job, and no I am not a lawyer… but I should probably have been one. The poor girl behind the desk just didn’t know what she had coming! I consider it job training on her part. Now let me just also say that had I been advised when I made my reservation, or when I checked in that pretty much everything was going to be closed….then my expectations would have been set and I would have promised the kids that they could go canoeing on a day when it would be closed. This was not done and not because there wasn’t someone by the canoes, not because all the canoes were put up, nooooo it was a matter of sliding them a whole two inches into the water they were already partially submerged in. Let’s just say I made my complaint known and asked her to have the park manager come and find me when he was available. We hopped in our golf cart and headed to the hiking trail one of two activities that was open. Now I know that I said above that this park exceeded my expectations, I am human enough to know that things happen, things come up, I get that…. but I find that it is how management/employees handle the issue that makes the difference. This doesn’t mean that they have to open everything that was closed which management did offer when he found me. But a simple I am sorry, we will do better thanks for bringing it to our attention so that this doesn’t happen to other Monday campers…..would have been fine. See… I was also paying MORE for Monday night than I did for Saturday night when the place was packed, and had we been told that those things were going to not be opened on Monday, again we would have just changed the order in which we did the activities. Enough Said!
So management handled it beautifully and opened the canoes for us, also offered to open anything else we wanted, but we were ok with just the canoes. All parties had such a good time on the canoes! It was one of my favorite parts of the trip, and I’m glad they opened it for us. We splashed each other, sang row row row your boat, and canoed our hearts out! When we finished we went back towards hiking. I mean hiking was about exciting as it could get. Petite Fille girl walked the trails like she was walking the runway, hands on her hip and she was strutting it! We ventured off the trail a little, and when it was suggested that we should split up by an un-named pre-teen we decided to update him on the top scary movie rules. Number 1 would be to never split up! He didn’t get it so we told him some more like….
• When it appears that you have killed the monster, never check to see if it's really dead.
• Never read a book of demon summoning aloud, even as a joke.
• If your children speak to you in Latin or any other language which they should not know, shoot them immediately. It will save you a lot of grief in the long run. However, it will probably take several rounds to kill them, so be prepared. This also applies to kids who speak with somebody else's voice…..they did not find this one amusing
• If you find a town which looks deserted, there's probably a good reason for it. Don't stop and look around.
• If you're running from the monster, expect to trip or fall down at least twice, more if you are of the female persuasion. Also note that, despite the fact that you are running and the monster is merely shambling along, it's still moving fast enough to catch up with you.
• If appliances start operating by themselves, do not check for short circuits; just get out.
• If your companions suddenly begin to exhibit uncharacteristic behavior such as hissing, fascination for blood, glowing eyes, increasing hairiness, and so on, kill them immediately.
And so on….We did end up finding our way back. It was fun…no one got poison oak, or ivy, and most importantly we managed to stay together. Next after hiking we let the kiddies drive the golf cart. Ok, so I probably don’t need to say this but I will. Our kids have 4-wheelers… they kind of just grew up riding them so we feel perfectly content allowing them to drive a golf cart while we are also riding. They had such a blast driving the golf cart and they literally rode around until the battery died. We had the whole campground to ourselves, and bless their hearts, they left with great memories of driving that golf cart. It was well worth the money we paid to rent it.
We had another great dinner that night; hamburgers, corn on the cob, baked beans, yum! The next morning we got up and cleaned up our site and headed back to civilization. It was such a nice Spring Break trip.
We are now gearing up for recital time at our house. This marks the end of “dance season” and the beginning of “recital season.” The costumes are in, they are too cute! I always get nervous of how they will look and if they will be age appropriate, and they were fine. I will state though that for the price we pay for these costumes they should come fully assembled. They don’t, I always have to add snaps or sew the straps. We also had pictures done, which went pretty smooth. Oh we also got ads done and registered for programs. We also had more pictures taken outside the studio. Recital season is a part time job! But Petite Fille sure does love it!
In case I don’t update until then…Happy Easter Ya’ll!
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Round 2...
It has been a busy weekend in my neck of the woods. I have been under the weather, and you know what that means....absolutely nothing! The show must go on, therefore I do not have time to be sick. Mama's don't get days off....
I got up bright and early and got all my house cleaning done. Next, I went to a birthday party for my friend Kim's son Andrew. Kim had 3, no... not 1 or 2, but 3 jumpy things! Now that's what I'm talking about! I took one look at that backyard and thought...YES, my Petite Fille bug will be asleep before I even get out of the neighborhood! She was plumb tuckered out! Thanks Kim☺
Afterwards, I came home and my good fried Leia come over so we could book our camping trip to Jellystone. Petite Fille, Bless her little heart, keeps referring to this trip as "The Bear Hunt." I don't know about her, but I better not even see a Bear and I sure wont be hunting any! If everything happens for a reason, then it was not meant for us to book our camping trip last night. No matter what we did we could not get it to booked! Ya know what they say..If at 1st you don't succeed....try, try again! And wePetite Fille was born, which means this will be her 1st camping trip, and as a family our 1st Terrell Family camping trip! I have heard great thing about Jellystone parks, so I am including a link below for anyone who may be interested!
http://www.campjellystone.com/
Ya'll, I have found this chap stick (I call it my crack-stick) that is out of this world. Now, I used to sit across from this guy that had a chap stick phase, and he would just slather the stuff on and I thought...no way would I ever be that addicted to a product like that! Wrong...I totally love the Sugar Plum Tinted Lip Treatment. It is on my fav list! Thanks Heather ♥ for introducing me to this product while on our girls trip to Vegas!
Run Petite Fille!!! The Gators are coming!
I got up bright and early and got all my house cleaning done. Next, I went to a birthday party for my friend Kim's son Andrew. Kim had 3, no... not 1 or 2, but 3 jumpy things! Now that's what I'm talking about! I took one look at that backyard and thought...YES, my Petite Fille bug will be asleep before I even get out of the neighborhood! She was plumb tuckered out! Thanks Kim☺
Afterwards, I came home and my good fried Leia come over so we could book our camping trip to Jellystone. Petite Fille, Bless her little heart, keeps referring to this trip as "The Bear Hunt." I don't know about her, but I better not even see a Bear and I sure wont be hunting any! If everything happens for a reason, then it was not meant for us to book our camping trip last night. No matter what we did we could not get it to booked! Ya know what they say..If at 1st you don't succeed....try, try again! And wePetite Fille was born, which means this will be her 1st camping trip, and as a family our 1st Terrell Family camping trip! I have heard great thing about Jellystone parks, so I am including a link below for anyone who may be interested!
http://www.campjellystone.com/
Ya'll, I have found this chap stick (I call it my crack-stick) that is out of this world. Now, I used to sit across from this guy that had a chap stick phase, and he would just slather the stuff on and I thought...no way would I ever be that addicted to a product like that! Wrong...I totally love the Sugar Plum Tinted Lip Treatment. It is on my fav list! Thanks Heather ♥ for introducing me to this product while on our girls trip to Vegas!
Last weekend I brought Petite Fille to the Aududon Zoo in New Orleans, below if my favorite picture from that trip!
Run Petite Fille!!! The Gators are coming!
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