How has time passed so quickly?

I did not realize how behind I was on this blog. Let's start with July, after Zander's birthday. I went to Fort Worth, TX for the annual Premier Designs Rally (like a conference, but so much better). I got to meet a lot of the missionaries the sale of our jewelry supports. I also got to see the new line and learn more about the heart of the company. The founders made the company so that they could support missions around the world. We had a lot of speakers, but also some music performed by jewelers or their husbands. There was a lot of talent. Almost all the songs performed were contemporary Christian music. It was amazing. Here is a picture of me with my sponsor (on the left) and one of our roommates.

As soon as I got back from TX, I got started with planning for VBS (Vacation Bible School) at our church. I was one of the preschool coordinators. It was a lot of work, but very rewarding. After a week of preparation, we had a week of VBS. Here are some pictures of the boys.

One of the things I was in charge of, besides a class of 15 preschoolers, was science for all 45 preschoolers (I had them 15 kids at a time). Here is one of our sessions. 

After VBS was over, we went up to CT to surprise my mom for her retirement and 65th birthday party (she was very surprised). We didn't stay in CT long, but we did pack in the fun. In this first picture, the boys played Legos with their cousins.

We went to the PEZ factory (this was the second time. I think we will be going there annually.) We walked along the shore in West Haven. It was chilly for our FL blood!

Here's a picture of Zander and his cousin in front of the Mystic Fire Station. Zander is holding a kid's badge from his cousin, the police officer.

On the last morning in Mystic, we walked to a bakery to get breakfast and coffee (or juice for the boys and tea for Bob), and ate it by the Mystic River.

Shortly after returning home, it was time to start school. Alexander started on Aug. 18. He is now in first grade. He's still going to the public elementary school. He is in a class with his best friend, also named Alexzander (they went to preschool together). There is a third Alexander in their class, as well. Mine goes by Zander. His friend goes by Alex. The third uses his full name. There is even an Alexis in the class. That poor teacher! 

Glenn started fourth grade the next day. He is going to the same school that Alexander went to for preschool. It is a small private school. His class has third and fourth grade together. It is perfectly meeting his needs. He gets more attention to help him stay on task and there isn't so much focus on testing compared to the public school. After the first two weeks, he suddenly really enjoyed reading. Even his teacher noticed a big difference in his ability to read. I can't keep track of what he's reading for his reading log because he's reading so much! 

In September, Bob and I celebrated our fourteenth wedding anniversary. He came home with these beautiful flowers and we all went to Olive Garden (boys included).

Glenn and I went on a field trip this past Friday to the Lowry Zoo in Tampa. It is a beautiful zoo. It was fun to see him interacting with his friends. They went on a flume ride countless times and were completely soaked. That was fine because it was 90 degrees!

My good friend, Ruth, who is the director of Glenn's school, has been fighting breast cancer for seven years. Her daughter recently passed away from melanoma cancer (she was 28). Some of us wanted to just have fun with her. Weekends are difficult for her since she's not busy working. So, we went to a place that gives you step by step instructions on a painting. It was so much fun! Here we are with our completed works of art. Ruth is sitting to the right of me.

Here is a close up of my version of the "One hundred year old tree." I wanted to do a fall painting since I do miss the fall foliage.

In other news, I have begun working in the office with Bob, again. He moved to a new office (again) that has even more room and air conditioning. I have been working there for two weeks and have enjoyed it. I am head of the payroll and human resources departments (meaning just me in both those departments), the health blogger, and do tracking of the equipment. I work there four days a week while Glenn is in school. Because it is on the other side of Ocala, I get 5 hours in each day. I also just transferred into a new department at Kaplan. I begin teaching a new class the middle of November looking at public health practices. This includes disease outbreak case studies, community assessments and creating public health policy. I'm very excited about this class. I am scheduled to teach two sections of this course, so that's at least another 20 hours a week.

I have one last thing to discuss. Every year, I participate in the Walk 4 Life benefiting the Women's Pregnancy Center. I have a friend that currently goes there for free ultrasounds since she doesn't have very good insurance. They also help pregnant women in other ways, including parenting classes. I am selling through my Premier Designs business this Count it All Joy stretch bracelet, with 50% of the purchase price (which is what I would earn) going to the Walk 4 Life. If you would like to purchase one, please contact me. The Walk 4 Life is Nov. 1st, so I need to know before then. Each bracelet costs $34 (so, $17 goes to the Walk).

If you would rather give a donation directly to the Walk 4 Life, you can go to this link: http://www.fundeasy.com/m/2071033/

Alexander's 6th Birthday

Today is Alexander's birthday. He had a little slice of a brownie with a candle in it when we got up. He loves having Happy Birthday sung to him. We stayed home most of the day. My parents came this afternoon and we ate his requested birthday meal of cheesy hotdogs, baked beans, and I threw in some green beans to make the dinner somewhat healthy. Then we had an ice cream birthday cake.

On Sunday, we had his pirate themed birthday party with his friends. These are friends he went to preschool with, but are still friends. I aged some paper with water and a tea bag and Glenn ripped around the edges so it looked old. Then we tied it up with twine. I had stickers and colored pencils for the kids to make their treasure maps. In the center of the table is the pinata.

I labeled all the food with funny names. The watermelon shark didn't need a name (yes, I made it and am proud of myself). Cheese-its were Polly's crackers. Grapes were fruity booty. pinwheel sandwhiches were pirate grub. Blocks of cheese were pirate gold. Chicken wings were parrot wings. Breakfast sausages were dead men's fingers. I know, kind of gruesome, but Alexander likes that sort of thing. We also had pirate punch.

 Alexander waited outside in his pirate costume flagging his friends down because, "I want to make sure they know the party is here."

I pretended that someone stole the kids party favors, except there was a bandana in each bag. They put them on. Then we found a note in Alexander's bag that said in pirate lingo, "Go to the big tree. There ye will find a map to the treasure ye be seekin'." Glenn had a hard time reading it, but it was cute. We went to the big tree and one of them found a map tied to the tree. It told us how many paces to take to each point on the map (Bob's idea so they wouldn't just run from one thing to the other). At one point in the hunt, we found a bag of pirate eye patches. So, they all got one (not all of them wanted to wear them).

 Along our treasure hunt, there was a plank. So, they all had to walk the plank. It was short, but they still loved it.

 Notice that Glenn is unique in where he put his bandana.

 Finally, they found a red X to mark the spot. Bob buried the treasure box pretty far underground and didn't leave a shovel. So, they were all digging with their hands.

 "Daddy, you buried it too deep!"

 We had a cake, but forgot to take a picture. I covered the cake in graham cracker crumbs and put two pirates and a treasure chest on top. Then I put blue jello and Swedish fish in clear cups. I was going to put the cups around the cake, but forgot until I was already cutting the cake. The cake was a tie-dye cake. I split the batter into 6 bowls and colored them with food coloring. Then I put one color on top of each other in the pan. The kids were screaming with excitement when I cut the first piece. They apparently had never seen anything like it before. It was yummy!

Cruise- Part 2

In the afternoon, we took a ferry across to Hamilton, the capital of Bermuda. We walked along the harbor until we reached the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute. We learned about the various vessels and suits people have made to explore the underwater world. We learned about non-native species that are taking over the area, such as lion fish. Lionfish are from Asian waters, but were most likely introduced to the Atlantic by fish hobbyists. They are already around FL and up the eastern coast of the US, but also are coming close to Bermuda. They eat the baby fish of the species that are native to ecosystems, leaving fewer fish to sustain those ecosystems. Something I found interesting is that they are trying to get restaurants and fish markets to offer lionfish as a means to raise the demand for them by fishermen. Their slogan is Eat them to beat them! We then saw how the underwater explorers excavate sunken ships and saw many relics found in these discoveries. One of the founders of the museum has discovered 100 shipwrecks in Bermuda's waters.

After our afternoon of education, we walked back along the streets of Hamilton. Many places were closed because of the celebration of the Queen's birthday and it was a weekend. We enjoyed the ferry ride back, taking pictures of the beautiful homes on the islands.

The next day, we only had until 2:30 to enjoy Bermuda. We stayed in the Royal Navy Dockyard to explore. First, we went to the National Museum of Bermuda. It had the keep, Commissioner's house and battlements used to protect the island from invaders. These were built in the 1800's. The Commissioner's house had artifacts from Bermuda's history including the slave trade, wars and sunken ships. Alexander loved the cannons! We walked around the battlements and Alexander wanted pictures with every cannon he could find. We walked along the wall of the fortress and some of the structures were off limits because they have not yet been restored and were unsafe. We also saw Dolphin Quest, which is where people can pay to swim with dolphins. At $175 a person, we decided we could just watch the dolphins from a distance. After getting some frozen yogurt, we walked around the rest of the Dockyard and did a bit of shopping.

Bob also got a picture from on top of a battlement of where we went snorkeling the day before.

That evening, we celebrated Father's day. I had asked the boys some questions two years ago about Bob. I asked them the same questions this year before we left on our trip and printed them out. I gave them to Bob before dinner. He enjoyed reading them. A highlight from Glenn's perception of Bob is about what he thought life was like when Bob was a child. He said, "He had to wear shirts and pants of certain colors because that was the law of that time." That really cracked us up. Alexander said that if Bob was a cartoon, he would be The Hulk. After dinner, we went to a review of Broadway by the ship's singers and dancers. They did a nice job and even entertained the boys.

We went to Nassau in the Bahamas. It was very dirty and we were hassled by the locals to take tours and buy things. So, it was not as enjoyable as Bermuda. The last full day, we went to Royal Caribbean's own island called CocoCay. It was wonderful! The ship's crew had a BBQ on the beach for us and we could walk around the island, lay in a beach chair, snorkel or go on the aqua park. The boys went on the aqua park (I didn't because of my toe). We saw a stingray and a shark! Don't be alarmed; it was only 2 feet long and wasn't looking for human feet to eat. 

We had a wonderful time and the boys were very sad to leave the ship. But we have memories to last forever!

Cruise Part 1

I am so far behind on my blog (sorry, Grandma)! The boys got out of school the beginning of June. Less than a week after they started their summer, we went on a cruise with Bob's parents. I am having Glenn work on a paper about our vacation so he will have his memories down on paper like I have my blog. So far, he has the whole paper outlined and the introduction written. When he completes it, I will put it on here.

We started our vacation perfectly. No traffic to the port and practically no lines in the terminal. We dropped our things off in our rooms and then ate lunch. The boys were ready to swim, and even though we didn't have our luggage, I brought suits in our carry on. We swam until the Muster drill. If you have never cruised, you may not know about the muster drill. Within a certain amount of time after leaving the port, the ship is required to do an emergency drill where everyone has to find their muster station, where they line up shoulder to shoulder. Thankfully, they no longer require you to go to get your life jacket first for the drill, which makes it much quicker. Glenn was happy to know where we needed to go in case of an emergency. Alexander could not see anything because he is so short.

Our first dinner was delicious! I should have written down what I ate every night so I would remember it. But none of our dinners disappointed us. After dinner, we brought Bob's mom and the boys to our room to get ready for bed. She enjoyed reading and singing with them each evening, and especially cuddling with them. After Bob and I were done in the evening, we would come back to our room and Bob's mom would then go up to her room.

The second day, we were at sea. I had planned on exercising in the gym each morning we were at sea. I brought the clothes I usually wear to work out, but forgot one minor detail... my sneakers. So, this first morning, I was on the elliptical machine in my sandals. After 15 minutes, my arches hurt. Not a good idea! We spent the day either swimming, eating or snoozing. The boys spent time in the kids club called Adventure Ocean. They played games, made crafts and did science projects. Alexander made snow (a polymer you add water to that looks like snow) and Glenn made a jar with clay around a cup. We had formal wear this second evening. I had suits the boys wore at our niece's wedding last fall. They looked very handsome.

The third day, we were in Charleston, SC. After eating breakfast, we ventured out to explore the coastline and the historical architecture. We found a children's museum, which is exactly what the boys needed. They climbed through a castle, pirate ship, on a rock wall, and played in water tables and a pretend supermarket complete with a scanner at the register. I found some sneakers, which gave me no excuse to exercise the rest of the trip.

The cabin steward would make towel animals for us each night. The boys loved them. They they started beheading them and Glenn would pose for the camera as if he was in disbelief.

Alexander tried to put it back together, but Glenn was already in dismay!

The forth and most of the fifth days were at sea. I settled into a routine of waking up, bringing the boys with me to breakfast, and then having Bob's parents watch the boys or send them to the kids club while I exercised. After that, I would spend time with the boys and hopefully Bob would be awake, too! I got a little too much sun on my exposed tummy. Note to self, let the sunscreen absorb before going out in the sun. On the forth day, they had a 70's theme evening complete with a disco and the Village People in the center of the ship. On the evening of the fifth day, we arrived in Bermuda at the Royal Navy Dockyard. After the boys were settled into bed with Kathy (Bob's mom), Bob and I went out to explore. Unfortunately, most of the shops were closed. We found the beach there and walked around. It was beautiful and we got to stick our feet in the very clear water. They also had pipes in the sand on the beach for umbrellas. Keep in mind this was in the evening and the sun had already set. Well, wouldn't you guess that my toe would find one of those pipes in the sand. It was not a pleasant meeting. I knew right away I had broken my middle toe. But we hobbled on and explored a bit more. Upon returning to the ship, I got a better look at my now swollen toe and it had a bruise in a nice straight line across the toe. That confirmed it... broken. There isn't much you can do with a broken toe but tape it to the one next to it.

We woke up early the next morning for a full day in Bermuda. We went straight to the scene of the broken toe incident after breakfast. We were the first ones on the beach. After getting used to the chilly but beautifully teal water, we did some snorkeling. I bought Bob a HD video underwater camera for Father's Day. We can't wait to see the video of snorkeling. The coral ranged from yellow Bermuda (or brain) coral to deep purple feathery coral. At first, we saw schools of tiny fish, then white and blue fish bigger than my hand. Around the coral were fish of many colors, including fish about 18 inches long in all colors of the rainbow. Alexander loved snorkeling. Glenn was a bit nervous of the fish and especially the coral moving with the current.