#5 Reason Why I Love Summer...

#5...Reading, Reading, and More Reading!

These are the titles I have been reading this summer and my book drawer is still full! I guess I am going to have to pull some "all nighters" before the summer ends...BOOOO!

A great non-fiction about Lisa and Laura Ling and Laura's struggle to flee North Korea

Mindless good reading!!!!

A true story of one man's fight in a concentration camp as a young boy

Hard to put down read about a death row inmate and the ultimate sacrifice he needs to save someone and himself

A heart wrenching story about maids in the South before segregation

My fave celebrity and Mom and her hilarious account of all things Mommy

Tori Spelling does it again! I love her stories about life as a celebrity, wife, and Mom

Party Like a Preschooler!

Today was the day I have been dreading since March 21, 2007...Preschool! Now, I know most parents welcome this new chapter of their young child's life, but being a teacher I see on a daily basis I see the Good, Bad, and FUGLY in small children! So, I have been trying to block this day from my mind as long as possible. This preschool prep has been in the "works" in our house since April with maticulous planning and coaching on our parts! Lucas has been drilled daily on his name, age, parents names, street name, and his teacher's name! Of course when he walked into the room this morning all he could possibly care about was a tub of cars in the corner of the room. Santa could have been in the room for all he cared and it would not have phased him!

We woke up and all ate breakfast together, got a quick bath (didn't want him to be the stinky kid!), and began the endless photo shoot! When we pulled into the parking lot he screamed, "Yah! There's my school!!" All my fears were gone. This kid was gonna rock preschool, now the problem would be are they ready inside for this Rockstar???????? This week's theme is "Hooray for Disney" so we dressed him in a Mickey shirt for his first day. I'm not knocking the mouse, but on a normal day I would have NEVER dressed my kid for his first day in a character shirt. See, I can be flexible!!!!!!!!!!

The rest is history! He gave Mike and me a quick, and I mean QUICK hug and he was off to begin his wonderful learning journey! I'm sure there will be many more blogs about school once Lucas really warms up!

All ready for school

School boy!
Lucas and his sweet teacher, Miss Nason. She is already a saint if she can get this child to smile like that!
End of the day outside his class door

Happy Birthday America!

We had a wonderful weekend celebrating our freedom! Here are some pics of our great time!!

This is Brandon, our Hibachi master, at Ha Ba Ni!

Sara and Shane love Hibachi tricks!
I think this singed my eyebrows!

This dude LOVES 3D movies! Toy Story 3 was awesome!

Chillin' at the Quad Cities fireworks show

The crew!

It gets harder every year to take a decent picture!!

The family

The Adams family

Bella did some interpretive dancing to the fireworks show!

The Boom Boom Pows!

This is how Luke watched the fireworks and when his arms got tired Granny covered his ears for him!

Total Eclipse of My Heart

I was one of those people who made fun of the "Twilighters" who were KRAZY over some fictional vampires and werewolves! I was also NOT 13 years old and had better things to read! Or not!!!! My BF Melissa finally wore me down (it didn't take much convincing) and I borrowed all 4 books from a former student of mine. That right there should have made me reconsider, but it didn't! I read all 4 books and fell in love more with each one! I watched Twilight on DVD and then Melissa went with me to see New Moon at the movies after it had been out for a while. So no big hype, I had still remained pretty calm about the series and under the radar until Eclipse. Melissa and I blew it out for this one! We bought shirts ( and yeah they were the same but totally not planned), we got babysitters, we ate a yummy Cheesecake Factory dinner (again, the same meal), and we rocked the movie where we channeled our inner 13 year old! The GNO ruled and I can't wait for Breaking Dawn to blow it out again; 13 year old style!

All geared up!

We got many stares and double takes!

Thanks for taking our picture young 13 year olds!!!

Our pre-movie meal...again lots of stares and walk-bys from the waiters!
Thanks for a great night Melissa!

Sea Turtle Surprise!

Our last night of vacation lent itself to the best surprise EVER! After eating dinner, we decided to take one last walk on the beach. It was high tide and a full moon and due to the BP craziness we weren't sure we would ever see the beach in this state of beauty again. We are walking and chatting it up with Luke about crabs (duh) when we see a large group of people. We totally thought they were taking pictures so we tried to scurry really fast past them. We noticed something throwing sand and we saw the most enormous sea turtle I have ever seen on the beach!!!!!!! This momma turtle had emerged from the ocean at sunset to come and lay her eggs!!! This, we found out later, is so rare because they usually lay their eggs around 2am when no one is around! Anyways, we join the group of onlookers and watched the momma flap around building her sand nest and lay her 100+ eggs. About 15 minutes later she turned her giant body toward the ocean as all the looky loos parted the sand and cheered her on as she made her way back to her home! Cool beyond words! 2 volunteers would work to unbury her eggs and re-bury them in a more safe spot on the beach! What a way to end a remarkable vacation!

Oh, and no we don't have any pictures. The entire vacation we had the camera glued to our hips but when we needed it the most it was resting at the condo! Go figure!!!

Our Right of Passage

I have always looked at other people's beach vacation pictures and dreamed of the day I would have my own family beach pictures, sorta like a right of passage. We could not have asked for a more beautiful backdrop and I am so happy with they way they turned out! Look for some of these showing up on your Woods Christmas card 2010!

Awww... this picture looks so loving but in reality we are trying to squeeze Luke into submission!

A Pirate's Life For Me!

While planning for our trip to heaven we heard about this Pirate Cruise that the kids would love. So I did some googling to find a SUPER cheesy Pirate ship with some even more cheese supreme dudes dresses as pirates. But, reading all the rave reviews from parents exclaiming, "this was the best thing about Florida! We would visit again just for the Pirate Cruise!!!", I thought we had to check this ship o' excitement out!!

Sea Dragon Pirate ship

3 Pumped Pirates...


They pulled "Treasure" from the ocean...
Partied like a Pirate...
Mopped the deck...

and had a fierce water gun fight!

We left our 2 hour cruise with cool painted faces, tattoos, and this...



And "YES" we would go back to Florida for this too!!!