Our Little Daisy

Caiti started Girl Scouts tonight. She is a Daisy and is super excited about everything she will be learning and doing! She will have meetings every Wednesday and field trips on Sundays.  I'm really glad she wanted to do this and that we were able to fit it into our schedule. I think she is going to learn some valuable lessons and she is going to grow from this and become her own person!

Brooke Point High School Cheer Camp

Tonight was the girls' (Caiti, Maddie and Gracie) 3rd night of Cheer Camp! After doing some of their regular night activities, they showed the parents the cheer and dance that they have been working so hard on.  After they showed us how GREAT they are, the Cheer Coaches presented the girls with their awards!!! They each received a Brooke Point Cheer Camp plaque with their name on it, a picture frame with their pictures in it, a pom pom and a megaphone! Plus they made tye die t-shirts that they will be wearing in their performance on Friday! AND...they are making the girls hair bows to wear just like the real cheerleaders!  They really put a lot of thought into this camp and we are so impressed with everything and so very glad we chose to let Caiti be a part of it!!

It's September

And so starts the beginning of our non-stop, go go go days!! Every year when September rolls around we know that more than likely our days of relaxation are done and gone.  It truly is our end of Summer, LOL!

Cory is getting deep into football.  Practices will now go from 4 days a week to 3 days a week.  He will have a game every Saturday...all over Virginia! We are going to enroll him in online tutoring for Math, just to keep him on track. 

Caiti is looking forward to cheering at her brothers games. Not only will she cheer at Cory's games but she will also cheer at Jeremy's games.  We are enrolling her into Girl Scouts.  I believe she will be a 'Daisy' and she is very excited about that!!!  She will have meetings every Wednesday and an events on Sundays.  I'm looking forward to all that she'll learn and grow from in this group! Be ready for cookie orders!!! :)

Right now things are pretty slow at work for Jay which is great.  He has the time to focus on another college course he is taking.  He is an assistant coach for Cory's football team and is really enjoying that! Just last month he hit 14 years in the Marine Corps!! I am so proud of the Marine he is.  He really dedicates himself to his job and I admire that about him!  He plans on re-enlisting at the end of this year.

As things slow down for Jay at work...things are picking up here for me! Getting everyone to football practice, Caiti to her cheer camp and now Girl Scouts, doing my daily routine in and out of the house and I am watching Natalie three days a week.  I am noticing that the older the kids get, the busier I become! LOL!! It's good for me though...I don't like to just sit around with nothing to do!  I'm back on my long walks.  I feel like since my surgery I haven't been able to get a really good walk in.  I have had a few here and there but just recently Jeannie and I figured out a new route which gives us a good 5 mile walk everyday, a little shorter on the days I have Natalie but still a very good walk! I am working on shedding some of these inches off...I say inches not weight because I try not to focus too much on my weight.  I carry it good in some spots and others not so much but as long as I get my inches right, I'm happy!

We are all ready for Fall here and are looking forward to everything we have coming up! Stay tuned...

We're Gonna Split That V....

...we're gonna dot that I. We're gonna rock that C-T-O-R-Y!!

Our girls really wanted to do cheer and since the league Cory plays for could not get a squad together for Cory's team, we decided to just make our own squad.  Caiti, Gracie, Maddie and Natalie (Alex's little girl) will be our cheerleaders!!!  These three cheered at the Jamboree and they did GREAT!!! They are using the cheers they learned from basketball and turning them into football cheers.  Alex is making them tu-tu's to wear, she also made them bows for their hair.  We made them shirts and also got them some very cute pom poms!!  They are going to be so cute!!!

What A Day!

I must say that today was quite an eventful day! I woke up this morning around 12:33am to learn that we had NO POWER! Our house was completely in the dark! Cory ended up waking up around 1:30am only to see that he could not see, haha! I had to walk him into the bathroom and then back into bed. Then Caiti ended up coming into my room at 3:33am to let me know she could not turn the light on and that she had to pee!! So I informed her the power was out and walked her back into the bathroom then into bed. Two hours later, Jay and I got up to start the day. We walked around the house trying to find all of our flashlights by the light of my cell phone which is VERY hard, haha! We found them and started getting things together for when the kids got up. Thankfully...just in time....the power kicked back on at 6:30am...right when the kids alarms go off! Perfect! So our day turned back into a normal routine at that point!

I went on a very long and very nice walk with Jeannie! 4 miles today and tomorrow we will hopefully extend that to 6!! After my walk, I came home and wanted to nap!! Jay and I just kind of relaxed all day. He played video games and I napped!!! When I woke up, Jay decided that he wanted to was his car. It's now about 1:30 in the afternoon. So we head out back to wash his car. Get completely done with that and I'm mid conversation with Jeannie when all of a sudden she screams through the phone "OH MY GOSH....IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE!!!!!" Instantly I saw everything around me shaking and I heard loud rumbling!! Me, Suzi and Jay all ran outside...instinct!! Apparently it would have been safer to run into our basement. Definitely going to have a family meeting in regards to a safe zone! We stood outside for a few minutes until we felt it was completely over. Jay and I just kind of stared at eachother. Realizing it was an earthquake but not really believing the fact that we just had an EARTHQUAKE!!!! Jay said to pull my car out of the garage just in case. We did that and then tried getting into contact with the kids' schools but our cell phones were not working!! I drove over to Jeannie's house to make sure she was okay and to see if she was able to contact the school. After a while she was able to get through. The kids were fine and the schools were okay. THANK GOD!!! As I drove back down to my house, I looked at everyone standing outside and they all had the same confused and shock looks on their faces! Who would have thought?!

I definitely thought that we had left the whole "earth moving under our feet" thing in California but I guess I was wrong! We had a few pictures and decorations knocked over but thankfully, no major damage!! Our cat, Max was completely spooked and did not come out from under the bed for a while! I too was spooked...I couldn't stop talking and moving. Jay finally just grabbed me and held me. I have never done well with earthquakes...kind of why I was glad to leave California! HA! So much for that!! However, we did survive and our family is okay! Thankfully, everyone who endured this today is okay. There were no deaths but plenty of structural damages. Including my friend, Tiffany's office. Her ceiling basically collapsed right onto her desk! The building is damaged and they all made it out safely!! PTL!!!

Those are just a few pictures of the few things that fell over today. I will take today's events and use it as a learning tool. We definitely need to be more prepared for when things like this happen. An emergency plan for our family needs to be set into place and I need to make my emergency tote!!! Thank you God for watching over us today!!

Morning on the Range

Just a few pictures from our time at the Driving Range this morning. Jay has two days off and this morning he wanted to go hit some balls.  He wanted to do an actual 9 holes but we decided it probably wasn't best with my back and because Im still somewhat recovering from the whole surgery thing.  Being at the driving range was a lot of fun.  I wasn't too sure about it and I had a lot of trouble in the beginning but I ended up enjoying myself and I got better! Jay of course, out-golfed me so he had a great time! LOL!

Sunday Update

We seem to have survived the first week of school without any major issues! It was a great week, in fact. The kids did great and both of them had nothing but good things to say when they got home from school. Mom was pleased!! It was quite the busy week though. Between school, football and daily routine...we were all pooped by the end of the day!

We started off the weekend by taking the kids to a movie. We went and saw Zookeeper. It was pretty cute! The kids giggled the whole time!! Yesterday, Jeannie and I woke up super early so we could hold a garage sale together. We didn't have a big turnout but we did make a few extra bucks! Later that night we had some friends over for a BBQ. Our friend Anna came who we don't get to see too often but it's always nice when we do get to see her! And of course, The Bell Family was here. Us girls had a good time catching up and reminiscing about some past times. We made it to bed around midnight so today will most definitely be our lazy day!! Jay & Cory will be headed off to a birthday party later this afternoon for one of Cory's teammates. I have tons of laundry to do and I'm sure Caiti will be here asking me who she can go play with! LOL!!

Jason ended a cycle at work and they were given Monday and Tuesday off so we will actually have two days all to ourselves while the kids are in school! We both are looking forward to that! It'll get the week started off on a good note! :) I'll also be having lunch with my friend, Candice, on Wednesday. Just some time to catch up since we didn't see eachother much over the Summer....even though she lives right up the road, LOL!! Cory has a scrimmage tomorrow (Monday) night so there definitely will be pictures up after that!! Stay tuned....

Cory and Caiti making choclate covered strawberries for the BBQ!