Road Trip

6 states in 6 days! FL, GA, TN, KY, IN, and MI. Whew! So glad to be home. We made awesome time both ways despite the stops for food and gas. We went for a wedding and despite little time without family obligations we still managed to squeeze in a few touristy things.

On the way there we stopped at the Mammoth Caves in Kentucky. It is the worlds longest cave system with 367 miles explored thus far. The temperature in the cave remains 56 degrees year round and because this is true Native American remanents have been found in the cave perfectly preserved dating back between 2000-4000 years. Pretty cool.

Inside the caves, the dark made picture taking pretty hard!
62 stairs led in and out of the mouth of the cave called "The Natural Entrance"

The National Park offers a multitude of free paths and bike trails. They also offer a bunch of cave tours that go from the basic self guided main trunk tour we took and get as complex as age/weight restricted spelunking tours including crawling, climbing and swimming! We also visited a chocolate factory in Indiana where you could see the factory, sample candies and check out this HUGE chocolate fountain!
Between pizza with family celebrating 3 birthdays and the rehearsal dinner we managed to sneak in a game of mini golf.
And because I am me I managed to drive 1200 miles to trade my beach for another beach. We drove to the "Dunelands" and into yet another National Park where we then climbed Mt.Baldy, a 126 foot sand dune on the Lake Michigan shore. The beach was beautiful and pictures cannot do it justice - but the water was frigid and these nasty little unidentified black bugs bit so hard if you stopped moving - that our beach time was walking time more than anything else. The west side of the dune, aka the up path, is covered in foliage. The beach side is just sand.
And lastly we went to a wedding! The reason for the trip, my cousin Amanda tied the knot after 8 years of dating her high school sweetheart Titus. They had a great photographer and I hope to get alot of those shots bc my camera could not handle the funky lighting at the reception whatsoever. However I do have one kind of fuzzy but still special picture. This is my grandpa with his granddaughters (minus one). The bride and the two in bridesmaids gowns are all sisters! We seldom get all of us in one spot at one time but growing up we were very close!

New Things of Week 1 & Week 2

Week 1: Stomp! Never saw it before, dont go out to theater with great seats often, so that was my out of a rut thing this past week.

Week 2: Driving to Indiana with the kids and my parents, no Todd. Leaving tomorrow night. Its new, not in my rut, and very very scary :-)

LeShayne's No Good Very Bad Day

Woke up screaming, yes screaming, in pain. Had this huge cramp/knot in my calf muscle that was literally visible it was so big. Very painful.

Ran out of my house juggling dry cleaning and coffee and my Publix green bags that needed to go in the car while giving instructions to Todd to give the babysitter. Grabbed the wrong keys. Got all the way to work and realized I had the only key to Todds car essentially stranding him at my house.

Had a conversation with my boss at work based on a conversation I had with a friend at work about my position/availability. He got a super confused look on his face and come to find out my friend LIED to me. I now look like an idiot.

Came home from work (Todd borrowed our sitter's/friend's car) and switched cars, did a load of laundry, and thought maybe my day would look up.

Drove Tori to swim practice where I find out she forgot her goggles. Turn around and get them and go back.

Come home - now I will get something done right? Wrong! I hear a funny dripping noise in the closet and open it to find water raining out of my AC/ceiling. The pan overflowed and leaked water and must have all day because every box we store in there is soaked through. Call the AC guy, who doesn't do after hours, tells us to drain the pan and if it does not stop turn it off. Great.

So we open the attic, but our roof was just repaired so every nasty little bit of roof that fell and every nail that got knocked out is all over the attic and rains down on my head as I open it. My dog is now trying to eat it. And my closet is STILL DRIPPING!

We finally get the AC pan emptied, still dripping bc the wall/ceiling in closet is soaked and still dripping. Drag everything but the water heater out of there...and turn off the air. This is FL. The "feels like" temp here (temp + humidity factor for those of you that have never lived here) was 108 yesterday. Last night it was 85 degrees in our house. A peaceful night of sleep was not to be had by any of us.

So the AC guy is supposed to be here this morning. And my day has to get better right? Of course no AC means no iron, no dryer, no oven, no dishwasher, or anything else that creates heat. So I am a day behind and leave for vacation tomorrow - excellent!

God give me the strength...

Stomp!

Todd and I had a great night out last night with some friends. We went to an upscale burger joint which seems like an oxymoron but was really pretty good. Then we headed to Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center to see Stomp. It was amazing. They used everything from trash cans to matchboxes and broomsticks to drum and the dance skills are awesome as well. Don't know what stomp is? Check out these videos. With their trash cans, lids and buckets.

With the broomsticks:

Random Pics & Haircut

Barefoot Summer Kids returns...

at least temporarily.

Todd wants the space I have called my sewing space since we moved in to this house as an office area since I have not been sewing much. But I may have had a slight addiction to fabric that caused a massive pile up. Therefore I am sewing with great regularlity over the next couple of weeks in hopes of cleaning it all out of there - quickly! Nothing too fancy for the most part but simple, reasonably priced stuff. And summer means the return of personalized beach towels.

Anyway I have moved venues as much of the boutique community I was a part of on ebay has, so to check out my listings as they come up visit me at Etsy. For those of you that have never been over there it's an amazing community of handmade items, supplies, and vintage stuff! So you dont have to sort through potato chips that look like Leno to get the item you want.

Just a few listings today to get started but LOTS coming soon.

Digging out of the rut...

So I sometimes feel like my life is in a rut - a blessed, fun and enriching rut but a rut nonetheless. And I decided its time I dig myself out. So each week I am going to go out of my way to try one new thing. Some things are bigger than others...so here are some of my ideas thus far.

- Spanish Classes
- Yoga
- Pilates
- Midnight Run
- Cooking vegetarian
- Sewing a skirt for me
- Decorating a fun cake

If you have more ideas of things you like to do that not everyone does OR something you think I would like...comment! I could use ideas! Preferably cheap.

So every Fri/Sat/Sundayish I will post for the prior week...stay tuned to check out this weeks new thing.

Bad Mommy and Daddy

Tristan lost yet another tooth. And he put it under his pillow...and the tooth fairy forgot to come. So he said maybe she was busy I'll try again. And the worlds crappiest tooth fairies forgot again. The current story is that she is on vacation in Hawaii, back Monday, she has the same first week of summer vacation that he had. I looked it up on the internet (her vacation) so it must be true! Good thing he can't read fast yet...off to place massive reminders to myself and Todd.

Flippin Out

Wednesday we went to Future Flipz for open play in their gymnastics area complete with ladders to climb, giant trampolines, spring loaded flooring and giant foam pit. We went with a bunch of friends from church but most of them were a bit younger than my kids so we invited some older ones too. Below is Tristan and Ben climbing the wall ladders and Tori and Emma taking a little break from playing.

Update...

Besides the dry cleaners I did everything on my list. Yay! Then I fell into bed and was unconcious within 2 seconds. Of course that was late and my alarm went off at 4:55 for spin class this morning.

But I have coffee, let the day begin!

Today I will...

Get some ironing done.
Get mostly caught up on laundry.
Have fun with my kids.
Play with my dog.
Get to the bank.
Drop off dry cleaning.

And I will do it all between a lunch date, play date, trip to Old Navy AND a 6 hour swim meet. No problem. Off to don my superwoman cape, hopefully its not missing again :-)

PYP Invitational

Tori attended her first official meet today with official times. She was in two separate races - 50 yard breaststroke and 100 yard freestyle. She is not as fast as some of the kids who have been doing this for 3+ yrs but she is getting better everyday and we were SO proud of her for finishing. Especially the 100 free. 4 laps in a pool is ALOT when you are that age. Anyway a few pictures - her and her friend Madison in team suits at start of meet; waiting on the starting horn for the 50 breaststroke, and swimming the second lap of her freestyle race (shes the swimmer in the front of this picture).

Last Day

Today was the last day of school and I now officially have a 1st and 4th grader. Wow!

The kids came home with report cards - good all around. Tori made Dean's list. Then 11 kids came over for an ice cream party to celebrate the beginning of summer/end of the year. Lots of chaos but fun.

Now the kids are playing Wii, mommy is taking a break and Max is vegging until swim tonight!