OBX

Our vacation was awesome!! Outer Banks is beautiful. (I'd love to live there!) The drive was very pretty too. W Va and Va are pretty w/ the Appalacian Mtns. We stopped in Norfolk Va to a naval museum where we saw the USS Wisconisn and jelly fish everywhere in the ocean. We went to the beach everyday and brought home bags of shells. Brent & Hayley loved swimming and 'surfing' the waves w/ their boogie boards. Maddy wasn't quite ok w/ going in-she'd wade in. The waves can be pretty rough when you're little like her. At night, people go out w/ flashlights and find Ghost crabs. The crabs dig holes in the sand and hide during the day and come out at night. We went to the Kite Festival at the Wright Bros. museum. Brent & Maddy made kites and we bought a cool turtle to fly-we named him Crush ;) The festival were flying a huge octopus, alligator, squid and a bunch of other cool kites. We saw the Cape Hatteras light house. It's the tallest light house at 208 ft. There are 4 lighthouses in OBX. We saw this crab on the beach one day. We had picnic lunches on the beach everyday and ate out everynight. Awesome fresh shrimp and crab! YUM

More pic's of the girls. Maddy making an out at 3rd. And running to 3rd. Her hit went thru 1st & 2nd base, she got to 1st. And then Hayley and her new Ipod-Happy early Birthday!!! The craze here is Silly Bandz. Maddy has too many to count. She wanted to wear them during her game. She and Brent collect/trade them. Hayley likes them but is too old to admit it I think ;)

More great pic's of Hayley catching. She's a tough cookie for wanting to catch with how hot it's been. She usually catches for 3 innings/game. She really likes it.

I had Maddy's friend party at our pool yesterday. The temp was 92 and w/ humidity, it felt like 100 and boy it did. YUCK! Great day for the pool. Maddy had fun w/ her friends and Brent & Hayley had friends over too to swim with. My neighbor's husband called my neighbor (Kim is our neighbor and is Maddy's BFF ;) while we were 'pooling' because their bldg felt the aftershock of the earthquake in Canada. We didn't feel it. People in Scott's bldg felt it, but he was too busy to notice ;) It sounded like something hit the roof and tremors. Interesting............

We are eagerly awaiting our trip! We leave in 2 wks. Our condo is so nice, great views of the ocean and the sound. Washer/dryer in the unit which is great to do some wash-pack lighter. There is so much to do-lighthouses to see, maybe I'll try surfing!!-how cool that would be. There is a maritime shipwreck place to see, lots of 'crab shacks' to eat fresh seafood in. I can't wait!

Well, it is lunch time! Take care!

;)

Happy Summer!

Ah............summer is here!! No school-yeah! We're all enjoying being off and being home. Brent & Maddy had VBS last week. Hayley is too old for VBS but she helped me serve snack. It was a fun week. The kids had a blast!

Ball is over for the kids. A few rain outs that aren't going to be made up. Maddy has her last game tomorrow night. The pic's are Brent pitching in one of the last games. Closer pic's of Hayley catching. I'll put more pic's on. The older boys are required to wear helmets now when pitching. Our girls teams our getting face masks also. A 15 yr old Loveland boy was hit last year-he was pitching and a line drive hit him in the head. He was in bad shape and has to relearn all the basics over.

Happy Birthday Madison!!

Happy Birthday Madison! I can't believe my baby girl is 7! I made her favorite spaghetti for dinner and had cake and ice cream. Gma/gpa have been here for 2 wks now so they were here to celebrate too. Maddy loves Barbie's so she got a new boy to add to her collection and some other cool stuff. Clothes from Justice her fav store. We've been busy w/ball. Hayley's the catcher in the pic. She really likes to catch. Brent has started to pitch this year. It's been fun for gma/gpa to see the kids' games, celebrate bday, mother's day, school stuff while they're here. The kids are done w/ school this Friday. They've had parties, field days in the last week. Hayley went to Camp Kern w/ school overnite last week. She really had fun. They went canoeing, hiking and lots of other fun stuff. Another school year over. Where does time go? We're all excited to be off for the summer and hang out at the pool. I can't wait to go to Outer Banks! We went to Wright Patterson Air Force Base today. Huge museum of history of planes, war, etc. Well, I'm off to relax.

it's been a while.......

At first when I tried to log in from our new lap top, I couldn't access my blog. I tried again now and I'm in!!

We've been busy w/ ball. Lots of games getting rained out. The girls started games this weekend but they got rained out. Practice and some of Brent's games have been rained. Brent's team is doing good. They're young! Brent and a few other boys pitch. Brent does pretty good. It's cute to see his wind up!

Hayley gets her braces off tomorrow. Brent also goes to have an xray to see what he needs in terms of braces. The ortho thought just the 4-5 teeth on top.

I ran the 1st leg of the Flying Pig today. I woke up at 3 am to a storm. It was still lightening at the start line. And it stopped but continued to pour. Which was actually nice-cool and refreshing. Our team w/ church ran for the Ferrell family whose son has cancer again. In total, the team raised $18k for the family! It was a fun, interesting experience. At the end, there's free food everywhere! Donuts, chips, fruit, water, gogurt.......yummy after running! My leg was 6.8 miles. I walked but ran most. Lots of people running. Some walked the 1/2 marathon. I'm a bit sore now but it was worth it. I may even do it again next year. We'll see. We started by Paul Brown stadium, into Ky for a few miles and back into downtown Cincy. The race started at 6:30 am, I was up at 4. My neighbor picked me up at 5.

I can't believe there's 1 mo left of school. Where does time go? Hayley made the A/B honor roll again.

So, I'm off to relax, read and go to bed.