Summer vacation

Yes, we did take a family trip this summer. It wasn't very far from home, but it was super fun. We went to a local water resort. It was a hotel that had a water park right there behind it! They also had a huge arcade, places to eat and a bar (you know, if you like that sort of thing). Oh, and there was a dinosaur mini-golf place right next door! Did I mention the hotel is only 1/2 hour from our home? One of the perks of living next to tourist land!

The arcade was HUGE!

Part of the water park was indoors!

One evening we went to Sea World. We happened to visit Tilly, the whale just at feeding time. Connor put his hand on the glass and Tilly swam up and stayed right there for a minute or so. When we walked away Connor said "That was the perfect end to a perfect day!".The Woods boys ruled the park and may or may not have tortured a little girl or 2 with the water cannon's!

Pure Joy!

Now doesn't this look fun!

This is how Brandon showered the whole weekend...I'm not kidding.

Three big slides

Hudson loved this slide

Feet first please!

Connor on the big slide

Hudson on the big slide

My most memorable conversation of the trip happened between Connor & Brandon:

Dad, I'm having a fantastic time!

That's awesome buddy! I'm so glad you're having a great time!

No Dad, I said Fantastic!

Returnal life

Just picked Hudson up from school and here was our conversation:

Mom, I think God is running out of people
Why
Cause lots of people die
Then God makes more people
Oh yeah, we get returnal life
What is returnal life?
When we get to live a second year on earth
Um, I think you mean eternal life & that means...
No Mom, it's returnal life. Jesus died on the cross so we could have a chance to live in this state.
What state do we live in?
Florida
At least you got that right.

The class visited the Memorial Garden this week and must have discussed death. I think Hudson may have crossed his signals.

Oh, I am almost done with staff reviews for our church and once that is complete I plan to return to regular blogging!

latte?

I think I figured out the cause behind Hudson's "extra energy" issues!
Actually it is filled with water! It's a little trick I play on myself so I will drink more water. For some reason I drink more when it is in a coffee type cup rather than a sports cup. Hudson just thinks it's funny to pretend he is drinking coffee.

Mom's restaurant & The "S" word!!

I am going to write current blog posts while peppering in the rest of the old summer ones. This one is current...as in it happened an hour ago!

For the past 2 weeks when they boys get home from school the first thing they do is hop up to the counter that separates the kitchen & dining room. It is in the dining room, but looks into the kitchen. They eat breakfast there while I pack lunches, they eat lunch there in the summer and now they eat their after school snack there. They call it Mom's Restaurant. They hop onto the bar stools and I put on a fake accent and pretend I don't know them. Then I proceed to take their order. They crack up when I get to them part where I say (In my best southern accent) "You boys from around here?".

After school they sit at Mom's restaurant and tell me all about their day. Sometimes I have to ask a bunch of questions to get any info and some days the details just spill out. Today's conversation started out rough. But once I got Connor rolling he started telling story after story in his "Connor Way". Here is the most memorable from today...

Me: Was everyone nice to each other at school today? (my Mom way of asking if anyone is picking on him)

Connor: Well, everyone except "A" (no need to name names, as I have no idea who reads this)

Me: What happened?

Connor: "A" called Zack (I can use his name, he's the victim after all) a bad word.

Me: What word?

Connor : I don't want to say

Me: It's OK, you aren't really saying it, you are just telling me a story. Plus I asked, so it's OK this one time.

Connor: It's a grown-up word

Me: What word?

Connor: I don't want to say

Me: Just say it

Connor: It's the "s" word

I took a deep breath and thought "YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!! IN KINDERGARTEN!!! I HAVE KEPT MY LANGUAGE CLEAN FOR SIX F*&^ING YEARS!!!" Which , for an Italian kid from the Bronx was not an easy task.

Me: It's OK buddy just tell Mom what the word was so we can talk about it.

Connor: Stupid. He called Zack stupid Mom. Why are you laughing Mom?

Me: I love you buddy. You are right, that is a grown ups word.

Connor: Can I have another graham cracker?

The conversation continued to how calling people names hurts their feelings. But the real lesson for today is to get all of the information before you jump to conclusions. Especially when your information is coming from a six year old!

Back in action!

When we last left the Woods' they were super busy, filled with activities and Mom was going crazy due to the lack of daily routine. We now join our hero's back to school, with a daily schedule to rely on, karate ending (for a 2 month break) this weekend, soccer not starting for 3 weeks and swim team over for the summer. House back to its usual clean state and Mom with 12 hours a week to keep up with things. Can you hear the trumpets?....the birds singing? SCHOOL STARTED!!! Don't get me wrong, I have fun with the kids. We sing, we dance, we make each other laugh. It's just that...well...I HATE SUMMER!!!! There, I said it. There isn't enough scheduled activity during the day. I spend all day trying to "keep them busy". Which means I get NOTHING done...NOTHING. I start a project and 5 minutes in someone needs something. A drink, a snack, a spanking...oops! Plus the boys are together 24/7 so let's just say they get on each other's nerves. We did have lots of scheduled activities in the evening. Swim team on Monday and Wednesday. Karate on Tuesday and Friday. Swim meets on Saturday's. Hockey on Sunday's. We would get home late, wake up late and that's another thing that throws me off. I like getting up in the morning, early, with an alarm clock and a mission. I am so much more productive when I have a set amount of time to get things done. I thrive on a schedule. So, now that the kids are back at school the house is running like a well oiled machine!

Hopefully that will mean I can catch up on writing. I have lots of fun pictures to share from the summer. Here are some from our recent trip to Mt. Dora.

Great, now only 15 more blogs until I am up to date!

I want to blog

I want to blog. No, really, I DO! Brandon's brother Damon has been in town for the past 9 days so I have hundreds of pictures to go through and lots of fun stuff to share. However, the mountain of papers on my desk need to come first. That and the totally neglected house, the broken ice maker, the kids school supply list, ect, etc etc....

Connor starts kindergarten in 2 weeks and Hudson starts preK in 3 weeks. I plan on spending the morning Hudson starts doing nothing but blogging. I may sneak in a blog or 2 between now & then, but I will be back to my regular schedule once I have a quiet moment to myself.

My favorite thing about summer....is the ICE!

Hockey has quickly become our favorite sport that the boys participate in. OK, let's face it, it was always my favorite. I love hockey. I have always loved hockey. I hate that the closest pro team is in Tampa. I also hate that it would cost $300 to take the boys to a game. The other day when Brandon told me it was also his favorite I was pretty happy. I thought it would be soccer., what with him being Mr. Soccer. But he said Hockey! Hudson is trying his best. Now if he would just learn to bend his knees! Sometimes we get frustrated with him cause he is exactly "coachable". Connor takes what a coach says to him and almost instantly changes his game. Hudson takes what a coach says to him, instantly forgets it and does it his way. I have a feeling swimming will be Hudson's sport as that seems to be the one where he has the most "natural" ability. And if you refuse to listen to a coach, natural ability is a good thing to have. All practices start with races. Connor loves the races!

Uncle Justin, Aunt Erin & Barrett came along to watch! (so did Grammy & Pops) Barrett loved watching all of the kids on the ice.

SeaWorld

We have started a new tradition of sorts. Instead of spending money on big birthday parties we have decided to have a family party & then let each boy choose a special place to go (as a family) for their birthday. Hudson chose Dinosaur World and Connor chose Seaworld. As you can imagine I had they day planned down to the minute. I printed a map of the park & printed a show schedule on the back as well as our "day of fun" schedule. You know how I think, if I don't plan then fun the how will we possibly have the fun? We got there just as the park opened so we could get a good spot. That really sets the tone for the whole day, doesn't it? Good spot gotten, tickets pre bought on the Internet we went right into the park and headed right over to the kiddie land area to ride the rides before it got crowded. Um....kiddie land does not open until one hour AFTER the park opens. Hmmmm didn't notice that anywhere on the web site. Change of plans....We decided to stop & see the animals. No biggie I just did some quick rearranging to our "fun plan".

At 10am sharp I ran to the restaurant where you can eat with the sharks to make sure we got reservation for lunch. Brandon took the boys to kiddie land where as planned there were no lines. The boys rode the Shamu coaster 10 times in a row without even having to get off of the ride. We went through the rope/tube ride and then it happened....Connor fell. He fell HARD! Poor kid fell down a ramp and used his face to slow himself down. Neither of us saw what happened so I have no description for you. Like you wanted one! All I know is we heard him scream and turned around and he was tumbling down the ramp and landed with his leg caught in a rope and I was terrified that he had hurt his neck due to the way he landed. I got his leg free and Brandon picked him up and got him to the bottom of the ramp. He stopped crying and made sure he could move everything. Then, since no one was around we washed his face in the splash pad (shhhh). I went & bought him a visor to keep the sun off of his face & then brought him to the medical staff. The guy there was great and this is what he looked like the rest of the day. He never even talked about it the rest of the day. What a tough boy!The boys both loved the shows, but Shamu was their favorite!We rode the rest of the rides & even ate lunch with the sharks. Best part is we can go back the rest of the year for free. One of the perks of living in the sunshine state!

Zoo Part 3

As if parts 1 and 2 weren't fun enough we ended the day on a super cool note. The boys participated in a ropes course. They had a quick training and then off they went. They started on a course about 5 ft off the ground and once they completed it off they went to the "big kid" ropes. Connor's confidence soared. Hudson was just tall enough to reach the over head ropes. They had so much fun and worked hard to get through the course. We were not allowed on the course. We were just allowed to coach from the ground. The zoo has a 3 hour course for adults. Hmmm....how long till Brandon talks me into that? Gotta admit it, even I thought it looked cool!

Zoo Part 2

The next stop at the zoo was the splash pad. Always a good time. I was enjoying sitting back and taking pictures of the boys when they decided it was time for Mom to get to splashing! I totally got them back by using them as shields! We got soaked about 1 second after this shot!

Zoo Part1

Yep, the Zoo will take 3 posts. We really did 3 separate activities at the zoo. Also, this way Aunt Betty thinks I wrote 3 posts and she gets a whole week of happy! (See what a giver I am Betty!) Our friend Ken volunteers at the local zoo so he invited us for a backstage tour of the animals. He took out all the gross ones that I really didn't want him to. You know scorpions, spiders, snakes, lizards. Lots of the containers had words on the side like "exotic" "poisonous". Um, Ken...have you just met me???? We did get to touch a chinchilla. Quite possibly the softest thing I have ever touched.

Hudson loved that this bird could talk to him Hudson was braveConnor needed a little more help at first, but after an alligator he decided he could touch a snake and a lizard with no problem.They loved watching feeding time with the giant tortoise

Swim

This summer the boys have joined the local swim team. Hudson isn't technically old enough to join yet (shhhhh). They did great at their first meet. Connor took 1st place in 3 out of 4 of his heats and Hudson got a 1st, 2 seconds and a 3rd.

Connor on the blockConnor cruises to an easy win!

Hudson on the blockI wish I could dive with no fear like Hudson!Both boys really impressed us with their butterfly stroke as they had only learned them less than a week before the meet. Here is Connor.

Oh, and how cute are they in their speedos? I love them!

Karate Kids (& Dad)

Connor recently passed his test for his #2 blue belt & Hudson & Brandon are now yellow belts! Hudson breaking a board
Connor doing his form alongside the instructor

Karate has been great for the boys. Connor's confidence during karate is awesome. He has turned into a great little fighter at sparring class. He never backs down and often has the other kid on the run! Hudson is a little pit bull and we are working on teaching him control. He behaves great in class. Plus it is a great activity for the boys to all do together. No, I will not be joining them any time soon!