Belated last day of school

Okay, so it was really last Friday - that's the reason for the belated. I've been really busy as most of you can understand.

The last day of school was awesome! For one - I was there! I think this is the first year that I've actually been at the school. Two - the boys had such great teachers and enjoyed their time in 2nd and 3rd grade. Three - I have never seen so many people cry at the end of the school year. There were girls crying everywhere; I even saw someone on the floor in the hallway. She was extremely upset. Both of the boy's teachers cried, had the parents choked up too! Tristan and Aidan were pretty cool with it all but weren't jumping up and down about the idea of summer.

Can you believe this? I was actually surprised! Tristan got the highest award in the class! The other awards were for Most Caring, Best Penmanship, and Most Organized, etc.

Thanks Mrs. K for Tristan's first ever year of actually enjoying school!

Aidan and Officer Chris. Officer Chris volunteers in Aidan's class and is a super nice guy. I can't imagine him at his day job though, he's that friendly!

Aidan and his friend Caitlyn. She sits next to him in class and lives a couple of streets away. How comfortable do they look?

Aidan and his fantastic teacher, Mrs. W! She has dedicated a lot of her time to raise his reading levels and by the end of the year he was at a 3rd grade level. I'm so thankful to her and proud of him! Mrs. W even came to see one of Aidan's soccer games.

Bon voyage!

My sister, Stephanie and her family are out on a cruise right now! Wow, I wish I was with them. It's their first ever family vacation, how awesome it that? I'm praying that Steph is feeling better. (She was sick and on medication before leaving.) Hope that they are having a blast~we can't wait to see the pics and hear all about it once they return.

Results:

No pictures this time around! I have to admit I was a bit lazy and didn't even feel like taking out the camera. The whole weekend was a bit exhausting. I will definitely take pictures this next weekend during their Academy tournament.

Tristan played with his new team and they were in a tough division. They won their first game 2-1, tied the second game 1-1, and lost the third game 0-2. Because we lost the third game we didn't move on to the semi-finals. It was a bummer for sure, our day ended so much sooner than we had expected.

Tristan played well, he really gave it his all. That's all that we could have asked for. On to next weekends tournament.

Tournament weekend

Tristan is playing in a tournament this weekend with his new team. We have a hotel reservation in Denver so that we don't have to do so much driving and can sleep in somewhat tomorrow morning. Our first game is at 9 a.m. so we have to be at the field by 8:30 a.m. Pictures to follow next week but for now if you would like to check and see how they are doing click on this website: http://165.236.177.105/cs_trn_Flight.asp?CId=1&Trn=8&Did=182&Tp=2804

His team is the Pride Soccer's 3 Lions FC. They should update the points once the day is over and that will determine how far we go. If we aren't in first or second place we will be done Sunday morning. If not, we could continue until Monday afternoon. You can click on Games under Darron's name and it will give more details.

Tulip story

I've been really trying to plant flowers that will actually do well with our temperatures and unpredictable weather. The tulips have been around for two years now and you won't believe what's been happening.

The Monday after Mother's Day I come home to find 6 of my tulips had been cut! The flower and stem are gone but the leaves are still there. I assumed it was the boys next door. I asked and truly believe that it wasn't them. Okay, I tell myself, I have three more that are about to open, I'll enjoy those.

This morning as I'm putting out the trash I notice that I no longer have any tulips. The last three are gone, the stems are left this time but the flower is gone. I'm shocked! It's not as if they were blown off or anything either because I searched for some sort of sign of a lost petal. They aren't torn up, don't look like an animal got to them, nothing. What a huge bummer.

I waited all year for these to come up and they only bloom once to just have someone come along and take the flowers? I can't believe people some times. Thank God we took this picture a few days ago. (Yep, the boys always seem to be in soccer clothes nowadays. This should be our last busy week with that. I can't imagine them without a soccer ball though.)

Our tree

Our flowering tree in the front yard finally bloomed! I don't know a thing about these things but I always start to worry when I see all of the other trees blooming and ours hasn't woken up yet. I guess it's just the type that likes to keep me waiting! I love it though, even if it makes me wait for 3 weeks to see the flowers! Here's a couple of pics, professionally taken by Tristan!

Hot, hot, hot!

For those of you in Texas this is going to seem ridiculous but I've got to share it. It's hot here! We went from cold, rainy weather last week to hot, dry weather this week! It was 86 yesterday and tied our record high! When I got home yesterday the house was 77 and it took three hours to cool it down to a reasonable temp for bedtime. Wow!

The heat's honestly not that bad but the dryness is! We don't have much rain in the forecast for this week and my grass still hasn't greened up from the winter yet. With these temps it won't matter how much I water, it'll be fried! I wanted to have a presentable front yard since our back yard has been turned into a dirt soccer field. The boys have run off all of the grass, I'm sure it won't come back. Tristan is really pushing for turf, he wants it so badly - until the first time he has to clean up after the dog. I don't think turf would be a good idea.

Spring soccer season is over!

I can’t believe this soccer season is already over! The boys had their final games on Saturday. It was bittersweet. Tristan is changing teams and clubs for next season and while there are some good friends that we are leaving behind; there are a few that won’t be missed for various reasons and we are happy to get far away from that drama. We are also ready to have a more dedicated coach and the opportunities that come from a supportive soccer club.

Aidan is staying with his team next season and will keep moving up. Every season they have raised the bar and met it! Our only hope for his team is to acquire a few more quality players. This season his team only had 9 players and they really should have had 12.

We are now beginning the tournament season. Tristan is playing this weekend in a tournament with his new team. He will only get one practice in (tonight) but he’s familiar with some of the players so hopefully it will all go well. We’ll be staying in Denver for the weekend, tournaments are a lot of work but I like to try to make some parts of it fun. We’ll be in a hotel so they can swim and have a little break from our norm. Let’s cross our fingers for pretty weather!

Good news

I had some really good news to share with the boys and celebrate them for! This is how the conversation went:

Me: I have some really good news to tell you guys. Can you guess what it might be?

Tristan: We don’t have soccer practice tonight?

Me: No silly, you don’t have it tonight anyway!

Tristan: We’re getting another dog?

Me: No, but I would like that.

Aidan: You’re pregnant?

Me: Aw, honey! Nope, but that would be great news huh? This is something that has to do with you guys and something you’ve been working for!

Tristan: We made the Academy team?

Me: Yes!!!!

Yeah, both of the boys made the Academy teams in soccer and will play in a tournament at the end of the month! I’m so proud of them both. Tristan worked extremely hard for this and is ecstatic! Aidan has a so-so attitude about it and the whole thing seems to have come pretty easy for him. Josh and I are both very, very proud of them.

The pregnant comment from Aidan was so sweet and genuine. This post doesn’t do it justice, wish you could have been there to see his face. Maybe next time that will be the surprise.

Climbing up!

The boys went to a birthday party this past weekend and had a blast climbing!

Here's Aidan making it to the top! He was the first person to make it, however he was also one of the first to start climbing!

Tristan climbing on the swinging pole. This was one of the hardest to climb. He made it to the top though!

Aidan working on the pole! (Yep, I got my own joke but really didn't mean that.)

Aidan farther up and Joel on the wall.

Cake time! Look at the sneaky boy coming up behind to blow out the candles. Luckily he didn't make it in time to spoil it for the birthday boy.

Tristan's team

I snapped this quickly before their game on Saturday! I honestly can't believe it came out so well. I only took two pictures and I couldn't see the image because of the sun. I'm ecstatic it came out well. When I hand out trophies this Saturday I'm going to give each family a 4x6 picture also.

Josh is finally 33!

Yep, he is finally 33! No more "older" jokes to suffer through as I have for the past 4 months.

We had a quiet day, both had to work and the boys had school. I did manage to run during my lunch break and pick up his cake. A cookie cake of course, it's his favorite!

I tried to find the tennis shoes he wanted but he sent me on this wild goose hunt for them. I went to every shoe store in the mall and showed them the old shoe and asked if they had the newer model. This is what I was told, it was the newer model but pretty much looked the same and had the same colors, white and gray. Everyone that I showed this shoe to looked at me as if I was crazy!!! They don't remake Michael Jordan shoes. Once the model is made it's retired, new ones follow. I couldn't see anything that looked similiar so low and behold, again, another year with no gift!

I am taking him out to dinner tonight and set up the babysitter so that makes me feel better.

When we opened cards last night there was one that almost made me fall off of the counter. I'm going to share it with you guys:

Life Before the Computer:

Memory was something that you lost with age

A website was a spider's home

A hard drive was a long trip on the road...

...And if you had a 3 1/2" floppy you just hoped nobody found out!

Steph - you are hilarious! What a perfect card and too funny. Thanks so much for the laugh last night.

Mom, thanks for the card and the money! It makes his day that you think of him. I have the best family ever.

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Update: Josh went to the mall today to look for his shoes and can you believe that he couldn't find them either? Looks like they don't sell them anymore. Imagine that.

The Mayor is Here, The Mayor is Here!

As soon as he arrived at the school, Aidan latches onto his arm and walks him down the line of students for introductions. (Handsome boy with red shirt and jeans.)


Going down the line still. Obviously, I was on the wrong side of this but there were so many people I couldn't get another angle. (I was happy with what I got.)


When the Mayor walks into the room the kids throw confetti!

Confetti, Confetti!

Each child had a powerpoint slide that they stood up and read to him. Aidan is two seats away from him.

The Mayor signed each of their writing journals. They were able to take home the pen.

We were there for so much longer than I had been told. What was supposed to be a quick 15-20 minute visited turned into over an hour long. We left before the Mayor did! Tristan came by after class was released and I got him in for a quick picture!

All in all, it was an experience. I agree with Aidan though, it was kind of boring!

Same old stuff...

Okay, I'm kind of ready for this to be over. I voted for Hillary and would love to see her be the nominee but I'm also tired of this long drawn out journey. I can't even imagine how they are feeling. She has definitely put up a fight, I have to give her that.

Can you imagine what the convention will be like in August if they go to the super delegate vote there? I'm going to check on tickets for that right after this post. To be there on that history making day would be undescribable. Wow!

Off to see the mayor in an hour. Too bad he's a Republican, ha!

Our weekend activity

Soccer, Soccer and more Soccer!!

Tristan and his buds - Joel and Justin! (Look at the Rocky Mountains in the background!)

Right after haircuts and on our way to soccer academy!

Aidan and his best friend Kennan.

We had an awesome weekend! The boys did really well in their games, I'm shocked that we only have two weeks left of the season. It's gone by so fast! I won't know what to do with myself and the free evenings we will have. Now that I've said that, it's not true, I have to clean the house and I want to plant some flowers!

Tristan was in the top group at the academy yesterday! He's worked so hard to get there and we are all praying he'll be there again next weekend. Aidan's been in the top group the entire month so far. It's funny their attitudes about it all. Aidan could care less and doesn't want to be picked for the tournament and Tristan has been working so hard to get there and would love to be chosen. When things come easy to some people they don't cherish it as much as those that have to work their tails off. Character building!

Polish

Okay, so I'm finally getting around to taking the polish off of my toes and put on a new color. You would never guess how long the old stuff has been on there and I'm not saying!

Aidan is with me (of course, because he loves painting his nails and what not) and as I'm trying to chose a color he asks me why I'm shaking it? I told him that sometimes the color separates and you want to make sure it's mixed well before you start to apply it. He asked if he could shake his and I said sure.

The next thing I know, crash, crack and splatter!!! He has dropped his bottle on the floor in the basement bathroom. Can you believe it? I immediately thought, "we have to get it up before it dries." He runs for the paper towels and I start picking up pieces of glass. All I can say is THANK GOD IT WAS CLEAR!!!!! Can you just imagine if it would have been red?

The worst part of it was the smell and our burning eyes. There is probably a coating of clear polish all over everything in that bathroom but I could only really see it in the grout of the tile and there wasn't anything I could do about that.

Whew, this could have been so ugly!