Busiest Week Ever

Between two field trips, spirit week at school, soccer, making & delivering food for fundraisers and families with new babies, and physical therapy........this has been an incredibly busy week!

We'll start with Spirit Week! This is always such a fun week at school. Monday was DRESS YOUR BEST and I failed to get a picture of the girls. :( Tuesday was SPORTS DAY. This was my favorite. Avery was freaking adorable!!! Allie had a field trip so she didn't participate.

Wednesday was CRAZY HAIR/CLOTHES day. They really weren't too crazy. I tried to get them to let me give them a mohawk hair-do, but they weren't having that. So we went for the Princess Leia look which was actually kinda cute. Their hair looked much crazier by the end of the day!!

Thursday was WEAR PURPLE for Month of the Military Child. They also had a Fun Run. Allie ran 7 laps, Avery ran 6.

Friday was PLACES YOU'VE BEEN. I just realized I didn't get a photo on this day either! Avery didn't participate anyway because this was the day of her field trip. Allie wore her cute Ciao Bella shirt that we got in Italy.

{FIELD TRIPS}

I wasn't sure if I would get to go on another field trip with the girls this year. It's only fair to let everyone have an opportunity. There must not have been enough volunteers because I was able to go on both! Yay!!

Allie's field trip was to the Ely Cathedral & Stained Glass Museum. We got to sit and listen about how stained glass is made, walked around the stained glass museum, then sat and listened to how stained glass was made some more, then they got to make their own "stained glass", had lunch outside with a flock of baby ducks (reminisced about Allie's Duck Presentation last year), put on a play, and finally toured the cathedral. I will be completely honest. When I saw where they were going for their field trip I thought it sounded like the most boring field trip ever. I secretly didn't want to sign up to be a chaperone! Allie really wanted me to though so that's why I did. It actually turned out to be a pretty great field trip. A little too much sitting around listening to how stained glass is made (though interesting) but I liked how they added in the art project and play in between things so things didn't get too boring for them. Great day!

I don't know how I got so lucky to have such an awesome group of girls to chaperone!

Allie and her best friend, Kiera.

helping Kiera finish up her stained glass

The play. Our little performer playing the evil Queen!!

Avery's field trip was to Bircham Windmill. I had been wanting to take the kids here since it's not too terribly far from our house. It is a working windmill and the kiddos were able to climb to the top (Avery FREAKED out when climbing down). They also got to make their own bread, pet the farm animals and just play. It is a very tiny place so it was quite crowded, but all in all, I think it was a great field trip. 

Again, how did I get so lucky to have such an amazing and CUTE group of kids!

And they all fell asleep on the bus. ;) NOT!

And the rest of the photos/videos are just random ones from this month.

The very first week of April, the 2nd and 3rd graders performed for the school.

Then Allie and Avery put together a show of their own at home. Super cute and creative!

The weather has been amazing!! We got to do one of our favorite things last weekend....a family bike ride and picnic.

And I have to include this pic of Blake. He fell asleep on the way home from church. Candy drool and awkward position = very tired boy!

Lastly, the girls' had to say farewell to their principal yesterday. Mr. Shea was such a great principal and we will miss him! He was so good with the students and made every effort to get to know every family. I will miss our Purdue/Indiana/Ohio talks! His leaving was somewhat short notice and of course the girls wanted to get him something. Luckily we started working on something this week....along with the many other things this week. We thought he was leaving next week and found out Friday morning (yesterday) that that was his last day! So I have no pictures, but the girls made him a hedgehog ---similar to the one Avery made for the 100th day of school --- with golf tees for the spines/spikes. See, the girls had been in his office several times this year. One of those times Allie was just sitting there quietly while Mr. Shea was busy with something else. She couldn't stand the awkward silence so she just blurted out, "So, do you like golf!?" haha. I guess he has a lot of golf stuff in his office. Mr. Shea thought it was cute and told me all about it and how she told him her Grandpa plays golf, etc, etc. So, naturally the girls wanted to get him something golf related. We also got him some British flag golf balls, made an American Flag one........and we had ordered one that said 'Fore' our Principal, Mr. Shea but it's not here yet. :( Oh well. I had to call Derek once I found out it was his last day and tell him where everything was scattered throughout the house and have him drop it off in the car so we could give what we had to him! Of course I had an emotional one that I had to console. Allie takes too much after her Mom. I hate farewells and wasn't listening to what was being said or I probably would have been all blubbery too.

Flashback Friday?

Decided to go through and scan some of our boxes of old photos and organize some of our digital ones today.......and I found these! The girls have a hard time believing that I used to be a "teacher". I think they have seen one of these but maybe now that I have a little bit more proof they will actually believe me and listen to me when I'm trying to help them with their homework......or not! :)

And these of Ave Babe!

I will have to do another Flashback Friday when I find some gems of Allie & Blake!

Tenerife Sea Won the Heart of My Family!!

What an awesome vacation! I'm a big planner and I didn't do much in the way of research for this trip so we pretty much just winged it. It was so fun and relaxing (when our sickos weren't whining). Portugal has always been at the top of our favorite trip list and I was starting to think there was no way it could ever be topped. The Canary Islands are verrrrrrry close!!! The beaches of Portugal are better and we had great company there, but everything else goes to the Canary Islands. Avery says this trip is her new favorite!

I will pretty much let the pictures tell the story, but I'm sure they don't do the Islands even close to justice of what it's really like.

The Resort {El Marques} We got a great deal on the AFV Club site for only $350 for the week!

Spent several days at pool/beaches. Most of the beaches were black sand.

{Playa San Juan}

{Playa Fanabe}

{Teide National Park}

Highest peak in Spain and is home to a volcano. Allie was super excited to visit the volcano as she had just finished up a unit on volcanoes at school and wanted to collect some rock and crystals to bring back to share with her class.

Dance like nobody's watching

{Flipper Uno}

Since we are big into boating and it has been a while since we've been on one, we decided it would be fun to go on a boat ride. One of the many pamphlets in our room was for this cool looking pirate ship themed boat. There are even pirates on board and there is a plank (rope swing), and it's all inclusive -- food and drink. It just so happened the day we signed up to go that the wind decided to pick up and the sea was ANGRY! It was so incredibly choppy. We were surprised they still went out. Allie and Avery started freaking out right away thinking that we were going to tip over. The water started spraying over the side and getting us wet. They didn't like that either. Then I threw up! One of the pirates took Blake from me while I did my thing and then they helped us to the back of the boat where it wasn't as rough. As soon as I get back there I see a huge wave come crashing over the boat and immediately know that the girls just got soaked and are probably freaking out even more. Sure enough they are then being brought to the back of the boat, crying and wrapped up in blankets. Then I throw up again, and then Derek follows suit! Meanwhile, Blake is sleeping on my lap.

(The girls were looking at the blog tonight and I was sitting next to them. We came to this picture of me and the kids. I mentioned something about my smile and then Avery said, "You look so pretty and so skinny and you look like you're 10." LOL Then I turned to Allie and asked her if she thought I looked skinny. She smiled and said,  "You look like a woman is supposed to look." LOL!!!!!!! I know I am not skinny and I make jokes about being fat too much....I need to stop so my kids don't have low self esteem and worry about body image like me. They sure do know how to make me feel good though.)

And then we left the port and it was the worst flippin 3 hours ever! And yes, it looks calm here. This is when we pulled up close to the shore for the food/swim break.

{Loro Parque}

This place was awesome! Very similar to Sea World, but the ambiance of the place is out of this world.

Allie so badly wanted to get picked for this.....

Allie did get picked for a part in the bird show

{Siam Park}

Dubbed the Number 1 water park in the World.

The last day we realized we didn't have a family photo........so we pulled off the side of the road and got one. :)

{Random Photos}

Island across the way....La Gomera

Doesn't this kid look like Macaulay Culkin?

I don't take food pics often, but here is one of Spanish Paella. Super yummy!

And we always get the yummiest pastries on these trips. This one isn't the prettiest we've had or the yummiest but to give you an idea (and this is just from a cheap supermarket!)

Poor Gummy Bear!

Last night, we had dinner in Playa de Americas. I love the restaurants right along the ocean!

And Allie had to get a pic with this dolphin statue

Here are a few takes of the whiny part I was talking about. In all fairness, I don't think they were feeling 100%. Avery missed most of school the week before the trip. She was just really congested since she can't blow her nose very well and then it all gets into her lungs and her lungs are weak as is. Blake started the cough the day before we left and he doesn't know how to blow his nose at all so he was miserable.

Plane ride over was easy with him....he just wanted to sleep

Every time we turned around, this is what she looked like. So disgusting! We really need to work on her manners.

{Kids Say The Darndest Things}

Avery reallly had to go the the bathroom, but we had no where to go so we told her she was just going to have to hold it. She was freaking out saying that she couldn't so then we told her to think about something else. She said, "I can't! I can't even look at you and Mom because you have blue shirts on!" Obviously the blue made her think of water, which made her think of pee.

I got a little bit of a tan. During the last couple of days Avery started calling me "Hot Cocoa."