Sometimes you feel like a nut

I may have finally lost my mind because I let my two boys talk me into bringing home a squirrel today. My niece moved into her new home this weekend and it came with a baby squirrel in the basement. We saw no sign of a family and it followed us around like a dog! We are going to release it in my mother-in-laws backyard tomorrow after the storms pass. My boys think it is their new pet, but I keep reminding them it is a wild animal! I kept refusing to take the squirrel home and all of my boys (husband included) gave me the most pathetic look, so I caved. It reminded me of Willy Wonka: "Daddy I want a squirrel, get me a squirrel!" Oh well, hopefully, the squirrel will do well at my mother-in-laws. The darn thing kept getting into my nieces garage and her husband was not about to let a squirrel grow up in his house. I don't blame him but I just couldn't let him kill the poor thing. We will turn him over to nature and hope for the best.

Here he is in Ethan's pocket. They boys are calling him Lenny.

Sitting with Danny, he actually follows him around and climbs up his leg to get to his arms. He even came out from under the car in the garage to Danny. Really weird, the poor thing must be so scared to want to be with people.

What a difference a few hours makes...

When we left Birmingham at 4 am we were all freezing, but when we arrived in Orlando the weather was beautiful! The boys could not wait to go swimming when they realized how warm it was out, to bad I forgot their swimsuits. We had to buy them new suits at the gift shop and, of course, more beach towels for me. Disney is already taking our money! This year we are staying at the Caribbean Beach Resort so we spent the afternoon watching the boys play in the water and sitting on the beach sipping margarita's. What a tough life! Tommorrow we will get up early and go to Magic Kingdom.

Here are some pics.

Caribbean Beach Resort


The room with Nemo decor, Madison loves Nemo!!

The boys killing time in the gift shop.

Gavin trying to knock Ethan off of the hammock at the beach

These next few pictures are from an area next to the pool. It is a playground that has a huge barrel that fills with water and then dumps it on the kids. Here are my two enjoying getting drenched and running for their lives!

Dinner at Shutters, the hotel restaurant. As you can tell the boys were exhausted by this point. But, they did love the make your own sundays at the end of the meal.

LOL at his face, I am surprised he didn't fall asleep and fall face first into the ice cream!

Family Day Out

Well, both boys made it through the first two days of school without any major issues.  Gavin even came off the bus in the afternoon with a smile on his face.  I figured we would have a quiet weekend at home but by 9:00 am on Saturday morning the boys were already going at each other.  That is when I said, "load up the car we are going underground!"  I think everyone thought I had finally cracked but we climbed in the car and headed to DeSoto Caverns.  I have never been to DeSoto but it was a nice day out.  The grounds were really pretty and the cave was a comfortable 60 degrees.  They have a lot of small attractions at the back of the park that the kids enjoyed.  It was more expensive than I expected but worth it, we had a great time!  Here are the pics...

The mill by the gift shop

Waterfall near the entrance to the park

The cave

Cave again

The above and below picture are of the waterfall in the cave,

I tried a slow shutter speed to make it look more impressive but

as you can see the shot is blurry.  I did not take my tripod and 

could not hold the camera steady enough for the shot.  Below is the 

same fall with a fast shutter.  The fall looks like a slow trickle in that shot! lol

Next three are shots inside the butterfly house

Archery, Robin Hood need not worry we all need practice!

Air guns, both boys would like a set of these for Christmas!

To be honest I would love them myself they were fun.  Danny and Gavin

were on one side and Ethan and I were on the other shooting across at 

each other.

Panning for gold and minerals

Digging for gyms

The boys got a lot of rocks from each activity (the panning and the digging),  I bought a book in the gift shop and we identified their bounty when we got home.  Gavin has a really good eye finding stones and matching them with the pictures.  We got hematite which is a shiny metal looking stone that will streak concrete red when you rub it on its surface.  When I read that to Gavin we all had to head out to the pool to check it out and sure enough it worked!  

The lost maze and squirt gun maze

Paddle boats, they were both soaking wet after this ride.

Back to School

Today was the day!  Both of my boys are now in school.  Gavin was not to happy about the idea but he still did better than I did, after the bus pulled away I started crying!  My husband just laughed and gave me a huge hug.  I was a basket case for a about 10 minutes but the idea of having the whole day to myself has settled in and I am much better now. lol

I will try to update tomorrow about what they both thought of their first day.

As promised, here are a few pictures.

Not a happy camper!

This was as good as it got until he saw the 

neighbors kids come to the bus stop.

running to the bus stop

Interested in everything, and nothing at all

That title describes my oldest child, he wants to try everything but he does not want to stick with anything.  He played soccer for one year and decided this year that he would like to try baseball for the first time.  He is already saying he is not going to play again next year. *sigh* His team is doing great, they have won their first seven games and are still undefeated.  I had no idea how intense baseball could be at this age.  I am dreading their first loss, the games are getting closer and closer and it seems like it might happen any day now.  Not sure my child will care but the others will be disappointed.  So, I will just have to think positive and hope for a perfect season.

Update:  They stayed undefeated, according to the coach it is the first time in park history for the seven year old age bracket.  Ethan warmed up to it a little by the end of the season so hopefully, he will give it another go next year.

Yep, that's my boy during the game! ha

I really can not blame him, not much action for the outfielders until the pitching machine hits the field.

Ready to run

They kid pitch a few innings at this age and Ethan is terrified of getting hit.....again.  He has been hit by two pitchers and had the bruises to prove it, so he does not like to bat much.  He is getting better though, got two hits and a walk in the last game.  He has started telling the pitchers that they better not hit him when he gets up to bat.  I had to talk to him about that, I told him they didn't mean to hit him and that he could not randomly threaten the players on the other team.   I guess I will find out at the next game if he listened to me.

Prom

Brian went to the prom Saturday so I went to the gardens to take pictures for him.  His birthday was also this weekend which was great because I know he wants to keep his mind distracted with his surgery coming up next Tuesday.  If you read this add him to your prayers!  I think his girlfriend, Jessica, was the only one at prom in a gold dress and she looked beautiful in that color.  Here are the pics.

I got distracted and took pictures of the kids

Gavin did not want his picture taken with Brian and Jessica, he thought they were getting married and acted really weird about taking a photo with "the bride"

A Day at the Zoo

We recently took a trip to the zoo to see the new wombat exhibit.  Unfortunately, he did not cooperate and all we got to see was his furry backside.  I have to admit that seeing all of those animals in their small areas is depressing but the boys had a good time.  

Gavin at the Children's zoo area

Stephanie holding Ryan and Ethan

So this is what goes on when I am not looking! ha

Tiffany and Madison

Feeding the birds

Gavin was so serious

Feeding the fish