Miscellaneous Memories

It's been so long since I actually posted on time, so I may have already posted some of these, but here are some random moments probably not worthy of entire posts themselves, but still notable nonetheless.

When the movie Monkey Kingdom came out, Liam just HAD to go.  So he & I had a date night to see it.  Here he is showing his true monkey colors in the car beforehand.

One day he insisted on mopping.  We tried telling him that our cleaning lady would be coming in a couple of days, but he just HAD to mop. So we let him mop.

Pile of boys...

Our first trip to the food truck night this year - one of our favorite things to do in the summer!

This year our neighborhood held a 2-mile fun run/walk through the neighborhood. We all participated - the boys took off and we didn't see them again until the finish line. Josh & I took a more leisurely pace. Liam was so excited to find his friend Andrew at the event. I love this photo of them because it is just pure JOY.

We had a warm weekend and let the boys run through the sprinkler - the first sprinkler day of the year is always fun!

Spring chorus concert

Zachary's teacher told the class that they needed deodorant because the hall spelled like armpits after recess.  He really took this to heart and insisted that he just HAD to have deodorant.  So we went into Kroger one day to get some, and wouldn't you know it - Liam HAD to have some too.  They were 2 for $3, so, yeah.

Tami had a contest one month for her directs, and the prize was your choice of $50 gift card, a monogrammed floppy hat, or Tory Burch flip flops. I was so excited to be the lucky winner, so of course I chose the flip flops!!  I wear them everywhere I can!

We participated in the Loco Glo 5k again this year.  Liam wanted to do it too, so we agreed. Josh & Zachary ran a little bit faster pace, which was good for Zachary.  Liam and I went a little bit slower.  But we all had fun, which was the whole point!

Ever since we got the fire pit, the boys have asked about cooking food on it (other than marshmallows).  So one night we surprised them with hot dogs and "bratlers" (aka, bratwurst) cooked on the fire pit.  You would have thought it was their birthday, they were so excited!

We finally had to get rid of our awesome brown shag rug.  It had developed a smell that we just couldn't get rid of, and it was nearly impossible to vacuum.  This is what we picked!

I was excited about it until Herschel immediately claimed it as his own...

Zachary's big birthday gift this year was an iPod nano.  He had asked for one, because he likes to run, but didn't have a way to listen to music while he runs.  He will be so excited the next time he does a 5K to have music to listen to!

Yeah...so this prompted us to buy a new vacuum, because the one we had just didn't cut it.

Another fun food truck night!

A short trip to Six Flags.  It was cut short by a combination of the oppressive heat that day, as well as the fact that Zachary & I got stuck near the top of the Mind Bender for about 20 minutes.  We baked in the heat, sweating profusely, before someone finally came up to set everyone free and escort us back to the bottom.  That will suck all the fun out of your day.

Now it's VBS week!  My mom is volunteering again, and Zachary is now in Route 56 - they go off site each day to serve the community.  Yesterday his group went to HomeStretch and pulled weeds in the vegetable garden.  Today they went to North Fulton Community Charities - I can't wait to hear what all they did!  Tomorrow his group is headed to Autrey Mill Nature Center, which might be his favorite place.  He did some volunteering there for his black belt test this spring and loved it. His day was made when he found out they would be going there!

My Day at Football Camp

On Friday, June 5, Josh, Zachary, and I headed to Athens (Liam didn’t want to go, as he had been invited to a birthday party on Saturday – so he stayed with my mom).  We didn’t arrive until after 7, but we knew we wanted to eat dinner somewhere in Athens.  We decided to try Cali N Titos.  It was delicious!  And cheap!  After dinner, we went back to our hotel.  We dropped off the car, and then walked downtown to Ben & Jerry’s for dessert.

Saturday morning, we got up early, and walked downtown to have breakfast at the Grill.  Then it was off to Football Camp!  A few months back, I had signed up for the Mark Richt ladies football clinic.  I really did not know what to expect, but it turned out to be so much fun!

The day started with registration, immediately followed by a photo with Mark Richt, and an autograph.  Once the program started, we heard from all of the offensive coaches.  Then we got to go out onto the practice field and participate in some offensive drills.  The coaches were so friendly and approachable, and funny!  I couldn’t believe how funny they are! 

We got to run offensive drills with the coaches, as well as tour the locker room.  At the end of the day a group of us worked out with the strength & conditioning coach - he taught us the stretches that the players do, as well as a great full-body workout that can be done anywhere.  It was such a fun day, and I'm hoping to go back next year!

With head coach, March Richt

With Offensive Line coach, Rob Sale

With Offensive Coordinator, Brian Schottenheimer

With Running Backs coach, Thomas Brown

With Tight Ends coach, John Lilly

 

With Running Back, Sony Michel

With Wide Receiver, Kenneth Towns

With Defensive Coordinator, Jeremy Pruitt

Inside the locker room

With Wide Receivers Coach, Bryan McClendon

With Strength & Conditioning coach, Mark Hocke

Before our workout with Coach Hocke

Happy Birthday Zachary!

We got back from Universal on Thursday, May 29.  We had Zachary’s birthday party planned for Saturday.  Yikes!  Thankfully, he wanted a pool party, and that really required minimal effort to pull off.  He had a nice little group of boys who came – enough to make it feel like a party, but small enough that it was manageable.  We let Zachary pick out the snacks he wanted for the party – he picked apples with caramel dip, a veggie tray, goldfish crackers, and gummies.  Then we had pizza and cake too.

Sunday was the actual birthday – the big 1-0.  I still can’t believe it!  We started the day with our new tradition, of putting $1 bills inside balloons.  He got 10 this year, of course.  This is Herschel’s least favorite tradition…We went to church, but then that evening he chose to go to Alpine Bakery for dinner.  I think he just likes it for their cake.  :)

We had actually started his birthday almost a week early – when we arrived in Universal the Monday before, my mom gave him his first present a little bit early.  She had gotten him a fitbit (which he had wanted), and she thought he might want to track his steps through the parks.  He loved that!  He also got special birthday buttons too – he was hoping they would get him free stuff, but all it got him was some happy birthday wishes.  Lol!

On the day of his party, he opened the presents his friends had brought him.  Then on his actual birthday, he opened the presents Josh’s mom had brought down with her.  He decided to save our presents for his birthday dinner at my mom’s house, which we didn’t have until this past weekend (a full week after his birthday).  By that point, we’d been celebrating for almost 2 weeks!  I guess it’s OK – double digits is kind of a big deal!

Surprise Vacation

On Monday, May 25, we woke the kids up around 5am.  We quietly told them to grab their pillow & a stuffed animal, and head out to the car – no need to even get dressed…pajamas are fine.  Zachary quickly guessed that we might be going on vacation, and then asked if we were going to Universal.  Oh boy – this was going to be harder to pull off than we thought!  We told him to just get in the car, and we’d tell him when we got closer.  Once they realized we were heading towards Florida, they pretty much settled on Universal as our destination.  But we didn’t confirm it until we were getting off the highway at the Universal exit.  Lol!  We arrived a little before 1:00, and were able to get checked in to our hotel room.  Then surprise #2 – we were heading into the parks RIGHT THEN!

We decided to go to Universal Orlando first.  Let me just tell you how awesome the Express Pass is!  We got it for free, since we stayed on Universal property, and we didn’t wait long at all for most rides.  Liam loved the simulator rides, and Zachary was excited about the roller coasters.  We rode a few rides in the front of the park before heading back into the new Diagon Alley.  Oh.My.Goodnes.  That place was AMAZING!!  I could have stayed in there all day, even though there was really only one ride – it was just so authentic, and it made you feel like you were in the movie.  We ate dinner at the Leaky Cauldron, and then noticed that the line for the Gringotts ride wasn’t that long.  So we decided to go ahead and get in line.  That was probably our longest wait (no express pass on that ride), but it was so worth it!  Liam wasn’t a fan, but the rest of us enjoyed it.  I couldn’t believe how much we got done just in that first day.  We were probably there for about 7 hours, and we rode just about everything!  I had been so worried about how we were going to get it all in during our short trip, but express passes for the win!  We also had our first butter beers (YUM!) and even had some butter beer ice cream for dessert!  The boys also picked out wands from Ollivanders.  Liam picked out Sirius Black’s wand, and Zachary picked out one that was supposedly based off of his birthday.

 

The next morning, we decided to head over to Islands of Adventure first.  We were able to get in an hour early (because of staying on property), so of course we headed straight back to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, to ride the original HP ride.  This was another long-ish wait, but doing it first thing, when the park opened, was really the only way to do this ride.  They have really done the Harry Potter worlds up right – every single detail was spot on!  I loved going into the shops – Zonko’s, Ollivanders, The Three Broomsticks…all the places from the books are brought to life.  We spent a little more than half the day in Islands of Adventure, before taking the Hogwarts Express back over to Universal Orlando.  We spent the rest of the day over there.  We had dinner, and then left around 6-ish maybe?  We’d been on the go since 8am, and we were tired.  So we went back to the hotel and went to the pool for a little bit to cool off and relax.  It was a nice way to end the day.

On Wednesday, our last day, we started off at Universal again.  At this point, we had pretty much ridden everything we wanted to at least once.  So we spent the day re-riding our favorites.  Then we took the Hogwarts Express back over to Islands of Adventure (we had heard it was different in both directions, so we wanted to make sure we did it both ways).  We spent a little more time there, re-riding some favorite rides, but then decided to head back over to Universal one last time.  Back to the Hogwarts Express.  We found ourselves tired by around 4:00.  We had ridden everything we wanted to at least 2, sometimes 3, times – we felt like we had conquered the parks!  So we went back to the hotel to drop off some stuff, then took the boat back to CityWalk for dinner.  We decided on the Hard Rock Café.  After dinner, we went back to the pool for a bit, before calling it a day on our trip.

For a little bit, I kind of felt like we were cheating on Disney World.  We love Disney – always will.  But Universal is amazing too!  I think our kids were at the perfect age for it right now too!  With Liam being scared of big rides, he sat out on a lot more, but he didn’t seem to mind – I think he enjoyed sitting down and resting.  The details in each of the “lands” was just amazing.  One of the days we ate in the Simpsons land.  They had a Moe’s, and a Krusty Burger.  Josh got a Duff Beer, and I had a Buzz Cola with my lunch.  Then the butter beer in the Harry Potter world.  We had it cold and frozen – it was delicious both ways, but I preferred it cold.  Zachary also begged for the giant donut from Simpsons land – we gave in and bought it, and then shared it for dessert after we swam on our last night.  It was surprisingly good!

You could tell a lot of the rides were newer, or updated (as opposed to many of the rides at Disney that have been the same since I was a kid).  They have done a really nice job!  I was so worried we wouldn’t be able to do everything in our short trip, but this turned out to be the perfect amount of time!  I’m not sure what we would have done with another day.  One less day would have been tough, but we would have made it work – we would have just ridden everything only once, probably.  The 3^rd day allowed us to pick our favorites and ride them again.  Liam loved the Spiderman ride, and the Simpsons ride.  Zachary loved the big roller coasters.  Josh loved the Transformers ride and the roller coasters.  I loved the Minion ride and the roller coasters and the Gringotts ride.  It was so much fun, and I can’t wait to go back!!