First Day of School

First Day of School for the 2016-2017 school year.

After lots of hard work, 3 auditions, and a new oboe....Chloe begins her high school career at the High School for the Visual and Performing Arts (HSPVA)

 Ryan begins his middle school career at Pershing Middle School where he is one of a few 6th grade students in Wind Ensemble.

 

 Callista and I are beginning our journey together in Connections Academy, a home school program she will do for 4th grade.

 It's going to be an awesome year!

Chloe's Is 14?

SURPRISE!!!!!
I'd been asking Chloe for months what she wanted to do for her big 14th birthday and she had zero ideas, so I came up with one by myself.
Since she recently has an obsession with the TV show "Once Upon A Time",  I themed her party around apples (as in the poison apple the evil queen gives to Snow White).
 Callista and I worked on a few decorations while we were in Las Vegas helping my mom after her knee surgery.


Her friends April and Eliza invited her over to do manicures from 5-6 and then at 6 they brought her home and while Chloe was getting out of the car, April and Eliza also got out and ran to the back door without Chloe even noticing.  Then when Chloe walked into the house.....
SURPRISE!!!!!

Amelia, Chloe, Hayley, Taylor, Eliza, April, and Callista (Brooklyn came later)
After eating pizza, apple nachos, and apple cider we played the name game....


Then of course, you can't have a party themed around Apples and not play "apple to apples"!


Then we had these gourmet apple cupcakes her young women leader Mindy Swanson made.
The funny thing is that all day long Chloe kept saying "Mom, are you going to start my cake soon?"

She then opened her presents.  Some treble clef earrings from Brooklyn.

 A Hobby Lobby gift card from Taylor.

 Some crazy socks from Callista.

 The Crawfords, and Jessops gave her Bath and Body Works apple stuff, and a beautiful crystal apple necklace.  Hayley gave her the Harry Potter coloring book, and Amelia gave her a gift card to Barnes and Noble.
Then we watched the movie "Mirror, Mirror".

 Once the party ended she still had a few gifts from us to open.
A collection of oboe solos from me.

 A very cool Harry Potter Shirt from Ryan.

 A Vera Bradley dance bag

It was an awesome day celebrating 14 years of this talented, ambitious, and beautiful young woman.  Here's to many more awesome years Chloe!

The Natural Science Museum

We were trying to think of something fun we could do out of the heat, so the Natural Science Museum was the perfect choice.

The Cockrell Butterfly Center was just spectacular.

 This volunteer was holding out a walking stick but it looked just like a dead leaf.  Ryan said it was soft and fuzzy....the rest of us just took his word for it.

 I think this butterfly thought Ryan's green shirt was just a big tree he could land on!

 Lizard or Dinosaur?

It's a Lizard, but I can't remember why!

 Here's the skeleton of that awesome lizard.

 Callista was super excited to tell us all about this Plesiosaurus since she had studied about them earlier in the year.

The museum was our prefect solution for a very hot and humid summer day!

Gulf Shores, Alabama

We spent a week in Gulf Shores with the Richards.
Here's the 12 of us pretending we are a cheer squad making our pyramid.

I'm just grouping Callista and Clare because I have so many cute ones.

 
 
 Chloe and Brynne had a great time together too.

 The two happy couples with the kids in front of us making us laugh.

 The waves were pretty awesome considering it was the Gulf of Mexico.

 Rob brought his kayaks so the boys kayaked in Mobile Bay.

 We rented a pontoon boat one morning and had a great time venturing through the Intracoastal Waterways.  There were lots of little island we anchored by to take a swim.

 

 And here's a few pics of us just hanging out at the beach.

It was a fabulous week with our fabulous friends!