Holiday shopping..

For as long as I can remember the kids have been buying Christmas presents for each other to open Christmas Eve. I believe the tradition started one of the years that Bill's parents was overseas. We had always gone to their house for dinner and family gifts on Christmas Eve and I remember we were struggling to find something to make our holiday tradition that year. It may also have started when one of the kids had a really thoughtful suggestion about what they wanted to get one of their siblings. Because ya know when they are little they pretty much just want to get the gift that they will enjoy playing with. It really doesn't matter what the other person would enjoy. So when one of them actually thinks about someone's likes and dislikes you want to reward them by letting them experience the joy of giving a really appreciated gift. It has become a tradition that has given us many valued memories!

When you have four kids one of the things that is rare and precious is getting time alone with each of them, especially the boys because dad is so much more fun that mom. The girls all I have to say is "anyone want to go shopping?" And I usually have at least one taker! So sibling shopping has as a rule developed into something that is done alone with mom. It is fun to watch and hear the thought process that goes into the gifts. Now they usually go more along the lines of the person's personality. For instance, there is one child that has bought Zach the same thing in different forms for the last three Christmases. The gift is loved and kinda adds to a collection he has going. I sometimes wonder if it will develop into a lifelong thing. I can't reveal what it is right now just in case one of them reads it. For some reason, everyone seems to get Zach gag gifts or humorous ones! Kinda goes with the personality right?

Shopping with boys can be quite a bit different than with girls. It usually takes a little longer because what guy in his right mind actually knows what gift to get a girl??? And my boys have three girls to buy for!!! Fortunately for my girls my boys have become pretty good shoppers. I tell myself that I am preparing them to be good husbands some day. Another way it is different? When the girls say, "oh look at that!!!" In an excited voice you can pretty safely figure what you are being directed to look at will be a cute outfit, shoes or a coach purse. However, when Zach says, "Yes! Check it out!!" You just never know where you should look or what it will be. Last night it happened to be a huge rubber band on the floor! Silly boy! It was one of those times I was laughing so hard trying to explain what was funny that he couldn't understand me. The boys also tend to be more likely to do a list when they shop. So usually they are finished pretty quickly. The girls can shop for days.....for one person! I have really come to enjoy the individual time spent with them! As they get older it is more and more difficult to find the time to spend with them.

Another reason, I have enjoyed this tradition is watching them try to keep their gifts a secret until Christmas Eve. Poor Cole has a really hard time with this one. In fact, the kids know not to ask for any clues about his gifts because the clue usually gives away the gift! Zach likes to disguise his packages by making them bigger so no one can figure out their sizes! He also likes to use clothing to disguise any noise or rattle the gift might make. That's how he has ended up with only two pair of underwear right now because he used all his clean underwear to cushion a package! They were CLEAN!!! He was just being green!!!!! Isn't that in style right now???
Kirsten has gotten where she doesn't even put her gifts under the free until Christmas Eve because she has a hard time deceiving people about their gifts. Lauren probably does the best at keeping things secret. This year Zach got his brother something he will love, something he has been dying to have. He is so excited to watch him open it. I explained to him that that is why adults love Christmas watching the other person open their gifts and see them be excited about them. His response, "yea but the gifts that adults get stink!" No worries, he's not growing up any time soon! Well, I need to get some wrapping done so I had better get moving!

It's Been Awhile...

I don't know if anyone really checks out our blog anymore but for those that do...we're still alive!!! We have just been keeping up with life.

We survived the rocky start we had with fall sports and have moved right into the winter season. Lauren is doing conditioning for Varsity Lax at the high school. Kirsten continues off season practices for her travel softball and she's also doing varsity lax at the high school. Zach tried out and was awarded a position on a travel lax team. And Cole is playing rec lax this spring too. They are all doing really well at their chosen sports and have adapted to life at their new school pretty well. Do they still miss PA? You bet! In a heartbeat they would all move back to PA if given the choice. They all had good solid friendships there which I don't think they even realized until it was too late. It has made us all realize those that truly cared and those that were just along for the ride. You know, those Facebook friends who you except the friend request from only because you feel like you have to? I pretty much knew who my best friends were when we lived in Etown but this move just reaffirmed it for me. I think it has done the same for the kids because they consistently request to see the same kiddos when we go back to PA for a visit. I miss those same kiddos too! Unfortunately, because I spend so much time getting them to see their friends I feel like I miss out on the time I want to spend with my friends and family. I'm hoping we are able to have a nice long trip to PA sometime this summer. I so miss having the ability to just walk down the street and chat with a gal pal over a glass of wine or cup of coffee. Most of my neighbors here are two income families so no one is really around during the day. I did find a couple scrapbooking groups online that meet a couple times a month at a local store so I signed up to attend one of their gatherings in December. I figure I will at least have something in common with them.

I think the one thing I don't miss in PA is the weather. The weather here in Georgia has been wonderful since about the middle of September. Lately it has been in the mid 60s to low 79s it's wonderful weather to enjoy some time out on the porch with a glass of wine in the evening or a toasty mug of coffee in the morning. It's weird because it seems like it rarely rains. Kirsten made the remark that she kinda missed a nice rainy day here and there. I never thought about it when we were there but I guess the occasional rainy day stuck inside is kinda nice. I don't however miss the gray, rainy cold days that go on and on and on.. We haven't had measurable rain in quite some time. Of course, the girls and I decided to go to Atlanta for some Christmas shopping and girl time today and what do ya know...it rained all day!!! It figures!!! As we were dashing in and out of stores I asked kirsten if she still missed the rainy days! We got some shopping done for the boys but that was about all. They were able to give me plenty of ideas for their lists of course!
Well, it's getting late I will try not to let so much time pass between posts! Love y'all and miss ya too!
Sharon

More Scrapbook pics!

Finished project!

Cheer 2012

Fall is Here....I think!

The weather has been perfect for the last week. We have had the windows open most of the day and all night. The day time high has been around 78. Today it's supposed to get up to around 85 so I guess we might have the ac on for part of the day. In the morning it is downright chilly about 53 degrees most days. I do have to admit that I am loving the weather for the fall sports. I have barely even needed a jacket and haven't used blankets at all yet!

Our fall sports are gradually wrapping up. Zach has two more football games and then he is done. The jury is still out on whether he will return to football playing next year or not. He says no but I am desperately hoping he changes his mind. After all it has taken me my entire life to understand most of the game and now that I finally do I would like to use all that knowledge! Especially, since the Steelers are having a lack luster year so far! I think the coaches of his football team have recognized the error of their ways to an extent. The team Zach is playing on is undefeated while the other team has lost all but one game. I have grown to respect Zachs coach. His team is winning because he has raised the bar and he actually knows what plays to call during the game. This guy is head coach material. The head coach needs to take a hike! Along with the other daddy ball coaches!

Kirsten's first high school softball season has ended. Her team went 14-3. All of the teams they beat they beAt in three innings which means they were 15 runs ahead by the third inning. Pretty sad right? Lets just say all of the team are excellent hitters and have good defense too. The three games they lost were all error fests. Not sure what happened on those days. They were all teams they were favored to win. Kirsten overall enjoyed the season and made several good friends. It was a good thing she did the team this year it really helped her socially.

Lauren is in the midst of her first competitive cheer season. She is enjoying it a lot. Most importantly, the uniform is really cute! Instead of the two piece top that is used up North. They have a one piece top that sort of feels like the underarm or material. She says they are much easier to get on and much easier to move around in. They also look very sharp in their school colors. She has another competition today so hopefully I will be able to get an individual picture of her in her uniform. In fact, maybe today will be the day I make them all put on their uniforms for a photo shoot they will love that. Her first competition went well. The team placed fourth out of 11 teams so that was pretty good. We shall see what today brings. Overall, the level of cheering that we see here is not on par with the teams in PA. Tumbling is outstanding. Every girl knows how to tumble. But the stunting is sad. Some teams were doing preps! And I think most teams had drops or safety violations. Lauren's team didn't have any drops and their stunting was pretty good. Lauren's been telling her coaches how to do some harder stunts so that helped them. Unfortunately, their dance and transitions in the routine were what hurt them. They have two girls injured that wont be returning for the rest of the season so they had to do the routine all over again to eliminate the spots of those girls. I don't think they were ready for last week but hopefully they bring it today!

Just a newsy update...

It's a beautiful day here in North Georgia. I think it's the first day since we moved that the humidity is gone! There's a great breeze and sky is so blue. It reminds me of autumn in Pennsylvania.

I'm sitting at day 2 of softball practice with Kirsten's travel ball team. Although, choosing a team was a difficult decision I think we have chosen wisely. Kirsten already feels more welcome with this team then she has with her high school team and tee are over halfway through the season. This week will be a busy week with school ball 8 games in 6 games. I will need a vacation after this week. And hopefully that vacation will be in PA!

Lauren has decided to give softball a try. She's playing rec slow pitch with a bunch of kids from school. She thinks she will be playing short stop. Her first game will be tomorrow night. Of course, Kirsten has an away game and Zac has a home game tomorrow night too! Sometimes I wish I could just arrange all the sports so I could make to every kids games!

Just about all of our belongings have arrived here in Georgia. Now it's just a matter of figuring out where to put it all. We had Bills parents visiting all week so I put it all on hold until they left. Why would I want to unpack boxes when I have someone to visit with? His mom and I visited all the quilt stores within an hours drive of our house. His mom is big into her quilting so I had to show her what Georgia has to offer so she comes back real soon. . Bill and his dad ran wiring to the two unfinished rooms in the basement. So the guest bedroom is ready for finishing now. We also picked out a paint color for Coles room since his room is hot pink. He also wants to have a mural painted somewhere in his room. There's some discussion on what that will look like. He wants a yellow lab with flames. I'm thinking it will be something a little tamer than a devil dog.

Coaches...

All of the kids have come up against brick walls in their individual sports. It hasn't been easy proving themselves down here in Georgia. After all, they are Yankees. However, at least two of the kids have followed the things we have always taught them about succeeding in life and sports and those principles have paid off for them. What have we taught them? We've taught them that first of all you show up on time for every single game and team activity. That you show your coaches and team mates respect. We've taught them to support their team mates even if they're playing your position and you're warming the bench. We have told them that at every practice and every single game you give 110%. That you push yourself to do your best without exception. We have taught them that they don't let their team down. Whether that team is your family or your sports team. We taught them to be a good sport and tell the other team good game whether they won or lost. At the end of every game and practice we would ask them if they thanked their coaches. And the most important thing we taught them is that hard work pays off. In the past my kids have been blessed to have great coaches that not only coached with these same principles but seemed to live them in their everyday lives. Unfortunately, one of my kids is learning a different set of principles this year. He's learning that it doesn't matter when or even if you show up for practice. It only matters who you know. He's learning that hard work doesn't pay off that knowing the right people pays off. It's sad to watch a group of adults take everything you have taught your child and destroy it. To take the sport that he loves the most and turn it into pure torture. To take his future dreams and crush them. They held a true athlete in the palm of their hands and let him fall to the ground. But what is worse? Watching them take his confidence and self esteem and step on it leaving him feeling worthless. So, coaches and even teachers when we lend our children to you we have high expectations for you. We have spent our lives doing the best job we can to raise good, contributing members of society. Be a role model for these kids. If not don't do the job.

I always tried to remember to thank the coaches that worked with our kids but in case i missed you. Thank you for giving up your evenings and weekends to spend with my kids. Thank you for standing in the pouring rain and freezing cold so the game or practice could go on. Thank you for guiding through their individual sports with encouragement and helpful critiquing. Thank you for always rewarding hard work and dedication because when you did it encouraged more hard work and dedication. It earned you respect. Thank you for biting your tongue when you wanted to scream at them. Most importantly, thank you for being a role model. It takes a strong person to be a role model to today's kids. Lets face it, it isn't always the most fun way to live life. There's a lot of pressure that goes with having those kids look at you as their role models. It required you to not always say the first thing that came to mind. It meant you congratulated the other team even when you felt as though they played unfairly because you knew the kids were watching and learning not just from the game but from your actions. You're pride and commitment made wearing those royal blue and white uniforms mean something. They were proud to wear them and be seen in their uniforms. Their teams may not always have won and some seasons they might even have lost every game. But a losing season with a coach that is a winner in life is a win regardless of the score of the game.
I am dedicating this post to all the coaches from Etown. We miss you all and appreciate the life lessons you taught all four of our kids. I will try to name them all but I will probably miss some of them.
Rockie Wilkinson
Eric Heisey
Brian Schoenenberger
Dan Shutt
Mike Laverty
Jeff Quinn
Chas Alessi
Ronnie Quinto
Amy Longenecker
Scott Fitzgerald
Coach Troy(I forget his last name)
Chris Rich
Heather Prichard
Debbie Dice
And I'm sure there were many more coaches and volunteers and moms and dads that helped out. Thank you to all of you. You all became like family to us and we miss that feeling the most.

A Week of Firsts...

Well, since I have four kids I'm pretty sure you know that I'm talking about that "first". I did have a much more interesting post all ready to go but somehow that one got deleted so we'll just go with a newsy update for now and I'll redo the other one later.

So the first thing that I experienced for the first time was a red ant bite yesterday. I feel fortunate to be able to say "a red bite ant" instead of many. I was standing in the grass watching Kirsten's softball game when I felt something crawling on my foot. I looked down and saw an ant crawling on my foot. Since it was only one and I didn't see an army behind it I figure I just brush it off and be done with it. WRONG! Those little suckers pack a powerful punch. In case you've never r experienced one it is a lot like a bee sting only it hurts for about an hour. I am so glad it was just one I can't imagine more than one! I just keep thinking if it were a little kid with multiple stings how awful it would be!
Well, I recovered from it but not after a sufficient amount of whining. Hey! Ya gotta work it for what it's worth! Us moms don't get sympathy very often!

The second first happened right after that and it was Zach's first touchdown as a Grizzly. So proud of that kid for sticking it to his coaches! I wanted to jump up and down and yell! HA! I'll full y'all in a little later on why that was such a big deal.

The third thing that happened was Kirsten was offered a spot on a travel team! Take that Etown travel team coaches because not only was she offered one but every team she has tried out for has offered her a spot. And softball down here is soooo much bigger than in Etown! At least one kid isn't going to be the victim of small town mindsets!

And the last thing that is happening is that I am making boiled peanuts for the first time. My kids and my dad both love them and they are ridiculously expense to buy already made so I figured I'd do it myself. It isn't too hard really you just buy green peanuts, which would be the hard part for you northerners because I never knew there was such a thing until I came down here. Then you boil three quarts water and 1/3 cup salt. Then put the peanuts in to boil for an hour and a half. I'll let you know how they turn out. I hope they taste like the real thing!

Arm Farts

That title got your attention didn't it? Well, while I was at Kirsten's softball game I left directions for Lauren to supervise Cole doing his homework. Well, the homework was finished but the supervision must not have happened. He had to write each word in a sentence. One word he had to use was "try". The sentence he wrote? "Try to arm fart it's easy!". While we all thought it was hysterical I'm not sure if his teacher would have seen the humor in it. Especially since she doesn't know us very well yet. We changed it to "Try to eat sausage.". I know boring right? Oh well we are the newbies so we have to make a good impression for a little while.

Kirsten had a softball game again tonight. It was disappointing because errors by several players lost the game for the team. Something as simple as calling the catch. Hello! We're in high school you learned that in U8!!!

Thank you cards

Got a little crafty today!

The majority of my scrapbooking stuff is still in safe keeping at Bill's mom's house so I can't exactly scrapbook but making cards just takes glue, scissors and paper so that's what I did today. We have so many good friends that need a hug and thank you that I decided to make some cards just for that purpose. It was nice to have something to do because I am starting to go a little stir crazy in this big empty house! I guess I will finish up our Christmas cards tomorrow. Might as well get a head start right?

Tonight Kirsten has her third softball game of the season. So far they are undefeated. Looks like we will be going into post season play. Zac has off football tonight which is a nice little break in the middle of the week. Lauren has started her competition cheerleading squad so now all that is left is to get Cole going in something. He wants to try soccer so I guess we'll give that a try!

Too Many Toilets!

I spent the day cleaning this big ole house. I feel as though I may see toilets in my sleep tonight. I managed to get most of the floor cleaning and toilet scrubbing done but only one shower and one tub. I think next week these kiddos are going to learn the fine art of toilet scrubbing. Zac actually had a good idea. Right now we haven't made a final decision on which kid will be sleeping where permanently. Almost all the bedrooms need painted due to too many rooms with Gorky colors so we may do so rearranging of rooms. So, Zac's idea was that whoever keeps their bathroom cleanest gets to have their own. You wouldn't think that would come from Zac because typically his would be the messiest but he has been doing a great job keeping his neat and clean. I'll leave it to your imagination to try to figure out who's was the messiest to clean! Anyway....it took pretty much the entire day to clean this house from top to bottom. Won't do it that way again unless I have to. It's much easier just to clean a little each day.

We lost power tonight for about three hours. One of the big "selling features"of this development was that it had underground utilities. Well, underground utilities do ya no good when those wires connect to wires that run through the woods! Lauren called me on the way home from school to say that there was a tree down on the wires and it was smoking. So by the fire department got there it was fully engulfed. When I called to ask how long until the power came back on thy told me that the priority was putting out the forest fire then fixing the wires could commence. Hmmm...seems like a good idea to put the fire out first! It was then that I realized that our development is completely surrounded by very dense woods. Make that very dense DRY woods! Okay now I have forest fires to add to the list of things that can kill you in Georgia...scorpions, poisonous snakes, black widow spiders, tornados(happen quite frequently I'm told) and forest fires!9. This must be why everyone though it would be such a great adventure huh?

I think I may have found my first friend here in Georgia. I would tell you her name but I honestly can't recall what it is! She lives in the same cul de sac as us and home schools her son. Coke and her son T have been playing pretty nicely together lately. She just moved to Georgia from Mississippi last year so she can relate to all our struggles. She gave me the scoop on some of the neighbors. It was nice to be able to sit around and talk about "mom" stuff with someone. I miss being able to escape to a friends house for a few minutes of laughs and wine or coffee depending on the time of day. She and I are the only stay at home moms on our street. And are ya ready for this she has three kiddos with another on the way and she SCRAPBOOKS!!!! I was so happy to find out someone that scrapbooks almost jumped up and down. Granted, she's not quite as into as my good friend, Kathy in Etown but that's okay. I'll just have to Skype with Kathy once I get my computer set up again.

Sorry to leave ya hanging like this but I seem to be battling the flu or some such nonsense and the NyQuil that I just took is blessedly starting to kick in and if I don't end here I'll probably stop making sense. Good nite y'all!

Life Goes On....

School is well under way here in Georgia. I didn't think I would like Cole being the first one off the bus but it actually works out quite nicely because it gives me time alone with just him to work on his homework. Of course, it makes it difficult to spend the day shopping in Atlanta when I know the little guy will come home to an empty locked house if I don't get home in time.

Traffic going in and out of Atlanta is so bad that you really need to give yourself an hour even though it isn't really that far. It's all about timing if you leave between the hours of 6:30 and 9 am or 4-6pm it is really horrible. And then if there is an accident it's even worse. Apparently these people never learned to drive in rain storms either because every time it storms the roads are an absolute mess. They just stop! It's insanity! Perhaps the reason that traffic is so bad is because the subway system they have is useless. In order to utilize it you need to drive to the edge of Atlanta which means you have to go through the worst traffic and then it only makes a cross shape through the city and from there you would probably have to walk an hour to get to your destination. The other reason people have trouble navigating the area is because they use the same name for multiple roads in the same area so for instance in a five square mile area you would find Crabapple Ave., Crabapple place, Crabapple blvd., Crabapple Rd., Crabapple Trace, Crabapple St. That doesn't even touch on it because then they add North south East and West and Northwest, South West, North East and South East to each of those names for different streets. Sometimes when you enter a street name into your gps you have to scroll through 30 different streets with the same name before you find the one you're looking for. Someone told me there are 71 roads in the Metro Atlanta area with the name peach tree. Can you imagine finding that on the gps? I hope I never have to go to any peach tree streets!

Everyone says you cannot live in Atlanta without getting into at least one car accident in your life. Fortunately, for Lauren she has already experienced her first accident without injury or damage to her car. The very first weekend she was down here we utilized her as our designated driver. We were about five blocks from the hotel at a sports bar for Bill's birthday .
We called and had her come get us and it seemed like it took forever. Finally, she called and said she had been in an accident. Ugh! Those are the worst words to hear. Although, I was relieved it was her and not the police calling. Some guy had rear
ended her at a stoplight when his foot slipped off the pedal. He was very nice and handled everything well. I think he may have been in need of a designated driver himself but because there was no damage and she was uninjured everyone went on their way. Thankfully, the road was not busy because he had hit her hard enough to push her into the intersection. If it had been busy I'm pretty sure we would have been getting a call from a police officer that night. It was a good way for Lauren to experience her first accident as far as gathering information etc. and to get her once in a lifetime accident out of the way.

Home Sweet Home

We finally closed on the house yesterday. It has been an exhausting 2 1/2 weeks. The kids started school August 1st. This meant that we had to do an hour commute at 5:45am to get Cole to school on time. Since he goes to school first. if everyone had been able to get to sleep at a decent hour it wouldn't have been too bad. Unfortunately, hotel living means everyone goes to sleep or stays awake together. Repeat that schedule a few days, throw in softball tryouts and football practices and what ya get is some very grumpy kids and two exhausted parents. So needless to say in spite of sleeping on air mattresses that were going flat and army cots we all slept very well and very long last night!

Today we moved most of the stuff from the storage unit down here. The washer and dryer are hooked up and running. The refrigerator is connected and producing icy cold water. I've so missed that minor convenience. Believe it or not I actually missed my washer machine and dryer too. Don't laugh! I spend at least two hours a day attending to laundry, of course, it's my best friend! It will probably be even more so now that I left my best friends in PA. We'll be spending the night on air mattresses again tonight. After the carpets are cleaned the movers will get the rest of the stuff from storage. Te heaviest thing we own is probably our Tempur Pedic mattress. It's floppy and heavy. So someone else is carrying that thing up the steps!

I am hoping to post a video tour of our new house but I'm not sure blogger will let me.

Still Homeless

It's the last day of summer vacation for our kids. School shoes have been bought, for those that could make up their minds. Lauren wanted to wait and see what the fashion forward Georgians are wearing this fall before choosing her shoes. School sports are well under way for Kirsten and Zach. Lauren's cheering tryout will be sometime this week or next. And Cole will be trying baseball this fall for the first time. School supplies have been bought for each child. Be thankful that your schools supply your kids with a ridiculous amount of stuff. When I got the lists down here I was astounded. I would not have been surprised at all to see "please supply your own toilet paper" on the list. Of course, my school taxes are half of what they were in PA so I really can't complain. School clothes have been bought. Again, do not complain about the high school dress code in PA. It could be worse, much worse. Put it this way Cole will be wearing polo shirts and khakis and Lauren will be wearing jeans with no holes. Why jeans? That's because it is nearly impossible to find shorts that meet the requirements.

And we're still homeless... we aren't living under a bridge or in a dumpster but I'm seriously starting to wonder. We were supposed to close on the 27th and yesterday Bill told me possibly by Friday of this week. That was before he emailed the CEO of our mortgage company. It was also before he received an after hours phone call from the bank saying we had been appointed a special case worker to get things moving. No one seems to know what the hold up has been except the real estate market has picked up in recent weeks and the underwriters are swamped. We'll see! Living At the hotel hasnt been horrible but the commute to school will be...an hour one way. Things get more complicated when your child that is supposed to ride a bus needs to be a car rider too. Nothing is simple at these schools. I guess it streamlines stuff but until we are in the house it will mean I have to drive Cole to the bus stop at 7:15am and pick him up at the bus stop at 3:03pm then wait an hour on either side of those times for Zach and then wait around for the evening sports. I'm thinking we will be doing homework at the local library for this week. Unless, this new "special" caseworker solves this problem today.

Dekalb Farmer's Market

Today we went to check out the Dekalf Farmer's Market. It is an indoor, air conditioned(big selling feature for me) international Farmer's market. It has everything you can possibly imagine growing on a farm plus a seafood section and an organically grown section that is bigger than any I've ever seen. I don't think the prices are as good as at roots but they gotta pay for that air conditioning somehow right? Cole loved seeing all the fresh seafood and he also liked that it was air conditioned. This Farmer's market is about 35 miles from our new house so I doubt it will be frequently used but it is air conditioned.... Did I mention that air conditioning is a pretty nice thing down here?

Blue Crabs!

Catfish!

Fresh seafood

Butter fresh from the churn

Dragon Fruit

Both of the boys like to play Dragonvale on their iPods and I guess they feed their dragons dragon fruit because they were so excited to see that it is a real fruit.

Long beans

We thought these were cool because they looked like two foot long green beans. Zach loves his Nanny's green beans so he's going to try to convince her to grow these next year!

Bean sprouts

Winter Melons

I have no idea what these taste like but we thought it was cool that they looked like frosty watermelon.

Avocados for my guacamole supplier!

If I liked coconut this would be ideal freshly peeled and ready to eat!

Sugar Cane...doesn't get any fresher or more organic than this!

Pineapple Machine

I had to take a picture of this for my friend Anne Marie and my mother in law, Linda. Who have both tried to show me how to peel and core a pineapple. This machine makes it simple. You just walk up and this nice man takes your pineapple and puts it in the machine pulls a lever then hands you a perfectly peeled, cored and bagged pineapple. The guy thought m fascination with the machine was funny. Of course, he laughed even harder when I told him I needed one of those machines for my new kitchen!

Tons of ginger

Green Peanuts from Florida! These are what you use to make boiled peanuts.

Just Checking In

Today went well, I guess.  Of course, it depends who you ask.  We started the day looking for softball pants.  Yes, they wear pants to play softball when it's 105 degrees outside.  Crazy right?  The coach was telling us how the field is so much rougher than the fields in PA.  Kirsten says the field is actually softer than most of the fields that she has played on.  Of course, these girls also use yoga mats for conditioning.  We haven't figured that out yet!  So, poor Kirsten was the only girl on the team the first night that was wearing shorts.  She didn't care.  She just had to demonstrate how you slide in shorts since they couldn't believe she slid in shorts.  Anyway....

After our search for softball pants we needed to stop by the high school to iron out some scheduling issues for Lauren.  Unfortunately, that didn't go to well and we left with a very unhappy Lauren.  I am hoping I don't need to drop the sweet Sharon thing I have going on and straighten things out.  There are very few electives at this school and of course all the good ones are taken.  So they want to put her in an Economics class and a weight lifting class.  Sounds like fun right?  Let's put the new kid in whatever we have left and make her feel like a total idiot.  So we shall see how this goes.  Lauren is not happy with things the way they are.  Tomorrow they are supposed to go on a tour of the school and maybe meet their teachers.  Zach also gets to go on a tour of his school tomorrow.  They are all less than excited about starting school so soon.  This summer has not been relaxing at all!

This afternoon we went to the pool in our new neighborhood.  The pool is beautiful and as you can see the boys had a wonderful time.  I think the water slide will be a big hit for awhile.  Zach seemed to hit it off pretty good with the kid from his football team.  Zach says, "He's no Dave or Ty but he was ok."  The girls were able to meet up with a couple girls from the neighborhood too.  It was pretty awkward for them but they did all exchange numbers before we left so I think that is a good sign.  The moms seemed pretty nice.  It's kinda hard to tell because everyone is on their best behavior right now.  They invited me to mimosa morning which is something they do the first day of the school year.  I assured them that if I'm in the neighborhood I will definitely be ready for a little drink by that time!  Perhaps several drinks, no I didn't tell them that!  I'm on my good behavior remember!  How could I possibly tell them to forget the mimosa's and bring out the keg?  So don't worry dear PA friends no one is taking your places any time soon.  That is what I miss most...people that I can just be myself with.  My friends are like comfy jeans. Well broken in and able to be relaxed in.  The new people are like those jeans that you keep in your closet for the day you lose all that baby weight.  You know, the ones you take out and try on and you have to suck in your stomach.  They are only able to be worn for a little while until you start to feel uncomfortable.  Now ya get the picture?

Softball is going great for Kirsten.  She is practicing with the varsity team.  Tonight a different coach approached Bill and asked if Kirsten was with a travel team yet.  It was so nice for someone to recognize her talent.  Small town politics seem to have prevented Kirsten from moving forward with softball in Etown.  I'm not sure what happened but evidently we didn't know the right people or kiss up to the right people.  That is one thing that we are loving about this area.  It's just not full of politics because most people did not grow up here and they definitely didn't attend the high school because the school is only 3 years old.  The coach Kirsten worked with in Etown with rec ball was wonderful and we loved her.  She was patient and really taught Kirsten alot.  The varsity coach down here seems good so far.  He is constantly teaching someone something so that's great.  He's very much of the mindset that there is always something you can be taught.  I think it is a good thing because it keeps their heads from getting too big.  We're reserving judgement on him but so far he seems pretty good with the girls.  He's got some pretty big shoes to fill.

Zach's football is going ok too.  He is still a little lost on the plays because he hasn't seen a playbook yet.  Apparently they are the holy grail and no one actually sees one of those.  You just learn by repetition.  Again, these football coaches have some pretty big shoes to fill.  We loved all the coaches that worked with the kids in Etown.   

Wahoo!

Splashdown

Gotta love it!

Cole loved the new slide too!

Pushing the limits...as usual!