Happy 70th Mom!

On July 13, 1938, Kelly Ann Hawkins was born. Today she celebrated her 70th birthday with her daughters and grandchildren. A grand feast was prepared and enjoyed by all!!! Happy Birthday Mom and we wish you many, many more :-)

My internet connection seems to be fading in and out tonight, so words will have to suffice. I will post pictures from today's party tomorrow!

Yea Friday!!!

Another day of adventure continues... We are off to Build a Bear as a reward for excellent report cards and just good kids. I will pick up a gift for my Mom's birthday this weekend, not at Build a Bear, but at the mall - lol! I am also having major Target withdrawals!!! I can not believe that I have been here for 5 days and I haven't set foot in a Target yet - help me, I can't breathe. It is a must today, even if it is just for a quick look see :-) TGIF

BONUS

One of the best bonuses life can offer is to live near family! Coming home to Texas means so many special things to us, but my favorite reason is we get to spend precious time with our children and grandchildren. Since arriving on Sunday afternoon we haven't missed a meal with someone from the gang yet!!! These photos are just a little peek into a family meal and an end of of the day routine. I love it :-)

Wordless Wednesday

2 weeks in the blink of an eye....

Well, it has been two weeks since I last posted and I can not believe the days went by so quickly! I am truly blessed with the most amazing kids on the planet who ride patiently in the car for hours knowing that their reward is a hotel pool somewhere on route! I do get the repetitious "how many more miles?" as well as the other favorite "how many more minutes?" but it is few and far between and I always answer honestly - much to their chagrin at times!!!

We arrived in Port Lambton, Ontario on Friday, June 27th to a smiling Rhonda and Doug away on a business trip. How lucky were we to get her all to oursleves!! We took over the place as per usual and that first week flew by... we had BBQ's, trips in to Sarnia to the mall, a visit in Grand Bend with an old Pepsi friend, Kay and Ron and Dave and Aimee over to pre-celebrate my birthday that I'm ignoring, and lots of pool time and good quality catching up. I miss them so much already :-(

We then crossed over to the Michigan side of the river and were able to spend two wonderful days with Kay and Ron. I know that the kids are getting big as I believe this was the first year that they did not ask to get out the Fisher Price and Sesame Street toys!!! 4th of July was BBQ, potato salad, apple pie and ice cream, and a full day in the pool. We watched the most magnificent fireworks display from New York City in HD - we had the best seats in the house!!!

After another two days of driving we made it it Savannah, Texas - home sweet Southern home! Christopher had arrived earlier in the day and turned on our air, hot water and had new ice cubes for cold beverages already forming! We took about 2 hours to unpack and re-explore all the nooks and crannies that we had left behind in March and then headed out for our first Mexcian dinner with the local "big" kids and grandkids. Everyone was amazing :-) The girls and I headed off to the grocery store after dinner to stock up on some goodies while the boys went to get the shop vac from Chris' house and attack the spiders that had set up their homes in our nooks and crannies!!

Our first full day yesterday was spent hanging out at our own water park paradise and finishing up with dinner at Olive Garden with my sister, niece, mom and those darn Frisco Gages again - lol!!! Dennis also put a few miles on the car while he and Dave, our son-n-law, ran errands and tried to stay cool in the Texas heat.

I have taken a few pics so far along the way and I think I will post them all tomorrow for Wordless Wednesday, so be ready.... It is great to be back and I sure have missed y'all! Thanks for standing by.

Love, love -

On the road again...

It's Wednesday morning at 5:54 a.m. and I am signing off for a bit. I am about to let the rubber meet the asphalt for a few days and start my summer holidays 2008 - yahoo! I do hope to have some fun and interesting things to report along the way. So, hang in there and I'll be back!!! Happy Summer :-)

Mom leaving Saskatoon on Sunday after a great visit to see the kids in their recital - see ya soon Gabby!

Jack's Final Game 0f 2008

What a great season for the A's! The boys are really growing and learning to love the sport of baseball. This year they played a three strike rule and actually made defensive plays with three outs. It was wonderful to watch them grow and get better each and every game. Our coaching always remains an issue; but with the help of some supportive Dad's our kids never felt neglected or as if they just didn't matter. We were super lucky to have a beautiful spring evening for our final game and I think I got some great shots :-)


Way to go Jack! Great hit...

Nice job working the pitching machine, Dad


On first and ready to run



And he's off ... rounding third

High fives all around with his best bud, Matt