Rocky Point 2011

I am so excited to be blogging from good ol' Rocky Point tonight!!!! Jesse sent me with his laptop and I am beginning to grow accustomed to typing/web surfing/and now blogging sans mouse. 

A few days ago, I was looking at my work schedule and realized that I was hitting another nine day break from work.  I knew that I needed a vacation BADLY and immediately began to explore the option of going to our fave place, aka Rocky Point.  It was a bit tricky finding time with gymnastics, swim team/lessons, summer movies, church, etc.... Luck was on our side and I knew between Thursday after swim we had a break until the following Monday.  The only downer was the work got crazy for my other half and by Wednesday we realized that there was no way he would be able to leave the next day.  For a small moment I was bummed thinking that we probably weren't going to be able to go.  This was quickly replaced by the thought that I am a grown woman and can definitely handle driving myself and our three kids to somewhere fun!!  I am not going to lie, I have had several frustrating moments thus far {at least when it comes to driving directions} but other than that I am beyond thrilled that I made the decision to come anyways.  I also felt GREAT to know that I did it!  My kids have had incredible, non whiny behavior so far.  We have played on the beach, swam in the pool, dug trenches for treasure chests in the sand, ate street tacos, ate at Al Capones Pizza Place, hung out with some cool kids {aka: Uncle Brett and GF Mariana, Ed and Kylee}, collected sea shells, ate breakfast on our balcony, rocked out to Justin Bieber & Shakira, looked for fish and crabs in the water, played alligator MULTIPLE times, laughed and made some fun memories I will never forget.  The best part is my other half will be joining us LATE tonight.  We are then staying all day tomorrow and driving home Sunday.  YEAH!

 I had to snap a cute picture of Maddie and Eli asleep on the bottom bunk at our Condo.  It was so sweet how they cuddled right together and went right to sleep :)

 You cannot beat eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal for breakfast on a balcony overlooking the ocean!

Eli was super excited to go play and immediately begged for me to put on his fishy swimsuit, even before breakfast!

 Some highlights included: Robby being ever so proud of the "Batman" swim trunks I reluctantly bought for him {I HATE buying themed clothing items like this}, Eli crying "I drown, I scared, hold me" whenever we went into the ocean, Miss M spending almost an hour collecting an entire bucket full of seashells, T sprinting over to a man who had been stung by a sting ray after his wife screamed "help" over and over {she also screamed he's not breathing.  I was holding Mr E at the time and sprinted as fast as I could with him in my arms, heart pounding, feeling nervous.  Luckily he was indeed breathing when I got over there and had instead passed out after being stung.  He came to rather quickly, denied any allergies to sting rays, was breathing well, and the hotel security called the ambulance to come provide numbing medicine for his injury.  Miss M was pretty freaked out by this situation}, cutting up yummy watermelon to serve with our yummy lunch, and of course watching the miraculous transformation of all my kids turning super tan with total tan lines!

 Eli loved to stand at the water edge and watch the waves splash at his feet....anything larger than this and he was absolutely terrified that he would drown :)

Robby and Maddie's treasure box that they spent a long time trying to dig out of the sand!

 A "No Make-Up" pic of me taking by Mr E.  Not bad for a two year old right?  (It was fun to have a picture of me somewhere in this blog of mine)

 Me and my boys taken by miss M.  We were all ready to go swimming again!!

Although we had so much fun hanging around each other, we definitely couldn't enjoy it without a little shout out to the Daddy!  We sure missed him.

It was so much fun to have my brother in law, Brett, meet up with us at our Condo in the afternoon.  My kids adored his friends and had so much fun playing with them. Miss M was obsessed with Kylee and Robby was equally enthralled with Mariana.  This is the only pic I have of the group today: Robby (asleep on my lap), Tiffany, Eli, Mariana, Brett, Maddie, Kylee and Ed.

We went swimming, played at the beach, ate street tacos, played some more at the beach and in the swimming pool, relaxed in our Condo and then finally went and ate pizza as a group.  What a fun time and I am so glad I got the chance to get to know them all a little better!

Congratulations Miss Maddie!

 Today Miss Maddie finished her final day of Kindergarten.  She was so proud of herself during the performance and was so excited to announce she was now a first-grader, but kept saying "Ohhhh Miss Falson" in a sad voice as well.  She has truly LOVED her K teacher.  She is blonde, blingy, sophisticated, stylish.....all the things that Maddie also LOVES :)  It has amazed me how much Miss M has learned this year.  She went from only really recognizing her letters and a few small sightwords, was only able to write her own name, and new her numbers but no addition/subtraction to a child who is reading at almost a third grade level, loves to create her own books and does a pretty darn good job at basically spelling most of the words right, and can now add and subtract up through the teens.

and of course a reminder picture from the first day of school to end this post:



R's Preschool Graduation

Can you believe it is over?  I can't.  It seems like just yesterday I walked both of my kids to their first day of preschool/kindergarten.  Now I feel like I blinked and this school year is complete.  Who allowed my children to continue to grow older?  I surely didn't authorize this. 

Robby and his buddies were so cute at their "show" {I am calling promotion this because technically Robby is not being promoted; he will be attending some form of preschool for one more year}.  They all recited each letter and the sound they make, their blended phonics they have learned and then Miss Rosie talked about what each child wanted to be when they grow up.  Any guesses what Robby told her???

Why a "Monster Truck Driver" of course.  He wants to be able to "smash lots of other cars for fun and do lots of cool tricks".  Imagine that.  Lots of other kids picked Superhero's like Spiderman, Superman, IronMan, even one child wanted to be a missionary.  But of course my child wanted to be a Monster Truck Driver.  I have never been such a proud Mommy!!  {he looked pretty darn pleased when she announced his choice to the group}

Thank you Miss Rosie! You have been so kind and patient with Mr R.  You have fueled his desire to learn without squashing his vibrant, inquisitive, active personality.  You have even allowed him to gradually accomodate to being at preschool on his mad/angry days too with all the patience in the world.  He has loved all the fun ways you allow them to learn: with movement, songs, learning all about different animals, coloring, eating, etc. You lovingly prod each of the children along to become the best they can be; for that I am eternally grateful!

And Eli sure liked the food and fun as well!

{now just FOUR days until Kindergarten promotion as well: YIKES}

Helper

The other day, Eli was able to have a daddy-son date.  Jesse took him to his construction job and then they browsed a few stores and had some lunch.  Eli came home proudly holding a brand new tool box just for him.  We filled it up with our "kid tools" and then he went to town helping us "fix" our backyard.  My favorite part:  seeing him proudly wear Jesse's hat the entire time he was outside "working"!

Happy {Late} Easter All!!**UPDATED**

Easter Morning:

The Easter left us a note with rhymes to figure out where our Easter Baskets were hidden.  Miss M was up for the challenge and even put her Ugg boots on to go hunting for the goodies :)

{nice hair Mr E}

My New Home***Updated***

I have delayed this post for quite some time, but now that we have officially paid our deposit for the fall semester tuition as well as a deposit for our townhouse to rent I feel like it is official!!  In less than fourteen weeks we are MOVING!!  Not just down the street, or to "the other side of town" in Mesa, but instead we are headed to New Hampshire.  My husband has been planning on going back to school for quite awhile now, but finally the timing is right.  For the past year or so, he has spend countless hours studying, taking the GMAT, writing essays, and applying for MBA school at some of the best universities in the country.  All of his hard work has payed off, and he ended up getting accepted to 3 top ten business schools: Kellogg (Chicago), Wharton (Phildelphia) and Dartmouth (Hanover NH).  It has been a difficult decision for him in narrowing down his options and picking one, after all they are all such great schools. In the end, Dartmouth won out and I don't think we could be more thrilled.  Several weeks ago we attended the schools "Admitted Students Weekend" and were able to meet lots of new people, including three other fabulous LDS couples.  We all really connected and I think that was the clincher on our decision.  Even though this will be a BIG change in our lives, we cannot wait!  We will be trading the desert and cactuses for the forest and fishing (as well as LOTS of snow).  Yeah for being "Tuckies for Life"!!

ASW: "Admitted Student's Weekend" April 15-17, 2011

Jesse and I went on a trip ALL BY OURSELVES for student weekend at Dartmouth.  It was sooo much fun! I cannot believe it has been 4+ years since our last vacation together ALONE.  After having such a blast together, we promised ourselves that we won't let another four years go by without going somewhere alone again.

Some of the fun things we did together include:

 **Red eye plane ride the first night out.  Jesse somehow convinced me to take a small (1/4) tablet of his Ambien to "help me sleep on the plane".  End result:  feeling horrible, like I was going to pass out/throw up/etc.  Got up to use the restroom, became dizzy and sweaty, somehow stumbled my way to the back of the plane probably looking like I was completely intoxicated, leaning my head on someone's seat and asking them for "help" {luckily they were asleep}, and finally managing to pull myself together enough to practically fall into the restroom.  HORRIBLE experience let me tell you.  I used the restroom, splashed my face, put my head in between my knees for awhile, until I finally felt good enough to make it back to my seat.  I don't think I will EVER take Ambien again.

**Taking a 3 hour nap together once we arrived in our hotel room.  It was delicious.  I cannot even remember the last time we took a nap together for that long.  Probably not since our overnight flight back from Hawaii four years ago. 

**The first night meeting our "new family" in New Hampshire.  We had so much fun going to dinner with some other couples attending Dartmouth in the fall and it was relieving to see how quickly we all bonded.  It totally relieved some of the stress I felt about moving.

**Bachelor pad dinner on Friday night.  We were paired up with several guys that are first year students at Darmouth and they had several of us over to dinner.  They were all OBVIOUSLY single/dating scene era.  They spent a good portion of the time talking about drunk memories until they realized that Jesse and I were married with THREE kids.  Then they quickly began to reassure us that Hanover is "a great place to have a family".  It was pretty funny :)

**Touring Sachem Village {ie: graduate student townhouses} and knowing that "I had to get in there".  Luckily we ended up securing a three bedroom townhouse there, and just found out that all the other LDS families are also going to be living there!!

**Late nights at cocktail parties with dancing, live music, lots of laughter, and of course people watching.  We have not stayed out late in years together, so we felt so young and free again staying out late and then sleeping in every morning. 

**Going to church on Sunday and meeting some of the people we will be getting to know when we move there in the fall.  I was excited to see a good portion of young children at church.....new friends for my kids of course.

**Going to the birthplace of Joseph Smith and taking pictures at the Memorial.

**Getting lost in the Upper Valley on our way back to Boston and finally being so exhausted that we stayed overnight in Manchester.

**And finally, missing our children A LOT and looking forward to coming home and spending some time with them.

Me with Andrea, Maren, and Michelle--aka Ms. Holbrook :)

Miss M's elementary school complete with an open field next door to play in.

(and yes that IS a cemetary you see)

Sachem Village:

This is what our backyard will look like!

Handsome Husband:

Nerdy Wife:

Joseph Smith Memorial:

Pretty Gorge???

Love this Man so much!!