Monday, August 22, 2011

In The Meantime.....

We are slowly ticking off our summer checklist one by one...hopefully to have most of it completed by the end of summer. Since we home school year round, our "summer" is really just the hottest months of the year...not when we are on leave from school. Honestly, summer is my least favorite time of year. It's so stinkin hot here in Central Florida. It rains almost every single afternoon as well. Everything is crowded because EVERYONE seems to be on summer break. But this time of year (end of August and all of September), while everyone else is heading back to the scheduled life, the kids and I get to enjoy some much needed down time at the parks, playgrounds and museums. So, we have a lot of fun things coming up that I will be sharing with you all! For now, though, let's look at some more of our summer fun that has happened these last few hot and sticky months!

We hung out at Sea World.

Had some fun at Busch Gardens.



Went tubing at Kelly Park (a freshwater, cold spring).

Like I said, it's been a fantastic summer so far!!!! Hoping to pack a whole lot more in this September!

Ho Ho Ho!!!

Every year we say we are going to have a big Christmas In July party and every year we forget. Not this year!!!!! Ok, it wasn't "big" and it wasn't exactly on the 25th...but it was still fun!

With Christmas music playing in the background, the lights twinkling on the small tree and turkey roasting in the oven, the boys awakened to the return of our beloved elf, Jingles! Jingles came from the North Pole for a little vacation in the sunshine state before the mad rush of toy making for the holidays. He came bearing gifts, as well!






I don't have any pictures of our turkey feast (turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, gravy, mac and cheese, corn, and Christmas cupcakes for dessert), I do have a pic of our appetizers!


After watching a few holiday movies, we moved our CIJ fun to Disney's Winter Summerland Miniature Golf! The boys played 18 holes of Christmas golf while I snapped a few pics and laughed along with them.




We got home much too late for the littlest one to decorate cookies or play a Grinch board game, so we saved that for the following day.

And we ended our festivities by decorating cookies with lots of icing and sprinkles!



Thursday, August 4, 2011

Marry me Selena?

Where do I even begin with this post? If you know my son, you know his love for Selena Gomez has been ongoing for year. YEARS. And he's only 10. It first started when he saw her on Spy Kids and immediately started crushing on her. By the time she was on Wizards of Waverly Place, it was a full fledged case of puppy love. He's followed her every move for almost 4 years, obsessing over her beauty AND brains. He doesn't just love her because she's beautiful, no. He loves her for caring about kids (UNICEF). He loves her because she helps protect the environment. He loves her because she's funny. But most of all, he really does love her because she's also beautiful. LOL Don't worry...If I ever see any "Lindsey Lohan type behavior" coming from Selena, I will try to sway him away. So far, so good. :)

I've often thought about taking him to a concert, but Selena never seemed to perform in Orlando. When she was rarely here, it was for a taped ABC special or because she was passing through. I had even thought about getting tickets in PA last year, but they were sold out before I even had the chance to consider FLYING to see her. Then, we heard the news! Selena was going on tour! Unfortunately, we were vacationing in NYC when her tickets went on sale. Fortunately for us, my parents were on the phone and the Internet trying to score these coveted tickets. As luck would have it, they scored 3 awesome 3rd row seats to see her in St. Augustine for her 3rd concert of the tour. So, then, we waited...and waited...and waited.

Finally, we trekked to St. Augustine with my Mom to see her, live and in person. The anticipation was really getting to A. He was nervous, excited and even a little scared. It made me nervous, excited and even a little scared!

We waited, not so patiently, outside the venue to be seated for the show...along with about a million other St. Augustine preteens and their parents. A's shirt was seen and talked about by many, as he was one of the only young males in attendance...as well as the only boy I saw with a message for Selena. The front said, "Marry Me Selena?" and the back said, "Selena's Other Man".  Once we were let inside, the ushers directing us to our seats even made comments! Oh, the excitement was HUGE at this point.


Before the show, waiting outside the venue..glow sticks in hand


Slowly but surely, we made our way to our seats alllllllll the way at the bottom of the steps. We were given green wrists bands so we could go in and out of the pit area without showing our tickets. And then we found our seats. HOLY MOLY. We were so close, it was crazy! We had the end of the aisle as well, and since the way they situated the seats was in a unique way, no one was in front of A! He could practically reach and out touch the person on stage if he wanted too! Also, the stage had a T shape, so she would be walking down the runway to our right...also extremely close (4 seats away). We settled into our seats, and A started to get a little nauseous. They showed some pretaped Selena videos for us to watch and sing karaoke along with. It was pretty neat and we were SO ready for this concert to start!!!!






Finally, after what seemed like forever, the show started with Christina Grimmie (incredible) and then All Star Weekend (also very good...never even knew who they were before this). One of the band members took a liking to my Mom. It was very odd and weird. He was MAYBE 18 or 19...flirting with my mother. LOL


Thank you, weird kid, for making us all uncomfortable. :)

Could your pants be any tighter? And, he was wearing ankle socks with anchors on them. So, they were tight AND too short.

At around 8pm, the lights dimmed. We heard the beginnings of the song "Year Without Rain." I started to cry when I looked over at my boy....smiling ear to ear, standing and clapping and cheering for his lady love. And then...the moment. He caught a glimpse of her, and he immediately looked at me. Somewhat embarrassed, somewhat shy but a whole lot of happy. I hope he remembers that moment of seeing her forever. His first real crush.



He was tearing up here...about to cry. It was the moment right after he saw her on stage. And yes, he's wearing earplugs...he has some issues with loud noises.

As Selena approached the front of the stage, A got EXTREMELY nervous. He was clearly agitated and upset. He said he was worried she'd see him (and she clearly could), and he was concerned she wouldn't "like" him. So, he was rather grumpy for a few songs...but as time went on, he got more and more into the concert and let his fears subside. By the end he was once again standing, clapping and smiling. At one point, we are fairly certain Selena smiled at him...but she most definitely could see us. Could she read "Marry Me Selena?" written on his shirt? I don't know....but A is convinced that, yes, she did in fact read it. And she broke up with Justin because of it?! I'm going to let him think that for the time being. I told him though that she can't be his girlfriend til he turns 18, so she'll have to wait until then. :)

Sorry the pics are blurry...I wasn't allowed my big camera and she moved A LOT. There was a lot of dancing. But I may have gotten a lot of video for the kiddo to look back on. Shhhh....

As a Mom, this was one of the happiest moments of my life. Being able to do something like this for him is beyond words. Yes, it's a case of puppy love of a teen idol by a 10 year old. It was so much more than that though. If you are a parent, you will know what I mean. Seeing the huge smile on your child's face that is so pure and so real...well, THAT is worth millions.