Now, there's a career I hadn't considered...

"Mommy, you should get a job with the Round Rock Express and we could go watch you play and eat hot dogs." Apparently I've really improved my batting skills this summer!

And the Verdict Is...

The boys had a great first day of school. No calls from the principal, which is good and no notes in the bags, which is also good.

Spencer's main impression on his teacher is that she talks too much but he likes her anyway because she has both Pokemon chapter books AND A-Z Mysteries on her classroom bookshelves! He said they did not really do any work today and he played kickball at recess.

Superman doesn't really remember much about his day except that the teacher did not yell at him and his lunch was good. I can't imagine how anyone would enjoy eating tomato soup (his lunchbox request) with crackers at 10:30 in the morning. But, apparently he did. He seems exhausted so after a quick trip to Sonic, they collapsed in front of the TV for awhile.

Whew. I can rest easy now.

First Day of School

Today was the first day of Kindergarten for Superman and the first day of Third Grade for Sunshine. I know I'm supposed to be sad my baby is starting school, but at this point all I feel is relief that we've made it to this point and I'm going to have some time to get stuff done around here.

They're doing drop off a bit differently this year. The kindergarteners meet up in the gym, as they've done for the last 4 years, but the older kids aren't meeting in the cafeteria anymore but go straight to their class. Not sure when they plan to do assemblies. This will actually work out better for us b/c after the first week or so Sunshine can just take Superman to the gym for us since he'll be going that way anyway.

The boys were not thrilled about having their picture taken together before school:

Nor were they happy about getting their picture taken walking into the school: I took 3 but I could not get any of them to stop for even a second:

Here's Superman walking into the school building:

Here's Sunshine outside his new classroom:

Superman waiting in the gym. I dunno if he's upset about starting school or just irritated I keep taking photos:

I'll have a full report on the first day tomorrow. Today is also Mark's birthday so we're taking him to dinner at Dairy Queen. Wouldn't be my first choice, but whatever.

What Book Are You?

I found this cute quiz over at paperbackswap.com. I am:

You're "Master Harold"... and the Boys!

by Athol Fugard

Even though you should have realized it for years, you're only just
starting to understand how bad your society is. It's been keeping some of your best
friends down for ages, and even you have been complicit with this system. When you
make a mess, someone else is quick to clean it. When you need help, someone else is
quick to your rescue. But when they point out injustice, you've pulled the wool over
your eyes. Until now. If you ever need a cast, it will be small.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

I guess I need to read this book now!

The Diet Coke report

So, in case anyone is interested in my little no diet coke experiment - I have now made it a full week with absolutely no diet coke. None. Nada.

I'm not sure I feel any better or worse. It seems I should since I've been drinking water instead. Which is weird because even though I drank about 20 glasses of water yesterday I still feel slightly dehydrated this morning. But, hey, it WAS 107 yesterday according to the neon sign at Walgreens.

I do feel more tired so I think I may have to start making myself some tea midafternoon so I can stay up late enough to get all my "stuff" done at night. I've been crashing out by 11 p.m. all week and as a result my house is a mess and I have piles of paperwork on the desk. All the parenting experts say I should be able to get all that done while the kids are still up, but they haven't met my kids. Or the neighbor kids for that matter.

Anyway, if you are thinking about giving up your soda addiction I'd highly recommend replacing it with a cup of Scottish Breakfast tea in the morning. That seems to be what got me over the hump.

Hopefully tonight Mark will explain how to download and put up a video on here so I can show you all Luke's hair from soccer camp.

Pachelbel Bedtime

I can sooo relate to this song.

We're back

We're back from our little excursion to the coast. Fun was had by all, but we are exhausted! Apparently Casa del Mar, which was a nice, quiet family establishment last summer has become a happening party place. Or maybe we just got bad neighbors. Either way, we still have fun, but since my kids get up between 6 and 7 every morning regardless of when they went to bed, listening to the neighbors yelling to the people in the balcony above us and running around laughing until midnight every night was kind of rough on us all.

Other than that, it was great. Sunshine has become quite the fisherman and spent several hours one morning and then again that evening fishing off the piers with Mark. They may go on a deep sea fishing trip next summer if we can get Sunshine over his fear of boats. Superman wouldn't mind the boat but lasted all of 10 minutes on the pier so he'll be staying ashore with me either way.

After our summer of the endless monsoon we were surprised by unbelievably nice weather. The only rain we saw the entire trip was on our way through Houston on the way there. After that, nothing but sunny blue skies.

Schlitterbahn was a hit again. They've opened a new section and the white water rapids were cool. The crazy people who were "reserving" tubes were not cool. At any given time, there were 100-plus tubes sitting unused up by the picnic tables with a cranky person guarding them. Ugh. But, we managed to snag a few anyway for the river rides. I went on a couple of slides, but those enclosed slides freak me out so I mostly watched Mark and the kids on those.

Our other outings included daily time on the beach playing in the waves and building sandcastles, pool time, the Rainforest Cafe and Joe's Crab Shack. We also ate at Shrimp and Stuff, a nondescript little place in the middle of town that is Mark's and my favorite seafood restaurant in Galveston. If you go down to Galveston, I'd highly recommend you try it. It's a pretty casual place where you order at the cash register and pick up food at the window fast-food style, but the shrimp and fish are amazingly fresh and cooked just right.

Now to attack the mound of laundry and the messes the kids made while I wrote this!

Beach Bound

So, we're leaving tomorrow. Laundry is folded, car is cleaned out, fishing poles packed. I have to wait for the kids to go to bed to pack their stuff or they help and we end up with about 4 suitcases of stuff we don't need.

So, I went back and looked at my blog entry from our beach trip last year. Now I'm really excited.
Galveston Island may not be the prettiest most pristine beach in the country, but there is a ton of stuff to do there and we stay right across the street from a fishing pier and next door to the Waffle House. What more could you want?

See ya in a few days!

Go Wales, Go!

Superman is in British Soccer Camp this week. Interesting concept. The company brings in coaches from Great Britian to teach tiny Americans how to play soccer. His comment on the first day was "That was easy. All we did was play games." He's enjoying himself, but seems a bit frustrated in a way because he was apparently planning to play some pretty rough soccer this week and apparently these silly British coaches don't take the game seriously enough. Instead of playing 2-hours soccer games, they play a bunch of cute little games involving kicking and such within their team, take a break, then play some other fun little game against the other three 5-year-old teams in the last 1/2-hour of camp (it's only a 2-hour camp).

Luckily Superman got the best of the three coaches and his team, Wales, is kicking some serious soccer ball against Scotland and Holland. Today they had crazy hair day and I'd show you a picture, but my camera wasn't working AGAIN. So, we may or may not play SPF this week and we may or may not have photos from our trip to the beach this weekend.

Anyway, Superman wanted his hair to have a big X on it. Not sure why, but I gelled and sprayed it until it stuck up in X formation, then sprayed it green, blue and black. He won the crazy hair contest and earned 10 points for his team. Go Superman! Go Wales!

If you don't hear from me for a few days it's because we are in Galveston and our internet access is sketchy there. I will be finding wifi somewhere at least twice a day because I have to schedule time slots to sell cub scout popcorn. No, I can't even take off from my *volunteer* job to take a vacation.