Last Two Weeks of Summer Vacation

That's right.  Today is the last day of our summer vacation!  Where did it go?  Apparently when you move, go on week long beach trips - twice, take two weeks of swim lessons, and one week of VBS the summer just flies by.  Tomorrow the girls will go to their first day of Pre-K.  (I am totally not counting the "schooling" that they did in VA as it really was more mother's day out than anything else).  They will be wearing little uniforms, riding the bus at a quarter til 8 in the morning, eating breakfast and lunch there, and will be riding the bus home - scheduled to arrive at 4pm.  They are excited.  Especially about the bus.  And hugging each other on the bus.  Though I am not sure that they totally get that they are going to be gone basically all day, every day.  Tomorrow I will certainly have some cute pictures of the first day.

But today I thought I would recap our busiest last two weeks. 

Last Monday D and I had preschool orientation.  It was great!  We are very excited about the year.  When it was time to split up and go with the teacher's to get specific information about each class, D went for Audrey and I went for Brooke.  The teachers seem to be awesome and they are right next door to each other.  Audrey's teacher is a little more sweet and mom-like which I think will be great for her.  Brooke's teacher is Mrs. Favaloro and Audrey's teacher is Mrs. Mestayer....which is pronounced - wait for it.....Mat-ee-ay.   How kids in Louisiana ever learn to pronounce things phonetically, I'll never know!

Last week we also had a quick visit Monday to Wednesday from my sister Amy and one of her sons John David.  We swam, went to the zoo, went to the capitol, went to the mall to ride the carousel and of course watched the Olympics!

Then Thursday we had a fun night out at the circus.  The girls were still talking about the circus from last year so we really thought that they would love it again.  And they did!  D and I did not think it was that great this year as it was on a much smaller scale and seemed to be themed toward side show type acts.  Audrey's favorite act was the motorcycles that drove around in a ball.  Brooke's favorite was the strong man - he laid on the ground and had a board placed on him and a jeep holding 7 people drove over him.

That weekend we had our friends from Houston, the Bridges, come to visit.  We had a great time hanging out (and of course watching the Olympics).  It is so great to have friends that you can pick right up with - even if it has been years since you've seen each other!

Monday to Wednesday, the girls and I headed to MS to see the grandparents for a quick trip before school started.  One of the highlights of the trip was going to the Children's Museum - which is surprisingly great.  Audrey had been talking for weeks about going to the museum with the turtle and she was thrilled to do it first.  The girls LOVED moving the logs.  They did it several times and did it for quite a while each time.  They also discovered a love for Uno.  And we played it (as Brooke would say) a million times! One of my highlights was getting to see my friend Vallie from high school.  She was in town from CA visiting family too!  Very serendipitous for me.

We drove home Wednesday so the girls could go to their meet and greet.  They both liked their classes and seemed to like the school overall. I have been trying to coach them on their teacher's names.  Unfortunately they frequently will name each other's teacher.  Hopefully they will get it all straightened out soon.

Wednesday was also the first day back for Wednesday night services at church (can you tell we are going to a Baptist church?)  The girls and I ate dinner there.  Then the girls had choir practice (how cute is that?) and then they had Mission Friends....which I am helping to teach!  We shall see how that goes :)

And that brings us back to today...our last day of summer vacation!

Hilton Head 2012

The Olympics are killing me!  We are up late every night watching them and it is making it almost impossible to keep up.  Unrelated to Hilton Head but I have loved watching the Olympics with the girls.  They are just so funny about it. And of course they are both going to be in the Olympics when they are older.  Brooke in swimming and cycling and Audrey in running and swimming.  And to hear them talk about the different countries is a hoot.  For example, during the diving the girls keeps saying things like "Oh China.  They are always so good."  And "That China flag looks a lot like Turkey."

So on to the actual post.  We got back from our annual Hilton Head beach vacation a week or so ago - time is so arbitrary during the summer!  It was a great trip from beginning to end.  On the road trip out there we took our time and made it a two day event.  And we stopped in Columbus GA and ate at a branch of the restaurant that I worked at in college and got to eat some yummy wings and spicy chicken skins! and no it was clearly not a Hooters :)  The week had fabulous weather - though the last couple of days were quite windy - and wonderful family fun.  On the drive home we stopped to see D's Granny and the next day we ate lunch in Biloxi.

The girls with their Great Granny

Me and the girls!  I wore this suit the first day and was greatly harassed by the family due to the fact that my belly was super white.  Apparently I have the mom-tan from all the tankinis. 

Love this picture of the three girls heading out (on their own) to boogie board.  They are so big!

Waiting on unsuspecting family members to come back from the beach so they could squirt them.  Though they had to ask first to make sure they were not holding any valuable electronics!

D's new trick with the girls.  They are practicing to be cheerleaders....though I am not sure how this will help them in the band :)

The whole family!!

Love this one of Brooke!!

Brooke was showing me one of the crabs that the girls caught and it was making an escape up her arm.  Kayla, which very little actual assistance from the girls, collected 20+ crabs one day.  The girls had them in a bucket in a wagon and were walking up and down the beach showing people.  It was hilarious!!

Love this picture of Audrey.  She looks so proud of her sand castle and her little dinosaur that was living on top of it!

We went on a dolphin watching cruise one afternoon.  We saw several dolphins which the girls were quite excited about and the boat had a cute furry dog co-captain.  The captain was very chatty but he was nice to let all of the kids on the boat (which was just the girls and their cousins Kayla and Paul) drive the boat for a little while.

We did our annual photo shoot that I make us do.  My hope each time is to get a great photo of the family so that I can use in on the Christmas card and not have to stress about that toward the end of the year.  Unfortunately we waited until the latter half of the trip and that was when it was super duper windy.  So we are all totally wind blown and disheveled.  And while they are not card worthy, they are certainly blog worthy....as my standards are much much lower here.

Hello America's Next Top Model - toddler edition

Papa and Weecie with all the grandkids

They are so sweet to each other!! Melts my heart!

The four of us...and won't it be funny when this ends up as our card!

Cute quotes

Because conversations with and between 4 year olds is alway hilarious!

Scene 1:
The girls are obsessed with their birthday. So today they were planning their birthday party - who to invite and where to have it. And that of course segued into creating their wish list for presents. They listed those light up pillow pets, those weird slippers with faces that move. Then Audrey said that she wanted a set of Wonder Pets that she could do rescues with. Which led Brooke to say that she wanted a set of The Haddens to play with.

Scene 2:
We were out for a bike ride (Brooke) and a walk (Audrey) around our street. Brooke and Audrey had made a deal that Brooke would ride for part of the time with the doll in her bike carriage and that Audrey would carry her for part of the time. So after a little while Audrey starts asking if it is her turn yet and if they've gone half way yet. Then Audrey asks me if we've gone half way. I replied well I don't know what half way is. To which she replied Mom you know there are two halves. Clearly she has a better grasp on fractions than many of my former algebra students :)

Scene 3:
We've been discussing the beginning of school quite a bit lately. Today we were discussing uniforms and how the girls are going to be in different classes. So Audrey, with great concern, asks "if we go different places, how will I recognize Brooke?" Oh sweetie.

Fourth of July Festivities

In a very exciting turn of events, we had TWO activities to go to for the Fourth of July!!  As the girls said: It was the most awesome day ever! Boating, Hot Dogs, a Festival, and Fireworks!!

One of our neighbors has a lake house that is about 40 minutes away and they had several of the neighborhood people over for the day. These neighbors have a little boy Ryan who is just a couple of months younger than the girls and will be at the same bus stop as the girls for school this upcoming year.

Then late afternoon we headed over to Port Allen which is right across the MS river from Baton Rouge where they were having a festival to meet some friends for the fireworks.  In a crazy turn of events, these new friends turned out to really be an old friend.  D had met one of his co-workers and his wife and thought that I would really get along with his wife.  So she and I had been texting and emailing back and forth and trying to come up with a time when we could get together.  And during that time, she looked me up on Facebook and realized that we actually went to a summer program together for a month after our junior year of high school.  What a totally small world!  And smaller too because we are now going to the same Sunday school class with them as well.

The girls on the big blue lagoon floaty anchored near the dock

D with all the 4 year olds. 

Taking Brooke for her first jet ski outing.  She loved it!

Taking Audrey for her first jet ski outing.  She also LOVED it!

Heading out for a boat ride - the girls' first.

A better picture of the 4 year olds. They will all ride the bus together next year. Anya will be in kindergarten but Ryan will be in pre-K with the girls.

My three loves at the festival.  You can sort of see that we are seated at the top of the levee.

Me and the girls - I like to be represented on here once and a while.

The whole Hadden fam

Beach Rewind

Since we are getting ready to go on our second beach trip of the summer, I thought that I should finally finish my posting about our first beach trip.  So here are some more of the favorites from the trip:

Chillin' with Granddaddy

Brooke and Cooper playing in the sand

Me and the girls in the surf

We now rent the luxurious chairs and umbrellas - how did we ever survive without these?

With their cousin John David

With their cousins Cooper and Mitchell - poor Mitchell had two broken arms and so he had limited things he could do at the beach this year.

All the cousins in our red, white, and blue ensembles

The three princess cousins

The girls with Granddaddy and Jane

Me and my sister for the middle generation's night out

The original cousins

Beach Photo shoot - me and my girls!  I LOVE this picture

The Hadden Family photo

Me and D as posed and photographed by the girls

More musings

Getting your car titled here is a ridiculous experience. And after three separate trips, only my car has been done successfully. We are just gonna roll the dice on D's car as his lease is up in a few months. This is the first state we've lived in where you only have a tag in the back. As the lady told me "you can put whatever you want in the front honey." Which really means you can put an LSU plate on your car.

Totally unrelated: We just bought this for all our arts and crafts in our den and I LOVE it

The whole time we were in VA I lamented 'why can't the parking spots be angled. I'm such a better parker on the angle.' So of course here the spots are angled. Turns out, that is super annoying cause I am ALWAYS going the wrong way. Perhaps I should learn to be content with what I have....though I wish I had straight spots.

Not that I am a huge drinker, but it totally cracks me up that you can buy liquor everywhere here.  Target. Wal-Mart. Walgreens. 

 The girls enjoying strawberry daiquiris (clearly without alcohol)

It is hot here. I realize that it is hot almost everywhere but I just want to re-emphasize it. Again. Temps in the 90's with heat index over 100 everyday is too darn hot. And I am such a sweaty person. I am way past sticking to my leather seats. I am sliding around on them. So so sweaty. So so gross.

Speaking of blazing hot. The girls are taking swim lessons right now. They have finished their first week and have one more to go. They LOVE it. Mr. Eric is their teacher and he is super good with them. As an aside I think that he looks like Ludacris. The only downside is that it is outside and I may have mentioned that it is so hot. Especially just sitting there with no breeze and lots of concrete around.

At swim lessons

Oh how I miss being just minutes from a Target and Bed Bath and Beyond. Sigh. I miss my weekly (or more) trips.  I have only been to Target twice here. Such a sad situation.

I recently looked up the school calendar and was SHOCKED to see that school starts August 9/10. (The pre-K divides the first two days up by only the girls go one day and boys the other. ) Dude. That is so early. We basically have a month of summer left. Which is a weird feeling. Cause by Friday the girls and I are definitely tired of just hanging out with each other. August seems far away then. But this year they are going to be going 5 days a week from 8 to 3:30. Wearing uniforms and riding the bus!  When I think about that, August seems way too close. Where did my babies go?

Brooke at the library.  She looks so cute in this picture!

I have made a new friend! Hooray for me! We have had one outing, but it seemed successful.  She is super nice.  Like so nice that I think I may need to improve myself a tad.  I am trying to be much more proactive in the friend making area (Amber I tam taking tips from you!)....which is totally not my thing as I like to wait to be invited to stuff. But as it is a small town,  I am for sure going to have to worm my way in.  Fortunately, our weekends have been busy between our "old" Exxon friends and our very nice neighbors. I think we have hit babysitter jackpot as our neighbors have a daughter about to be in tenth grade and she is awesome w the girls and they have already requested that we go out so they can stay w Kelsey.

Audrey at the library.  She always wants to go sit with the big bear and this day there was this green alligator and a little butterfly.  She was in heaven,

One advantage of hanging out all day together is I get to hear the funniest conversations between the girls. Here is a little snippet that just cracked me up for some reason.  I am sure it will lose something in translation and with all my parentheticals, but I'll try to do it justice:

In the car driving we pass a prison group out picking up trash. Brooke says "oooh. Audrey don't you want to do that one day?" (as an aside, the two worst things are being a litterbug or being a smoker, so those guys in their spiffy orange jumpsuits seem like heroes to the girls). Audrey replies "no Brooke. Remember we are going to be up front and run the state" (last week we went to the state Capitol and saw where the house and senate work and the girls decided that that was going to be their job and that they wanted to have the good seats at the front where the speaker and others that I don't know sit).  To which Brooke replies "no Audrey we can do both!"

In the aforementioned chambers at the state capitol.