Issues...

So our hard drive was reformatted and we lost every photo that we had taken since we bought our laptop 3 1/2 years ago. Luckily with some research and assistance from friends, Matt was able to recover thousands of pictures. Now I blog...

Hawaii--the history

We took the Navy run shuttle out to the Arizona Memorial which was built over the sunken ship. Aboard the memorial, it still smelled of oil and slicks of leaking oil could still be seen floating in the water. The rear wall of the memorial lists the names of soldiers who lost their lives aboard the ship that fateful day. Among those listed is F.W. Hindman. I'm curious if there is a relation.




One day while Matt was at work, I visited the Punchbowl. The dedication ceremony for the Punchbowl National Cemetery commenced in September of 1949, a tribute to the almost 8,000 men who perished in the attacks on the opposite end of Oahu. Punchbowl Honolulu also honors and pays tribute to casualties from Korea, Vietnam and World War II as well as their families. The number of Punchbowl Memorial grave sites now totals more than 33,000. Each site is marked by a flat stone set into the ground.

Halloween 2009

Everyone got into the spirit of gutting their pumpkins this year. Since it was cold and dark outside but I didn't feel like trashing my kitchen, we spread a tarp on the floor in the garage and went at it.




Completed Jack-o-lanterns only lit the porch on Monday night since it poured all week, but the kids were happy with their results none the less.l



Finally the Trick-or-Treating began! Kassie as Hermoine Granger, Lexi and Anna as hula dancers and Mitchell as The King hit the streets in the rain to gather loot from the neighbors. We had well over 200 kids at the door throughout the night! Yikes. Lots of fun for all.



I did make the Elvis costume. (I only sew curtains and costumes.) I glued the last rhinestone on at 5:50 to start out the door at 6:00...cutting it close mommy?

Randomness ROCKS!

So Mom blames Facebook for my lack of blogging but let's face it...I've never been all that consistent in my blogging. Needless to say, there are a lot of noteworthy items that I'd like to share so in random order, here they come!

FYI

Just in case anyone still takes time out of their lives to look at this blog just hoping that I've posted something, I wanted to let you know I'm not slacking on purpose. We've had a great summer and done lots of fun things but in all of the fun, our laptop monitor got broken so that I can't see the hundreds of pictures that I have taken since June. Hopefully Matt will be able to bring her back from her present state when the new LCD arrives next week and I can bring you all up to speed.

Nissan Pavillion: Full of rednecks

Or so they kept telling us over and over...

Kelly and I had a great time at the concert.

The evening kicked off with Julianne Hough.
Sadly, we were a bit late for the show and missed
most of her show but she sounded great as
we were trekking in from the parking lot.








Blake Shelton was the next to take the stage. I wasn't expecting much quite honestly but he was great...very much a performer not just a singer. He talked to the audience and was clearly having a lot of fun himself. He seemed to think that DC and Baltimore have terrible traffic issues... Really? Hadn't noticed.

And George Strait finished the show--playing for
well over an hour.
He was spectacular!

He played a lot of his older music in addition to all of his current hits. Tons of fun! Thanks for the invite Kelly!

Farewell Chatsworth

School ended in mid-June and was met with mixed feelings. The kids were all excited for summer vacation but a bit bummed that they were saying good-bye to all of their friends to start new schools. Both Lexi and Mitchell had end-of-year picnics. Here are a few shots:




We'll miss the many friends that we have made over the past three years. Here's looking forward to a fun summer and great new schools in the fall!

Glyndon School of Ballet Presents...

Snow White

Lexi's 1st grade tap class performed the parts of the birds. We weren't permitted to videotape this year but here are few shots of my little bluebird.




Sorry the shots are a bit fuzzy.

Fun on the farm

For quite some time Anna has been asking to ride a horse. It never occurred to me until May that her horse request isn't such a difficult one to fulfill since Uncle Blair and Aunt Retta have two horses. When we were in Brookville last, we took some time to visit the barn and take the horses for a spin around the ring.

The kids had a great time playing with the horses and their cousins. Thanks Aunt Retta!

Birthdays

Memorial Day weekend we celebrated Anna's birthday. What a big girl she is getting to be! She is now four going on sixteen...cute and tiny but full of sass and attitude. Luckily she is still a mommy's girl much of the time. Here are a few shots from the day!





A week and a half later it was Mitchell's ninth birthday. He started the day with the only home track meet of the year. Both he and Kassie competed in the 100m sprint and the long jump. Mitchell also ran the 200m and although he got ribbons in both previous attempts at this race, his heart wasn't all in it. (He really wanted to skip out and go eat pie.)




After the meet, we had lunch and birthday pudding pie. (Mitchell has become opinionated about food: he tolerates most things but loves only pizza, steak and pie.)





He was pretty pleased with his punching bag and gloves. Happy birthday kiddos!