Race Day, Mother’s Day, B-day!!

Yup!  The trifecta occurred on May 8, 2011!  It was an incredibly busy day – but so much fun and full of blessings!

We started our day bright and early – 5:30 am!  Not exactly how I wanted to start my Mother’s Day/ B-day!  But it was for a good cause – The Race for the Cure.  Many of you know that my sister is battling breast cancer and this race was developed to raise money and awareness.  My sister formed a team and we committed ourselves to walking the 3 miles. I have done the walk before – and it was emotional then.  It’s even more so when you KNOW someone standing on the survivor’s steps.  We weren’t sure how Lisa would fair during the race – she gets very tired easily – but she FINISHED the race!!! It was great to see her looking so full of energy and smiling from ear to ear with all the support and encouragement from friends and family.

After the race we went to church and enjoyed some fellowship with others.  It’s funny – but Mother’s Day is always a well attended service!  One of the best parts of the Mother’s Day celebration was a YouTube video that Pastor Bill played prior to the message.  If you get a chance, click on the link and watch the video.  The church was full of laughter!  It was great!

After church we went to a friend’s house, the Hatfield’s, to celebrate Joan’s birthday.  Her husband put together a surprise birthday party – and he got her!  She was so surprised!  The cutest thing was that he got all the family members shirts that read “No, I’m 29!” and labeled the party “the first anniversary of her 30th birthday”.  We had a great time talking with friends and the kids had a blast running around with the other kids playing games and taking a hike.It was also my 42nd birthday!  Yup!  I’m getting old!  But I am so blessed! I praise God that I was able to spend my day with family and friends, celebrating life and all of God’s blessings! 

Easter 2011

I know – I am so far behind in my blog life!  Easter was almost two weeks ago – but I need to put these pictures up!  We had a great day spending a quiet Easter with my parents and sister.  The kids were all decked out in their finest – even Matt agreed to wear a nice shirt! 

I took my camera to church and got a few of the kids with their friends!  I even convinced Matt, Eliza, and Josh to humor me with one more photo of the terrible I mean terrific trio!  I have one of them together every Easter since Eliza was one!  Her first birthday was on Easter!

This is Sarah’s crew…

And now we have the future hoodlums!  These four are the neatest kids ever!  I love each of them so much!!  Can’t wait to see what God is going to do with this crew – they are just a bunch of neat kids!Daniel and his best bud!  These two crack me up!  Both are very animated!

Then there is sweet Drew!  He has a crew – they’re just all smaller than him right now and wouldn’t cooperate for a photo!  I really wish I would have gotten one of him and his Lili girl!  Those two are going to be TROUBLE together – I can see it now!!

It was a great Easter.  Our church held two services and our kids choir sang at both of them – such troopers!

Adventure Aquarium

Last Sunday we had the great pleasure to take another family to the Adventure Aquarium in NJ.  We have a membership and it allowed us to take all but one for free!!  The Hood’s are missionaries with WEC and have three boys almost the same age as our first three.  They come to our church every Sunday and give out food that Whole Foods has donated to their mission. I know the people of our neighborhood really appreciate the items they give out as it helps stretch their food budgets each week!I love the aquarium.  They have so many neat creatures and every time I go it seems they have new ones to look at and study!  I wish we could go more often – even though we have a membership it still costs $14 each time we go.  The membership doesn’t cover parking or the toll to get back over the bridge.  But we try to go at least six times while we have the membership – that way we cover the cost of the membership and get some free visits in.  We also try to take people so we get more bang for our buck!

It was really fun to take Drew this time as he was REALLY interested in the “things” swimming around in the water. But we have discovered that he really doesn’t like water.  Every bath is a scream fest until I pull him out of the water.  He would even stick his hand in any of the touch tanks.  The kid does not like water!  It’s going to be an interesting summer as our other kids are fish and spend 95% of their time in the pool!  Hopefully, he will get past this!

The Sting Ray Bay was really neat this week!  The rays were very active and even coming up out of the water to greet us! I love Sarah’s face in this picture – one of shock and surprise! She hasn’t been fond of rays since she was little and one splashed her at a visit to Sea World.  But with her studying sea creatures this year for science she has become more accepting of the creatures!We had a great time!  Our membership expires the end of the month – I am hoping to get back there one more time with Grammy Schultz – she loves fish!  Then we will move onto land creatures and visit the Philadelphia Zoo this summer and fall!  I love living in Philly!  SO many things to do and see!