Georgia Aquarium

We had planned to go to Panama City for the Labor Day weekend, but we decided not to travel south after watching the forcasts for Gustav. So, we headed to Atlanta yesterday to visit the Georgia Aquarium. As we were driving through downtown Atlanta to the Aquarium, we realized that some type of Star Wars/Star Trek convention was going on. (I looked it up later and it was a Dragon-Con Convention??!) Anyway, we saw several interesting costumes...! When we got to the Aquarium, we saw that ESPN College Game Day was set up in Centennial Park. Ken had fun wandering around with all the Alabama and Clemson fans while the girls played on the playground. We finally got into the Aquarium and it was awesome! We liked it so much that we decided to upgrade our tickets to a yearly membership. We plan to head back very soon.

Catherine's First Day of Preschool!

Today was Catherine's first day at Parkway Preschool! She was so excited - she's been ready to go to school since Lauren went on the 11th. (Actually, she probably wanted to go ahead and start last year! ) Her teachers are Ms. Kim and Ms. Kandy....or as Catherine says with her southern accent, Miss Kam and Miss Ka-andy. :)

Catherine's best bud Clem also started school today - he was ready to go too!!

Jana & I are celebrating our first day without any children by going to lunch later. It will be so strange to have a conversation over lunch without saying "Stop throwing your food!" "Don't hit your sister!" "EAT!" Hopefully I won't try to cut Jana's chicken for her...

First Day of School!

Today was Lauren's first day of Kindergarten. She was so excited!



We took a couple of pictures outside of the school and then she was ready to go to her pod. She told me, "I remember how to get to the Yellow Pod - you don't need to help me."

Meanwhile, Catherine and Clem got to play together this morning. They enjoyed having a snack break while playing outside:

"Meet the Teacher" Night

Tonight was "Meet the Teacher" night at Lauren's kindergarten. As we were walking to the school from the church parking lot across the street, a torrential rain storm started. Sooo...I looked like a drowned rat as we went into meet the teacher. I felt the same nervous feeling I remember from starting school when I was little. (Not that it's about me....) Anyway - Lauren was great! She is in the Yellow Pod and her teacher is Mrs. Mims. We got her signed up to ride the bus home in the afternoons. She is so excited about starting school on Monday.

Lauren & Mrs. Mims

Fun with Friends!

We went to Montgomery on Wednesday to visit Lauren's friend Trey (and my friend Edris!) We got to meet Trey's little sister Chandler for the first time as well. The kids had a great time playing in Trey's "water park"!

Getting ready for school...

Lauren starts Kindergarten next Monday at Auburn Early Education Center or as she calls it "Auburn Early Edge." Catherine will start Mother's Day Out the last week of August at Parkway Preschool. We ordered new backpacks for school and they just arrived today. The girls are so excited and can't wait to start school!! We are going to meet Lauren's teacher on Thursday night.

Beach Trip Part 2

As promised, I'm finally publishing more pictures from our beach trip. I don't actually have any pictures from the beach itself...Mom took all of those pictures!

Beach Trip!

On Sunday we returned from our annual family beach trip. The girls & I spent the week with my parents, my sister Katie and brother-in-law Bob and my brother Jay. Ken was able to come down for both weekends, which was great! We enjoyed feeding the turtles and fish in the lake behind the condo, going to the beach, going to the water park, a day at Crystal Lake with Nan & Dick and lots of seafood eating and margarita drinking. One fun highlight was on July 4th - Katie, Bob, Jay, Ken and I drove to Seaside to sightsee. Well, we ended up seeing Jessica Simpson and Tony Romo! I was hanging out of the van window taking pictures...I really played it cool. :) I will post more pictures soon.

Bug catching

Lauren caught a caterpillar back in April...and that was pretty exciting. But TONIGHT she caught her first lightning bug and she said that was "fantastic!!" The best part? Lauren said, "I caught the lightening bug and I didn't even squish it!"

Gross...

My sister went to a Gateway Grizzlies minor league baseball game this week and the "delicacy" of the park concession stand was a "Krispy Kreme Cheeseburger." Eeewwww!!

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/03/broadcasts/main1680067.shtml

Summer Swing in Opelika

We went to Opelika tonight for the Summer Swing Concert. The girls had fun riding the "Rocky Brook Rocket" and playing on the playground. We also ate hotdogs and homemade ice cream. The concert featured the Contemporary Worship teams of Cornerstone Methodist and Auburn UMC. We didn't stay for the entire concert, but we enjoyed the music while we were there.

Auburn United Methodist

We have been visiting Auburn UMC for the last year and decided to join yesterday. Lauren was a little confused because she already thought it was "her" church. We had Vacation Bible School last week and both girls had a great time. I am so glad we have found a church home here in Auburn.

Potty Training

Potty training may kill me. We put Catherine through "Poop Camp" back in March and she did pretty well for a while. BUT, I wasn't able to stay home as much as I needed to and she's fallen off the potty, uh, wagon...so to speak. Anyway...we hit a training low point yesterday. Catherine pooped in her pullup. She then took off her pullup, dumped the poop in the potty, flushed the potty, threw away the dirty pullup, got a clean pullup and put it on. On a positive note...if she's not going to stay dry, at least she's changing herself.

Lauren created a recipe for chocolate cake and she's been begging me to make it. Here is her recipe:


We baked her "cake" tonight, but we followed the recipe on the brownie box a little more closely, especially with regards to baking times. :)

This past weekend we visited FDR State Park in Georgia with our friends the Hinely's. We got to see a snake show and took a short hike. We had a great time!

We had a couple of funny incidents on our trip. First, during the snake show the ranger was holding a rat snake and a bee flew at his head. He started ducking to get away from the bee - a prime example of IRONY??!! Second, we noticed a sign on our hike(below) that discouraged us from taking a creek walk...

Happy Anniversary to us!!



We celebrated our 10th anniversary today. I would post a current picture to compare with our wedding pic, but we don't have time to get our picture taken together. :) We did get a babysitter and ate at Red Lobster.

We also got a cookie cake. :)

I am slowly updating my blog. I created this when I had one child and was expecting another. Now - 2 1/2 years later - I am trying blogging again!

We are expecting baby #2 on November 3rd, 2005. We're actually hoping it will arrive at the end of October, though. This baby will join big sister Lauren, who will be 3 at the end of November. She is very excited about being a big sister.