The boys' last day in Pensacola for awhile...

... Will, Xan and Grandma Nancy arrived safely in Orange County today, the boys embarking on their summer away from home with both sets of grandparents. Yesterday we decided to kill two birds with one trip to Pensacola Beach: show Grandma Nancy an area she hadn't seen before, and spend quality time as a family. So, we drove across two bridges to visit Pensacola Beach, a gulfside community known for its nightlife and beach vacations for Southerners. We drove around the town, checking out the vacation condos, elementary school on stilts and the "alien house," a boxy white house with a big windowed bubble on top of it that looks a lot like a Warner Brothers cartoon UFO.

After lunch at Crabs (the King crab legs were quite delicious and the service was great) we headed off to the huge water slide the boys has spotted during our driving tour of the area. For $7 each - a fund-raiser put on by the Gulf Breeze High School cheerleaders - they could go down the slide as often as they wanted - or as often as we would let them! That turned out to be 6 times! Will, of course, led the excursion, but Xan did not hesitate - even as he stared down from the top of the slide... here are some more photos ...

My parents' turtle corral ...

... because the two large Sulcata tortoises in my parents' backyard sometimes think toes are their favorite food - strawberries - my Dad built this fenced "turtle corral" across one side of their backyard. Mom wanted it built before she brought Will and Xan to California Sunday. My father finished it, complete with two gates, with four days to spare. Nice job, Dad!

More wildlife news and a wedding ...

... well, the big bummer of this post is that the baby birds flew the spider plant coop sometime yesterday. I know my Mom will be upset, since she was looking forward to seeing them when she flew out tomorrow. All that's left is a poopy nest with Ripley hair in it.

Friday was interesting as the kids went off to school. A middle-school kid rang our doorbell and told Rodney that he left a turtle in our yard because it had been in the middle of the street and he did not want it to get run over. (This reminded me of my Dad, who is famous for stopping on the side of of a road to rescue shelled reptiles from sure automobile-caused death.)The turtle made his way to our front door, so we took pictures of him before Rodney let him go in the woods as he took Xan to school. When Xan got back home that afternoon, he saw the empty box was back and wanted to know where the turtle was. It was tough trying to explain that he was in the woods with his turtle friends.



Saturday night was our friends' Amber and Tyler's wedding in downtown Pensacola. They had asked me to take the wedding photos, which was a little nerve-wracking, since I had never been the official wedding photographer before. But, they downloaded their photos yesterday, took them to get printed and called me back to say they were very pleased with the results. Here are a handful of the photos I took:

Will's essay and the fuzzy babies ...

... Will brought home a few more of his first grade practice essays today. This one is one of my favorites:


I didn't know you had to be big and strong to scrapbook, but I know it sure helps when you are traveling and setting up for Scrapbook Expos! Rodney said he hopes Will changes career paths. He is fairly confident that he will, since Rodney remembers his sister, Jill, wanting to be a "boy basketball player" when she was about Will's age. As far as I know she is still female and works for the Red Cross ...

An update on the birds in my backyard spider plant: The fuzzy babies actually look more like live birds and less like plucked chickens.


And I finally got a photo of mama bird.


I don't think she is a robin after all. Usually she is flying madly away from the nest when I see her, so now that I have gotten a decent glimpse, I have seen that she has a red chest and head, and gray body. I wonder what the dad looks like, since he is supposed to be brighter. I'll see if I can't figure it out on the Internet and let you know.

Fuzzy babies are growing right along ...

... and so are the piles of bird poop. Yuck! But the babies are much more alert and stay stock still when I peer into their nest. They no longer confuse me with their mama bringing food.

Molly Ringwalds part 2 ...

... Saturday night we hired a teacher from Xan's preschool, Brittany, to watch the boys and Rodney and I went out to see an 80's cover band I really enjoy, The Molly Ringwalds. We first saw them last summer at the Bushwacker Festival, so I was really looking forward to seeing them again. Here are some pictures from last night, which was incredibly hot and humid ...

Will's last baseball game ...

... the bad news is that they lost by a point, but there is so much more good news! Will got to play catcher, which he was very excited about. We spoke with his coaches and there are some clinics and opportunities here in Pensacola where he can learn more about catching, since he has such an interest. The Yankees ended up tying for second in their league and Will was recognized as the most improved outfielder by his coaches, Coach James and Coach Marcus at the team party later in the afternoon at the Perdido Key Kids Park.

Helmets and DVDs ...

... Xan has been filching Will's batting helmet out of Will's bat bag in the garage every chance he gets. I have worried that Will's helmet won't be in his bag when he needs it because Xan is not too great about putting the helmet back when he is done. Sooooo, when a rebate gift card came in the mail on Friday, I thought I would do something fun with it. Xan got his own batting helmet and t-ball bat and Will got an Elvis movie, "G.I. Blues." He's such an Elvis fan! Xan found the movie pretty interesting, as well, and both boys went out in the backyard to test out Xan's helmet.

Fuzzy babies are a week old...

... well, one of them is, anyway! The other three will be a week old tomorrow and Saturday. They now have their eyes open...

Fuzzy babies are getting bigger ...

... it looks as though the fifth egg won't be hatching. These guys are four, five and six days old now. There are still just four fuzzy babies, but they are definitely getting bigger and growing more fluff. They still aren't very attractive, but dang cute at the same time. Today they were resting their heads on the edge of the nest, two facing the camera, two facing away. It's been very warm here (mid- to high-80's) so mama bird has not been sitting on the nest much during the day. I think Jill might be right - I got a good look at her yesterday and her orange chest makes me think she is a robin, but much smaller than the robins I saw in Illinois, about half the size. It's fun watcing these guys grow up ...

Will's quite the catcher...

... in his third placement ever at catcher tonight, Will caught a ball thrown from second base and tagged a player out. He also had three solid hits at bat, scoring for his team twice. The Yankees won, 15-8. I, unfortunately, was not at this game, as I had a scrapbooking class to teach tonight, with Xan in tow, but Rodney got to see the plays very well - he was umpiring the game, he last for the season. Will's last game is Saturday, along with his team party.

Will said he likes playing catcher, so we will try to work with him more on it so that he might have a chance to play the position more permanently next season.

We also recently got Will's baseball pictures back. Here is his official rookie portrait:

Will's writing success ...

In April, the Escambia County School District tested its students on their writing skills, giving them each a grade-appropriate topic and grading them based on the FCAT rubric. The highest score is a 6. Will found out today that he scored a 5.5, the highest in his class. He said that his prompt was to write about something he liked to do outside and he wrote about playing baseball with his brother. I am not sure if we will get to see his writing sample, but I will be sure to share it later if we do. We are so proud of Will!

Mother's Day ...

... the boys surprised me this morning with a plastic brick and dinosaur display for Mother's Day. The both also made me some really cute cards and projects at their respective schools. Rodney had gone shopping and got me the bra strap fitter things at Target that have been on TV infomercials lately, and a gift certificate to get my nails done. Thanks for a great day, boys!

Keiths's birthday celebration ...

... Rodney and I found a babysitter for the boys and headed out to Pensacola Beach to celebrate our friend, Keith's, 35th birthday. We went to Flounders and Cap'n Fun's to hear some 80's cover bands and I found out that the 80's cover band, The Molly Ringwalds, are going to be there next weekend. Now, we just need to find another babysitter - the one we had this weekend will be out of town! :(

Four (hungry) fuzzy babies ...

... I checked on the spider plant nest yesterday, bringing the plant in to the house to show the boys, and we now have four fuzzy babies. And they were excited to see me, too. I guess they were hungry! Just one egg left!

Fuzzy babies...

In an earlier post I mentioned that a bird had laid five eggs in my hanging spider plant on my back porch. Well, yesterday one of of those eggs hatched a fuzzy baby.


Today I went out and checked and the fuzzy babies multiplied. There are now three fuzzy babies. So very cutely ugly! Hopefully all five will be hatched tomorrow.


Can you see Ripley's hair in there? Hopefully the mother bird didn't pluck it right from his back, but that might have been funny to watch...

The garden here is growing in the 80+ degree, humid weather. My seeds in the flower bed never sprouted, so, the patient person that I am, I planted lantana and some impatien-like flowers there.


The tomatoes and anaheim chile peppers are starting to flower and fruit and the flowers my Mom and I planted are going gangbusters!

While Grandma Peggy and Aunt Jilly were here...

We've had a lot of fun while Grandma Peggy and Aunt Jill were here visiting this week. Well, most of us did... some of us were suffering from a major sunburn from our beach excursion Sunday. Here are some photos from Sunday:



Although it was an incredibly cloudy day, and we slathered SPF 30 on the kids, Will ended up with a sunburned back, I got a bit of a burn on my shoulders and feet, Peggy's legs got a pretty good burn, yet Jill and Xan were pretty much unscathed. Rodney took the Sunburn Award, though. His legs and feet are still bright red today (Tuesday night) and blistered. Here are some shots...



Yesterday, while Rodney was at work and Will was a at school, Peg, Jill, Xan and I headed to Foley, Ala., to shop at the Tanger outlet mall and eat pizza at the Mellow Mushroom. Yum! No pics, though... do you really want to see photos of shoppers?! I wouldn't...

Today we headed to Pensacola Beach, which is not in Pensacola, but about 8 miles and two bridges away.





Tonight Will had a baseball game, which Rodney umpired. The game ended up in a rare tie, but Will did score a run for his team, plus he got to play catcher for two innings.



Peggy and Jill leave early in the morning ... have a safe trip, ladies!