Panama City Beach Days

I finally got the photos off Rick's computer so I can share them. We had several all beach days. The kids really liked it but Rick was getting stir crazy. One day he took Millie on a 2 hour wave runner outing to Shell Island. She loved it and it turned into over 3 hours because their guide just didn't want to go back. I think she drove most of the time and was full speed...big surprise.

Panama City Beach - Day 2 - Phone

The Internet here is less than cooperative. So, I'm going to have to blog my phone photos separate from my good camera. The kids did lots of football and ocean playing the second day. They enjoyed being buried. 

Fall Break - Day 1 - On The Road

Our family is taking our first all beach vacation this week for fall break. One of the advantages of starting school so early and only having about a 7 week summer break is that we get a 2 week fall break so the first week we took off for Panama City Beach. So did hurricane Karen but she didn't keep us away! Reed and Millie have both seen the ocean on our California trip a few years back to visit family but there wasn't really any beach time involved. And Millie had some beach time in South Carolina twice visiting family but she was too young to remember.

We left our house at 4am Saturday morning to allow plenty of time to get to the condo. Millie was making bracelets the entire time and ran out of supplies around Huntsville Alabama. It was past time for breakfast and Rick remembered a space center was in Huntsville so we jumped off the interstate, hit the back roads and headed to Huntsville. Along the way we saw a bunch of cotton fields so we pulled over and let the kids check it out.

AL for Alabama - Millie's idea

We found the space center and walked around the outside because we knew we didn't have time to devote hours to going inside. It was still neat though and the kids enjoyed it.

Most importantly, we found breakfast which Millie declared "Alabama has the best food in the world!" She may have been a little hungry but it's still good to see her enjoy her food. And we found a Joann's so Millie got more rubber bands for her bracelets.

We made it to the condo around 6pm which wasn't bad at all considering our detour in Huntsville. The kids couldn't wait to get to the beach. They kept their clothes on but I told them they could only get their feet wet. Well, I think you can tell from the photos they didn't really listen. Rick wasn't much help in that department.

The only signs of hurricane Karen were rougher waves, which were fun, and some clouds which made for a beautiful sunset.

Pace Setter!!

She did it! Millie finally did it. She came in first at last week's cross country meet at Floyd Central. After she got second place the week before, she had her goals set for number 1. When they started this program last year, the first place finisher got a special shirt, called a Pace Setter shirt, that explained hard work and setting good examples. They are silver and you only get one by finishing first.  As soon as she saw that shirt last year, she wanted one.

Here are our girls all lined up and ready to go.  There were about 180 girls in this group getting ready to run. 

 

 I was so nervous after the race started. Since I'm a coach, I have duties at the finish line so I couldn't see any of the course until the runners came around the last bend just before the finish. When I saw her little yellow do-rag make that corner I almost cried. I was so happy for her. The other down side about coaching is I don't get to take photos. This really bums be out. So I don't have any photos of her at the finished but I got some with my phone afterwards and Rick's mom took a few as well.

At the finish Rick swept her up to give her big squeezes.  I guess Reed thought she needed a kiss on her super fast legs.

Proudly getting her medal and lots of cheers from her team.  We have the largest team with 108 runners so it was pretty loud.

And most importantly, that Pace Setter shirt.  That's one happy little girl right there.

 

Their teams did really well over all too.  If I remember right, the boys got second place and so did the girls.

She had a pretty big smile on her face all evening and I was so glad Rick and his parents and my mom were there to see it.

Look What I Did!

So, I'm kind of super proud of myself. I've been wanting to make wooden signs for over a year, ever since Pinterest came into my life. I've been saving ideas and researching techniques for when I get off my lazy butt and do it. This weekend was finally the time I did it. As my kids gets older, they are accumulating a lot of medals, ribbons and trophies. I want to do a 'wall of fame' in our basement and display them all. I'll need Rick to make the trophy shelves but I wanted to paint the signs for the medals.

I used Photoshop to print out the font then cut it out. I took a big piece of purple chalk and colored the back side of the printed paper. I taped it to the board (scrap from our wood pile in the workshop) and then traced over the letters. This left a chalk image on the wood. 

I traced over the chalk image with a fine tip black sharpie.

Then I just colored in the letters with a regular size black sharpie. This was super easy. I did use the fine tip to color in some of the smaller areas. 

I'm pretty darn happy with how it turned out. 

I've got a few more to make but this one will be for Millie's Cross Country medals. I kept it simple with unpainted wood and black letters but I may get more colorful with the next one. This one just needs hooks and it will be finished!

UPDATE:
Now Mr. Reed has one too. He was worried he wasn't going to get one.