Spring Concert

One of things that's so cool about 4th grade is that the kids start to "officially" play an instrument. Devin chose (after some tense moments of pondering the violin) the trumpet. He did really well with private lessons last summer and continued to do well this year. We decided to never harp on practicing and let this become something he WANTED to do. And, there are times he pulls the trumpet out to "practice" for us. My heart sings!!

Well, we finally hit the parental rite of passge known as "the first concert". An occasion that is marked with purchasing dress clothes your child doesn't own and stuffing yourself and all your extended family into a boiling hot auditorium. And at the end of it all, you are beaming with pride over how amazing your kid was. Because you just KNOW that was HIS trumpet that sounded so beautiful in the middle of the 50 kid band.

I think he was a little nervous, but he did very well keeping that in check. And look how handsome he is in his dress up clothes!!

All Growed Up

It's not too often that we whip out the fine china and get the dining room all prettied up (ok, truth is it's not often that the dining room table can be SEEN underneath the clutter). But, a fine occasion deserves fine dining. We were finally having our friends the Colvin's over for dinner and wanted to kick it up a notch. After all, how many people do you know that would willingly give up a day the week before X-Mas to help you haul wet, disgusting stuff out of your Grandmother's basement? Enough said.

We had a ball, as we always do with them. Good stuff!

Summer in April

So, another example of a day in late April that was better than most days in June. We went for brunch at Mom and Tommy's. It was HOT. They had a new umbrella for the patio and it was great to have it (did I mention it was HOT?). So she also found these cool squirt gun things that are made out of the pool noodle material (I believe it's called styrofoam - ha ha). The kids had a ball squirting each other, us, the trees, the house. Poor Rita (Tommy's sister, who I adore) got the brunt of the adult soaking.

Tommy showed us all that he's great with the little ladies. After raising 3 daughters, he knows just how to make things all better. See him taking Julia by the hand after her brother gave her a face full of water? Oh yes, Oompa to the rescue!

Too bad they only had to wait 2 & 1/2 more months for weather good enough to do this again!!!

Girls

Remember back in April when it was like summer? Well, I guess April and June decided to switch this year. Ugh, so sick of rain. This post is funny though, because these were taken in the last week of April.

Julia and the "F" girls from two doors down. They have been constant companions this spring. It's really cute how much they enjoy each other. Don't you love how girls will just get together and read??

Water Conservation Skit from Blue and Gold Dinner

Devin does the intro. The concept was that they conserve water by sharing it to brush their teeth. They were very proud of their comedic impact.

Blue and Gold Dinner 2009

I'm not typically a fan of the chaos that is usually the Cub Scout Blue and Gold dinner. It's the annual awards dinner for the Scouts where the whole family gets to join. We usually have it in the cafeteria of the local junior high. The kids LOVE it.

This year was a lot of fun though, I have to admit. Despite the kid chaos, there were some great families there and the food was awesome! I have to admit, I'm a convert now. Sad to think we only have one more of these though!

Some cute moments were the Webelos I skit where they did "Water Conservation" by pretending to share toothbrushing water. And Julia and Mr. N were playing the "trust game" with each other in the back. I guess they decided that they trust each other because they spent the rest of the time sitting in each other's laps! Too cute!

Last Night at Ocean Grill

We spent the night before we left at Ocean Grill with the whole family for dinner. Gaga and Aunt Bet joined us too! Julia had a chocolate ice cream "martini" for dessert (they gave it to her in a martini glass) and she shared with Papa. That's love!

We got a great family shot too. Funniest picture is of Gaga and the kids doing their "Fire Power" motion from "Night at the Museum II". So glad we caught that on film.

"Hey, check out the gun show over here...boom, boom - FIRE POWER!!"

I let my firstborn do what?????

Ok, so the most heart-stopping event on our vacation was when Papa asked to taake us flying. My response? There aren't enough drugs in the world to get me on that plane.

So, he settled for taking Neil and the kids. Again, I balked. If that plane went down, my reason to keep on living would be what....? So, Neil and Devin volunteered and Julia was more than happy to go with me to get our nails done and hit the pool.

We have great video of this too (and some not so great when Neil taped his knee for about 10 minutes). Devin seemed a little nervous about it at the last minute and Neil had to assure him it was fine. Of course, this was while Neil was also nervous and holding his Dad's door closed for the whole trip.

But it was a cool experience for them. They got to see the beach, Jupiter Light and the site of Tiger's new house on Jupiter Island. But what was really fun was that Neil texted me the whole time to tell me where they were and Julia and I saw them fly overhead while we were at the pool! By the time I got my phone to take the picture they were just a speck in the sky, but they could see us at the pool.

Very happy to report they all made it safe and sound!

Florida Oceanographic Coastal Center

Dad Hartzog spent a bunch of time this year planning all kinds of cool stuff for us to do while we'd be there on vacation. One thing was to go feed the stingrays! He felt bad that Devin had missed out on that when he was sick on our cruise, so he found this place on Hutchinson Island. We drove up, had lunch at Conchy Joe's and then headed to the center.

It wasn't a huge place on the inside, but it was very well run and had some cool learning and fun activities. After watching the stingray demo the kids both got to feed and pet them in the tank. Then we played with some of the kid activities and walked around the "game fish lagoon". That was my favorite part!

Cool Bee

Saw this really cool bee in Florida (sitting inside the flower). It was a blue/green shiny color and I've never seen anything like it. Had to share.

Dinner at the Crab House

I think we had started to go to dinner at another place and it was closed, so we "settled" for the Crab House. Great outside deck, gorgeous weather, good company, good food, view of Jupiter Light. Why didn't we start out there??

Somehow Julia managed to get a neck rub out of the deal from Linda too. Life was good that night!!

Cat's In the Bag

Ok, before anyone calls the ASPCA, he was only in there for a minute and he LOVES it. He voluntarily climbs into any bag left on the floor. I think he would have napped in there if he could have. Crazy cat, that Harley.

How the Hartzogs Spend Easter

I guess I like spending the holidays in a somewhat unconventional way. I still remember the year I spent Christmas at Dad and Libby's and we made our own sushi for Christmas dinner. So I guess it's not surprising that "going to church" wasn't on our list of things we did on Easter. Well, Dad Hartzog and Gaga went, so hopefully they prayed for the rest of us.

Easter kind of started for us the night before. We came home from dinner and found that two beautifully painted eggs had been left for the kids and there was a bunny window decoration on the sliders outside. I guess the bunny wanted to make sure the kids knew that he'd still hide baskets for them at Papa's house, not to worry!

We got up at a fairly reasonable hour (God I adore having older children) and they waited patiently in the hallway for us to have some coffee and find the "on" button on the cameras before they started basket-seeking. After much lots of searching (Harley was thoroughly confused about what was happening) the kids found their bountiful baskets and dug in.

Papa took Gaga to church and we packed up some snacks and drinks for our day. We rented a boat and hit the intercoastal. It was GORGEOUS out. A totally perfect day to be out there. We hit Singer Island, had some brunch (it was about the only time Julia wore her Easter dress all day!) and then scooted over to Peanut Island.

In all the years we've been taking boats out we've never docked out at Peanut Island. It's this great little spot where you can dock or anchor and play on the beach, wade in the shallows or explore the cute little island. There were people who camp out there too. How fun!!

We hit the beach and Papa took a nap while we walked out into the shallows and checked out all the boating activity. It was a giant party. It was hysterical. The floor of the ocean had some sharp shells, so the bottoms of our feet were a little worse for the wear, but it was very cool out there.

Sun, fun and something new, what a great Easter!!

Turtles Need Rehab Too

It's only June and I'm just starting to add pix from April vacation. I'm hoping for a boring summer where I get caught up on everything AND have a clean house. Until then, I dream...

Here are a few snaps from the ever-growing Turtle Rehabilitation facility in Jupiter. We happened to visit this year on a day when they were cleaning the tanks and weighing and measuring the "patients". So we got a really cool glimpse at some of the stuff the staff and volunteers do there to take care of their shelled friends.

We also managed to get just a few (cough cough) cute ones of the kids and Papa too, go figure.

While we were standing there watching the whole process I happened to see a man standing there with a shirt from our local high school on. It's a fairly generic name, but the font was right so I decided to approach him. Sure enough, they not only live in our towen, but had kids that go to our kids' school. Microscopic world.

Another piece of cool news is that we are so often taken with the turtles at the "farm" that we got a special surprise from Papa. Just the other day we received our paperwork that Devin and Julia are the proud "parents" of a rescue turtle named "Morgan". They are not quite sure if Morgan is a boy or a girl (something having to do with the state of tail growth) but we are just loving him/her and hope that he/she is well enough to get released next spring (hopefully when we're down there, how cool would that be?)

Pinewood Derby 2009

This was going to be his year. They conferred, they shopped, they planned, they sanded, they painted and came up with another sweetheart of a car this year. THIS was going to be his year.

The heats that his car ran in (the really skinny red one in the middle) went well over and over. He consistantly placed 1st or 2nd in each heat. But, with so many boys in his group, he missed out on a 3rd place finish by some microscopic amount of time.

My Dad has vowed to make it his life's mission to come up with THE CAR for 2010. After all, Devin only has 1 Derby left (snif, snif) before he becomes a full out Boy Scout. Rumor has it that he plans to spend his fall and winter constructing a test track in their basement. My Mother must be thrilled.

Did Devin care that he narrowly missed winning a trophy? Does he look like he cared? Ok, yes, I'm sure he was a little disappointed, but it certainly didn't show.

Lake Wo-Be-Gone

I have officially ended my period of blog mourning for Oreo now and am so ridiculously behind on posts it's almost funny. The last weekend in March we took a drive out to the lake to survey the damage. What damage, you ask? Well, this is what can happen when an oil company forgets a delivery and a pipe bursts.

Now, to show you the hole in the pipe I'd practically need to give you a microscope, but it's quite out of sync with the amount of damage it caused. The pipe burst on the second floor kitchen. The water ran for some time. Since it was still dang cold out there, once the water reached the sliding doors, it started to cascade into a large ice sheet down the side of the house.

Once the ice became several inches thick, the neighbor (Norm, you rock) called us.

Bottom line, everything except for the 2 upstairs bedrooms had to be gutted down to the studs. The upside? All the work is now almost done and you can hardly recognize it now. I'll see if I can get some "after" pictures soon.

The first picture is a view from the bottom of the steps to the basement. You can see all the way through the closet that used to be there, the downstairs kitchen, the downstairs bathroom (see the shower stall door?) and into the back bedroom.

The second picture is of the kitchen upstairs. And, couldn't resist a picture of the kids standing "in the lake". The lake gets drained a bit every winter to protect the docks, and usually the spring thaw fills it back up again. It's still pretty low this year, which is ironic considering all the rain we've had! And last, but not least, Julia holding her baby cousin.

So, fear not. Lake party, still on this year!