Football is taking over my life

This is Liam's first season of tackle football.  Practice/conditioning has been going on since May.  I could see the difference between this league and the flag leagues right away.  This is some serious business.  When it was just conditioning, practices were 2 hrs 3 nights a week.  Which was already too much for me.  Joe has always been Liam's head coach so I never really had to go to practices before.  And I liked it that way.  6 hours a week sitting at a football field was just ridiculous and torturous to me.  On Monday, they started full pads practice.  Now practice is 2 1/2 hours 5 nights a week!  12 1/2 freaking hours a WEEK just sitting doing nothing at the field.  OMG.  This is killing me.  I get home from picking the kids up at almost 5:30, then we have to be at the field by 6.  No time for a decent dinner.  No time to relax after a long day at work/summer camp.  When we get home at close to 9 pm, kids have to eat, shower, brush teeth, relax.  Our new bedtime is now 10pm.  Which I don't like at all.  Ugh.  Don't even get me started on what goes through my mind when some kid much bigger than Liam completely flattens him on the field.  I almost started crying last night :(  First game is in 2 weeks.  He is awful cute in his pads though...

Hang gliding

I went hang gliding over the weekend.  I got it on Groupon.  For the actual hang gliding and the "mandatory gratuity" it was less than $100.  For about 7 minutes of hang gliding time.  Yeah.  But it was fun.  I would never pay full price to do it again.  But I would pay for the experience where they bring you 1 mile up.  As opposed to the 1,500 ft I did.  Here are a few pics for you.

Getting loaded in:

Take off:

Getting towed to 1, 500 ft:

Coming in for a landing:

 

Summer Camp

For the first time, the kids are in REAL summer camp.  Having my Dad watch them this summer just wasn't really an option.  They serve free breakfast and lunch, which is awesome.  Except, my kids are so super duper picky in their culinary requirements that what I hear every day is "Lunch was so gross!"  "My burrito was wet!"  "My turkey sandwich had turkey on it!"  Ay, ay, ay.  These kids, I swear.

They go on two to three field trips a week.  Which requires a school bus to get there.  Not crazy about this idea.  But mostly they're having fun and doing lots of stuff there.  And no one has died yet.  However, it really peeves Jill that her camp counselor's daughter is in their group.  Apparently, she shows preferential treatment to her own kid.  They went to the zoo last week and I asked Jill how it was.  "It was terrible.  My counselor only bought her daughter a slushy and NO ONE ELSE!"  Outrageous!  That is downright Jillian abuse.

Overall, they are not crazy about summer camp.  But I really don't have a choice.  Liam is already asking if he can stay home by himself next summer.  Um.  No.

Portraits

Back in 2007, a portrait company went to the kids' daycare and did these fantastic portraits.  I didn't even know about the portrait until they had already finished it and presented it to me.  I was totally taken aback and totally fell in love with it.  I felt that they REALLY captured both of their expressions so perfectly.

So recently, I ordered a new portrait with an updated photo:

I JUST LOVE IT!  I hung them side by side.  I love looking at the two portraits side by side and seeing how much they've grown in 5 yrs.  The sepia toned portraits are just so beautiful and unique.  These make really special gifts!  Here is the company's site: http://www.portraits.org/

Snail shell frames

Jill and I were doing yard work a few weeks ago and I noticed a snail shell in the yard.  So I suggested to her that we should "collect" all the snail shells in the yard.  So 60 shells later I was wondering what the heck we were going to do with all these shells.  So first we soaked them in water and scrubbed all the shells.  We did this about 3 times.  Then we bleached them.  I still had no idea what to do with all these shells, then my friend Andrea suggested doing picture frames.  So I got some plain wooden frames and we started with painting the frames.  Then we glued some shells around.

Then I sprayed each frame with a clear acrylic spray to protect the paint and shells.  I accidentally got a matte finish spray so they didn't come out as glossy as I wanted them to.

But, voila!, the finished product is really cute:

Paddle boarding

Me and the girls went paddle boarding on Memorial Day.  It was a lot of fun!  When I first stood up my legs were shaking like crazy.  Then I realized that I wasn't locking my knees so I was basically holding myself in a squatting position.  My legs are killing me now!  Here are some pics.  Jody had to teeter on her board to get the ones of me!

Seriously guys...

There is something wrong with my brain.  In March, I got the kids some name-written-on-a-grain-of-rice-necklace presents from Bayside (in Miami). So on one side of the rice is their name and on the other side I had their birthday written on it.  So I give Liam his and as I'm showing him how his name is written on one side and his birthday on the other side.  He goes, "I love it, but that's not my birthday".  So I then realize I had his birthday written as 11-26-02.  OMG.  I felt terrible.

I remember standing at the kiosk writing their full names and birthdays down for the guy to write on the rice and just so naturally I wrote 11-26-02.  It never even clicked that that is NOT his birth date.  It's not like I don't have his birthdate TATTOOED ON MY BODY as a permanent reminder or anything!!  OMG, what is wrong with my brain?

Liam loves it and wears it anyway and never asked for a new one.  "Ha ha, this will be one of those things we laugh about in 10 years, Liam..."