Vernon Volumes text

Vernon Volumes text

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Connor's soccer - Game 4

Saturday was Connor's 4th game of the new season with the Giant Alligators, but really only the third one he's played in since we missed last week when we went to Disney. It was a hot day and Connor didn't have his best game but still did very well. He scored two goals, one of them was apparently very good and he controlled the ball down the field around defenders and made a great shot. Unfortunately I'd taken a phone call during that play, so no video.

Here's the only one I got on video.


Sissy loves watching Connor play, but typically is pretty oblivious of the action. Not this week, the action came right to her.


Ouch Sissy! She didn't even cry, I don't think she even knew what hit her.


Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Underwater shots

I love to go underwater to watch the kids swim and jump in the pool while I'm wearing goggles. A few times lately I thought to myself "Man, I wish I could get a picture of this". Well, this last week we got our new iPhone 5's and were trying to decide what to do with our old iPhones. We decided to keep them around for the kids to play with and I decided to find a kid-proof case. I found one that's called "Lifeproof" on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/LifeProof-Case-iPhone-4S-Packaging/dp/B005WF9OHI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348706128&sr=8-1&keywords=lifeproof+iphone+4+case). It is waterproof, and although I was pretty nervous about it, it did an awesome job keeping the phone dry underwater.

This afternoon we all went swimming and I got some neat shots of the kids swimming underwater and jumping in the pool.

Paige is fearless and barely sinks much underwater since she's so buoyant.

Here's her video







Connor is doing really well in the pool and is mostly self-sufficient. He can swim across it, swim down deep, go in the deep end, etc. The only thing that isn't great with him is his technique. He always feels like he has to pinch his nose shut with his fingers and that limits his arm movements quite a bit.


His videos pretty cool, got a lot of jumping shots and a few of him swimming down to grab a rocket in the deep end.





Sunday, September 23, 2012

Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party


This Friday I took off work a little early and we drove to Orlando for Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. The party goes from 7pm to Midnight and it's actually a separate admission ticket. Since, we have season passes, they allowed us in early, so we got there around 4:00. There are a limited number of tickets available for the party and since it's still in September we were hoping it'd be a quiet night. It was!

The weather was a little warm at first, and it did rain for a couple hours, but it was a great time. We rode absolutely everything and the longest wait was about 5-10 minutes. Most rides, you'd just walk in and get on. It was really neat to see the park at night and without the crowds.

Mommy and Paige posed for a cute picture on the "Small World" ride.

Paige took a fruit snack break while Daddy waited for Mommy and Connor at Thunder Mountain.

 We all rode the river cruise together.


The castle was beautiful all lit up at night.

 Spinning on the Mad Hatter's Tea Party ride:


There were a bunch of spots throughout the park for trick-or-treating. We got lots of candy! Some people were dressed up, but we just wore some Halloween outfits.

 

We left before the park closed, but pretty darn late. The kids were pooped!


On Saturday, we went to the Animal Kingdom. In the past, this park kind of stunk since Connor was too short to ride any of the good rides. This time, he was able to ride a lot more. He really really loved the river raft ride, which got everyone soaked. He rode it first with Daddy.


Then, he rode with Mommy too.


After two times through, he was soaking wet!



On Sunday, we left pretty early, but we stopped by Downtown Disney to do some shopping. Connor wanted to take his picture with some of the statues and decorations.





Our visit was also a nice opportunity to eat at one of our favorite restaurants. Unos! It closed in Daytona Beach recently, so we ate at Unos every day.


We didn't want to subject the kids to the same kids menu every day, so got Connor some Mexi-melts from Taco Bell and watermelon.


Paige loved the rice at Unos and we also got her some watermelon too.


We had a great mini-vacation! It was neat to do this again as Florida residents. The trip didn't cost too much, and it was just as fun as when we'd visit from Kansas City. It's neat we can do this kind of trip over a weekend.

Connor was an absolute angel on the trip. He was a great listener, had lots of fun, smiled nicely for the pictures, and was perfect. Paige had fun, but was a big challenge. We struggle with her at times and she can be pretty difficult. She would want to walk by herself, but then she'd run in to people, or would run away from us. If we carried her, she'd get mad. If we put her in the stroller, she'd get mad. She was mad a lot. It is hard to be the parent with the shrieking and out of control kid. It wasn't constant, for the most part she was OK, but when she melted down it was no fun for anyone.

I took a brief video during one of the meltdowns so we could remember that our family trips aren't always pleasant.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Kids swimming skills improving

We've been swimming in our pool pretty often since it was completed and it's absolutely amazing to see how quickly the kids' swimming skills have developed.

Connor's swimming is pretty good all around at this point. He swims pretty well underwater and above water. He will swim down to the bottom of the deep end to grab toys. His only handicap is the fact that he feels like it's necessary to pinch his nose with one hand at all times. This weekend we were at a neighbor's party and we looked over and saw Connor jumping and doing flips in to the pool. Today, at our pool he started jumping in and diving in to the pool. He's very cautious, but he's very brave!


Video of Connor jumping and flipping

Connor running and diving

Connor thought this one was hilarious. He screamed "Gingerbread man" when he jumped and put his arms and legs out like a Gingerbread man.

Paige got over her floating problem and will float all day long. She has trouble directing herself around the pool once she's in her float position, but if she feels like she's close enough to something to swim to it without floating she does a pretty good job of kicking and using her arms to swim towards it. This weekend she started jumping in to the pool. She's absolutely fearless about jumping in. Her eyes go wide and she will just fling her body out in space.

Fearless!

In the first video, Mommy grabs her after she goes in to the pool. In the second one, we decided not to grab her right away so she'd have to transition in to her float position.



Sunday, September 9, 2012

Pool Party!!


On Saturday we had our big pool party! Andrea had been planning this party since before we even moved in to our house, it was an exciting day. The weather has been kind of terrible lately and almost every afternoon there have been some pretty major downpours. We watched the weather all week and were really worried it'd ruin the party.

We invited a bunch of neighbors and friends over and had a great turn out. There were around 70 people that showed up and a lot of children too. We had considered hiring a lifeguard at one point and in retrospect, it would have been a great idea. There were at least 4-6 rescues of children during the party. Heather, our neighbor, jumped in to the deep end fully clothed and with her iPhone to save one of the little boys. I stayed close at hand around the pool to keep an eye on things, but there were so many kids and so much going on it was tough to really keep track of everything.

I had plans to take pictures during the party, but was preoccupied with hosting and worrying about children drowning so I never got around to it. Thankfully Grandpa and Grandma Vernon took some pictures while they were there (they had to leave early to meet up with their moving company at their new house), or we probably wouldn't have any pictures at all.








Grandpa took this quick video at the beginning of the party.


Andrea went through a lot of considerations on food for the party. We thought about ordering pizza, or doing some food ourselves, but wanted it to be yummy and nice. We ended up going with Heirlooms catering and were very pleased with how it all turned out. They made gourmet macaroni, grilled veggies, salsa bar, guacamole, mini CAB burgers, avocado summer rolls, mini rockin' chicken tacos, Oreo truffles, empinadas, and brownies. They also served the food and drinks: pineapple-strawberry rum runners and cranberry-orange martinis along with beer outside. Everyone I talked to said the food was great, and I thought it was too.



Finally, a couple pictures of my beautiful wife, who put it all together. Great job Andrea!