Vernon Volumes text

Vernon Volumes text

Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Andrea's Birthday


On Thursday, April 19th, we celebrated Andrea's birthday. The kids made some special cards, we got her some flowers, and some sweets from the local sweet's store. She also got spoiled by some of her tennis friends as well. Ellen made her a huge loaf of banana bread and Michelle brought her some cupcakes and sweets from Cinotti's Bakery. She had a pretty nice day on her birthday, although it did stink that it fell on a Thursday this year. We love our Andrea, Happy Birthday!

Principal for the day - Paige


Earlier this year, Paige was given a challenge at school to read a bunch of books and take tests on them to prove she'd read them. Paige and Andrea were super cute about creating a spreadsheet to track Paige's progress, checking out the appropriate books from the library, and working through it all. Paige got on a roll with it and blew through the entire assignment way before the deadline. For her prize, she got to be principal for the day, and she'd been looking forwards to it and was so excited.

On April 17th, Paige put on a cute professional dress and Mommy took her to school early so she could be on the morning announcements and pose for some pictures at the principal's desk with principal Van Housen. Paige was very excited too that her good friend Abby got principal for the day as well and they got to celebrate together. They were on the morning announcements, helped out at lunch duty, got pizza for lunch and ate with the principal. It was neat to see Paige so excited for her big day and to learn that hard work pays off.






Koala Habitat Project with Paige


Paige had an assignment at school recently that we worked on together. She was given a foam egg and the project was to research an animal and then turn the egg in to the animal and create a model of the animal's habitat. Paige was assigned a Koala, so we create a eucalyptus tree out of a toilet paper roll with construction paper, and used some wire and a ping pong ball to make the koala. It was a whole lot of work, and unfortunately at Paige's age, the majority of the work was mine. It was hard to get everything attached, glued, drilled, and mounted. We were pretty happy with the way it turned out, and tried to have some fun putting it all together.



Sunday, April 15, 2018

Marchette Burette for Andrea's birthday dinner - Steak Out!




On Saturday night, we all drove up to the Amelia Island Plantation to celebrate Andrea's birthday and to eat at one of our favorite restaurants Marchette Burette. When the weather was good, they do a Steak night on Saturday and Sundays, and the steak dinner is our favorite. We don't have it often, so it was a beautiful night to go out and celebrate and have some good food together. We had our favorite waitress Charlotte and a perfect table outside in the shade. There was a nice band playing in the gazebo across the pond, and we all came hungry and left completely stuffed.




After dinner, we played mini golf and it went about as well as normal. Connor played really well and had the lead for most of the time until he had one bad hole, then he quit trying and did terribly on the rest of the course. Paige started off trying, but since it's a difficult and frustrating game. After she had a few bad holes, she got very sensitive and pretty much gave up. We really shouldn't have even paid for her to play, but I'm hoping one day she'll get through a round of mini-golf. It definitely wasn't her day yesterday.

Mad Hatter Tea Party




Paige went to the PVIC Mad Hatter Tea Party on Saturday April 14th. The room was decorated very nicely, and Paige was happy to see some of her favorite counselors and some girls that she knew. Paige wanted to wear her Princess Elena dress, and she looked pretty in her red outfit. They ate some grilled cheese and chicken strips and desserts. Alice came to read them a story, and then they did some crafts and put together cute Mad Hatter hats.




Connor's junior tennis match at the Plantation

Connor had his third match of the season with his tennis team this past week. Connor's team has played 4 matches, but Connor missed one. The match was at the Plantation, and we liked the setup since I was able to find a spot to take some videos without having to do too much panning with the camera. Unfortunately, Connor got annoyed that I was video-recording and signaled me to stop after he lost a couple of points in a row. We talked to him afterwards, and he hopefully he won't be as sensitive about it in the future.


Connor won his singles match in two sets 4-0, 4-0. Connor played his doubles match with Liam and they won their match 8-3.

Private tennis lessons with Andrew and JB


Connor and Paige have been doing private lessons with Andrew for a while at the club and recently we decided to have Paige start doing her lesson with the new pro JB. It's a little more convenient this way so the kids can be doing the lessons at the same time. Paige has enjoyed the lessons with JB and JB has been very impressed with Paige's athleticism and tennis technique.




Sunday, April 8, 2018

Connor at Robert's 11th Birthday Party


Connor went to Robert's house today for his 11th birthday party. They played laser tag, some kids swam, but Connor mostly played ping pong with his buddy Noah. It was a cool day, Andrea went along and hung out by the fire outside and chatted with some of the other parents.




Paige goes to Sarah's 7th birthday party



Paige went to our neighbor Sarah's birthday party today 4/8/2018. The party was at TNT Gymnastics and Paige enjoyed all of the gym equipment and especially swinging in to the foam block pit. Paige did have one fall where her leg got tangled in the rope and got all twisted up. She jumped up quickly and said she was OK, but I could tell it hurt so I cuddled her for a little while. She got over it pretty fast, and in a few minutes, she was up and jumping around again.








Connor Wins Marsh Landing Grand Prix Tennis Tournament


On Saturday, April 7th, Connor participated in the Marsh Landing Grand Prix tournament at the 12U level. We didn't realize when we'd signed him up, but the 12U was green dot balls, which Connor hasn't hit in quite a while. It was on a full court, but the balls were much less pressurized and didn't bounce as high and as quickly as the typically yellow ball. Connor did a good job adjusting to the situation though, and played really well throughout the day.

Connor won his the first three matches with scores of 6-1, 6-1, 6-0. He went to the final match confident, but the boy he played was fairly consistent and hit some tough balls to Connor. It was quite a match, and Connor got down on himself quite a bit at times. I didn't film it at all since he got irritated with me earlier in the day when he noticed me filming. Early on in the match, Connor had two games that got to deuce and to a deciding point and unfortunately lost both of them. He was down in the score late in the match and through sheer force of will he tied it up at 5-5. The kids played to 6 games for the set, so the next game was the deciding game. Connor got down in the game at 15-40. He dug in and played the match points against him heroically. He tied the game up at deuce, which meant the next point was not only the deciding point in the game, but also for the set, match, and tournament. On the final point of the day, both boys exchanged a few shots and then Connor hit a heavy high top spin ball to his opponents backhand. I was sitting on the sideline and was so thrilled to see it drop in to his opponent's corner and the boy swung at it futilely. I saw that it was at least 2 inches inside the sideline and baseline. Connor had won the match. But then, very late, his opponent called the ball out. I stood up, completely shocked. I was certain it was in. There were multiple adults near us that also saw it bounce in, and they were all irritated as well, even more so when I told them that it was the deciding point of the entire tournament. Connor asked to see a ball mark, and his opponent pointed to a random mark well outside the court. Unfortunately, the rules state that it's the kid's call, and it comes down to his word. Connor was understandably devastated, and we talked to the tournament director, but I knew that it would be futile since only other parents had been present and they can't overturn the call after the fact.

Connor begrudgingly accepted his "Runner Up" Trophy, and we left. At lunch, we talked about it with him. I think Andrea and I were actually more upset about it than he was. He said he hadn't actually seen the ball bounce in, but I told him I'd seen it, that two men next to me saw it, as well as his tennis teammate Robert. We found out the next day that Robert and Noah had played the same boy and had the same problems with cheating and ball calls in their matches with him. It was a very frustrating day for us, especially after Connor's heroic stands against multiple match points, and after hitting a winning shot.

We took Connor's trophy and glued a "WINNER!!!" mark over it. He is a winner in our book, and if he'd had an instant replay system available, or a person monitoring the match, I'm sure he'd have been the official winner.

Connor's A honor roll


Connor has been such an amazing student this year. He has adjusted well to having different teachers and is getting himself ready for middle school. Lately when I get up at 7am, I find Connor already awake. He has been setting his alarm at 6:30 and gets dressed, eats breakfast, brushes his teeth, gets his backpack and snack together, does his homework, and is all done by the time anyone else wakes up. Right when he gets up he wants me to fix his hair so he's all done and ready for the day. We've told him to relax and enjoy his rest this year, since next year he'll have to get up so early and he may as well enjoy his elementary school schedule while he can.

This past quarter Connor got A honor roll and he had 97% in Science and 100% in Language Arts, Social Studies and Math. He takes every opportunity to get extra credit, which helps, and he's such a motivated and hard working guy. We got him an LA Clippers Jersey to celebrate his success, we are so proud of Connor.

Easter 2018

 

We got back from Wild Dunes on Saturday, and Sunday we celebrated Easter together as a family. In the morning the kids discovered all the goodies that the Easter Bunny brought for them and then went on an Easter Egg hunt around the house and even out on the lanai. In the afternoon we went to Barbara Jeans for lunch and we talked about the meaning of Easter and all the things we were thankful for.