Vernon Volumes text

Vernon Volumes text

Monday, July 30, 2018

Kids and Daddy for the weekend


Andrea went to Tara's beach house this past weekend with some of her JCP friends, so I was at home with the guys by myself. After camp on Friday we got all the yummy food we like and then stayed up late goofing off. On Saturday we had tennis in the morning and then Logan came over. He's been in NY all year, so while he's visiting his dad for the summer it was nice to get together with him.

Connor and Logan played Fortnite for a while and then we went to Dunkin Donuts and the park. The kids enjoyed their snack and then we played for a little while. Unfortunately much of the park was shut down for improvements, but we did enjoy the tire swing for a bit.


All three did the tire swing briefly, and then Paige wanted to swing on her own for a long time.





I tried to make sure that the swing was mostly just going around in a circular pattern and not so much spinning. Even so, Paige closed her eyes and leaned back, which probably intensified the motion feeling. I warned her not to do it, but unfortunately it was too late. She started feeling bad after a little while and after we got home she threw up in a bowl. I guess we both should have known better, poor Paigie.

Logan went home late on Saturday night and we slept in and went to Connor's basketball game on Sunday. His basketball game was a bit rough since they only had 5 kids and no subs. They did their best and were within 2 points near the end of the game. Connor scored most of the points for the team, but sadly they lost 29-34.



It was a nice weekend, and a change from our normal routine, but we were all happy to have Andrea home on Sunday.

Sunday, July 22, 2018

Fun with the Froehlichs

On Saturday afternoon we planned to get together with the Froehlichs at the beach club. It seems like every time we try to have a beach day with them it rains and although the forecast on Saturday initially looked good, a bunch of rain blew through right when we were planning to meet them.

As they were on their way, we decided to text them and just invited them over to our house. Hayden had a birthday party with a friend, and the two little guys were with a babysitter, so it was just Reese, Cooper and Ty. Paige and Reese played inside together on the computer for a bit and then swam together in the pool. The boys played Fortnite together on the Xbox and phone. The adults just chatted for a bit, Steve and I went to Publix and Chick-Fil-A for some food, and then we hung out in the lanai while the girls swam. They're probably one of our favorite families to get together with since both Connor and Paige have buddies they get along with, and Steve and Sarah are both so easy to talk to. It wasn't exactly what we'd planned, but they probably hung out at our house longer than we would have spent at the beach, so it worked out nicely.




Zoey's birthday party



On Saturday morning we went to the beach club to celebrate Zoey's birthday. The party was in the Florida room and it was decorated with a Minecraft theme. Zoey's cute about the things she likes, and definitely does not care for the typical princess stuff.

There were five of the nursery workers there to help with the party, and once all the guests arrived they took the kids out to the beach for some games. They started with a balloon stomp game where the kids had balloons tied to their ankles and they'd chase each other around, trying to stomp other peoples' balloons. Connor's balloon appeared to hit a sharp bit of sand and unfortunately he was out of the game fairly early. Paige lasted up until the final three and was very competitive, balancing defense and offense.



Next, the kids did tug of war. Paige was randomly assigned to Zoey's team, and since she was the birthday girl, I think her team was slightly stacked. Connor fought valiantly, but his team lost both rounds.





The kids launched some water balloons from a big slingshot and then finished up the beach time with a waterballoon war.


After everyone got cleaned up, we went back to the Florida room and enjoyed pizza and cake.





Happy birthday Zoey!

Wild Dunes Summer Fun



This past week on Saturday July 14th, we drove the four and a half hours to Charleston South Carolina for a week at Wild Dunes.

It was a fun week with lots of family time and tennis. We all did the tennis clinics in the mornings Sunday through Thursday morning. This was our first time in SC in the summer and it was definitely hotter than we were used to. The tennis was hot, and in the afternoons it was too hot to do much besides swim and go to the beach. Unfortunately, the kids didn't really like swimming much, so the afternoons were kind of slow on some days and boring. In the evenings after I got done with work we watched a few movies on our Apple TV. Paige and Connor recommended "The Greatest Showman" and we all loved it. At night before bed we'd play "Big Brother" where I pretend to be the kids' older brother and Connor's stuffed monkey Iggy is our little brother. We all get in bed together for bedtime and try to fall asleep while Iggy bothers everybody. Inevitably it turns in to a lot of tickling and goofing off and the kids would get riled up right before trying to fall asleep.

For this visit, we rented a house this time in the Twin Oaks area (4 Twin Oaks) of the resort. It was on the south side of the tennis courts and was a great setup. The house was elevated, so we parked underneath it and the main floor was on up a flight of stairs. The house was one level and had three bedrooms as well as a finished bonus room that had a couch, pinball machine, jukebox, and an arcade machine. The pinball machine wasn't working, but after a maintenance guy came to change the batteries in the front door lock, he got it programmed for free play and found one pinball inside the machine. I was excited to play it, but after about 10 minutes I hit a bonus target and a little magnetic hand came out and grabbed the ball. After that the ball disappeared in to the machine and wouldn't come back out. I tried to find it, but eventually gave up. The kids didn't seem to care about the pinball game anyways and had more fun with the arcade machine. There were 48 classic games loaded, and the kids liked Pacman and Frogger, but our favorite game was Dig Dug.








On Sunday we signed up for a jetski tour with a company that operated out of the Wild Dunes marina. Andrea rode with Paige and Connor rode with me. We had six other people in our tour group and unfortunately they were all a bit young, immature, and uncoordinated. There were four college girls that shared two jetskis and they were awful. Very early on they fell off and had to be helped back on, then they beached their jetski when they got too close to shore, then they fell off again a bit later. We spent far too much of our time waiting for the tour guide to help them. The other couple on the tour didn't do a good job following directions. We were directed to follow the tour guide in a straight line and the guy driving their jetski would cut through the line, spraying everyone with water as he passed. We actually had quite a bit of fun on the tour and enjoyed zipping around the waterways and together. What ended up spoiling the day for Andrea was at the end when we approached the no-wake zone. We were instructed to keep 100 feet between the jetskis and the awful college girls passed Andrea at high speed, dangerously close with maybe only 5 feet of clearance, drenching her and freaking her out with their reckless driving. The same girls ended up passing close to me as well and we were all very irritated with them for risking everyone's safety when they obviously couldn't control the jetskis very well. The tour operators were apologetic for the time wasted by the college girls and actually refunded us half of the cost due to the safety violations and issues we encountered. It was fun, but would have been a lot more fun with a different group.



We enjoyed eating at Luke and Ollie's for pizza, Page's Okra Grill for some country cooking, and of course McAlister's deli for lunch most days.





Paige loves French food and we have been wanting to go back to the Saveurs Du Monde CafĂ© ever since we went there a while back. We got up early on Wednesday for breakfast and ordered a bunch of goodies. We got Paige two raspberry macaroons, french toast, and quiche. We also got a few desserts to go. Paige and I really enjoyed our breakfast date out.



Thursday morning we got one hour of tennis in before it started to rain. There was a lot of rain in the forecast the rest of the day and through Friday as well. We decided to leave on Thursday since there probably wouldn't be tennis on Friday and because it would be more comfortable on a rainy day back at home. The trip got cut short slightly, but it was fun while it lasted and we're looking forwards to going back when it's a bit cooler.

Paige's gymnastics camp


Paige has enjoyed her beach camp and tennis camps over the summer, but Andrea gave her an opportunity to try a gymnastics camp as well. Paige went for one day and then we gave her the choice whether to go back or do some other camps and she really loved it and wanted to keep going. Andrea went shopping with her and got her some cute leotards and then she had one full week of gymnastics. She has been learning so many things and is always in the best mood and so excited about it. We're planning to have her continue doing gymnastics there once school starts as well, and it has been neat to see her take to something and be passionate about it.


The week that Paige went, her 1st and 2nd grade buddies Caitlin and Collin were there too.






Close basketball game for Connor

On July 9th, Connor played basketball with his team in a very close game and pulled out a last minute win. They were behind most of the game, but late in the final period Carter scored 9 quick points and the team took the lead. They went back and forth until the final play of the game where Bobby stole the ball. It was probably one of the more exciting games I've seen him play, so had to post a couple of the final moments.






Sunday, July 8, 2018

Beach day with buddies - Caitlin and Camden


On Sunday, we decided to have a beach day with some friends. Paige invited Caitlin and Connor invited Camden. Both kids live in our neighborhood, so we picked them up on the way out to the club.

We had lunch at PVIC in the Patio and then went to the beach for a little while. Paige struggled with her earplugs and started crying after getting some water in them. Andrea took the girls to get the big unicorn cookie and after a little longer, the boys decided to go to the pool. We hung out at the pool for the rest of the afternoon. Paige and Caitlin went down the slide a bunch and jumped a lot in the pool in the deep end.

Both kids enjoyed their time with buddies and it was pretty chill for Andrea and myself since they were both entertained with their friends. I actually fell asleep for a few minutes on the chair by the pool. We're glad both kids have such nice friends in the area and we will definitely have to do another beach day with buddies soon.






Puppy fun at Grandma's house


After Connor's basketball game, we went to Grandpa and Grandma's house to hang out for a bit before taking Chloe home. Chloe's been there a long time, since before we went to KC for Drew's graduation. It was probably the longest I've been away from my puppy dog since we got her. Chloe was a good girl for Grandma, and the day we showed up at her house, she had five dogs she was babysitting. Including Chloe and Possum there were seven dogs in the house, and I had a good time getting to know the puppies and playing with them.

We went to Sonny's for dinner, then said farewell to the doggies and headed home. It is nice to have our Chloe bear back. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for taking good care of her and always making her welcome at their house.



Connor's first YMCA basketball game




Connor had his first basketball game with his new YMCA team on Saturday at 3. He played really well and scored 4 points. His team ended up winning 26-5. Connor played well throughout the game, but somewhere during the first half he heard the coach telling the kids to pass the ball and suddenly that was all he did whenever he got the ball. He is a super unselfish player, and it he really did have some nice passes. However, there were a few missed opportunities where he got the ball and was wide open, and rather than take the open shot he was looking for an open teammate and gave the ball away unnecessarily. It's neat that the kids on his team all go to his school, and it's also nice that it's a fun summer activity that they can do indoors when it's hot out. It's a pretty short season, so hopefully we'll be able to make most of the games.

Saturday day out with Paige


On Saturday, Paige and Andrea had an afternoon out together.

Paige has been super cute lately about wanting to wear more mature little girl dresses and she begged Mommy to put on makeup and get all cute for their day out. She also wanted to approve of Mommy's dress and they had fun getting ready for their day out.

They went to Cheesecake Factory for lunch and then did some shopping. They got some goodies from Claires, Justice, and Target.




PVIC tennis camp for the kids

Connor and Paige both went to the club last week for the kids' PVIC tennis camp. The pros did an awesome job of making it fun and also getting in a lot of games and instruction. They got rained out on Thursday, but they really enjoyed the 4 days they got in. Connor loved it so much that he asked to go again next week. Connor won camper of the week on Friday and we're glad they're having a fun time this summer.





Paige's fancy Friday night dinner

This past week, Andrea got Paige some new dresses and outfits. Paige absolutely loved a blue dress and she decided she wanted to get dressed up for dinner on Friday. She put on a ton of makeup and Andrea had to help her tone it down a little. She got her cute purse too and we snapped a pic of her before we went out to Barbara Jeans. She is all girl, she loves her girly stuff.


July 4th at PVIC





We spent July 4th this year at the club and beach. We had lunch, and then got our chairs at the beach. We usually don't bother with renting chairs and an umbrella, but we'd planned to spend a while at the beach so decided to get them on the 4th. I really enjoyed it a lot more than I expected, the chairs were comfortable and it was nice to have a little shady spot in the sand. I'm glad Andrea called early because every chair and umbrella was reserved and the beach was about as busy as we've ever seen.

The waves were super high, and more exciting than we'd experienced in Jacksonville. It was a red flag day and while we normally don't go out on red flag days, there were a lot of people around and lots of lifeguards. We also brought out a couple of boogie boards to float with and an inflatable ring. We had a blast in the waves. It was a good time until one of the big waves surprised Andrea and flopped her around to the ocean floor where she banged up her left knee. She ended up with a bruise on it, and it was a bummer of a way to end the swimming in the ocean.

After a few hours we saw some big clouds out in the ocean. We weren't sure if it was coming our way until we suddenly felt the air change and get cooler. We hustled to get our bags and beach stuff and went to the restaurant just as it started pouring. The staff remembered us, and got us a nice table in the covered area and we enjoyed some dessert as the rain rolled through. It stopped raining pretty quickly and then we went back out again.





It was fun to spend the day at the beach and fun to see some of our friends and enjoy the beach. Although we've been in Florida now for 6 years, it's still sometimes surprising that we live somewhere with such easy and convenient access to the beach and such a nice area. It was a great day and a great way to celebrate the 4th of July.