Vernon Volumes text

Vernon Volumes text

Thursday, February 28, 2019

Friday night at Cheesecake Factory

One of our favorite things to do as a family, when our schedule allows, is to go to dinner at Cheesecake Factory on a Friday night. We like the "Happy Hour" pricing on the appetizers and then we all get something yummy for dessert. The kids split a cookies and cream milkshake and Andrea and I split the strawberry shortcake.



After dinner we did a little shopping and the kids were funny goofing off together. They have a secret handshake and then they do a game where you have to slap your legs and then choose between reloading, a shield, or a gun. Paige won this round and it went on quite a bit longer than most of the games.

Connor's first middle school tennis match


On Thursday, February 21st, Connor had his first middle school tennis match of the season. Connor played on line 1 doubles with Carly. They played on the hard courts at the Mills courts, and it was a little bit of an adjustment for Connor who is used to playing on clay. Connor did an awesome job of hitting consistently, placing the ball well, and going after some shots when it made sense to play aggressively.

I put together a video compilation of some of their good points during the match.


They won their match 8-1 and their team won 3 lines out of 4, only losing line one of the singles by the narrowest of margins in a tiebreaker.


Sunday, February 17, 2019

Disney Wonder Cruise



This past week we set sail for a short three-night cruise on the Disney Wonder. All of the Disney boats are different, and while there's not quite as many bells and whistles on the Wonder, it's a nice little boat and never feels crowded.





On our first day, we went to the new Sail Away party on the top deck and then Paige went to the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique for a Princess Tiana Makeover. It was the perfect night for the Tiana dress since we ate dinner that night at Tiana's Place.

Paige wanted to do a "Before" picture before her makeover and tried to make an ugly face.





Tiana loved seeing Paige all dressed up like her.



Connor loved the big chunky alligator Louis. Louis played his trumpet on stage and came around to the tables to say howdy.


After dinner we got some pics with Mickey and everyone together since we dressed up for the night.




On the first night we saw the Golden Mickey's, the second night was Frozen and the last night we saw Dream. We had seats three rows back in the center, and the smaller boats are nice since it was easy to get good seats for all the shows.

On Friday, we had our stop at Nassau and we stayed on the boat. Andrea and I had brunch at Palo's and that was the only time the kids went to the Oceaneer's Lab/Club.




In the afternoon we watched the new Mary Poppins show, went to the early showing of Frozen, and then just hung out around the boat.

On Saturday we were at Castaway Cay and we got off the boat and got a nice spot on the beach.






The weather was perfect, and we decided to go to the excursion area to see if there was any availability for any activities and we were pleasantly surprised to find that the jetskis still had available spots at 11am. We booked a spot and took two jetskis out around the island with a small group. It was a little wavy to get started as we came out of the harbor area, but once we got in to the shallower waters, it was pretty flat and we were able to go pretty fast. The water was crystal clear and at times was so shallow we were worried we'd get banged up if we fell off. About halfway through the tour we stopped in a shallow area and took a short break and took some pics. Then, we rode around and eventually went back to the boat. We got to see a starfish up close and saw a wild stingray as well. We were a little disappointed the tour guide didn't have much to say about the area or anything, but the ride was definitely fun and it was a neat way to see parts of the island we'd not seen before.







The rest of the day, we swam around, played in the water, and had lunch. This was the first time for the kids to swim without earplugs since they had their tubes out and they definitely seemed to enjoy the water more than usual and they swam for a long time. Daddy was a mean shark for a while and hunted the kids down on their raft, which they always enjoy.








Saturday night we ate dinner, and then watched the show and went back to the room and packed up.





It was a short cruise, but we had a lot of fun together!

Connor's Middle School Tryouts and Team



It's tennis season for middle school, and Connor recently tried out for the tennis team. It was a pretty interesting and a bit stressful for him to go through the tryout process. There wasn't very much communication around how the tryouts work and how many kids would make the team. Connor and 67 other kids showed up for the two day tryouts and Connor tried hard to show the coaches that he was a good player. They had to wait a long weekend after the tryouts to learn whether they made the team or not, and since Andrea had used an email address for the signups that she doesn't check very often, we didn't find out until very late that he made the team. We were a bit scared for a day when we started hearing other kids had made the team, but we hadn't found the email yet.

Anyways, Connor did make one of the teams, there were three teams that each had ten kids, so 30 of the 68 kids made a tennis team. Connor's been going to a few practices now, and we're proud of him for making the team and it's neat that he gets to represent his school with a sport that he's good at. We're looking forwards to his games starting this next week! Go Connor!


Sunday, February 10, 2019

Paige and the Flu



This past week, Paige came down with Influenza A. We had been planning to take her to gymnastics after school on Wednesday, but she said she didn't feel good. We took her temperature and she had over 100 degrees. That night her temperature went as high as 103, so we got a doctor's appointment first thing on Thursday morning and took her in. We were hoping it wasn't anything serious, but with the high fever we were pretty concerned it was the flu. The nurse practitioner swabbed Paige's nose, and Paige was surprisingly cooperative about it although that swab went way up in there and was definitely uncomfortable. After a 30 minute wait, they confirmed it was the flu.


Paige was very sad and teared up with the bad news. We got her on Tamiflu and Paige had to stay home from school the rest of the week. She had some ups and downs, definitely not feeling well and even woke up one night and threw up. Thankfully it seems to have mostly passed this weekend and her fever has been normal since Saturday. It's been a little stressful, but hopefully we've kept it contained and nobody else gets sick!

Thursday, February 7, 2019

Paige's Biography project - Princess Diana


Paige had a big project for school recently and she got it done well over a week early. The kids were required to pick a person and read a biography book about them, and then fill out a worksheet and then recreate the person using a 2 liter bottle.

Paige picked Princess Diana, which posed a few challenges for us with our project. We had a 2 liter bottle, used a tennis ball for the head, and one of the crowns Paige got from the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, but had to figure out a way to do the skin, hair, and dress. We had a Cabbage Patch dress that fit, but it just wasn't quite fancy enough for Princess Diana.

We first went to Target and got some stockings to use as skin, and when we stretched about 6 or 7 over the ball and 2 liter, it did a pretty good job of covering everything and made a nice shape. We went to the craft store next and got yarn for the hair, googly eyes, a doll dress, and stuffing. The dress came with gloves, which we stuffed and clipped to the dress. Paige had a furry cape from one of her toys, which covered the fact that the dress didn't fit perfectly, and covered the lack of actual arms. Paige cut all the hair, drew and cut the lips, and helped put it together. Overall, we think it turned out pretty nicely and Paige was happy with it, which is the important part.


Paige was excited to bring it to school, and we're proud of her for being such a motivated student!