This past week, I saw Connor working hard on something. He had two iPads going, had his pencils and crayons out, and was focusing on something very important. I took a picture of him while he was in his zone and he explained that he was working on dog facts. He loves dogs so much recently. He's been a big help with Chloe, and is interested in anything to do with dogs.
When he finished, he gave his masterpiece to Mommy, and I thought it was too cute not to scan and save.
This past weekend we stayed around the area and tried to have a relaxing weekend after the kids' first day of school.
On Saturday, we went to the beach club to do tennis in the morning and then we ate lunch and spent the afternoon at the beach. We met Andrea's tennis friend Annie and her family at the beach. They brought a canopy for shade, which was nice, and also brought their two little girls. We'd hoped that Connor and Paige would enjoy having some other kids to play with, but all the kids kind of did their own thing. I spent a quite a while in the ocean playing in the waves with Connor. Paige liked to play in the waves somewhat, but isn't as crazy about it as Connor is. Connor loves to get smashed and wiped out by the waves and can't get enough of it. We saw three dolphins surfacing about 20 yards from shore and I held Paige and we walked down toward them and one surfaced about 10-15 yards from us at one point.
On Sunday, we had lunch and then went to Baptist South to visit the Froehlichs. Sarah just had her sixth baby, Brody, and we brought them some goodies/gifts and visited with them for a little while. Andrea held the baby for a little while, and so did I. I hadn't held such a little baby in a long time! Connor and Paige were disappointed the other Froehlich kids weren't around to play with, but the newborn area of the hospital probably isn't the best place to play anyways.
Today was Connor's first day of 4th grade and Paige's first day of 1st grade at their new schools. Their bus is scheduled to come around 7:45, so we don't have quite as much time in the mornings as we did last year. The bus stop is right across the street from us, which is nice and close. We got dressed, ate breakfast, and then snapped a few pics of the kids out front.
At the bus stop, we met some of the neighbor kids that ride the bus and their parents. We'd met a few previously, but we met some of them for the first time today.
I hope they both have a wonderful first day! We are nervous for them and we love our guys so much!
I added to the first day of school picture I've been doing ever since Connor's first day of Kindergarten.
On Tuesday, August 9th, we went to the kids' schools to meet their new teachers. We started at PVPV with Paige and met Ms. Osburn. Andrea had actually gone on a tour of the school with Heather, who was an assistant principal there last year. During the tour, she took notes as she met the teachers and even wrote down that Ms. Osburn had her door locked per policy and was teaching, while many of the other teachers had already quit for the day. We've heard good things about Ms Osburn and she's been at the same school for 16 years, so she has lots of experience. She actually knew Paige's last teacher Ms. Froehlich back when Ms. Froehlich taught at PVPV.
We picked up the school supplies that Andrea had ordered in the cafeterias and ordered some spirit wear and looked over the activities available at the school.
Afterwards, we went next door to Connor's school and ran in to Heather. We were sad to hear that she is getting transferred to a new job in the district, but it was nice to see her and she showed us the way to meet his teacher Ms. Tucci. Ms. Tucci was very welcoming and seemed to have a lot of energy. It sounds like she got a lot of the good kids in her class, and I'm hoping that Connor is going to meet some great friends.
This morning, I took Connor to the beach club to play in the ocean. He's had some time at the beach with the beach camp this last week, but it drove him a little crazy to be so close to the water and not be allowed to play in the waves. They do activities on the beach, but they don't go out in to the water. He's been putting quite a bit of pressure on us to play in the water with him, so I decided to take him this morning. We had a lot of fun getting wiped out by the waves and trying to hold hands and stay together as we got battered by the ocean.
In the afternoon, we went to the Nocatee Waterpark and played with our buddies the Froehlichs. We rode the slides, relaxed on the lazy river, played "swamp lizard" (the kids wrestling with me), and Connor did the zipline. The Froehlichs are such a fun family for us to get together with because they have girls and boys and there are so many kids for Connor and Paige to play with. It's always like a big party when we're together with them. Steve and Sarah have their hands full, and we are always surprised how well they parent so many children and still manage to have conversations with us when we're around.
When we were leaving, Connor said that he'd like to be in their family and Sarah said "Sure!". They have another on the way, probably in the next couple weeks, so we guess there's not much difference between 6 or 7 kids in the house. We decided to keep Connor though. We like our little family, but it is a lot of fun to get together with a big family too.
Connor and Paige did their last week of summer camp last week. Connor loved doing the tennis camp at the Omni last week, but unfortunately there weren't any tennis camps to do this week. Instead, he went along with Paige to the PVIC beach camp. Paige has been a few weeks, but this was only Connor's second. Both kids had a great time at the camp and got to play a lot at the beach and in the pool. They did a sea turtle hunt, beach walks, shark tooth hunts, played soccer on the beach, and did a lot of crafts too. They've gotten to know a lot of the other kids, the counselors and even the lifeguards. It's fun when we all go to the club together and we are getting to know more people.
It's hard to believe summer is already over and they'll be going to school next week. They've had a wonderful summer and I'm glad Andrea found such a diverse amount of camps and activities for them. They've had a good mix of home time, family time, camps, sports, and friends.
Monday through Friday, we stayed in our courtside villa #2311. It was a short walk from the courts for us and we all enjoyed the week much more than we expected. Early each morning, Andrea and I would do 2 clinics and then we'd eat lunch at Marche Burette for lunch. I brought my main computer, so I was able to work in the afternoons while Andrea relaxed for a little bit and then would get the kids around 3. The kids did their tennis camp in the morning, then would have some lunch around noon. Their afternoons had a little more tennis and then usually some other kind of activity like swimming, mini golf, or a park.
After I wrapped up work for the day, we would try to do some fun activities with the kids. There was a women's clinic on Monday night and a men's clinic on Tuesday night, which Andrea and I attended. Otherwise our nights were pretty open and we found some fun stuff to do.
The kids ended up having a lot of fun at the tennis camp. Connor said it was his favorite sports camp of the summer. He liked the coaches and there were usually quite a few boys around his age and older for him to play with. Paige was often the only girl at the camp, but there were a few days with other girls.
Paige worked on her serve.
Connor played quite a few games with the other big boys.
The kids were divided up in to different "teams" at the beginning of the week and Connor and Paige were both on the "Shark" team. On the last day of camp, the shark team was awarded the team trophy.
Connor earned "camper of the week" trophy for being a good friend, good sport, and great tennis player.
