Karate Kid

Friday Tanek started Karate. I think this is right up his ally. He loves it. Paks Karate has been around forever. I love the program he is in. Not only is he learning Karate and "loves" the perpetual motion they are also teaching him safety, respect and discipline. It is a great program.

He looks so cute in his little white Karate suit. I told him his Uncle Richard used to take Karate too.

He has the look

I think this is going to be a sport that will be very beneficial and enjoyable for him.

Children's Choir 1/30/2011

Last night at church the children's choir sang again. I love watching these kids sing. They sing from their heart and just have a ball. Of course it helps that my sweet grandson is also one of the kids singing. I do love to watch kids though. They are so open and honest and just do whatever they feel like doing. It is just so refreshing to watch.

Winter Sunset

The other afternoon when we were coming home I saw this sunset and I love the colors so ran and took a picture of it. It didn't turn out all that good, but you can get an idea of how pretty it is. This time of year when it is mostly cold and everything is brown from all the cold it is hard to find something pretty enough outside to photograph. I personally dislike winter. I don't really like much about it at all. I dislike cold weather for any reason. Since we have already had way more cold weather than normal I am really very sick and tired of the cold. Well I am glad that I live where it isn't as cold as some places, I personally would rather we didn't get cold at all. SO...I am seeing the pretty sunset and they are prettier in the winter when it is cold. So I am trying to concentrate on something that is pretty instead of the bitter cold, and ugly brown everywhere. I am sure one day Spring will come back but at this point it doesn't seem like it. January has just been a loooong cold month. Last year at this very time I was on the Disney cruise and I am thinking that I may need to make that a yearly event. It certainly helps to get through the winter if you can spend at least a few days in a tropical place. So hopefully as we approach the end of January with another freezing night ahead I can look at this picture and remember that this too shall pass. One day we will agian have Spring and even Summer. Yes we will, I just have to keep telling myself that.

Fun with Papa

Tanek loves his Papa. He wanted to exercise with his Papa and was having a good time sitting on his lap while he did all the work. Yesterday it was so cold and we spent a lot of time in the den with the fire going. We really are very tired of cold weather, but are trying to make the best of it.
Papa had his boots off and Tanek just climbed into them and started walking around in them. They were way bigger than him and they are pretty heavy. He was having a time trying to keep up in them without falling.

Below are a couple video's of him playing in his boots and exercising with his Papa.

Project Finished......Check!

The below 2 pictures are a "before" picture. You can see we have a screened in porch and the pool area is opened. Now we have the porch opened to the pool and the whole pool area is screened in. We have had the pool about 30 years and since we are getting "older" and it was more work to keep all the leaves and creepy crawlers out we decided it would be more enjoyable to have the whole area screened in. This has been the largest and longest project we have done. This was started in September and it is just now finished. But it was worth all the time and waiting and work. I am very pleased with it. We had them take down part of the screen porch to open it up and had the pool deck enlarged and refinished. I can't wait to get plants and lights out there and do all the fine touches to make it really pretty. And...of course the yard has to all be redone. The grass we planted last Spring will have to be replanted, but then it will give us something to do. (like we have nothing to do)

All the old cool deck was ground off and what a mess that was. Now we have the new deck that looks like stone.

The porch is opened up from the house you can step right out to the porch and into the pool. It really is a large area and very open. I love it.

Once we get the pool cleaned and all the leaves and junk out of it, it will be SO much easier to keep clean. We also have a lot larger area to entertain and could put quite a few tables around the pool to have guest over. The fence you see in the background will come down.

A close up of the deck finish.

Lots of room out here now. And the best part.....NO snakes, bugs, leaves or that kind of stuff you don't like to swim with. I am very anxious for summertime to hurry up and get here.

Success....at last!

A couple years ago Stephanie and I took Tanek for his first haircut to Dimples. He was NOT in the mood for a haircut to put it mildly. We held him every way possible for her to cut his hair and he screamed and did not want his hair cut. After a couple more tries it was decided maybe we needed to try something else or at least somewhere else. We tried a few other places to get it cut and it was no better. So for awhile I cut his hair and I am NOT a hairdresser. So, he went around with rather bad haircuts. Recently Dimple tried to teach me how to cut his hair and I did a really bad job. SO....finally he decided that Dimple was "good" and could cut his hair. So today we went again. After he watched me get my hair cut and decided I lived through it without any pain he would sit on my lap and let her cut his hair. He did so good. NO tears, No fighting. SO....I have retired my scissors and he has a new hairdresser. The one we wanted all the time and finally he has grown up enough to sit and get a good haircut.
It will probably take one more haircut before she is able to undo all my mistakes, but he looks very good after his haircut today. He was actually smiling while getting his haircut today.

All smiles after his hair cut.

He loves Mrs. Dimples.

CHRISTMAS 2010

Christmas has once again come and gone. This year was a good year again. We love Christmas. We love everything about it or at least I do. I love the lights, the decorations, the music, the Christmas movies and most of all celebrating the reason for the season, the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. Having children around to celebrate Christmas with makes it really special. We plan for at least a month and celebrate in so many ways. Tanek loves Christmas and has been so excited about it for so long. I get all the decorations done by Thanksgiving and we start on Thanksgiving with our month long celebration. This year some of the fun things we did was starting with Thanksgiving having all my kids and grand-kids here and my sister and niece. That sorta kicked it off. Then of course going to Disney, going to snow and ice at Gaylord Palms resort, going to St. Augustine, and many get togethers with special friends. The children's Christmas program at church and the Choir's Christmas musical. All these things are just part of the reasons we enjoy the Christmas season. Below are some of the pictures I took on Christmas eve and Christmas day.

Tanek with his big yellow ball. Almost as big as he is.

Opening some of our gifts.

And nothing made Tanek happier this year than getting lego's. LOTS of lego's.

This face tells you everything. He was so excited. The day was spent putting together many many lego's and now he has a large lego city with many buildings, machines, people etc etc.

Gramps and Garrett and Chandler came to dinner on Wednesday night and brought Tanek a lego firetruck. He was quite happy about that. Plus he loves spending time with Garrett, Chandler and Gramps.

He is in his new Christmas Jammies

I got this really soft warm blanket for our bed and it is so snuuggly. You just want to sink down and stay there all day. My little dog Stanley agrees with me. He loves sleeping on this blanket. He would stay there all day if I let him.

I couldn't find him and when I looked closely this is where he was. I didn't have the heart to take him down. It is so warm and soft. He had a very happy Christmas too.

I hope each of you had a very Happy Christmas. It is the day after and I have most of my inside decorations down and packed up already. If I can stand the cold I will start getting all the outside decorations down tomorrow and packed up for another year. I sorta hate to see it come to an end it has been so nice, but I certainly am ready for some warm weather.

1 Enclosure Done.....Check!

Finally the screen is up. It makes a Huge outdoor room. We have a few nice days coming up so they should be able to finish the concrete this week. Just in time for Christmas. Yea! It really is nice and it was worth all the work and wait that we had to do. Now I can't wait to get it completely done so I can get plants out there and lights. And then I will want it to get HOT so we can swim out there. That may be a while. Last night when I was watching the Lunar eclispe it was so nice to walk out there knowing there were NO critters lurking around. We don't usually have that many critters this time of year, but it has happened before. It is nice to know that if they are coming in here they will have to be very very small. And I think I can handle small. No more leaves, no more bugs and No more Snakes. YEA!

This is the view from behind it.

This small area to the left is where the grill will go.

Screen Enclosure progress

Since it was taking Soooooo long to get the deck refinished and these people have been waiting since the end of August to put up the screen we finally let them come and do their job. The rest of the deck project will have to be done after the screen. It could have been done this weekend but for whatever reason they didn't do the deck, so the screen is going up. Yesterday they brought all the screen. It was everywhere in the backyard. It is a LOT of screen.

They laid it over the pool

And in the yard

This morning they came back and they are about half way through. They are coming back tomorrow to hopefully finish it. The screen people have come out every single time they told me they would. They are doing a great job so far and I think we are going to love it. It will be SO nice to not have leaves, bugs and snakes in the pool. It makes the pool area look SO big. It will really be a nice place to just enjoy. Can't believe it is finally going up.

I can hardly wait until it is all done and I can put plants out there, lights, Lounge chairs etc.

And I really look forward to getting the pool clean and hopefully NOT having to clean it all the time. I love that it is such an open feeling without being opened. From the house it really looks big. Will post more pictures when it is done. At least we can see the bottom of the pool again. It still has concrete powder in the bottom but the water has cleared up.

When they are all finished with everythng we will get it cleaned out and then it will really look nice. Then I will really be ready for hot weather to come back.

Annual Christmas Outing to St. Augustine

Last night we went to St. Augustine with our good friends Austin & Tina and Don & Doris. We have got together for many years but last year we decided on going to St. Augustine and out to eat instead of us cooking, and we did this again this year. We had a great time. We ate at Cracker Barrel and then went into St. Augustine and caught the "Holly Jolly Trolley". It took us through the town and had a few stops where you could get off. We got off at the waxed museum for cookies and hot cider. This was so much nicer than trying to drive through the town or walk. We got to see everything and had so much fun. Here we are at Cracker Barrel for a delicious dinner.

Don & Doris

Austin & Tina

The hubs and I

Austin above and Tina below with the 3d glasses they gave us to wear. It made the lights look like snowflakes.

Just one of the sights in the town

We even spotted Elvis. He was having a "Blue Christmas". Poor guy. After all these years and still having a Blue Christmas.

This picture was at Winter Wonderland. This is held at the ampha theater. There is a lot of fun things to do there especially for kids.

Austin, Doris and Gary

Doris

The other halves.

The better halves :)

The whole gang