First Day of School

Today was the first day of school for both kids. Ryan is taking his first class of the day at the high school (Geometry just like Meg did). But, he doesn't have to ride the bus like she did cause he's got a sister who drives. Lucky boy!

They let me take one quick picture before they left. Classes start at 7:40am so this is early - 7:15 or so.

And in the car they went...

I didn't get one heading down the street but they made it to and from school safely and both had a good first day.

Hard to believe she's a junior and he's an 8th grader. Thank goodness we aren't moving her to college yet. Some of our friends moved kids to college this past weekend. That will come soon enough!!

Megan at Cheer Camp

Megan spent most of last week at cheer camp. It was in town but from 8am until 6pm everynight. She is a captain this year which means lots of work for her and Emily the other captain. Here's some photos from camp.

The varsity girls stunting on 3rd day of camp.

Megan designed, ordered, and collected the money for these shirts and long socks. It was "fun day" at camp so they went with a baseball theme. The shirts turned out cool & she needed very little help from me. Being a captain has been a good experience for her so far.

All the girls didn't make it to camp. There are 21 girls on varsity but only 17 at camp this day. Megan is in the 2nd row, 2nd from the right. The eye black was to go along with the baseball theme. They look really cute in the shirts. Here's the back of the shirts.

Happy captains - Megan & Emily worked really hard to get everyone ready for camp. The varsity was named champs for the chant competition and won the Spirit Award which is voted on by all the teams at camp. We went to watch and they did great.

Excited girls - the varsity didn't win a single award at camp last year so they were super excited for the big wins this year.

Meg's friends Abbie & Jessica are the girls to the left of her. It's been a fun year to have her friends on varsity with her this year. Abbie was on varsity last year too but Jessica was on JV.

Get ready for lots more cheer pictures in the near future. It's her big thing - she loves to cheer!

Ryan's Golf Tourney

Ryan played in an annual youth golf tournament in early August. This is his 3rd year to be in the tourney. It's basically a trophy fest and a great deal. Three days of golf for $30 with a free item given each day. They flight the kids based on scores from day 1 & 2. The final day's scores are added and they give trophies to the first 6 places in each flight.


Ryan got 5th place in his flight. He was in the fourth flight and shot a 152 over 3 days. Not bad but there are some amazing golfers in his age group. One kid shot under par on a regular 9 hole course over 3 days. Wow!

Ryan receiving his trophy. This pic is funny cause the guy handing out trophies had on basically the same shirt as Ryan. See his sleeve? Just a little darker.

These pics are taken with my new blackberry so the quality isn't great. Notice Ryan's hat -- he was powered by Pioneer Seed Corn :)

Ryan's friend Jake always plays in this tourney too. This year both boys got trophies.


Ryan has worn a green & white stripped shirt on the final day of the tourney for the three years he's played. We call this the luck of the green shirt.

2009 - Last year's trophy & medium green & white stripes.

2008 - His first year in the tourney with wide green & white stripes.

How the heck am I going to find yet another green & white stripped shirt for next year??? :)

A New Post from Us -- Finally!

We can't believe it's almost time for school to start. Both kids are sad summer is almost over but looking forward to school. Registration was last week and they both like their schedules for this year. Yea!

July is truly a "down" month for us in terms of activities. While we felt busy, it's nothing like the months ahead. Ryan's football practice started & Megan worked on cheer stuff but nothing too exciting.

August has brought new activities and adventures. And, with that, new things to post about.

Megan's new job is one. She just started working at a local Houghlihan's as a hostess. I had to snap a few pics of her on her first day. She complained but hey, it's a requirement.

She has to wear all black which meant new clothes. She's always ready for that!! So far, so good on the job. She comes home from work happy but exhausted. She said it's really confusing but I'm sure she'll pick it up quickly.

4th of July Fun

Even though it rained on the 4th of July and almost all activites in Yale were cancelled, we still enjoyed the time in Iowa hanging out with family. It's become an annual event we look forward to each year. Megan & I went up ahead of Ryan & Bruce. Ryan's team was in the KS baseball state tourney so they couldn't drive up until Ryan's team lost. They made it up on the 4th about 5pm after losing in the semi-finals.

Dad & Mom planned a tractor drive for everyone on Monday. They are experts at tractor drives and picked a great route. Megan decided she wanted to drive & Gpa took her for a test drive around the acreage first. Can you tell it was humid this morning after all the rain the day before - it was fogging up my camera!

Here's Bruce on his assigned tractor doing a little test drive too.

How many guys does it take to inspect Bruce's tractor? 3, I think! Haha.

Lining up the tractors - Dad wisely put Megan between Derek & himself. He had to help her once but she did better than I expected. She was on his cute little Ford that drives like a small car but you still have to shift it.

Bruce was between Derek & Tyler on his cute little Allis-Chammers tractor. For a town-boy, he sure loves these tractors & doing a tractor drive. Funny how Derek & Tyler are on bigger tractors than Bruce. He may be older but these boys are more experienced!

Ryan rode with Trey & they traded driving Dad's utility tractor which is new. This is the tractor Dad uses to actually work around the acreage. Dale was in front of Ryan & Trey and Tyler was behind them.


Mom led the pack on her John Deere and set the pace. Dad brought up the rear making sure everyone was okay. I didn't get pictures of them - Darn!

Deb, Amy, & Cooper rode with me in the convertible & we followed the crew with our flashers on. It was fun & someone mentioned making it an annual event. Good idea as long as Dad is up to getting all those tractors out & ready.

Thanks Mom & Dad for another fun year!

Final Sunset

Here's my favorite photo of the trip. Rare for all of us to get in the picture. The guy in the chairs next to us offered to take it. We are all relaxed, tan, & having a good time. It's a Christmas card candidate for sure.
We finally caught a good sunset on our last night at sea. The sun went down really early in the Carribean since we were so far east. Guess you need to get closer to Florida for an 8:30pm quality sunset.

The kids watching the 'big orange ball sinkin' in the water' (Kenny Chesney song reference)!

It was a great vacation. I hope everyone enjoyed reading this blog of our adventures as much as I did reliving them while posting.

No promises for daily blogs in the future. I'll try to keep the photos coming.

St. Maarten Part 3 - More of Orient Beach

Can you tell I loved St. Maarten - it gets 3 posts on the blog!

More views of Orient Beach: I have no idea what direction this is but I'm guessing the north end of the beach.
Each beach area had different colored chairs which made it very festive. Our beach bar & restuarant was called Waikiki & it did remind me of Hawaii but without the Oahu hotels.

This was the view from my beach chair -- I could sit there all day & just watch the waves.

Here's the view if I turned my head to the left.

We love jumping in the waves - especially Ryan. I don't think we'll ever get him to the Gulf of Mexico again since he loves big waves. Ryan is on the left, Meg in the middle, & me on the right. Bruce was manning the camera.

Ryan going into wave action...

This is the end of St. Maarten. I hated to see it go but it was a really fun day. Megan said she liked CocoCay the best. The boys didn't really have a favorite.