California...here we come...

Michael and I are headed out to Fayetteville to spend the night, we will catch an early flight in the morning to Anaheim, California. He is competing in an FBLA event. We are super excited about the trip...have alot of fun activities planned. I'm NOT excited about flying. I had planned on taking my computer up until a few minutes ago, and I got on the motel website and they charge for internet service...so I'll just leave the computer at home and post pictures when we come back home...
Roger and Jacob are on their own! Sure will miss them...wish they were going...but it is tournament "baseball" week...and we sure can't miss that.....
Be back in a week........

Happy Father's Day

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY! After Michael got off work...we went to Branson to eat at "Famous Dave's" (down on the Landing) ....that's where Roger wanted to eat. It was good. We had a nice dinner, walked along the boardwalk at the Landing. Roger....you are the best "daddy"! You are doing a fine job raising your boys!

Weekend Update...

Busy weekend....several photos to tell the story.
Friday night after Roger got off work we went out on the lake with several couples. We grilled burgers/hot dogs/bratwursts. It was a very nice evening and nice to be hanging out on the lake.

Michael let Jacob ride his sea doo. He begs to do this every weekend.


This was a full moon setting on the lake Friday evening. It was pretty.

SATURDAY: Jacob has been wanting a pool. We have had two before when Michael was younger. When we took it down...Roger said NO MORE.. too much work and up keep. Well daddy gave in yesterday! (He is such a good daddy). We bought a pool. Jacob is so excited!
The box says the pool is READY for water in 30 minutes! Only 30 minutes to set the pool up! Yeah right! ALL DAY LONG later...we (DADDY) got the pool set up. It takes alot of prep work, etc...after it was out of the box, all laid out, poles put together, maybe it was 30 minutes from there. The water ran all night in it and most of the day. It holds 8,000 gallons of water! Can't wait for that water bill!

Sunday afternoon he got in the cold pool water.

Later Sunday afternoon (we wait for Michael to get off work at 3:00)...we went out on the lake. Just hung out...water is still too cold for me to get in. Jacob got in and Michael rode his sea doo.

Jacob got to drive the boat. He loves to do this.

GRADUATION DID HAPPEN!!!

I haven't blogged about high school graduation. It DID happen May 15. I don't really know why I didn't jump on the band wagon and blog about this before now?? It was such a HUGE day for our family and one that I have dreaded since he was born! My feelings never changed over the years. I do realize it is the circle of life and this is what we raise these kids to do. But it also closes a chapter in our life....our life will never be what it was. But it also begins a new chapter and that is how I am trying to look at this. We are so incredibly proud of Michael. He was valedictorian. He has received a full ride to U of A. He did receive the Fellowship scholarship at U of A . ($12,500 per year) He also got the Governor's scholarship ($10,000 year). HUGE financial burden lifted off his parents! :)

May 15th was a very busy day for us. It started out with graduation practice, then we came home and planted a Bradford pear tree in honor of his day. Then onto friends for a backyard luncheon for our group of friends in honor of our kids. Then we came home and both sets of grandparents were here waiting on us, along with his aunts and uncle. Our special friends who are like family also joined us. Our family isn't big, but there sure is a lot of love and the boys both know they are loved very much. He opened presents. He got ALOT of cash and he is soooo thankful for all of his cash! (He put it all into his savings account.) Then onto graduation..it was about two hours long. I thought that Michael did an awesome job with his speech! It was so HOT in the gym. I really wish we could do something about that! Since Roger is school board member, he got to give Michael his diploma! That was so neat and so special. Three of the school board members had sons graduating and got to give their son their diploma. WOW! After graduation Michael and his girlfriend went with another couple on a limo ride! Talk about a night...it was....

BIG QUESTION? Did I cry? Because I've dreaded this day for 18 years. NO, I actually did not. I was a big girl! Teary eyed a couple of times, but no bawling like a baby. GO ME! :)

This is a very exciting time in all our lives!! And we are ready to begin this journey.

Proud mama!

Roger's side of the family.

My family.

Opening presents.

The cake did bring tears to my eyes when I picked it up! Can you believe his KidKo graduation had a red cap/gown also?

Giving his speech.

Roger giving him is diploma.

Big hug after graduation.

Summer Sunday

We cleaned this today....

So we could play here this afternoon....
We LOVE hanging out on the lake on Sunday afternoon's! It's who we are and what we do.

We are so fortunate to live in an area like this with such a beautiful lake. LOVE LOVE LOVE Sunday summer.

What a game..

We played the other Flippin baseball team tonight. AND man, what a game! We won..4-5! They have beat us both times when we scrimmaged them. Jacob pitched two innings tonight. They came together as a team and played well. They all went to the batting cages at Mtn. Home before the game....think that helped some. Nothing like Saturday night baseball...love the summers. My mom came up to watch him play. He loves it when he has fans! Big brother was missing in action tonight! :(

Baseball..

We won our game last night. The coaches (his dad & friend) changed things up a little. J was catcher last night. He usually plays 1st base or pitches. Makes him no difference where he plays. I love taking pictures of him being catcher...don't know why...just do...the following are a few shots that I took.
* WE went to the movie tonight to see the new Disney Pixar movie "UP". It was good. We met some friends there with their girls and J took some friends. BUT you wanna know what the best part was? Michael went with us!!! He was NOT embarrased to be seen with his mamma and daddy! His girlfriend had to work tonight, so he decided to go with. He couldn't have made his mamma happier. I love that kid! NOW, he wouldn't get in the group picture that I took of the kids! :(


Getting ready. Not happy because I have the camera in his face. (But he sure can't wait to see the pictures when we get home) :)

Michael has been at all of his games so far. He was COLD...can you believe its the end of May and we are having to sit covered up in blankets! Big brother...THANKS for supporting little brother! It means more to him than you will EVER know! YOU are going to be so missed next year!

It's That Time...

It's summer time! We spent Memorial weekend trying to camp. We only ended up camping one night due to the rain. My boys LOVE to camp. NOT my favorite thing to do, but I do it because they enjoy it so. We always try to camp Memorial weekend and it always seems to rain. Is that the younger brother moving in on the girlfriend?

Yep that's my 18 year old riding a bicycle.

Makin smores

I just LOVE LOVE LOVE summer! Yesterday was our last day of school! I've been a little under the weather this week, but I am still excited that I can just lay around and do whatever I want whenever I want. Summer is a very busy time for us as well. It's BASEBALL season. We have already played two games plus we have one tonight. We have won one and lost one. This is what I am talking about...that I can do whatever I want whenever I want. On baseball days, Jacob likes to go to the batting cages at Mtn. Home. So, I usually take him to bat. He LOVES to go. So this is what we did today. Of course, it takes a lot longer to drive to Mtn. Home and back home than what time he spends batting. We love our BASEBALL. (We love all our sports)

Prom

The Jr/Sr prom was held Saturday night in the cafeteria. It was very nice. The theme was "A night under the stars". There were probably 150 students there..it was catered by the 178 Club. It was very very nice. All the kids looked so nice. What a fun night to get all dressed up!
Below are pictures are of my boy and his girlfriend. Don't they make a "pretty" couple?


Some fun glasses that I actually bought to wear on graduation day and take pictures. But couldn't resist having him model them.

Pretty couple.

Last soccer game EVER...

Well tonight was Michael's last high school soccer game! We had our last game tonight against Eureka Springs. We lost 3-1. It was a sad night for me. This will be the last time he will play high school soccer. Michael has played soccer since he was 4 years old. WE didn't know a thing about soccer when he first started playing. But started learning very quickly. Roger has coached soccer for alot of years now, started the soccer program here, and is a certified referee, so we've come a long way in 14 years. It is the first LOVE in our house. You better like soccer if you are gonna hang around us. Michael did play basketball (until 10th grade) and baseball (until 8th grade), but his heart has always been with soccer. We have traveled many many miles with this sport and with this boy. We are so going to miss seeing him play. This is a chapter this will close in our lives forever. We are so proud of him! He has given 110% on the field, been so dedicated, and has shown so much leadership and sportsmanship on the field. I hate that we lost this game...but I'm glad that the weather held out and we got to play our last game.
Son, congratulations on a job well done....... you've made this BOBCAT mama proud!!

Contacts

Well when you walk in your sons' room and find him laying in his bed watching TV wearing his mothers glasses, you know it's time to visit the eye doctor! We have suspected the last several months that Jacob couldn't see far away. When we would be driving, we would ask him to read signs, etc to us and he couldn't see them. He doesn't stand a chance, because all three of us wear contacts/glasses. Soooooo...today we went to the eye doctor. He DID need glasses/contacts. He is near sighted. We are trying the contact route. He has to go back in a week for a follow up to make sure the contacts will work for him. He can't put them in and he can't take them out! We worked on him trying to take them out on his own tonight...Michael and I both tried to show him how. It will just take some getting use to. We put Michael's contacts in for him for years. But he could always take them out. Jacob will get the hang of it. Kinda felt like a heel on the way home from the eye doctor...he was reading EVERYTHING to me on the side of the road and in front of us! It was like a whole new world for him!!!! He is all fixed up now....now he just has to learn to put them in and take them out!

Wearing his mom's glasses while he watches TV.

Reading the chart. (Yep, I pulled the camera out)

Michael trying to show him how to take the contacts out! He never got the hang of it tonight...I took them out.

Never too old!

Never too old to hunt Easter eggs! We had our Easter egg hunt on Saturday before Easter Sunday. It was a gorgeous day and it was going to be rainy and yucky on Sunday. My boys LOVE to hunt eggs. They are very competitive in the hunt. We hide some plastic eggs with some pretty nice "goods" in them (ie. subway cards, wal mart cards, itune cards, money) so that's why its a mad rush to see who can find what. I LOVE IT! They LOVE it! After all the eggs are found, they like to take a bat and throw the eggs up and hit them. Eggs splatter everywhere...they love that too.....Michael is 18 and Jacob is 12....love that my boys give me so much joy!