This weekend is typically when we consider it to be the "unofficial" start of summer. Something about Memorial Day just makes us think of summer. First and foremost though we remember those brave people that fought for our freedom and paid the ultimate sacrifice doing so. I spent some time explaining Memorial Day to Kenzie a couple of weeks back when I put our American flag inspired wreath on the door. We want the kids to know that this weekend isn't technically about cookouts and pool time despite the fact that we spend time doing that because we have a 3 day weekend. It's about those men and women that didn't come home but went to fight for us knowing that anyway. Thank you to them and prayers for their family and friends that have an empty chair at dinner or a missing person in a family photo.
This weekend was super busy for us. We started bright and early on Friday. Friday was Kenzie's last day of school which you can read about HERE if you are interested and haven't already. In addition to that, Steven didn't have to work a full day so he was able to come home a bit early. We ended up running to Lowes to pick up the final items we needed to paint Kenzie's room over the weekend. Then we came home and met up with our neighbors in our driveway for some neighbor friend pizza/dance party fun. It was a great time! We put out the kiddie pool and water table and set up our tent. We had some food to snack on while we waited on pizza. We even had cupcakes, cookies, and fruit for desert. It was a lot of fun. The older kids asked to dance like they do when they go to the Disney water parks which soon turned into a 90's music party as we all sat around and reminisced about songs we used to all listen to. I think the kids all thought we were nuts when we launched into Ice Ice Baby. We were outside until well after 8 which meant we were out until well after bedtime. It was a super fun night though and worth the later bedtime. Will went to bed fairly easily but Kenzie was hyped up so it took her a while.
Saturday morning had an early start, as well. Mainly because we had to remove Kenzie's curtains in preparation of painting and her room gets pretty bright early in the morning. Will slept a lot longer, thankfully. Steven ended up going out to pick up some breakfast with both kids in tow which gave me a chance to remove all the furniture except the bed from Kenzie's room. The bed wouldn't fit out the door without being taken apart. Shortly after we finished breakfast, Nana made it to our house and we got set to paint. Steven got lucky this time (sort of). In the past, I have never actually painted a room because I was pregnant. This time, I stood in for Steven basically. He went outside and mowed the lawn while my mom and I handled the painting. It was sort of sad taping up the room and then putting on the primer. We watched the green and blue disappear from the room. Nana even cried when we were finishing the last portion of the wall. She's a crier anyway. Even I didn't get teary so it was pretty funny. For me, at least.
It took a lot longer than we anticipated to get the primer on but we elected to do it in lieu of using as many coats of the pink paint. We were going from fairly dark walls to much lighter coloring so we knew a primer would help out. It was funny. As we were painting the primer I said that when Kenzie was born I refused to allow her to have a pink room. I didn't want to go all girly and stereotypical. Now, 5 years later we ended up with a pink room when we asked her what she wanted. Well, technically she wanted a red and purple room but we shut that down quickly. Because the primer took so long we decided to just start one wall with the pink before Steven and I had to head out (more on that in a second) just to see how it would do. We were initially sort of worried because we thought it was going to be super light pink. Light pink would have been okay but it went on so light that it almost looked white. The difficulty was that the lighting in the room sort of stinks except for early morning so it was hard to see what we had done and what we hadn't. As it turned out, as the paint dried it darkened considerably and Kenzie loved it. It is definitely pink.
As for the reason that we couldn't continue painting through the night, the main reason Nana was in town (and we piggy backed the room painting onto it) was that back in February we bought tickets to go see Sister Hazel at the House of Blues. We haven't been to HOB or seen Sister Hazel in what seems like forever. We can't remember if the last time we saw Sister Hazel was when I was recently pregnant with Kenzie or shortly after she was born. I think it was before because we bought tickets once that we never used because we were unable to find childcare when Steven's parents became sick the weekend of the concert. Either way, it has been a long time. We also rarely have date nights so we were looking forward to that. We headed down towards Disney Springs and went to The Crossroads shopping center to have dinner before hitting the Springs. We decided on Buffalo Wild Wings. Nothing major but I was feeling sort of sick from not eating much at lunch and working hard on the room so we made a quick decision. It was good too. We both had burgers and fries. It was funny. As they were getting ready to seat us, the host opened a drawer and I almost said "Oh! We don't need kids' menus today." but then I realized that he was just looking for silverware. We are so used to having the kids with us, that was my first thought. When I mentioned it to Steven, he laughed and said it was his too. As for the kids: My mom took the kids to a McDonald's not far from us that has an indoor playground for dinner and they ran to Lowes to pick up a couple of painting supply related things. She said they were great and went to bed easily. After dinner we drove over to the Springs. It was pretty crowded because of the Memorial Day holiday weekend. We ended up in this weird back lot behind HOB that we have never even seen before. It actually worked out well because we were super close when we had to leave. We walked over to Starbucks and grabbed a couple of frapaccinos to kill some time and ran into the Fit2Run store. There was a super cute Florida runner sticker that I wanted but I didn't want to carry it around all night so I will probably check it out when we go back in a couple of weeks with my parents to see the La Nouba open rehearsal. By then it was almost time for doors so we went over and stood in line at HOB. It took a while to get into the HOB but it wasn't bad. We were able to stand in the shade. We both grabbed a drink when we got there and then took up residence in the spot we used to always stand in. It is right by the sound booth and on the stairs. I need the stairs to be taller than some people around me so I can see. We saw Steven's friend from work and her friend and chatted for a bit then just hung around and waited for the opener. I can't remember the guy's name (or his band which was basically his name plus "Trio") but they were probably one of the better opening bands we have seen. They were entertaining. The drummer was awesome. We nicknamed him Animal because he reminded us of the muppet. Sister Hazel went on a little before 10. I admit, I was worried. We were quickly approaching my bedtime. Haha! I can't hang quite as well as I used to but the show was amazing and I wasn't tired during it. They have a few newer albums that I don't know but Steven has so I need to get him to copy for me or something. All of the songs they played from them were great. Of course they did the normal ones too like All For You, Champagne High, Your Winter, and Mandolin Moon, plus a bunch of others. It was great. They are a great band. Every time we see them they put on an awesome show. Definitely seasoned musicians. We were out of HOB just before 11:30 and traffic was pretty bad getting off property but we made it home before 12:30. I think we both basically fell into bed knowing we had to get up early on Sunday.
The one thing we were unsure about for Saturday night was the kids' sleepover in Will's room. Because Kenzie's room had to be painted, we couldn't expect her to sleep in there so we took her mattress and put it on Will's floor. Nana put Will to bed first and about 20 minutes later put Kenzie in his room. Apparently Will called once to be covered but Kenzie never even budged. She was snoring an sound asleep. She slept straight through to morning with no issues. Will did the same. At about 7:15 I heard her come out of his room to potty so I grabbed her knowing she would close the door loudly if she went back in and probably not go back to sleep anyway. Will ended up sleeping until 8. This told us 2 main things... they can share a room if we have a guest so we can set up the blow up mattress in her room and move her out or once she has a twin bed, if it is one person they can use that bed instead of sleeping in the living room. Also, going to the Keys this summer will be fine. We already knew that for the most part after our trip to South Florida in January but it has solidified that for us. Plus, we are going to my parents' timeshare for a week the week after next and they are going to share a room with 2 twin beds. They had to have another sleep over on Sunday night and did just as well. Will called again in the middle of the night but I went to cover him and she was OUT. Not a peep out of her. Good deal.
Sunday morning I was supposed to run but we got in way too late for that so we just got up with the kids and all got ready for church. It was nice because Nana was able to come with us. Steven was volunteering this weekend so it was definitely nice to have someone to sit with. The message was great. As usual. Will had a bit of an issue going into his class for the first time in maybe 6 months. He screamed but I dropped him off and ran. Before I rounded the corner I could hear that he stopped crying and he came out of class after church super excited with the lion he made (they were learning about Daniel and the lion's den) and told us all about how the lion roars. He also told me God helped Daniel so he must have been listening. At least to his sister since she informed me of the same thing in slightly different words just before he did. Kenzie had a great time as well. After church we immediately headed home and got back to painting. Mom and I basically flew through the process of putting the pink on. Steven came in from church and we had about another 10 minutes to finish so we finished up, cleaned up, and headed out to Sonny's for lunch. We wanted to take Mom out for helping us out and watching the kids. Kenzie has been asking for Sonny's for a few days now for some reason so we decided that would work fine. We had a good lunch and made it home in time to put Will down for a late nap. He had slept until almost 8am so he was okay waiting for a later nap. Kenzie's room was dry mostly at that point and we could see that other than needing to touch up around the ceiling, it was good enough for Nana to head out and get home because we didn't need any more major help so she did just that. (Thanks again to Nana for helping us paint a room one more time.) During Will's nap, Steven and I touched up the area near the ceiling with no issues. Steven decided to try to go on a run in the afternoon before dinner. Not the smartest move to date. He said it was torture. Way too hot. He made it 3 miles though so that is impressive. I would have given up and come home. Haha! I was able to prep dinner during that but because we ate lunch so late, we decided to go to the pool before actually eating. We didn't have a ton of time because it was getting late but we had a great time. The argument that ensued when we tried to leave told us that the kids had fun. We had a late dinner and the kids watched part of Cars before turning in for the night.
Monday morning started early (as usual) when I went out for my run. Probably significantly more comfortable than Steven's run but still hot and humid. Such is life in Florida. Got 3 miles in myself though (still slower than Steven overall despite my better conditions). By the time I got home, the kids were awake and we prepped them for the pool then dropped Steven's car off for new tires. We have been avoiding this for as long as possible but finally had to bite the bullet. He has a lot of travel coming up with work in the next 6 weeks or so and we need him to be safe. We then went to the pool. There was no one there (as usual) because it was morning. No one showed up until just as we were getting ready to leave. Kenzie brought her beach ball so we played a bit of pool volleyball. Eventually it was just Steven and me playing but it was fun. I admit. I'm sore this evening. Between running and jumping around the pool.... my legs hurt. We spent longer at the pool than the night before but still had to convince the kids to leave. We like to try to be done by 10am so we are home before the sun gets too crazy.
When we got home we removed the tape from Kenzie's walls and re-setup her room. We rearranged her furniture some though and we will do it again when she gets her new twin bed in a month or so. She likes the change and it is something new. The only big thing we still need to do is put her blackout curtains back up. Hers aren't as good as Will's but they help some. Without them, she wakes up before 7 so they need to go back up soon. The room looks pretty good. We don't want to put anything on the walls yet until we get the new furniture in so we are waiting on that. Kenzie is super happy with the new color though so I think we did well.
The afternoon was a bit of a lazy one. We cleaned, did laundry and dishes, and Steven mowed the backyard before getting ready for a cookout. We decided on hamburgers and hot dogs. We had corn and watermelon as well. Nothing signifies the start of summer to us like watermelon and a cookout. We decided to use our picnic table for dinner because we love it. The kids played in the climbing tree for a bit after dinner while Steven cleared everything from the table and brought it inside. Dinner was good and we are ready to usher in summer.
This week should be fairly quiet. Thankfully. Next weekend we have to pick up Steven's parents' car from their house in preparation for them returning from their trip the following weekend. Then we are heading down to Summer Bay to spend the week with my parents at the timeshare. They get a house every other year with a pool and it is so much fun. Steven is taking a long weekend and we are boarding Jack so we can all go down. Then the kids and I will stay the rest of the week while Steven comes anytime he can after work. It should be fun. We are also looking to starting more on our Bucket List. Welcome to summer!
This weekend was super busy for us. We started bright and early on Friday. Friday was Kenzie's last day of school which you can read about HERE if you are interested and haven't already. In addition to that, Steven didn't have to work a full day so he was able to come home a bit early. We ended up running to Lowes to pick up the final items we needed to paint Kenzie's room over the weekend. Then we came home and met up with our neighbors in our driveway for some neighbor friend pizza/dance party fun. It was a great time! We put out the kiddie pool and water table and set up our tent. We had some food to snack on while we waited on pizza. We even had cupcakes, cookies, and fruit for desert. It was a lot of fun. The older kids asked to dance like they do when they go to the Disney water parks which soon turned into a 90's music party as we all sat around and reminisced about songs we used to all listen to. I think the kids all thought we were nuts when we launched into Ice Ice Baby. We were outside until well after 8 which meant we were out until well after bedtime. It was a super fun night though and worth the later bedtime. Will went to bed fairly easily but Kenzie was hyped up so it took her a while.
Saturday morning had an early start, as well. Mainly because we had to remove Kenzie's curtains in preparation of painting and her room gets pretty bright early in the morning. Will slept a lot longer, thankfully. Steven ended up going out to pick up some breakfast with both kids in tow which gave me a chance to remove all the furniture except the bed from Kenzie's room. The bed wouldn't fit out the door without being taken apart. Shortly after we finished breakfast, Nana made it to our house and we got set to paint. Steven got lucky this time (sort of). In the past, I have never actually painted a room because I was pregnant. This time, I stood in for Steven basically. He went outside and mowed the lawn while my mom and I handled the painting. It was sort of sad taping up the room and then putting on the primer. We watched the green and blue disappear from the room. Nana even cried when we were finishing the last portion of the wall. She's a crier anyway. Even I didn't get teary so it was pretty funny. For me, at least.
It took a lot longer than we anticipated to get the primer on but we elected to do it in lieu of using as many coats of the pink paint. We were going from fairly dark walls to much lighter coloring so we knew a primer would help out. It was funny. As we were painting the primer I said that when Kenzie was born I refused to allow her to have a pink room. I didn't want to go all girly and stereotypical. Now, 5 years later we ended up with a pink room when we asked her what she wanted. Well, technically she wanted a red and purple room but we shut that down quickly. Because the primer took so long we decided to just start one wall with the pink before Steven and I had to head out (more on that in a second) just to see how it would do. We were initially sort of worried because we thought it was going to be super light pink. Light pink would have been okay but it went on so light that it almost looked white. The difficulty was that the lighting in the room sort of stinks except for early morning so it was hard to see what we had done and what we hadn't. As it turned out, as the paint dried it darkened considerably and Kenzie loved it. It is definitely pink.
As for the reason that we couldn't continue painting through the night, the main reason Nana was in town (and we piggy backed the room painting onto it) was that back in February we bought tickets to go see Sister Hazel at the House of Blues. We haven't been to HOB or seen Sister Hazel in what seems like forever. We can't remember if the last time we saw Sister Hazel was when I was recently pregnant with Kenzie or shortly after she was born. I think it was before because we bought tickets once that we never used because we were unable to find childcare when Steven's parents became sick the weekend of the concert. Either way, it has been a long time. We also rarely have date nights so we were looking forward to that. We headed down towards Disney Springs and went to The Crossroads shopping center to have dinner before hitting the Springs. We decided on Buffalo Wild Wings. Nothing major but I was feeling sort of sick from not eating much at lunch and working hard on the room so we made a quick decision. It was good too. We both had burgers and fries. It was funny. As they were getting ready to seat us, the host opened a drawer and I almost said "Oh! We don't need kids' menus today." but then I realized that he was just looking for silverware. We are so used to having the kids with us, that was my first thought. When I mentioned it to Steven, he laughed and said it was his too. As for the kids: My mom took the kids to a McDonald's not far from us that has an indoor playground for dinner and they ran to Lowes to pick up a couple of painting supply related things. She said they were great and went to bed easily. After dinner we drove over to the Springs. It was pretty crowded because of the Memorial Day holiday weekend. We ended up in this weird back lot behind HOB that we have never even seen before. It actually worked out well because we were super close when we had to leave. We walked over to Starbucks and grabbed a couple of frapaccinos to kill some time and ran into the Fit2Run store. There was a super cute Florida runner sticker that I wanted but I didn't want to carry it around all night so I will probably check it out when we go back in a couple of weeks with my parents to see the La Nouba open rehearsal. By then it was almost time for doors so we went over and stood in line at HOB. It took a while to get into the HOB but it wasn't bad. We were able to stand in the shade. We both grabbed a drink when we got there and then took up residence in the spot we used to always stand in. It is right by the sound booth and on the stairs. I need the stairs to be taller than some people around me so I can see. We saw Steven's friend from work and her friend and chatted for a bit then just hung around and waited for the opener. I can't remember the guy's name (or his band which was basically his name plus "Trio") but they were probably one of the better opening bands we have seen. They were entertaining. The drummer was awesome. We nicknamed him Animal because he reminded us of the muppet. Sister Hazel went on a little before 10. I admit, I was worried. We were quickly approaching my bedtime. Haha! I can't hang quite as well as I used to but the show was amazing and I wasn't tired during it. They have a few newer albums that I don't know but Steven has so I need to get him to copy for me or something. All of the songs they played from them were great. Of course they did the normal ones too like All For You, Champagne High, Your Winter, and Mandolin Moon, plus a bunch of others. It was great. They are a great band. Every time we see them they put on an awesome show. Definitely seasoned musicians. We were out of HOB just before 11:30 and traffic was pretty bad getting off property but we made it home before 12:30. I think we both basically fell into bed knowing we had to get up early on Sunday.
The one thing we were unsure about for Saturday night was the kids' sleepover in Will's room. Because Kenzie's room had to be painted, we couldn't expect her to sleep in there so we took her mattress and put it on Will's floor. Nana put Will to bed first and about 20 minutes later put Kenzie in his room. Apparently Will called once to be covered but Kenzie never even budged. She was snoring an sound asleep. She slept straight through to morning with no issues. Will did the same. At about 7:15 I heard her come out of his room to potty so I grabbed her knowing she would close the door loudly if she went back in and probably not go back to sleep anyway. Will ended up sleeping until 8. This told us 2 main things... they can share a room if we have a guest so we can set up the blow up mattress in her room and move her out or once she has a twin bed, if it is one person they can use that bed instead of sleeping in the living room. Also, going to the Keys this summer will be fine. We already knew that for the most part after our trip to South Florida in January but it has solidified that for us. Plus, we are going to my parents' timeshare for a week the week after next and they are going to share a room with 2 twin beds. They had to have another sleep over on Sunday night and did just as well. Will called again in the middle of the night but I went to cover him and she was OUT. Not a peep out of her. Good deal.
Sunday morning I was supposed to run but we got in way too late for that so we just got up with the kids and all got ready for church. It was nice because Nana was able to come with us. Steven was volunteering this weekend so it was definitely nice to have someone to sit with. The message was great. As usual. Will had a bit of an issue going into his class for the first time in maybe 6 months. He screamed but I dropped him off and ran. Before I rounded the corner I could hear that he stopped crying and he came out of class after church super excited with the lion he made (they were learning about Daniel and the lion's den) and told us all about how the lion roars. He also told me God helped Daniel so he must have been listening. At least to his sister since she informed me of the same thing in slightly different words just before he did. Kenzie had a great time as well. After church we immediately headed home and got back to painting. Mom and I basically flew through the process of putting the pink on. Steven came in from church and we had about another 10 minutes to finish so we finished up, cleaned up, and headed out to Sonny's for lunch. We wanted to take Mom out for helping us out and watching the kids. Kenzie has been asking for Sonny's for a few days now for some reason so we decided that would work fine. We had a good lunch and made it home in time to put Will down for a late nap. He had slept until almost 8am so he was okay waiting for a later nap. Kenzie's room was dry mostly at that point and we could see that other than needing to touch up around the ceiling, it was good enough for Nana to head out and get home because we didn't need any more major help so she did just that. (Thanks again to Nana for helping us paint a room one more time.) During Will's nap, Steven and I touched up the area near the ceiling with no issues. Steven decided to try to go on a run in the afternoon before dinner. Not the smartest move to date. He said it was torture. Way too hot. He made it 3 miles though so that is impressive. I would have given up and come home. Haha! I was able to prep dinner during that but because we ate lunch so late, we decided to go to the pool before actually eating. We didn't have a ton of time because it was getting late but we had a great time. The argument that ensued when we tried to leave told us that the kids had fun. We had a late dinner and the kids watched part of Cars before turning in for the night.
Monday morning started early (as usual) when I went out for my run. Probably significantly more comfortable than Steven's run but still hot and humid. Such is life in Florida. Got 3 miles in myself though (still slower than Steven overall despite my better conditions). By the time I got home, the kids were awake and we prepped them for the pool then dropped Steven's car off for new tires. We have been avoiding this for as long as possible but finally had to bite the bullet. He has a lot of travel coming up with work in the next 6 weeks or so and we need him to be safe. We then went to the pool. There was no one there (as usual) because it was morning. No one showed up until just as we were getting ready to leave. Kenzie brought her beach ball so we played a bit of pool volleyball. Eventually it was just Steven and me playing but it was fun. I admit. I'm sore this evening. Between running and jumping around the pool.... my legs hurt. We spent longer at the pool than the night before but still had to convince the kids to leave. We like to try to be done by 10am so we are home before the sun gets too crazy.
When we got home we removed the tape from Kenzie's walls and re-setup her room. We rearranged her furniture some though and we will do it again when she gets her new twin bed in a month or so. She likes the change and it is something new. The only big thing we still need to do is put her blackout curtains back up. Hers aren't as good as Will's but they help some. Without them, she wakes up before 7 so they need to go back up soon. The room looks pretty good. We don't want to put anything on the walls yet until we get the new furniture in so we are waiting on that. Kenzie is super happy with the new color though so I think we did well.
The afternoon was a bit of a lazy one. We cleaned, did laundry and dishes, and Steven mowed the backyard before getting ready for a cookout. We decided on hamburgers and hot dogs. We had corn and watermelon as well. Nothing signifies the start of summer to us like watermelon and a cookout. We decided to use our picnic table for dinner because we love it. The kids played in the climbing tree for a bit after dinner while Steven cleared everything from the table and brought it inside. Dinner was good and we are ready to usher in summer.
This week should be fairly quiet. Thankfully. Next weekend we have to pick up Steven's parents' car from their house in preparation for them returning from their trip the following weekend. Then we are heading down to Summer Bay to spend the week with my parents at the timeshare. They get a house every other year with a pool and it is so much fun. Steven is taking a long weekend and we are boarding Jack so we can all go down. Then the kids and I will stay the rest of the week while Steven comes anytime he can after work. It should be fun. We are also looking to starting more on our Bucket List. Welcome to summer!
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