Last week of school

Madeline has loved 4th grade. This is her teacher, Josh Walker, they were playing ultimate Frisbee outside. This was Madeline's first male teacher and she has enjoyed his fun personality, habit of eating food in front of the class, and making learning fun!


Jacob had Camp Learned a Lot this last week. He informed me that he needed a tent at school as we are walking out the door to school. Thank goodness for the teepee upstairs, it's collapsible and very portable. Well, it was a big hit at school and all the kids tried to crowd in at once. Mrs Wilson had to set a rule of only 3 kids at a time in the teepee.

Here is Jacob with his buddies, Bryden and Hayden.
Here is our new hamster, Cotton. She can run like nobodies business on that wheel. We are missing out on wheel power by not hooking up some generator to it. The wheel actually wobbles makes of the speed at which Cotton can power it up! It is funny! I will video tape it and put it on as a film sometime soon.
Madeline and I made these cute little bags. I bought the first one off of "Etsy" and followed the pattern to make many more. Madeline gave them to her girl friends when they came over for a late night and I had them as a "gift bag" for my book club. Too cute!

Take me out to the ball game...

Jacob loves baseball and has enjoyed playing with his coach, Owen, and friends from the neighborhood. The boys rotate through the different positions, and the most coveted is catcher because you get to wear the cool mark and pads.

Jacob is so cute when he plays the pitcher's mound and rallys the boys together. It is coach pitch so Jacob is the cheerleader up there. Kids are always doing the goofiest things while they are waiting for a ball to come there way. I have witnessed cartwheels, the splits, kids running in a circle, and digging holes with their shoe.
I love these sharp looking uniforms, what a handsome boy! He has two more games and then school is out and swim lessons, family reunions, and lake powell, yes!

Hampsey's Gift of Life

Last year, at the coxing of our daughter we got a cute dwarf hamster affectionally named "Hampsey". She has brought so much joy into our family, especially Madeline.

We would be outside and Madeline would say in a sweet voice, "Harry, I think we should make some seed patties for our friends lunch". She had taken on Hampsey's imagination and would imagine all these grand adventures for her.

I was snuggling in bed with Madeline and "Hampsey" (aka Madeline) would say "Harry, the humans are gone so let's pull out the disco ball in my sleeping hut, music please!) You couldn't help but laugh and be in wonder of the adventures of Hampsey and Harry through my daughter's eyes.

Well, this last week Hampsey got sick so I took her to two vets but she kept pulling her stitches out and was getting sicker so I had to make the heart agonizing decision to have her put down. Oh, this was one of the hardest decisions to make. This was our sweet pet who had filled each day with adventures while she was rolling around in her pink ball, or taking her outside to greet the kids from the bus and letting her run around in the grass.

Hampsey had such a love for life and adventure. As I am writing this there are still tears of sadness rolling down my cheeks as I think of our sweet Hampsey. May heaven be big enough for the adventures that Hampsey holds dear. We will always love you!

mother's day

I love mother's day! Breakfast in bed, off to church and they give me chocolate, come home from church and I get to open presents {that i bought myself at anthropologie} go to my parents house and get spoiled, then come home and my husband does the dishes!

I would love this EVERYDAY!

on saturday, stephen asked if i would like to go out for mother's day dinner, oh ya!

jacob loves going out to eat, like, he asks me EVERYDAY can we go out to eat? so i thought he would be ecstatic to go eat.

no mom, i want to play on the slip/n/slide that we bought at target.

hey buddy, we can do that later, this is mommy's day and i would love to go eat at pf chang's... they have yummy food {trying to entice my child}

no, mom i don't like going out to eat {hello a big lie!!!}

jacob, this is my day.... it's about me, me, me, me, me! i wanna talk about me and what i want to do!!!!
a grumpy frown on a normally happy child

so we go to pf chang's with a grumpy boy in the back who, while at the restaurant, decides this is fun to go eat!

prom was this weekend so we saw a lot of teens in formal dresses and tuxes. one teen was a punk rock dude with a green mohawk, tattoos everywhere, and enough earrings to fill my jewelry box. jacob was starring at the guy and said "it's okay to have a mohawk just not a green one!

by the way, the great wall of chocolate was delicious!

happy mother's day to me and all the wonderful women who keep our kids in line!

A week of ahhhh!

The quaint town of Charleston, right on the ocean front. One of the few cities with pre-civil war homes. It is called the Palmetto state, which stands for Palm trees.
Stephen's list of to do was visit fort sumter where the civil war began. It was a fascinating narration and we learned a lot. Fort sumter is an island that the north built and funny thing... the south took over it shortly and had it for 4 years.

The ocean was a bit nippy but we still plunged in. It was about 80 degrees and I forgot to "recoat" with sunscreen. Having the Berrett fair skin gene, this is a necessity! oops So I got a little crispy.
I rented some bikes and we rode all around the island and on the ocean. It is high tide at night with the moon and low tide during the morning and early afternoon. We rode our bikes at 10 pm and there was no visible moon so we couldn't see where we were going. We were laughing so hard. Stephen's bike had a cute white basket on it so he could gather seashells ;)

It is easier to ride on the packed sand but at high tide there is only soft sand so we were getting stuck and bumping into things. It was fun to be crazy and silly with my husband. It was good to be a irresponsible adult for a week!

Our condo was right on the ocean and had this cute little porch. I LOVED sitting out here and listening to the sound of the waves. I laid out in the sun and thought of NOTHING.

It was the most relaxing vacation I have ever had. NO place to be, NO one to time commitment, just me, my honey, and the ocean.
On our last day we headed out for some siteseeing. We visited the Charles Pinckney home in Charleston, south carolina . He was very involved in politics and was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

I love go back today if I could, ya it was that good!

Charleston, South Carolina

Stephen has a meeting in Charleston this week, so I have been lounging at the ocean. Our condo is 100 feet from the ocean... there is nothing like falling asleep to the sound of the waves.



We are headed into Charleston to do some site seeing. Fort Sumpter is on our list. That is where the first shots were fired that began the Civil War. Over a period of 4 years, it was one of the most sought after Fort's because of it's location to control the comings and goings of ships. It had a unique strategic location.

Over the course of 2 years, over 46,000 shots were fired on the fort. The confederates took it from the yankees and held onto it for the 4 years. I'm excited to see some of the Antebellem plantations (pre-civil war). Some of these plantations have 4,000 acres... I would hate to be in charge of weeding that property. Growing up we had 500 acres and that was plenty!

I will download some pictures of our trip when we get back. I tried to but the laptop doesn't have the right softward ;(

our "misc" life

my book group!!! We always have a lovely lunch, lively conversation, and good company. We talked about "a tree grows in brooklyn" excellent book... LOVED IT!
my cute girl in her Easter dress. When did she grow up?
or-an-ge you special!
Go Carolina!!! That was an awesome game!