Summer pics...

Sharing a few photos of our crazy hectic and fabulous month of JULY!!


Swimming parties! We went to a birthday party for good friends of ours and the kids had a great time at the pool! Ryan liked sitting under this little waterfall area.








Birthday parties (yummy cake!) We've actually had lots of b'day parties to go to this month, and I think we may still be suffering from a sugar high because of it! lol






And, our favorite way to spend our time: Camping! Here is Jon and Ryan relaxing at Tannehill after we went to another friends' birthday party there.







Visiting with old friends! I finally got to meet Camden and he is soooo sweet! His eyes are just as beautiful as his Mother's!








After taking Megan to KidzCamp at church, Ryan and I had a special lunch together. His request was to eat "at Chips N Salsa", aka, any Mexican restaurant. I am always happy to oblige!

Summer is dwindling down....

In just a few short weeks, the new school year will start, and with that a whole new bevy of possibilities and questions are running through my mind. How will Megan do in 2ND grade this year? Is Ryan really ready for K4 and learning to read? Am I going to have my classroom and yearly schedule worked out in time for the first day of school? I'm hoping for good and new friendships at work this year. Will our house ever sale and will we move in time for Megan to start 3rd grade in a decent school system?

With the school year rapidly approaching, we have been pulled into the full swing of the ending of our summer vacation. I am spending more and more time up at the school getting my new classroom cleaned out and decorated. My boss has finally officially hired my new cohort, so I am looking forward to getting to know her better. I am enjoying getting to know some of the other teachers that I didn't get to spend much time with last school year, and this time around, I am actually looking forward to the conference in Pensacola that the teachers always go to.

Another thing keeping us busy is some of the home improvements we've taken on. We're hoping to finalize everything this week (with some help from a good handyman...namely not my hubby!LOL) and I will take new pics of it all to share later:new doors, downsize with furniture, etc. Everything in the house has been in disarray, which is not all that out of the ordinary, but just more-so. Big bonus though is that we're actually getting things cleaned out and either sent to storage, or ready for a garage sale, or donation. I'm still working on it, and am far from done, but I've really cleaned out a lot of stuff! Even though there were lots of times that I thought the dust bunnies were going to take up residence in my nose and I'd never stop sneezing, I actually got all of it cleaned up behind the computer desk we were moving to storage....I am so excited and proud of myself! Now, if only I can keep the whole house clean...and don't let the mess pile up so big again! Who knew I could actually have a uncluttered home after cleaning out 10 years worth of junk!

Even though this has been a bit of a "work" weekend, last weekend we spent some good time with friends during 2 b'day parties in 2 opposite ends of the city. It may have been a long haul driving between them, but we all had a great time. One was a pool party, which is always a hit with my little fish/children, and the other was a "camping" party at one of the local campgrounds, which just reminded us that we really need to start planning that last camping trip of the summer before school starts....maybe that's what we can do next weekend...or the next.

So there is an update of all things "Barrett". Tomorrow I will try to share some photos, as I can't seem to download them tonight....could it be that I "cleaned" out so much that my computer doesn't know how to run on the lack of dust bunnies in this room?!?! Hmmmm.....

The Best American Holiday!

One of the most fun holidays my famiy participates in is The 4th of July. Every since the kids were small babies, my mom has had a cook out at her house, and the kids swim in the pool, play games, and hang out all day together. In years past we have gone downtown to view the fireworks over Vulcan, but it has lost its lustre with us a bit. One the last year we went, we found ourselves surrounded by complete idots who had no regards or concerns for those around them, and they were shooting off bottle rockets within 10 feet of us. Call me crazy, but running from stray fireworks as they are blasting off while have 2 kids in tow is not my idea of a terrific experience. So, last year we didn't go at all, which made the kids sad and they were not about to let that happen this go. We brought all the kids inside and watched the local Fox 6 station's coverage of Thunder On The Mountain. I wasn't all that excited about the prospect, but it actually turned out great. The coverage was decent, and we didn't have to leave the comfort of Nana and Papa's house. The kids sat in front of Papa's big screen TV and "Oooh" and "Aaah" was abounding with each pop of fire in the sky. Sadly, we enjoyed the day so much that the thought of taking pictures of it didn't enter our minds until Papa pulled out his camera to capture us watching the fireworks tv show! I'll leave you with one shot as I bid you all a HAPPY INDEPENDANCE DAY WEEKEND!

The World according to Megan

A couple of months ago, I gave Megan my old camera to play around with. She is always wanting mine and I do not want to turn her loose with it since it costs a pretty penny, so I gave her the old and nearly broken camera. She has had more fun with that camera than I ever did. Recently I found it and looked through the pics she had taken. While most of them are typical "kid pics" where someone's head is cut off, or she's taking a close up that is FAR too close up. But I thought I'd share of few of her shots....through the eyes of a child.




The stove...with 3 empty soda cans. Hey-this is a day it was actually clean!









Her bed. Or rather the ladder to her bed.








Granny came to our house and was hit with the flash!








Yep, her foot. She laughed so hard at this one.









Her booty. She's obsessed with taking pics of people's booty's. It's a kid thing I guess....







Our backyard? HA! It's a path at the Botannical Gardens







from her seat in the van...a pic of Mom as we've ridden about 2 houses down from ours.







Dad relaxing on the couch in his PJ's








The fridge. Because, who wouldn't want a pic of their fridge?
Later, she opened it up and took pics of the inside...but I'm not including those! Ha!







Posters on her wall.






So there's my post for the day...different. But fun. Now that she knows I made this post of all her pictures, she is currently running around the house taking more photographs. She'll want me to post more later on...yay.

Watch for GATORS!

One of the fun things about the Gulf Park camping grounds was the fact that it was a great place to ride bikes. It's a flat park, and even has a paved bike trail that takes you throughout the state park...it's quite a long ride. The kids had a great time riding around the campgrounds and Jonathan and Megan took the bike path one morning to see where it went. They enjoyed the ride so much they insisted I go with them the next day, so I did. We found a black lagoon, which was cool to see, we saw HUGE butterflies all over the place. And perhaps one of the more intimidating parts was the swampy area that had warnings signs posted about an aligator habitat. This totally freaked Megan out and she made sure to pedal really fast through that area. But it wasn't dangerous, we never even saw anything. But who could when your cycling the speed of light! haha



She loved riding the path.








Can you tell she was a bit worried? Look at her expression! haha