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

It's not WHAT you know, it's WHO!

One of the best appeals for us to go to Orange Beach on vacation is that Jonathan's dad and stepmom live in Foley...which is just minutes away. Since we rarely get to visit with them, it's always a priority to catch up with them while we are there. This past visit was no different. On one of the evenings down there, we went to The Warf because Mimi (Sonya-Jon's stepmom) was working at the Ferris Wheel. Since she works there, she gave us "The Mimi Special", which means we ride for free!!! Here's a couple of photo's:

The ferris wheel is so pretty all lit up at night.















Waiting to get on and full of smiles!









Ryan didn't like waiting in line-he wanted to get on NOW!








Last friday was Jonathan's birthday and he shares that day with his Dad as well. We made plans to celebrate the two guys' birthdays on Saturday, and what better opportunity for Lou (Jon's dad) to put his connections in place! Since living down there for the past 3 years, Lou has met many interesting people. One couple he knows owns a condo at the Caribe resort which is a fabulous place! We were able to visit the resort to swim in the pools which was a welcome retreat considering that's what the kids were missing most-swimming! The Caribe resort has HUGE pools, with large areas for kids to play. There is also a lazy river (sooo cool!), and waterslides! I was really surprised at Ryan and how eagerly he took to the waterslides. He tends to be a bit timid when trying new things and my first impression was that he would be too scared to go down...or that if he did, he might panic when he hit the water so quickly. Well, as you can probably guess, I WAS WRONG. He was down that slide before I could completely walk over to the pool and the first thing I heard him say after he was in the water was "THAT WAS AAWWWSOME! I GOTTA DO THAT AGAIN!!!" And he did it again. And again. And again! He had the best time and I was sooo proud to see him doing it. Megan had a great time too. She loved swimming and juming and sliding all over the place. It was a great place to go, and even though I am sure I could never afford to stay there, it's great that we were given that chance on Saturday.



The pool with waterslides









The kids with Papaw. (Ryan's being goofy...as always)













Megan on the lazy river









Ryan and Mimi on the lazy river.




So like the saying goes, "It's not WHAT you know, It's WHO you know". Free rides on the Ferris Wheel...thanks to Mimi! (And she let us use her exclusive restroom in her ticket booth, so we didn't have to go hunt it up in one of the shops). And a fabulous day at the Caribe Resort...thanks to Papaw!

It was a great trip and we would love to do it all again...SOON!

An interesting June, to say the least...

Yeah, I know it's about time I updated this blog...however, between a weeks worth of VBS, a camping trip to the beach, swim dates at Nana's house, several trips to the library, and the occasional bum day at home, we have had quite an eventful month for the first of the summer. Here are a few highlights...some with pics:

Vacation Bible School: A week of exhaustive fun!

The second week of this month was dedicated to VBS at our church. The kids loved it! I signed up to help out with registration...which basically means I am a wimp and couldn't handle being stuck in a small classroom full of rowdy church kids for a week of my life. Yeah, I know, it's ONLY a week and it is pathetic of me. But I wanted my kids to go and experience it. It's so much fun for them. Here are a few pics of the fun:




BFF's! They were so happy to see each other every day.











Ryan won a Tshirt at Family Night on Wednesday














Megan and Chloe with their VBS teacher

























Ryan loved the "jumpy things" that were available on Family Night.

Camping in Orange Beach-not so bad.

When Mom and Dad invited us to go with them, I had to eat my words. I can't tell you how many times I would pass those camp grounds down there and say "Why on earth would you want to come to the beach and camp...especially when you aren't even on the beach!" Well, since we had already taken a couple of trips to the beach, we treated it more like a camping trip than a beach trip. We had a blast! First off, the camp grounds were immaculate! The bath house was very clean! It even smelled clean when we went in! And every day, I watched a van load of park employee's pull up and 4 would get out and go inside to clean. I never saw scum on the tile walls in the showers, the toilets were clean, the sinks were clean...everything was clean. I was very impressed, because there is nothing worse than going camping and having a nasty bathhouse to use.
Anyhoo-there were lots to do...the public beach was only 2 minutes from camp but we only spent one day there. The jellyfish were in the ocean during this trip, and even though we only saw a couple, Megan had a panic attack when she thought one had stung her. It turned out that all she felt was a rather large school of small fish swimming around her legs. But it was enough to send her into a panic screaming rage! It was quite comical, really...but don't tell her I said that.
The other fun thing we did was ride bikes. We took the kids bikes with us, but Jon and I don't have them (yet). Nana and Papa let us use theirs and there is a nice paved bike trail that takes you all into the State Park. It was really nice,and Megan had a great time. So now, I have to have a bike for the next camping trip. Jon and I have already begun to think about where we'll go next and what bikes we want. Here's a slide of a few pics of our camping trip:

One more beach trip memory...

One more accomplishment from our trip a few weeks ago is Ryan's new love for swimming...under water! I had to be the mean mommie and limit his trips down under because he has tubes in his ears and we didn't have ear plugs for him. I never thought to bring ear plugs because he'd never had an interest in going underwater before this trip...so basically, he grew a little more right before my eyes in just these last few days. I am so proud of him. He learned about kicking his legs to get back up to the top, and he was fearless! Of course this means I will be keeping another cautious eye out for him all summer, but I always have, so that is really nothing new. Here's a quick couple of video's of our fearless, brave and handsome little fish:

(the lines on the video are the sun reflections on the pool)

HOME AGAIN, HOME AGAIN, JIGGETY JIG!

Well, I must say, I am so glad to be home! I wouldn't have thought so when we first left for the trip last week, but if you read my former post, you would probably agree with me, that our trip turned out to be more like the Griswolds vacation! We made it through with no more injuries, other than a slight sunburn. The kids and I are going down again in a couple of weeks with Nana and Papa so say a prayer that we can make it without any other drama's! As for Megan's finger, she's doing better with it, but she won't make a fist with that finger curled up, so we are going in for a recheck with our doctor tomorrow. She's probably fine, but the nail is still an ugly deep purple...she may still loose it, we'll have to wait and see.





Here are a few of my favorite photo's we took over the last week:



This pirate was outside a Piggly Wiggly in Port St. Joe...ironically, he looked like a former hairdresser of mine...haha













getting ready for our "family movie night" by watching a movie via Daddy's laptop.









The kids attacked Daddy and buried him!










The carnage continued...by piling seaweed on his head. The look on his face is his reaction when I told him that's the most hair he'd ever had on his head! LOL (good one, jen!)







We finally got to building that sand castle!

What kinda vacation IS this?

I'd like to write and report that we are on vacation, at the beach, having a lovely time building sandcastles, and swimming in the pool. I'd like to...but I can not. First off, this is a working vacation for Jon. The origional plan for this "vacation" was that we would leave on Saturday, go to Mexico Beach, and Jon would report to work on Monday through Tuesday, and we return home on Wednesday...but as it always does, plans change. Alot. A WHOLE lot. As a matter of fact this trip in no way resembles the itinerary that was origionally intended. On Thursday of last week, he was told he had to go to Orange beach THAT NIGHT because he had to be on a job site at 6am Friday for an inspection at 8am...which would in theory mean he'd be back at our hotel by 11 am and we'd spend the afternoon together. But, as it turned out we didn't arrive in OB until midnight Thursday, he got on the job at 6am, inspector didn't show up until 4 O CLOCK that day, and the kids and I had spent an entire day at the hotel alone, without food and drink (until I decided (with kids in tow) to cross a busy four lane road to a BP station to find something to eat!! The kids did eat a decent breakfast in the hotel cafe, but I elected to skip breakfast thinking Jon would be back soon, and the fact that the restaurant was pretty pricy-$18 for the kids alone!) As you can imagine, we were all irritated that things worked out that way, but we decided to believe that things wouldn't get worse than that. HA! We laugh at that thought now! We spend an entire day driving to Mexico Beach on Saturday and got turned around a bit...thus eating up our beach time. But, that's ok...we'll make the best of it. We get to our new hotel, get checked in, and the kids and I go up to the room. We are not in the room for more than 5 seconds and I hear Megan screaming to the top of her lungs! As I am still trying to get stuff into the room, they have gone and opened the balcony door, which caused a huge wind draft with the hotel room door still being open...the balcony door has slammed shut on her fingers and she is in a complete panic! I finally got her calmed down after about 10 minutes, and realize after inspection that it's just one finger...she may loose the nail on this one. I thought that would be it. Well, at about midnight last night, she is writhing in pain in the bed with me, kicking me and screaming in her sleep. I got very little sleep all night with her being in pain, and me not having anything to give her...no tylenol, no ibuprofen, nothing. After Jon get's up, I inform him that we are not going to the beach immediately but we need to get her finger checked...it could be broken. Well, since there is absolutely NOTHING in Mexico beach, we had to drive 30-40 minutes into Panama City to find a doctor...and after a 3 HOUR WAIT we discover that she has a hairline fracture in her finger, and they want to "evacuate the fingernail" because there is a blood clot under it...they do that by heating up a needle, and poking a hole in the nail to drain the blood. Yeah...discusting and painful as it sounds, it pretty much was. But she was a real trooper and didn't cry one bit. They put her finger in a splint and told her no swimming today.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

We are at the beach, yet we can't go to the beach because we're in the doc office for 3 hours, and add the hour traveling time, and now she can't swim today.

What kinda vacation is this?

Quite simply one we won't soon forget!

Megan is doing fine...proud of heself for being such a big girl, as are her proud and exhausted parents.

Jonathan reports to work tomorrow and Tuesday.

Hopefully we'll get some fun outta this trip! Tune in to this blog, for there may be more drama to report. Until then....here's a picture of our wounded hero:

One more video of the camping trip

See...they forgot all about getting muddy and decided it was all in fun. Haha.

Memorial Day slide show

Here are a few photos from the weekend...

Memorial Day MEMORIES...

I hope you all have had a restful weekend with an extra day off. Some people spend this time together for cookouts, some go to the beach, and some go camping. We did the latter. We joined my Mom and Dad camping up at the Ridge in Springville this past weekend, and took the kids with us. They had a great time riding with their Papa in the Razor and Jonathan was happy hogging the 4 wheeler all day long. I however, sat with Mom most of the day at the campsite, and we had a good time just sitting back, relaxing, and reading a book. What a wonderful weekend. I saw friends that I had not seen since I was a teenager, and that was nice...I made memories with my kids and my parents that we will all carry with us for a long time, and I had a great time relaxing. Thanks to my parents for inviting us to tag along for the fun!
Here are a few video's from the weekend...AND LET ME WARN YOU -THEY ARE PRICELESS! HAHA


Papa taking Megan and Ryan through the mud hole in the Razor:

And how did they feel about it, you ask?

...so, she doesn't like getting muddy-and Ryan's scream CRACKS ME UP!

But it didn't stop them from getting back on to ride again, AND they begged to go again all weekend...even cried when we packed up to come home!

Summer Lovin....havin a blast.

Ok, Ok...I know I haven't posted anything in quite a while...but really, we've been extreeeemly busy! And what little time I've had since school was over last week, I've been on a mental vacation-meaning, I've done VERY little of anything for the last few days. I've been a bum. I've been a slacker. I've been catching up on sleep, rest, and yes, fighting my summer cold. It's inevitable. The summer cold hits, and makes it's rounds among us. Ryan was the first to catch it, I'm getting over it and Ryan's still got it. Jonathan on the other hand...he had to "one up" us all. He decided to skip the summer cold, and go into a full fledge outbreak of POISON IVY from head to toe. Being the good little motivated husband that he is, he worked in the yard this weekend, clearing out the overgrown areas of the backyard, trying to clean up and beautify everything since we're wanting to sell the house. Well, all that work has consequences. He is home from work today because his poor hands and fingers are totally swollen and he can't move them. A trip to the doc yesterday resulted in a shot, and 2 prescriptions, but he is actually worse now. I feel his pain...being highly allergic to it myself, I got it after doing yard wok about 12 years ago, and it was then that I swore if off and promised NEVER to do it again! Landscaper, I aint! Yard Work, I won't! So much for having a pretty manicured yard around here....the weeds will just have to win, I guess.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

Today, I actually got out of the house with the kids. We packed a picnic lunch, and headed to the park. They had a blast playing around for about an hour or so. Here are a couple of shots I took today:

Then after the park, we walked into the library and signed the kids up for the summer reading program. I have really been battling Megan about reading lately. I want to encourage her to be a good reader, but for some reason, she went into a phase where she didn't want to read anymore. That was surprising me, since she's always loved to read. I finally figured out that she was intimidated by chapter books because it took so much longer to read them. She prefers the quick ending books, like Dr. Seuss, or her "Gigi, God's little Princess", etc. So, I decided that I needed to be a better example for her, and I need to read more books too. Lately, we've cut the TV off (gasp!), and had reading time. The Rules: both of the kids have to go get books to read, and Megan's has to be a chapter book. They can either read in the living room with me, or they can go to their bed. I tried letting them read outside, but it was too distracting for them because all they wanted to do was jump on the trampoline, or swing in the tire swing. Even though it was hard for them in the beginning (and yes, hard for me, because I really had to stick to my guns, and push it on them!), I can see improvements. Today at the library, we found a curio cabinet that had about 9 of the American Girl Dolls in them. Megan got so excited to see it and was thrilled to find out that they have the books there too. It will be great to check the books out there rather than purchasing them, but today's challenge was finding a book about the girl she wanted to read about, and finding the first in the series...we finally elected to read about "Julie" and unfortunately the first book wasn't available, but she really wanted the second...so who am I to say "NO" when she's BEGGING TO READ!? Wooo Hoo! VICTORY FOR MOM!
And what is my little angel doing right now?


Watching the dvd she checked out at the library...

Apparently, it was a small victory-and I still have some work to do. haha

SWEET LITTLE BROWNIE'S

Megan has really enjoyed doing Brownies this school year. Last week was one of the last meetings, and the troop went to a local Assited Living center to visit with the Seniors. The brought each of them flowers, a box of girl scout cookies, and then brought books to read and share with each of the residents. Megan shared her's with a really sweet lady who kept giving her hugs, and kisses. She was so very impressed with Megan and complimented her reading many times. I took a pic of them together, and the lady asked me if she could have one! I will have to send one to the nursing home for her.

Overall, it was a nice experience for Megan. She enjoyed herself, and I must say that a tear came to my eye at one point when I saw her interacting with the residents. Brownie's has been very good for her this year, and she is looking forward to more fun in the future.

Here are a few pics:

I'm APPRECIATED! (as a Teacher)

Today was a goodGREAT day! I was bombarded with kindness today as my precious little students arrived for class. This week is Teacher Appreciation week, and my sweet little angels arrived to class today with gifts in hand. And GOOD gifts too! Here are a few things I got:


















LOTS OF CANDY! (Seriously, I think I brought home 500 pounds of candy...or at least that is what I will weigh if I eat it all!!!)
I also got a cookie cake, but between my class, myself and my kids at home, it's just about gone...but it was gooooood!








One of my mom's owns a Home Decor store in Springville, and she gave me this birdhouse from her shop, and a bag full of Diet Dr. Pepper's (my favorite drink), and Hershey Kisses.










Lot's of cards, and homemade cards, and about $60 in Gift Certificates to eat out!!!!! Now I need a babysitter so Jonathan and I can have a date night!!!





It is certainly nice to feel loved and appreciated. I have truly had the most wonderful experience teaching preschool this year, and I am so very excited to do it again next year. The best part is, I'm graduating up to K3 with my current class, so chances are that I will have a lot of them again! I think the Lord has wonderful things in store for us next school year. Please remember HillDale Christian School in your prayers, and all of the teachers. We need them!