May 2021

For Mother's Day dinner I requested steak and crab legs. So yummy!

After church we went for a walk on the beach:

In the morning the boys made me eggs while I was out running and wanted me to eat them on the front porch and watch them ride their ATV's.

My eggs:

A few days earlier Rett made me eggs because it was "Mother's Day week".

James asked if he could borrow my phone to video this crazy thing he saw in our shed. He discovered a garter snake trying to eat a huge toad! He took a video of it and afterward the toad ended up getting away. Crazy!

A few friends invited us to a Mother's Day beach party and it was a beautiful day for it. Rett only wanted to be buried in the sand so that he could "relax".

For teacher appreciation week the morning duty teachers had to hold these "Honk if you love teachers" signs for the cars at drop off. It was so weird to be honked at all morning!

James's cub scout pack had their final crossover/campout of the school year and since we skipped all of the previous ones this year we decided to buckle down and endure this one. The weather actually wasn't that bad! It was breezy and not too hot. 

Rett was cranky so I told him to just sit and read a book. That usually works for me!

The boys found a skink:

In the morning we tried to do a little fishing. We didn't even get a little nibble, but it was beautiful!

On our way to the dock, we found wild blackberries. They were crazy sour!

Practicing rope tying with the scouts:

James getting his achievements from the cubmaster:

The entire pack:

James's den:

Silly picture:

Next is was time for the crossover! James is officially a 2nd year Webelo.

That night James stayed with his pack while Anthony and I took Rett home. When his den leader dropped him off at home he told me that he was crazy dirty from all their adventures in the woods and by the campfire. I put James straight in the bathtub and this is what the bathwater looked like. Now that is a good time!

Anthony bought himself a man-shaped punching bag for practicing his karate and it scares me every single time I walk by it. It doesn't matter how many times I remind myself that it isn't a real person, when I see the shape out of the corner of my eye I jump! Now we always keep it covered and pushed to the side of the room.

Cub scout campfire:

Cub scouts waiting after crossing over:

The 4th grade got to have a small field trip of walking across the street from the school to visit a small city historical society and listen to presentations about local history. To make it more fun, our family offered to pay for Kona Ice to visit the school and give the kids snow cones before they started on their field trip. It was a big hit!

I've started scheduling my walmart grocery pickups for Saturday mornings and the earliest I can schedule it is about an hour after I go running with my running group. So I've started walking on the beach for a little bit while I'm waiting for my groceries. It is usually totally deserted and always beautiful.

I even caught a rainbow!

While my mom and brother were in town, we took a quick trip to Orlando to go shopping. Rett couldn't go with us since his class got quarantined. Rett didn't mind at all, he loved being able to stay home and play on the ipad as much as he wanted. For lunch we stopped at this pizza place and the pizza slices were huge!!

Rett trying on my blue-light filtering glasses:

I got a picture of James cuddling with Baymax on the couch. He is so big, he takes up almost the entire couch!

I saw a challenge online where you take a photo of your pet and put it side by side with what they are named after. I thought Baymax's turned out great!!

For Memorial Day weekend, we took a quick trip Trenton to visit my mom. It was at the peak of harvest time for the watermelon fields around her town and there is a watermelon processing facility down the street from her house. So the entire time we were there we constantly saw all different types of buses transporting watermelons.

We decided to take the boys to Gainesville to watch the bats come out on campus. I used to do this all the time when I was growing up, but back then there was only one bat house. Now there are three! There were so many bats, it is supposed to be the largest colony in all of Florida.

Coming out:

James was dying to swim in somebody's pool while we were at my mom's. We tried to go to my brother's pool at his apartment complex but it was closed due to COVID (why??). Luckily my mom's neighbor took pity on us and let the boys come over and swim in their pool.

So many turkeys at our house!!

Rett's class had their little awards ceremony (they didn't have a large one for each grade this year like they usually do). I only got to see it since I work at the school, and Rett was looooving the fact that he was the only one with a parent that got to come. He got the "Book worm" and "Future Author" award because he is always reading or making his own comic books during free time.

On the last day of school I went around and made sure to visit all my students and give them a little goodbye surprise from my treasure box and wish them a happy summer. I had been looking forward to summer for a looooong time, but I was surprisingly emotional saying goodbye to these little stinkers!

On the last day of school, each grade got an hour of field day activities. Rett was excited for all of it!

Especially the extra playground time:

Pillowcase races:

For the last half of the day, one of the administrators asked us if we would rather help with some makeup standardized testing or help give out Kona Ice to the entire school. We all couldn't stand the idea of more testing and thought Kona Ice sounded fun. We then proceeded to give out Kona Ice for three straight hours in pouring, torrential rain! We were all soaked to the bone!! When the administrator came out at the end of the day and saw what we had to do while she did the testing in her dry office, she laughed so hard. It was a crazy end to a crazy year!

To celebrate the end of school, we took the boys out to eat at a Hibachi restaurant. They absolutely loved it!

Rett's adorable class: