ACP Training

This week has been particularly crazy and stressful. In addition to work and my summer school classes, I had my Alternative Certification Training all week. There is sooo much to do, and such little time to do it in! I keep trying to tell my self that there are only a couple of weeks left, and then I will be done!!!

The boys are doing well, and gearing up for school to start next month. Ryan picked out his new backpack, binder, and lunch box yesterday, so he is a happy camper. 3rd grade marks the first year that he has needed a binder for school, so he went all out. The binder that he picked out has pockets for this and pouches for that - it holds EVERYTHING! It is pretty cool, and he is super excited!!!

Gabriel is counting down the days until he is able to start Kindergarten (or as he calls it, the Big School)! Nearly every morning when he wakes up, he asks me if it is time for him to go to Kindergarten yet! It is hard to believe that both boys will be in school this year...!

Sunny Mexico....

This is the first chance I have had to upload some of the pictures from our vacation.... better late than never, right?!?

We had a blast! We went with our friends Jason and Melissa Tipton. Manuel and Jason grew up together, and Jason was the best man in our wedding. We don't get to see them much anymore, so it was nice to be able to spend the week with them "bonding" again! I told Melissa I didn't know who the vacation was for more.... us or Manuel and Jason!

We stayed at the Grand Riviera Princess in Riviera Maya, which is between Cancun and Playa Del Carmen. We left on Monday, June 23, and came back that Friday. They boys were able to spend the week with my grandparents and my mom. Although we missed them, it was nice to get away with out them.

We dropped the boys off Saturday in Abilene before we left. When we got to town, I got my hair cut, and them my mom talked me into getting an air brush tan (although I think she used me as a guinea pig just to see how it looked before she decided if she wanted to do it)! I was definitely tan when I got done - in fact, as Hayley put it, I looked like a Mexican version of Brittny! Every time Manuel and I looked at my face in the mirror Saturday and Sunday, we both cracked up laughing because my face was so dark. It lightened up a lot by the time we left on Monday, so I'm not sure if you can tell in the pictures, but it was pretty funny!

Our flight Monday was scheduled to leave at 9 AM. We boarded the plane at 8:30 AM, and then had to sit there for 3 hours while they tried to fix a faulty sensor switch. We were finally able to take off around 11:30 (which was when we were supposed to be landing!). We watched 2 movies on the plane waiting to get there! Once we landed, it was not long before we were in the shuttle on our way to the resort.

Our room and view were amazing! We even had a jacuzzi on our terrace overlooking the beach! We were not able to get any dinner reservations at the speciality restaurants, but were able to eat all we wanted at the buffets, which were not too bad (although the breakfast buffets were definitely my favorite)!

Melissa drew this in the sand to commemorate our trip - I thought it was a great idea (even if we weren't exactly in Cancun!)! =0)

We spent all day Tuesday on the beach. I even bought a big floppy hat to try to help keep from getting so sunburned!

Wednesday we took a Lobster Dinner Cruise. It was on a replica of the Columbus. It was nice, although the crew tried to push it too hard as a "romantic" cruise, that it was pretty cheesy! There was a guy named "Don Pepe" playing the sax to love songs and all of the ladies received flowers upon boarding. It was still fun, though! It had been overcast most of the day, so we didn't get a full sunset, but it was still pretty.

On Thursday we went into Playa Del Carmen to do a little shopping. As soon as we boarded the shuttle, it started raining. The driver kept driving and gave a little grin as he told us to get off of the bus in the rain! We decided that little rain never hurt anyone, and set out to see what we could find. In the end, we didn't end up finding much of anything, but we still had fun!

This picture cracks me up - that is Jason behind me... I have no idea what he was doing, but I thought it was pretty funny!

Melissa and I found a restaurant that looked good for lunch. We let the waiter talk us into a sampler platter that Manuel and I split, and this is what he came out with. The plate was huge! It covered nearly 1/2 of the table. Of course, we did a pretty good job of finishing it off (or at least Manuel did)! We ate pretty much everything except for the sausages.... they looked a little scary!

For those of you from DFW, you will appreciate this picture. On one of the radio stations here, one of the DJ's bought a bar in Playa - Big Al and Redneck Steve's Beer Bucket. This was a must see on our agenda for that day!

While we were shopping, Manuel and Jason had to buy themselves a Cuban cigar..... Manuel looks so deep in thought here - he smoked the entire cigar that night!

Here is the 4 of us on Friday before we headed out. We were ready to see the kids, but not quite ready to come back to the "real world"! I can't wait to see what our next vacation brings us!

Summer Pics

Here are a few pictures of the boys so far from this summer. I will download some vacation pictures tomorrow.

Gabriel's Baseball Team

Ryan's End of Season Party

Gabriel got a cowboy set for his Pre-K Graduation. He had to dress up like a cowboy everyday for a week!

Ryan's Green Belt Test - he is the little guy up front in the sparring gear!

The boys are moving on up the ranks in Karate. Ryan was able to skip his Green Belt Recommended and go straight to Green Belt Decided after his 1 week Karate Day Camp. He was super excited! At this rate, he will be a black belt by 9 or 10! WOW!

On Father's Day, Manuel and Gabriel were in a Adult / Youth fishing tournament. The tournament is a series that he takes turns taking each of the boys to, it just happened to turn out to be Gabriel's tournament that day. They didn't catch anything this time, but they still had a great time!

Long time coming....

Wow - I didn't realize that it had been so long since I last updated our blog! Things around here have been absolutely crazy! Since my last blog, I have completed the Summer 1 session at Wesleyan, taken and passed the EC-4 Generalist TExES exam, and went on vacation for a week in Riveria Maya, Mexico. Let me tell you, I am definitely looking forward to relaxing over the long weekend, which is one of the first free weekends I have had in a very long time (although I have a mountain of laundry waiting for me)! =0)

The boys have been going to the YMCA day camp this summer, and are having a lot of fun, but are also absolutely exhausted in the evenings. They take a field trip once a week, swim once a week, and have another day during the week that they play water games. Baseball ended last week, which was a good thing since it is now so hot outside.

The boys also had another karate test a couple of weeks ago. Ryan is now a green belt decided, and Gabriel is a double green. They are working diligently towards being ready for their purple belts when the August testing rolls around.

I will try to get some pictures downloaded either tonight or tomorrow to post. There are several, so it may be hard to choose from!