On the Road Again

It was another wonderful Saturday for The Parks family.  We headed west to the University of South Florida to attend the high school graduation of my god brother.  Our families have known each other as long as I can remember, my dad was his dad's college basketball coach, and I can definitely remember when this child was born.  I'm still trying to figure out how someone born in the 90's can have a high school diploma...it blows my mind.  Anyway, here are some pictures from today. It was a beautiful day full of great company and delicious food!  Congratulations, Kevin!  

 

Five!

What a week for the Park's Family!  So much to talk about...where do I start?  (Warning...this is going to be a LONG one).

Let's start with last Sunday when Terry informed me that the week ahead of us would have a theme.  The theme for the week:  FIVE.   Clearly that's because last Friday, the 22nd, Terry and I would be celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary!  Yay!  Anyway, he decided instead of doing our run-of-the-mill dinner and movie anniversary celebration, he would make it a week o' fun for me.  I was very excited, needless to say.  Surprises came daily…Monday:  A $5 footlong from Subway and a relaxing lunch together.  Tuesday:  $5 bills and $5 worth of nickels.  Wednesday:  A 5" digital picture frame for my desk at work.  Thursday: A $55.55 gift card to Tropical Smoothie (I LOVE LOVE LOVE a good mango peach smoothie from Tropical Smoothie…I get the "Mango Magic" smoothie and substitute the pineapple for peaches).  Friday: I'll get to Friday in a second.  It was so exciting to get little surprises everyday and stretch out the celebration over the entire week.  Thanks, TParks! 

Getting back to Friday…it was also Teacher Appreciation Week at BCC Montessori School.  All week parents were asked to bring in in flowers/treats/etc, but their gift on Friday was a "kid-free" lunch. Parents were asked to volunteer to sit in the classrooms during lunch so this would be possible.  Terry talked me into doing this, and I'm so glad he did!  We had a great time!  Luckily we had 4 parents (including me and Terry) to volunteer in the toddler classroom with 8 toddlers.  It was a wonderful ratio!  We sat with the kids as they ate lunch and went down for a nap.  TJ and Olivia were SO happy to see us and interact with us at school!  They introduced us to all of their friends (as if we didn't know them already) and were so excited to have us there for lunch.  I thought TJ and Olivia were excited when I showed up…but it was NOTHING compared to when Daddy showed up.  

Olivia could hardly contain herself. Do you see this smile?! 

Here is their classmate, Jolie, offering Terry one of their miniature sized chairs.  I had to take a picture...

Here are some more pictures from our afternoon in the toddler classroom.  

We were there a little longer than we expected, which threw off our plans to go to Five Guys (sticking with the "Five" theme), but it was well worth it.  We were able to go home and get the truck packed up so we could head to DeBary for the long weekend.  Mom and Tara offered to keep the kids while Terry and I went out to celebrate our actual anniversary.  Although I do not have any pictures, after picking a mango-peach Tropical Smoothie we headed to Disney and enjoyed a nice stroll around The Boardwalk, Yacht Club and Beach Club Resorts before finally settling to eat at Outback (not our first, second, or fifth choice for that matter, but we enjoyed each other's company!).  We'll try and plan better next time.  So much for being spontaneous! 

Two days after our 5th anniversary, my parents celebrated their 35th anniversary.  How wonderful!  Mom had a suggestion to take an afternoon trip to St. Augustine as a family so Mom and Dad drove up in one car; and Terry, Tara, the kids and I packed up in another and headed up north.  It was an absolutely beautiful day!  After a weekend of scattered thunderstorms we didn't run into one drop of rain while there.  Good times...

It was also a special trip for Terry and I because downtown St. Augustine was the site of our wedding…how appropriate to go back and visit after 5 years (almost to the day).  We went back to Ancient City Baptist Church, the site of the wedding ceremony…

...and to Casa Monica Hotel, the site of our wedding reception.

We ran into one of Terry's old players that he coached while at UNF which was a pleasant surprise (he was even taller than I remembered!) and even saw a bride and her bridal party on their way to a wedding!   

The icing on the cake was visiting Kilwin's, my FAVORITE ice cream parlor.  I was first introduced to Kilwin's while living in St. Augustine and am SO lucky to have one here in Melbourne.  Their toasted coconut ice cream is to die for.  Tara decided on my first love, Georgia Peach.  It was deeee-wicious (as TJ and Olivia say).  We took a self portrait eating our ice cream, but didn't quite get the ice cream in the picture...oh well;)

The kids were so exhausted that they slept the entire way home.  

We stayed in DeBary until late Monday night enjoying my family's company. The kids enjoyed being "cowboys and cowgirls" with Gpa...

...and a little "Johnson Montessori" before bathtime was a perfect ending to a wonderful week!

I think it's time for bed now!  Good night!

Mother's Day Weekend

The Parks family enjoyed a nice weekend.  It began with my first hand-made Mother's Day gifts from my kids (compliments of good ol' BCC Montessori).  I got two ceramic hearts painted in a beautiful "I mixed every color available and it turned out deeeep purple/black-ish" color along with two potted plants.  Olivia's plant has purple flower petals and TJ's apparently has orange flowers, but I can't quite tell yet because he picked off all of the petals before the gift was complete.  I sure hope it's a resilient plant like the one that I had in college that had 9 lives. Maybe I'll even plant them outside so mother nature can nurture them…on second thought.  I don't do the 'outside'.  Too many creatures and animals are out there. 

Anyway, the weekend started out with just me and the kids on Friday night as Terry was recruiting in Miami.  The kids behaved very well for Mommy.  Olivia still has a rough time sleeping in her bed.  She always does her best to get us to come get her when we put them to bed, and through it all TJ falls right asleep.  Friday was no different, but this time she cried herself to sleep.  But before I went to bed, I decided to go make sure that their blankets were covering them and this is what I found.  (You can even see TJ's head in the background). 

Bless her heart!  Especially since the night before, she had cried herself to sleep on the floor.   She really doesn't like that bed...  

Saturday, when Terry returned home we packed up the truck and headed to DeBary.  I decided that even though we didn't have the results back from TJ's allergy testing that we would give ol' DeBary a try because I was going through withdrawal. The last two times we visited DeBary TJ broke out into hives and a rash so I was a little hesitant to return.  I am so glad we did because, as always, the kids enjoyed seeing everyone…but of course, everyone was equally as happy to see TJ and Olivia!   (So far so good with TJ...no signs of any hives this time.  Yay!)

Mother's Day was lovely:)  Probably because Terry remembered that I was actually a mother this year!  (Last year, not so much!).  After church we took the kids to the park to run around in the fountains. It was a beautiful 96 degree sunny day.  The kids absolutely loved it.  We enjoyed the fountains for quite some time by ourselves before the big kids started arriving and messing it up for us.  Here are some pics of TJ and Olivia having fun in the fountains:)

TJ playing with G-Ma's umbrella.  They LOVE umbrellas...

They were a little hesitant at first...

In fact, the first time that Olivia got soaked she ran to her Daddy!

But soon enough, they were off!

Even the ABCs provided entertainment!

Tara showed up a few hours before we headed back to Palm Bay:)  The kids were ecstatic to see their Ti-ti!

And after about 8 tries, we were finally able to get a Mother's Day 2009 picture with everyone looking at the camera!

Needless to say it was a wonderful weekend!

Don't Drink that Water!

Terry and I just got the kids out of their school clothes and sent them to their bathroom for a bath.  We were lagging a behind a little because we started talking about something and suddenly we heard the toilet seat SLAM down.  

Terry went in the bathroom and this is what I heard:  

TJ:  I drink da wata!

Terry:  Oh no, don't drink that water!  Oh, have mercy...  (I can imagine that Terry put his head down, closed his eyes and shook his head while he was saying this...)

Terry:  Olivia, did you drink this water, too?  (sigh)

I guess the one good thing about them not using the toilet yet, no matter how long they sit on it,  is that the water is fairly clean!  

...off to do some laundry!  Good night!

March for Babies 2009

It has just occurred to me that I've been blogging for 1 year and 1 month!  I know this because I remember last year's March of Dimes walk being one of my first posts on my blog.  Anyway, we have just returned from the annual March for Babies.  This is our 3rd year participating with the kids and once again it was a success! The red wagon served us well as walked around Melbourne to support one of our favorites charities.   The kids really enjoyed the extra long wagon ride along with Mickey and Minnie and lots of juice and snacks.  Here are some pictures!  Thanks to my coworker April for being such a willing photographer so we could a family pic:)   Enjoy!

Loading up in the wagon!

And we're off!

We made it!

Is it May already?!

Where has the time gone?!  It's been awhile since I've posted.  Here are some pictures of the kids' first trip to the bookstore...we went to Books-a-Million while we were out and about a few weeks ago. For as much as they LOVE books, I'm not exactly sure why we haven't been before now. I think it was just easier to bring the books to them. As you can see they enjoyed themselves...

We also had a visit from one of my oldest friends from Deltona, Tonya, last week. Not sure how long we've known each other, but I definitely have a newspaper clipping of us when we placed 2nd and 3rd in our 2nd grade spelling bee at Enterprise Elementary. Anyway, she was nice enough to drive to Palm Bay while she was in town from Maryland. The kids warmed right up to her. She became an honorary member of the Parks Band:)

Last weekend I went out of town for a girls weekend with Star and her childhood friend, Carmen. We had a great time in Charlotte. If Charlotte were in Florida I'd definitely live there:) The kids stayed with Terry for the weekend and my mom was nice enough to stay over on Saturday night to help. It's always nice when G-ma comes to town! Unfortunately I had the camera in Charlotte so no pictures were taken of the kids, but here is a picture of me in Charlotte with Star and Carmen.  Good times...

Tomorrow morning we will be walking in the March of Dimes March for Babies again. I think we will take our trusty red wagon and pull the kids instead of using the stroller like we did last year. I will be sure to post pictures after the walk:)

Good night!