When the puke hits the fan...

and I mean than almost literally. Lately Brantley doesn't want to go to school. Every day it's something - my stomach hurts, head hurts, back hurts, you name it. Yesterday Brantley was complaining about everything. He wasn't running a fever so I made him go to school telling him I can't tell anymore when he truly is sick because he says he's sick all the time because he doesn't want to go to school. I told his teacher we've been having issues and she didn't understand it. She says he always seems very happy at school. He has lots of friends and he's fine academically so it's a mystery why he doesn't want to go so much. I think part of it may be that he's starting to hit puberty and the moodiness is setting in. When I picked him up yesterday he still was saying he didn't feel good. He went to bed at 8:00 (on his own accord) which is really unheard of for him. And then, shortly after 10 he got out of bed and came to get us and proceeded to puke all over the house. Why can't he learn - bathroom first then call for mom and dad? Needless to say we were up to close to midnight cleaning up the mess and keeping him up until we felt like he was done. And, we are home today. I feel guilty about making him go to school yesterday but as a mom you make the best decisions you can at the time. Oh well.

Hoot Scoot and Boogie

I'm a little sad that today was Brantley's last Hoot Scoot and Boogie. I have loved his elementary school and will miss it when he moves on to middle school. Just another reminder of how life passes you by if you are not paying attention. Here is Brantley trying to dunk his third grade teacher. You would think he could hit that target but he didn't. He really liked that teacher so I think he missed on purpose. ;)

Brantley is really excited about middle school. We even drove out to see the school he will be attending. It's going to be quite a change from what we are used to. His elementary school is a mile from our house and has a before and after school program. His middle school is 8 miles - in the opposite direction of going to work - with no before or after school program. I'm sure it's going to be lots more homework, lots more activities, and lots more homework. Oh, did I mention lots more homework?

Happy Birthday!

Double digits baby!

Opening Day!

It's time for some baseball! I've been scorekeeping for Brantley's teams for a while now and I really enjoy it. This year I'm stepping it up. I finally got an iPhone earlier this year and I found a baseball scoring app. I've been practicing with it since baseball practice started. It's a really cool app and I can record so many things. Also, it will gamecast the play by play on the internet real-time! Most people probably won't care, but I think some will really enjoy it. Especially those that are always making update phone calls during the game to update those that can't be there. They won't have to do that any more. Enjoy!

http://iscorecast.com

customer id is 9621A65A5B

Spring Break 2011

For Spring Break we went to Tampa for the week. We had beautiful weather, low 80s for highs and no rain. Of course we came home to highs in the 50s, but I digress. We spent several days at the beach. It wasn't too hot and the water wasn't too cold. I had never seen St. Pete beach. It was okay but the beach was very shelly. We also went to Sarasota witch was another first for me. The beach there was gorgeous. The sand was soft powder. Parking was terrible though. I would hate to see it in peak season, and we were there on a weekday!

Lawson and Brantley went to see some spring baseball training. There is a ton of spring training going on in Florida. They went to see the Yankees vs. the Blue Jays. The Yankees won. I went shopping while the boys were at the baseball game. I found a Nordstrom Rack really close to the stadium and scored 2 pairs of shoes. Then I spent the rest of the time perusing the mall. I didn't find any stores that I don't have here so that was kind of a bust.

We also went deep sea fishing for the first time. I wasn't going to go because I thought I would get really sea sick, but I really wanted to see Brantley on his first fishing trip. So, I sucked it up and took a couple dramamine and hoped for the best. We got really lucky because there were very few people on the boat. Brantley was the only kid on the boat so he had a deck hand fishing with him the whole time. They made sure he caught lots of fish. As we were cruising out to our first fishing location they were trolling. They gave one of the poles to Brantley and he caught the first fish of the trip, a spanish mackeral. It was an ugly fish with teeth! We caught several red groupers but they had to be thrown back because they were not big enough to keep. They had to be 20 inches in order to keep them. We ended the day with 29 fish, most of which Brantley caught. He caught a couple of black sea bass and the rest I wasn't sure what they were. Other fish we saw or caught that had to be thrown back included a lizard fish (caught by me), a sea robin, a couple of puffer fish, and a shark sucker.

After we came back the deck hands cleaned our fish for us. The pelicans were at the doc waiting. They get all of the fish parts that are thrown away - easy food for them! There were also a couple of egrets and a heron there waiting some fish. One egret actually swooped down while the guy wasn't looking and swiped one of our fish fillets. Once cleaned, you can take some of your fish to the restaurant and they will cook it up for you. Brantley actually tried some of the fish, but decided he'd rather have a hamburger. At least he tried it!

On our last trip to Tampa we went to Busch Gardens. Brantley really enjoyed it so we went again this year. This year he was tall enough to ride everything (there were 2 roller coasters he wasn't tall enough to ride last time.) He wasn't brave enough to ride the 2 big roller coasters but rode most everything else. We also got to see kanagaroos for the first time. They are interesting looking animals. What stuck out to me was their back foot. It looked like a really long finger.

Thanks to Aunt Betty for putting up with us. She's always very gracious in letting us stay with her. And thanks to Aunt Faye for cooking us lunch while we visited Sarasota. Next time we'll have to spend a couple of days there!

Enjoy the pics (if you click on the slide show you should be able to flip through the photos and see some video clips)--

Book Trouble

Friday Brantley asked me for a book. He wanted Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. I didn't ask why but said we could look for it. I had a B&N gift card so we went to look around Saturday. They had the book, but Brantley said it had the wrong cover. What do you mean it has the wrong cover - me thinking about the old saying don't judge a book by it's cover. Brantley seemed upset but would not tell me why we couldn't buy this book. We left the book store without said book. So, Sunday Brantley copped up to what happened. They have a book club in his class and he had a copy of that particular book. Somehow the cover got ripped off the book, no doubt it happened while he hurriedly yanked it out of his desk at school. He was so worried about it and just wanted to get a replacement. I explained to him that all he needed to do was let Ms. B. know what happened and give her the replacement book. It wouldn't matter that the cover was different. So Lawson and Brantley went out Sunday to pick up the book. Brantley insisted that I go in with him when he gave the book to his teacher. I really don't know why he was so worried about it. He showed her the torn book and told her he bought a replacement. She thanked him for the replacement and told him that was perfect. He had a problem and he solved it. She asked where the cover was for the original book and told him she could probably fix it (what I also told him I would do) if he had it. He was very relieved. When I picked him up today I asked if he found the cover and he happily said yes. Problem solved.

More snow!

Something is amiss in the world because we got more snow! I think we've had more snow this winter than we have had in the past 10 years of winters.

Fitness Challenge

I challenged Brantley a couple weeks ago but we really didn't get started yet until today. The challenge is to see how many sit-ups and push-ups can be done, with correct form, without stopping. We are building up until the end of February. Brantley plays a lot of sports, but he's not really doing anything to be "fit". We are using some helpers with this challenge. We have the perfect push-up which actually makes the push-ups harder although I do think it helps Brantley's form. And, we have the Ab Rocket. It's really nice because it takes the strain off your neck while still letting you abs work hard. We've been sporadic the last couple weeks, but today I wrote down how many we each did. I did a whopping 10 push-ups and 50 sit-ups. Brantley did 20 push-ups (with not quite so perfect form) and he pushed through to do 100 sit-ups. We''ll see if we can keep it up.