Sister Blue

Spring Break 2010, Part II

Next stop, Corpus Christi!  We decided to go ahead and stop at the Texas State Aquarium before checking into our hotel on the island.  It was fun and we saw some pretty cool stuff, however, all in all we weren't that impressed.  I am not sure what we had in mind but this wasn't it.

 

The kids standing under the entry arch that had a water fall over it:

Pretty cool seeing a shark swimming amongst the fish and not eating them!

 

A view of Corpus Christi Bay from outside the Aquarium:

This turtle seemed to be making sure we saw the warning sign!

 

The USS Lexington. We meant to go tour it but ran out of time:

 

We thought our hotel was on Mustang Island but kept seeing Padre Island signs....turns out we were staying on Padre Island!  Thankfully we were on the North end and there wasn't a whole lot of partying going on!

This is one of my favorite photos from the whole trip:

 

 

Sara thought Tanner was so cool when he wrote his name in the sand!  She wanted to try it, too!

 

Our hotel on the beach:

 

Another one of my favorites:

 

 

 

 

The weather pretty much sucked when we were on the coast.  We did have a few hours of fun before a thunderstorm came in and then a cold front came right behind it.  We decided to start home that afternoon and the temperature never rose above 45 degrees all the way to Abilene.  They were getting snow in the DFW area that day.  The entire state was unseasonably cold when we chose to go to the beach.....bad luck for us, but we still have many fun memories!

***The song playing is the on the Zac Brown Band cd that we gave Marcus for Valentine's Day.  When we were driving from Corpus to our hotel on the beach we played this song, loud!  Sara never said a word....two or three days after we were home, Sara and I were driving to school and she said "Mom, play that beach song...you know 'I got my toes in the water, grass in the sand'!"  I have never laughed so hard in my life!  Needless to say that is how we will be singing it from now on!

Spring Break 2010, Part I

First stop, San Antonio!  We had a great trip down & all Sara could talk about was the beach.  She has been talking about the beach since she has been talking!  We knew that Sea World would be far more fun for her but could not have convinced her of that!

Tanner was such a good sport with things like this for Sara:

The first show we saw was called Azul...it is a new show with dolphins & had a Cirque du Soleil feel to it:

     

This guy was pretty funny...he came out before the show and played around with the crowd, getting the first few rows of people pretty darn wet!  He turned out to be one of the trainers and spent the rest of the show in the water with the dolphins....we wanted to see this show again but ended up missing it.

 

Kelsey & her family happened to be going the same day we did so we hung out with them a lot of the day!  Sara was thrilled about that....remember she thinks this is her friend Kelsey, not Tanner's!

 

The next show we saw was 'Believe', Shamu's show.....it was pretty plain and simple.  Scaled way back from what I remember having seen before, I suspect in light of the events @ the Orlando Sea World just days before.  The trainers did not get in the water with the killer whales but instead commanded them from the safety of the sidelines so to speak.

 

 

A baby Shamu, swimming along side his mother....I think they said he was born in January:

 

 

 

Big Bird just happened to be having a beach party at Sea World this week:

 

 

 

This show was called 'The Cannery Row Caper'.....the guy, the girl and the sea lion were trying to figure out who was stealing all of the fish....

 

This little otter turned out to be the caper:

 

and this huge Walrus ate them all!  {See the fish bones hanging inside the shed? Ha!} She asked him how he was going to lose the weight he gained from eating all of those fish & the dang walrus started doing sit-ups!  It was so funny!

 

Sara with Kelsey's sister, Sarah!  The line for this little roller coaster was about an hour long so she only got to ride it once.  {The ride lasted about 60 seconds.}

 

 

Sara & Sarah:

 

Watching the dolphins in the feeding pool:

 

 

The Penguin Exhibit:

 

 

We were thinking of little Ryan while in here!

 

I still cannot believe I let my little Sara go on this raft ride....my family knows exactly why I say that!  {Six Flags near death experience.}  Notice I was no where near the ride!  Tanner was just too tired to wait in line, this was the end of our day the line was a little over an hour long.

 

 

Our Family, Sea World San Antonio, March 2010:

The end of the road for our Panthers

When you see the news crews at these basketball games you never know what editing they will do and what shots will actually be aired....this time, Tanner landed on the news!  We missed it last night but heard about it so I went and found the clip online and was able to share it here.... we were the first boys game covered in the clip, I think around 2:08 into the video if you want to skip right to it!  Pretty cool!

(Be sure to stop the music player so you can hear the newscast!}

Here is the link to the video if it doesn't load on this page automatically!

Bi-District Champs!

Woo hoo! We won our first playoff game last night, earning ourselves a Bi-District Champs 2010 title!

I knew I would forget to take a picture of the scoreboard after the game so I snapped one with 46.1 seconds left, before all of the excitement began!

 

We are so PROUD of our Panthers!

 

Our Seniors with the trophy:  

 

 

 

Happy Valentines Day!

A couple of photos from our family gift exchange:

 

Sara finally got the Pinocchio dvd:

Tanner finally got some '3 star' ping pong balls:

 

Mommy-O got a new book to read, the sequel to "Eat, Pray, Love":

 

And then there is Daddy-O.  Poor Daddy-O got the same thing that he got last year, literally.  You see last year for Valentines Day we got him the Zac Brown Band cd.  And he returned it.  This year he said, "If you need an idea for me for Valentines Day, I think I would like to have that Zac Brown Band cd!"  So we got him it and the Lady Antebellum cd!  {He better not return them!}

  

Daddy-O got his girls each a rose!

 

 

Mommy-O trying to show Sara the face she was making when she smelled the flowers!

 

My, oh my.

As parents of Seniors, we are supposed to be gathering a handful of pictures of our child from over the years.  I couldn't help but share them here as well......where does the time go?

OCTOBER 1994 - age 2

{Preschool Picture}

MAY 1997 - age 5

{Kindergarten Graduation}

 

JUNE 2000 - age 8

{ring bearer in Callie & Jason's Wedding}

 

AUGUST 2001 - age 9

{4th Grade School Photo}

 

MAY 2003 - age 11

{last day of 5th grade}

 

AUGUST 2005 - age 13

{8th Grade School Photo}

 

JULY 2006 - age 14

{performing at the 4th of July}

 

NOVEMBER 2009 - age 17

{one of his Senior Pictures}

 

Tanner vs. Reece {Round 1}

This is the first time Tanner and Reece have gotten to play each other since the 9th grade!  I got some really cool shots last night and wanted to share!

This is the sign that our shop bought to help support our teams & decorate our new gym:

 

This shot cracks me up!  Tanner and Reece were talking while waiting for the rebound....forgot to ask Tanner what they were saying to each other!

 

Go Reece!

 

Go Tanner!

 

 

 

Yep, two goofballs.

 

His friends parents are pretty awesome, too!

So our snowstorm hit and left us with a four day weekend!  The kids were out of school yesterday and today. {They will unfortunately have to make the days up later in the Spring.}  Marcus went on to work today and told Tanner to do some shoveling on the driveway.  Tanner had been outside for about a minute when I heard something abnormal coming from our driveway......

 

Who? What? Where? When? Ha! It was Rachel's dad coming to clear our driveway for us!  Tanner swears he didn't call him but the timing was incredible!

 

Thanks a ton, Mark!  If Marcus had been here he might would have wanted to hop in with you and go play around town!

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Sara is dying to get outside and play in the snow.....hopefully her daddy will take her out this afternoon or in the morning and I will have some more 'winter' photos to post!

Tanner has some AWESOME friends :)

On Tuesdays and Fridays (game days!) Jacob and Jonny come over to play ping pong with Tanner.  Every single time they come in, Sara follows them right into the basement and stays down there pretty much the entire time, unless she gets bored....they never tell her to leave.  I have thought a hundred times how patient Tanner is with his 13 year younger sister and I just can't believe how his friends are with her.  A week or so ago, Sara had been setting up my birthday party {glad I don't really have birthdays as often as she throws me a party!} for at least an hour when the boys came in.  As usual, she followed them into the basement.  In a few minutes I heard her saying "This way, follow me!"  Of course I followed too!  This is what I found:

 

These guys are simply AMAZING!  They are all Seniors and are so patient and good with Sara. A couple of weeks ago Sara told us that Jacob was her boyfriend! A few days after that, we ran into Jonny and his girlfriend out eating....after we left, I said "Jonny's girlfriend sure is pretty!"  To this Sara frowned.  I asked her what was wrong.  She said "I am Jonny's girlfriend!" Oh heaven help us!

2009

Since I don't mail out a letter each year with our Christmas cards, I decided this year to do a recap in photos here on the old blog....here goes!

JANUARY

 

We rented scaffolding and remodeled our living room.  You can see more here.

 FEBRUARY

 

Sara fell into the fireplace and knocked one tooth out and her 4 bottom front teeth loose. I didn't post too much of the story at that time but there are a couple of other photos here.

MARCH

Track season! You can see a few more track photos here.

APRIL

 

Tanner turned 17!  There are a few more birthday photos in this post. 

MAY

 

Marcus turns the big 4-0! Here are some other photos from his birthday!

JUNE

 

Sara turned 4 {and has Hopper in her hands in this photo!}  You can see more about Hopper here and can see more birthday party pictures here!

JULY

 

We traveled to North Dakota and had a lot of fun with family! More photos from this trip can be seen here.

AUGUST

 

Sara had her first trip to Wonderland!  There are a few more fun photos here.

SEPTEMBER

 

Sara got her ears pierced!  There are a couple more photos here.

I did Tanner's Senior pictures myself....3 different days and over 1000 shots.  He wasn't happy.  You can see a few more of them here and here and here. 

OCTOBER

 

Sara was Dorothy for Halloween....there are a few more photos of Dorothy here.

 

Wow....marching season!  It kept us busy for a few weeks! It was such a whirlwind and ended in such a disappointment that I never really posted much about it.....I am still sad.

NOVEMBER

 

We traveled to South Dakota for Grandpa Barnes' funeral. There are a few more photos from our trip here.

DECEMBER

 

Basketball season is here!  We have a fun filled couple of months ahead of us with basketball!  We can't wait!