Gator Championship Celebration

STILL catching up...

We promised Drew and Abby that we would take them to UF for the celebration if the Gators won the national title. And, that's just what we did!

We met up with our friends to tailgate a little before the celebration began. The boys had a great time tossing around the football before we ate our picnic lunch.


Here is a picture of all the dads and kids - so fun!


This was Abby's first time ever at the Swamp! Daddy spent a lot of time teaching her the different Gator cheers and she was so excited to see where the Gators play football!


Here's our little family getting ready to watch the big celebration!


The boys...


And, the girls...


The Pollock family joined us in the stadium which was perfect since Matt and Todd had gone to the game together.

Abby loves Mr. Todd -


Almost as much as she loves cheering for the Gators!



It was very crowded down in the front row, but I used my son's sweet face to secure us a spot right in front just in case any of the players walked by. And, it was definitely worth it. Drew got Joe Haden's autograph on his Gator helmet!


Tim Tebow ran right by us so I was able to get a great picture of him. We were all ecstatic after his announcement that he would return for his senior year with the Gators. Next year should be very exciting!


Abby met one of the Gator cheerleaders and it made quite an impression. She dresses up like a cheerleader all the time now!


Time to go home...


But, it sure was nice to look up at this as we were leaving!


I promise, no more Gator posts for awhile... :)

Champions!

still catching up from last month...

Our Gators are the 2008 National Champions and we are ecstatic! Seems like I need to get this picture published somewhere - Tebow and Harvin - what an awesome year!!


As I mentioned before, my Christmas gift to Matt was a ticket to the Championship game down in Miami. Here is Matt with the kids in the morning before he left - all in their Gator gear!


As soon as we won the SEC Championship, I knew I wanted Matt to be able to go to the game. It all worked out so that Matt could go to the game with one of his favorite guys, Toddy P. They tailgated all day long and met up with many old fraternity brothers - they had a great time!


We knew that Matt's cousin Joanna would be there tailgating, but figured he would have a hard time finding her because so many people would be there. What a coincidence to find out that they were tailgating right next to each other!


Anna demonstrates the Gator chomp before the big game!


Matt rode down to Miami with Anna and her best friend Cassie. They hung out for most of the day and had so much fun. Aren't they so pretty?


It was an exciting game. There were many ups and downs and lots of reasons to cheer. Matt barely had a voice the next day, and he and Todd complained that their hands were sore from all the high-fives.


But, it was well worth it because the Gators were the big winners! We are so proud of them, especially Tebow. He is just amazing!


The next morning the kids were so happy to wake up and find out that the Gators had won the game. They watched SportsCenter for the highlights and wanted to wear Gator t-shirts to school. They couldn't wait for Daddy to get home!


And, when Daddy did get home he had a big surprise for me. Aunt Anna and Kyle babysat so Matt and I could go out for dinner and a movie.

At dinner, Matt gave me a card which I assumed was just a thank you card. It was. But, it also said that he wanted to give me something special to say thank you for the generous gift of going to the game.

So, he had bought me a day at the spa at the Gaylord Palms Hotel. The spa there is so fancy and I just loved it when I was there for my 30th birthday. So, I get to go for a massage, facial, manicure, pedicure, and overnight stay whenever I want!

I was so shocked. And I'm SOOO excited!

A Gator win and a spa day...it doesn't get much better than that!

What An Honor!

Guess what? Our family visited Disney World 47 times last year with our seasonal passes! I'm pretty sure we've set some kind of record.

You know, for being lame enough to go to Disney 47 times in one year.

Anyway, check this out! (click the arrow to play once it finishes loading)



Thanks, Aunt Ellen! ;)

It's Great To Be A Florida Gator!

We are the SEC Champions and it feels great!

Here are my kids giving the nod to Percy and Tim.


Unfortunately, we didn't have Percy today. But, we did have the best player in college football. Timmy took over and willed his team to win.

It was an amazing thing to watch!

Birthday Wishes!

Happy Birthday Aunt Anna! We hope this song will make up for the fact that we didn't get our birthday card in the mail on time (as usual)! I'm hoping you think that this is much better though...



After they sang, I asked them what their favorite thing about Aunt Anna was. Abby said "her pretty hair." Drew said, "playing with Kyle." I'm sure what they both meant was - how much we love her and she loves us!

So, happy birthday to my #1 blog reader and the best little sister a girl could ask for. We love you!

Please Don't Show This To Her Sunday School Teacher

I was at my mom's house for about 15 minutes yesterday. I had finished early with an important "business lunch" and had some time to kill before I had to pick Abby up from school. My mom's house is very close to Abby's school and it often has many chocolate options available at any given time.

It just seemed like the best place to go.

There wasn't much chocolate (where were the fun-size Milky Ways, mom?) but I did notice her camera out on the counter. Now, my mom rarely uses her camera so I figured something worthy of pictures must have happened recently.

I turned on the camera and found several pictures of my brother in a tux.

Doesn't he look handsome?


He had some fancy-schmancy party this weekend that was a black tie affair. I don't think I've ever been invited to a black tie event. In fact, I was sitting right next to Austin when he asked Anna if she wanted to go to the party with him. She couldn't go because she had a wedding to attend.

I casually mentioned to Austin that he had forgotten to invite me to which he replied, "Well, like I said, it's black tie..." and then he burst into laughter.

I'm thinking maybe I should take back that "handsome" comment.

So, I scrolled through the pictures taken just a few days ago all the while contemplating Austin's extensive social calendar and wondering how I turned out to be the most boring member of my family.

Next thing I know, I see this -


These pictures are from June.

I've never seen them.

I'm assuming my mom was babysitting Abby and they got a little bored. She obviously didn't have the Wii yet or they never would have been bored.

I laughed out loud as I looked at these funny pictures of my sweet girl that I had never seen.


This devil costume belonged to Austin. My mom made it for him to wear for Halloween sometime in the early 80's. I actually remember her sewing that costume for him at our dining room table. I can't believe she still has it after all these years.

Well, I guess I can believe she still has it since I recently made her throw out dozens and dozens of magazines from the 1980s that she said had "really good articles that I still want to read someday."

Ahem...

Back to the issue at hand.

I knew I had that Halloween picture so I looked through photo albums last night and found it!


So, who do YOU think is the cuter devil?


I think the answer is quite clear...

Lucky Me!

A few days ago, I entered a contest over at Pioneer Woman's blog. She is quite popular on the world wide web, and if you haven't read her blog before then you should definitely check it out.

She often holds giveaways for fantastic prizes. Last week she was giving away a copy of Adobe Photoshop CS3 to one random commenter in the photography section of her blog. I currently have Photoshop Elements - reading her posts about photography are what led me to ask for Elements for Christmas (thanks, mom). I've been happy with it but I knew I would LOVE a copy of the real thing so I could follow her tutorials and download her free actions. I crossed my fingers and left a comment - #3477 out of 4,598 comments.

I checked my email early the next morning and found comments that had been left on my blog from people I didn't know. They were congratulating me on winning the prize!!

Needless to say, I was ecstatic! I'm way under qualified for CS3, but the thousands of pictures on my computer are pretty thrilled to be able to see what all the fuss is about.

Almost as fun as winning the prize (valued at $650, folks) is the fact that since I won the prize just a few days ago, well over five hundred people have visited this blog to see who won the contest. Lots of them are clicking around and staying for awhile to check things out, and a handful have even left comments on my most recent post about Drew starting kindergarten.

That's a lot of visitors as far as I'm concerned, and it's been so much fun to check my sitemeter stats and watch the number of visitors continue to grow.

Thanks, Pioneer Woman, you really made my day!

They Still Haven't Found What They're Looking For...

It's been exactly one year since my very first post.

Thank you. Thankyouverymuch.

In honor of this extremely exciting occasion, I thought I would share some insight from my Sitemeter.

Sitemeter is a tool that allows me to see how visitors manage to find my little blog among the millions of blogs that are out there.

Needless to say, I think most of them are disappointed when they get here. You'll see why when you check out these search engine requests (grammar and capitalization unchanged).

I'll also provide the link to the post they happened upon when Google failed them in their time of need.

Here we go -

1. how to hallucinate nyquil. related: Can I take nyquil with percocet, nyquil pills hallucination (person searching at 4:20am), anecdote for percocet, what is delaudin, etc. etc. etc.

2. sporty minivan (so many times I've lost count). also minivan anecdotes

3. no child left behind - These searches are almost always from some state's Department of Education.

4. Disney stock news - I doubt they are looking for pictures of my kids with Micky Mouse.

5. anecdotes on retirement - I'm especially certain this post was not helpful if someone was trying to decide when to start withdrawing from their 401k.

6. change of seasons chills achy muscles - The whole fallsummer thing probably sent this poor person over the edge.

7. extreme home makeover toddler rooms - A huge disappointment if they were expecting something from Ty Pennington.

8. someone who is in the know of things - Well, check out yesterday's post. Clearly, I'm just one wrong turn away from the crazy house.

That seems like enough for now.

Mostly, because I'm getting tired of linking.

But, it really has been fun. And, people from all over the world have visited my little corner of the Internet. People from Switzerland, Barcelona, The Philippines, Thailand, Minsk, Lebanon, Rio De Janeiro, Greece, South Africa, Australia, Saudi Arabia, England, and almost every single state in America.

So, thanks to those of you who read regularly and to those of you who stumble here in a Google search gone wrong.

I appreciate all of you and I'm having a blast!

A Challenge!

80 words

speed/'>http://speedtest.10-fast-fingers.com">Speed test

Can you do better than this?? Leave me a comment and let me know!