DanceTrance!

Sissy's BFF asked her to join DanceTrance with her over the summer.  It's located here at the beach (a short 7 blocks from our house) that offers kids dance/fitness classes twice a week in the evenings.  Think of Zumba for kids!  A bunch of girls from school all went together to do a trial class during the last week of school, but as far as we know, just the two of them have gotten membership passes.  We bought the girls a 12 class pass for $135 for the summer.  I think she's really going to like it.  The girls couldn't wait to show off what they learned.  I took a little video of them so that Sissy could practice it for next week.  Here's what they worked on in their 45 min class:

Aren't they so stinkin' cute?  I can't wait to see how they do by the end of the summer!

Sis and I rode our bikes to DanceTrance.  I met up with her BFF's mom at Lillie's - my FAVORITE little coffee shop here at the beach, maybe my favorite anywhere!  On our way home from class, we stopped off at Bio Max - the local health food store where Sis convinced me to get her a kid's green smoothie.  What a great post workout treat!

Our First Summer Field Trip

Today the kids and I headed south to Mickler's (pronounced by the locals as Mykler's) Landing.  It's in Ponte Vedra and is well known as the local beach to find shark teeth.  Ra was so excited, he came downstairs already dressed in his bathing suit and was ready to go even without breakfast!

We all ate and got ready then headed out.  The kids searched and searched and had all but given up hope of finding any teeth when Ra finally found one!  We were digging in a big pile of washed up shells and he pulled it out!

It was a beautiful morning to walk on the beach regardless.

Winner! Winner! Chicken Dinner!

When we got home, Ra pulled out his shark tooth chart he got from Andy last year and determined it was from a Mako shark.  He then proceeded to tell me that this shark is the fastest of all the sharks and one of the top 5 most dangerous sharks.  I don't know why I bothered to double check his facts, but I did and of course, he's right.  You can't fool Ra when it comes to sharks, he knows his stuff.

Vroom! Vroom!

I decided that after spending too many hours of our 3 day holiday weekend working on the house, that we needed to take a break and do something fun.  For our family that means getting out the motorcycles!  Andy took Ra on the back of his CBR 929RR (sports bike for all you non-motor heads) and Sis and I on my Honda PCX150 (scooter).  We headed south through the beaches on A1A and then turned east to go through Ponte Vedra along the beach.  We came out at Mickler's Landing and then made the loop back.  It was a beautiful drive.  Sis was with me and kept saying "Mom!  Look at that house!"  There are a lot of huge, beautiful beach houses through there.

Here we are on a pit stop to fuel up.

Celebrating Hard Work

In 4th grade you don't receive any grades for homework but if you complete all your work each marking period, you are rewarded with a breakfast at school.  Ra went the first marking period and decided it wasn't great, so he didn't want to go again - even though he earned it every marking period this year.  We didn't blame him - Krispy Kremes, fruit and muffins isn't that exciting to us either.  To reward his efforts (and Sissy's 100% on every sight word test, spelling test, and memory verse test every single quarter) that we'd take the kids out for breakfast instead.

It's always a toss up between the Beach Diner and the Metro Diner.  Ra usually choses Metro and K chooses Beach.  Sometimes mom and dad choose the Beach Hut to change it up.  We decided that this past Monday would be a great time to take the kids out for their breakfast reward.  You can see from Ra's mug which restaurant won out!  That boy loves his hot chocolate!

So proud of both my kids and all the hard work they put into their school work.  They are both smart kids but they also work hard.  I'm most grateful for their work ethic.  

Date Night!

One of our favorite places for date night happens to be one of the best kept secrets at the beach.  There is a cute little place called Royal Palm - on Royal Palm Road in Atlantic Beach.  They have a wine/beer store as well as a tapas restaurant.  You can purchase a bottle of wine a retail price and they will charge a corkage fee (something I haven't heard outside of Utah) so you can drink your wine of choice at dinner.  Their food is OUTSTANDING.  We've been there a few times now and just love it. They have enough beer choices to keep Andy happy as well.  They even carry Stoudt's!

 The cheese mezze platter is awesome!

I'm so thankful for our fabulous babysitter who loves on our kids so we can go out and catch up with each other every few weeks.

School's Out For Summer!

I feel like I should play a little Alice Cooper for my kids every year on our way home from school - I use to, but haven't since we moved back to Jax.

Our first full day of no school meant lots of friends!  We had my friend's 2 girls over.  One daughter is in Ra's class and the other is a friend of K's.  She's a year older than K and they get along well.  We also had Ra's best buddy over because his mom was at school.

We spent most of the day in the pool, shooting marshmallows with our marshmallow shooters, riding scooters, eating shaved ice and LOTS of watermelon, firing off nerf guns and playing hopscotch.  What a fun way to kick off summer!

After a full day of fun, Ra asked if his buddy could sleep over.  Well, what else would complete the kick off to summer, right?  

Starting off our 2nd day of summer vacation with a swim and green smoothies

Group cannonballs into the pool

My Brave Little Girl

It's no surprise that I don't like reptiles...Snakes are a reptile and you all know how I feel about them. While cleaning the pool yesterday, I found two drown lizards in the skimmer basket.  There was NO WAY I was reaching my hand in there to pull them out.  I asked Ra and he was freaked out so then I asked Sis.  She agreed to pull them out by hand for $5!

Yes, Ra held her hair back so she could reach in for the one floating on it's back at the bottom of the basket.  She is a lizard hunter.  She catches them alive at our house all the time - and now she catches them once they've died too.  Bless her...What would I do without her?

Post Graduation Celebration

Because she wanted a special treat, we rode our bikes down to the corner for a little "Happy Cup!"  We love being able to walk or ride everywhere we want to go here at the beach!

Graduation Day!

Yes, in KDG, they have a graduation.  It's essentially a patriotic end of the year program with the kids dressed in miniature cap & gowns.  It was pretty cute.

She was so proud of graduating from KDG!  Andy stopped and got her some flowers and that made her super happy!  Her teacher is one of the sweetest people I've ever met in my entire life.  She has a heart for children like I've never seen and lets her light for Jesus shine wherever she goes.  We were so blessed to have Mrs. Hatman this year.  She's meant the world to both me and to Sissy.

How can I have a FIRST GRADER already?  Time sure does fly!

Our Very Own Timothy

At the kids' school they often give out a "Timothy" award to the student(s) with the highest GPA for the year.  This year, Ra earned that honor.  This is a very big deal for him and here's why:

We moved to Jax in April of 3rd grade.  His math curriculum in Utah didn't match up with his current schools'.  He missed a lot of big concepts which meant the first quarter of 4th grade was a struggle.  I was calling up his 3rd grade teacher asking her how to teach him certain things.  His 4th grade teacher was giving me extra work for him to practice at home.  He went in early 2-3x/week when extra help was offered.  He spent weekends doing math work to catch up.

His first quarter he earned an 81% in math.  2nd quarter was better - 95%.  3rd quarter his ADHD was in high gear and he skipped an entire page of a math test worth 67% of his math grade...well, you can imagine how that damaged his grade.  He worked really hard 3rd quarter but could only scrape by with an 88%.  The 4th quarter he was able to earn a 95% which gave him an overall grade of 90% in math.  The last quarter I gave a lot of control to him for studying, etc.  I wanted to see if he could do most of it without a lot of help...and he did!

His other final grades were:
Bible 97%
Language 93%
Reading 95%
Science 98%
Social Studies 98%
Vocabulary 98%

We are so proud of him and so is his teacher (his BFF's mom and who I joke is Ra's second mom).  It was extra special for her to award it to him because she knew how hard he had to work to earn this award.  She was bursting at the seams to let us know that he was going to be getting it!

We are taking both kids out for breakfast for their good grades.  I haven't seen Sissy's report card yet, but she's consistently scored 100% on EVERY sight word test, spelling test, and memory verse test.  We are so pleased with the progress of both of our kids.  Since Ra won this award, he gets to choose - so Metro Diner it is!

I know for Ra, this has been a great example of how you need to continue to run the race, to persevere to the end.  He has seen first hand, how hard work and the right attitude can produce great things.  He use to say he just wasn't good at math.  I had to remind him that he was behind in math, that he was always good in math before and he would be once again once he caught up.  There were times he worked so hard to get an A (in the 3rd quarter) but didn't make it.  He didn't give up, he kept working hard.  He's learned many lessons this year and I'm hoping this one makes the greatest impact on him for the future.

It reminds me of these verses:

James 1:2 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.

Hebrews 12:1-2 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.  For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning it's shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Phil 3:14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Being Healthy

Getting our fruits & veggies serving in for today.  My friend made these for the kids last weekend and Ra loved them - funny that when I made them before he never wanted any parts of them!  Fresh from the farm kale, organic strawberries, bananas, organic almond milk, local raw honey & ice.  

What a delicious treat on a hot day!

First Meet Success!

Sis has been practicing with her team for only 3 weeks.  She missed last week's practice because she was sick.  I'm so pleased with how much she's worked on her routines in just a short time.  Here are some pics from today's Ribbon Club Meet:

Waiting for their turn on the beam:

Here is some video of Sis during her meet:

Our little gymnast!

Thrilled she got a balloon & a trophy after the meet

Checking out her ribbons

Caught Momma taking pictures

The smile that melts my heart

Everyone who competed today

Sis was a nervous wreck before the meet.  She kept telling me how she didn't want to go, she didn't feel good, you name it.  After the meet I asked her if it was that bad...She said not only wasn't it that bad, it was actually FUN!  She said she can't wait for the next meet!

Competition Hairdo

I told Sis that a friend of mine has a daughter (in Utah) who competes in gymnastics at the same club she use to do gymnastics at and before every meet, her mom does a really neat hairstyle for her.  Sis thought that was a great idea.  This is what we came up with for today's meet.  Ignore my not so straight parts - it's hard to make Sis sit still for long, plus she can't see the back!  She's so excited now that we're going to use Aimee and London's tradition of doing a fun hairstyle for meets.

Happy Belated Birthday Ra Ra!

Because of us moving last month, Little Man was fine with us bumping his birthday party back to May so we could really enjoy the time with him and his buddies.  Andy took Ra, and his 3 best buddies to Dave & Busters for dinner and video games.  They had SOOOO much fun.  Ra has some incredible friends - when they were looking at what to spend their points on when his BFF says, why don't we put all our points together and get that car that Ra really likes.  Ra didn't want them to do that until the boys insisted.  Andy said it was completely driven by his friends and he let them work it all out on their own.  They all decided that was what they wanted to do, so they talked to the clerk, worked it out and they got the Lamborghini car model for Ra.  It almost brought tears to my eyes to think that his friends love him that much that they'd be so selfless to give up their own points and the chance to get something for themselves, that they'd give them all to Ra for his birthday.  I have told all the parents how much these 3 friends mean to him and how we want to cultivate their friendship so that they know that the other "has their back" and that they have someone they can talk to when they need someone.  All 3 kids come from great families and we want to encourage their relationships to grow and become solid for years to come.


Ra wanted to have whoopee pies for his party instead of cake.  I made GF pumpkin and converted my Nanny's lemon flavored into GF.  They were a hit with the boys!

Happy Birthday Ra!

The boys enjoyed a late night swim.  It was the first time we've used the pool at night.  Our pool was money well spent - the kids had so much fun and we have no regrets putting in a pool...One of our best decisions!

Ra had an incredible evening.  One of the boys was able to sleep over so the party continued into the wee hours.  I am so thankful for the friends God has brought into our Little Man's life.  I pray that these boys continue to be friends for life.