THIS AND THAT

Well, we made it through Irene just fine. Our yard here at home is a big mess and you cannot see the driveway in some places. We had a good amount of rain and wind, just enough for the power to go off for about an hour and to undo everything that was done in the yard just a few days before.

 Everything is fine with the beach house also. We went to the house there last Wednesday to get the boat out of the water and to put all of the outdoor furniture inside. There was a loooooong line at the boat ramp, everybody else picked Wednesday too. It was a long day of driving.

The hubs is going back tomorrow and he will set all of the furniture back to where it is supposed to be.

constant action at the boat ramp

would hate to have to pull that boat anywhere!!

The water was already high on Wednesday.

The grasses were almost covered. 

It was soooo humid too.

The clouds were so big and fluffy they did not look real. 

The water was very high on the docks in our canal. 

This was taken from our little dock looking across. 

The docks were covered with water by Thursday.

So I can only imagine what it was like on Saturday. 

The Man of the House found out on Friday that he will be having shoulder surgery in two weeks. He has a completely torn rotator cuff thanks to a golf ball and a sand trap. He will be in a sling and completely immobile for almost four weeks and then rehabbing until November with strict instructions to not lift anything or use his arm until late November. HMMMMMM..... we have put off cleaning out our attic in our house because he could never find the time to commit to it so I made him put down in blood during the summer that THIS fall, as soon as it cooled off up there, we were going to spend as long as it took to go through every box, every paper, holiday decoration and just get it done. I knew he REALLY didn't want to do it, but going to this extreme to get out of it is just ridiculous. (say prayers for me)  :)

We had a great weekend!!  Friday we went to The Jimmy V Foundation "soiree". Jim Valvano was the basketball coach at NC State, when they last won the national championship. He found out he had cancer while he was the coach and spoke out publicly about his journey. (There are some really great and moving videos of him speaking about his prognosis on the website - check it out. )  It was a reverse raffle  for   your choice of any loaded BMW all to benefit cancer research.  We ended up buying three tickets and so we took #3 with us. She loved it!! There was wonderful food and we had a front row table. She hobnobbed with some celebrities  - are they still "celebrities" if she didn't know who they were?  Ha!  Sadly, she did not win the car. With her luck, she will probably do it next year! 

Barrett with Charles Barkley

Barrett with Joey Fatone from N Sync

The bottom of her chair had a $250 gift certificate to a jewelry store on it!

She had a LARGE time! 

Saturday (while the weather was bad)  we went to our annual Pre Tailgating Party. It just happened to be our good friends birthday too so he went all out and had it catered and had a band. We had a great time. NC State has their first game this Saturday and so the timing of the party was perfect. Sadly I did not take any pictures!! 

Sunday, we went to Winston Salem, NC. #3 had her first soccer game of the season. We carpooled with another family and it was just so much fun to chit chat and laugh all the way there and back. They started the season with a tie, 1-1. That was a really good outcome because we were playing one of the top elite teams in the state. Their girls were not too pleased with how the game was going and as they became more desperate towards the end of the game, it turned very dirty. Let me just say...."Nobody puts #3 in the corner!" She held her own and took a few names! 

The past few days I have just been trying to play catch up. Busy weekends are a lot of fun, but really hard to recover from!  

IT IS OFFICIAL

Tomorrow morning, it will be official. 

"S-E-N-I-O-R!!"

#1 starts classes in Chapel Hill and she will walk into the classroom as a SENIOR!!

That means I will have a senior and junior in college and

a freshmen in high school.

In mom year's does that mean I am getting old?

It sounds so o-l-d.

I do not feel old and defiantly do not look old. :)

I refuse to dress old.....

except my girls have told me that they think some of my capris look like 

"grand-ma pants". 

 I will admit they are a little loose and roomy, but I promise it is because of the heat and humidity around here in the summer. 

I cannot stand to wear anything that touches me when it is:

or especially when it is: 

(pictures from my dash this summer)

So I took my SENIOR to UNC's bookstore to get her her first nursing uniforms.

She will have to wear them to class and to the hospital when she is doing her clinical work.

Here she is trying on lab coats...

here are her polo, jacket and pants...

and her first set of scrubs!!!

I should have made a video of her dancing a little jig in the dressing room.

She was so excited!

I was proud.

I also saw this in the bookstore. 

Love it!!!

Can't decide if I need it though.

GIRLY PICTURES

I took some pictures of the girls on Sunday after church.

They were all gussied up and in good spirits. 

Here is who you know as #3.

 She is 14 1/2,

and 

on Monday started high-school. 

I have never had to wake her up for school. She wakes herself up,

gets dressed and then comes downstairs and gets in bed with me. I then get up and fix her breakfast and make her lunch. Her dad plugs in her straightener every morning in our bathroom after he gets out of the shower. After breakfast, she straightens her hair while I throw on some workout clothes in the bathroom and we talk about our schedules for the day and afternoon. 

Her dad drives the carpool on the weeks we drive mornings, except for the days he is out of town, the mornings he goes to the homeless shelter and cooks breakfast (once a month) and on Friday mornings because he goes and eats breakfast with his buddies. 

Around these parts, this one is know as #2.

She is named after a cute little blond girl that I sat beside in the waiting room of my OB's office. 

I was eight months along and felt like a slug/whale and was out of breath just sitting there. 

The cute blond was also eight months, but looked like she swallowed a ballon, but besides that she was, well, cute and full of energy. I could not take my eyes off of her for some reason. She glowed. 

When the nurse opened the door and told "Brooke" to come on back,  I knew what the name of my little baby slug/whale would be. 

So... I named my daughter after a stranger I watched in a doctor's office. 

This is the one and only #1.

She will be 22 in a few months. 

 Now that she is an old lady, she is no longer playing soccer.

She can be seen running through the campus in Chapel Hill

or practicing her poses in a yoga class.  

When she is home she makes me go to spin class with her and for that I am thankful.... after it is over.

Oh how I miss those little girl shoes!!!!

 This is their end of summer of sad faces!

It is also the sad eyes they use on their daddy when they want something.

Pretty pitiful isn't it? 

HUGGING SUMMER GOOD-BYE

We've been a little sentimental around our house the past few days.

It always happens at back to school time. 

I love our time together and hate to see it come an end. 

Don't you love all the turbie twists! 

I

This morning my little baby B headed off to her first day of HIGH SCHOOL!

It is not going to be too much of a change for her because she is just changing buildings at her school,

and she is used to everything else there already. 

But we were all excited just the same. 

She was ready!

Her monogram was on display...

her new purse and "lunch-box" were all packed up...

her feather hair extension was showing....

her conch shell ring and Pandoras were just the right bling...

(one is hers and the other was one of my mom's)

and that new dress was just perfect!!

(Freshman 2011)

Her daddy was the perfect escort too!!

#2 also headed off to school during the week. 

There was not a lot fanfare this time. 

This is her third year in school, she is only on the other side of town and we've been slowly getting her set up in the little house that she and two other girls are living in this year since the end of July. 

She literally pulled everything out of her closet and had it in her car in less than an hour. 

The girls were not too happy about me wanting to take their picture

before Brooke headed off...

there was no make-up involved and Barrett was in her soccer clothes.

Brooke was in such a hurry to get there you may have heard her tires screech as she pulled out!

Not only did she not even stay for dinner, she never looked back. 

#1 is still here.

We have one more week together before she heads back to Chapel Hill.

But we found out some news about her schedule. 

She starts her first clinical class two weeks after school starts and she will be working in a Raleigh hospital on Tuesdays and Wednesdays this semester and will be spending

 two nights at home during the week. 

We are all excited about that. 

LET SLEEPING DOGS LIE

When we go to the beach we take every creature we can gather up....

including Mr. Bubbles the cat. 

Charlie and Lola are usually the first ones in the car. 

They all love it there.

The sand and sun really take a lot out of them though. 

It also does a number on someone else I know. 

I know THAT someone is not going to be too happy with me for putting this picture on display because it is not his best look....

and his hair is lumpy looking. 

But it is so funny (and sweet) to me and I could not resist. 

Charlie later traded in Lola for Pengie his penguin.