An Honor

The boys’ school is such a sweet place.  They teach them the importance of being polite, kind and thoughtful.  One of the ways that they promote these traits is by giving merits.  When a student does a good deed they get a merit.  Once a student reaches 100 merits they earn a merit badge.  Last week Jackson earned his first merit badge.  He was delighted.

Can you tell?
He was also named Student of the Week.  It was a red letter day for him.

Standing in front of the school is a challenge for him.  Challenges are good for us.

He really was excited…after he sat down!
We are so proud of him!

Our Thanksgiving

It is becoming our tradition, here in the Bahamas, to spend Thanksgiving in an untraditional way.    Since Thanksgiving is not a holiday here, you have to really work hard to celebrate it in the traditional sense. So far we have not managed a traditional Thanksgiving. As fun as the past 3 Thanksgivings have been, we may never do the traditional while we are here.
This year our friends, Kelly, Billy and AnnaKate were here for a short visit. 
They arrived on a cruise for just the day, but we tried to pack as much into the day as we could.  We picked them up downtown, brought them back to our house.  Picked up the boys early from school and went out to lunch.
Our favorite restaurant was offering a Thanksgiving menu as well as their regular menu.  Kelly was the only one who ate off the Thanksgiving menu and hers was amazing.

Kelly and I met in 5th grade.  We still act like it too!

After lunch we headed back to the house.  The kids were eager to get out and play, so we let them take a few spins and kicks.
We had to wait out a couple of showers and then we headed to the beach.  It was a super windy day!
The rain left us not one but two different rainbows that day.
It makes it easy to count your blessings when we are with life long friends on Thanksgiving…no matter where we are.

Happy Birthday Marines

This was our third year celebrating the Birthday of the U.S. Marines at the Marine Ball.  It is always such a patriotic and fun evening that we look forward to in November.
This year the Ball was held at the British Colonial Hilton and was the best of the three we have been to.

We have fun dressing up and sharing the evening with friends old and new.

My pictures of the ceremony didn’t turn out well (again), but it is amazing.  If you ever have the opportunity to attend a Marine Ball you really should go.  You will leave a better person for it.

As you can tell it was a fun night!

Soccer

Y’all we had a major thing happen in our house this week.  Miller decided that he wanted to play soccer.  He has had enough of sitting on the sidelines and he wants to join in.  Although this means another afternoon of watching soccer practice, it is actually so much easier to have him playing.  He likes it!  He really likes it!

Saturday  was the first game of the season and both the boys were playing.  It was amazing!

 

Jackson’s team is 7 and Under, so he is one of the youngest on the team.  His coach wants everyone to play so he got to play a fair amount.

He had a good save while playing goalie!

Miller spent a  bit of time on the field doing this

Looking at his friend who plays for the opposition.

Smiling for the camera 

And body checking running smack into one of his team mates.

He then had a water break where he opted to chug my Diet Coke instead of water!

All of us had a great morning, and although their were numerous games, I don’t think we won overall.

However, if you had fun you won, right?

Soccer Season looks very promising!

Sunsets

My mom raised me to really appreciate a good sunset.  This time of year they are amazing.
Enjoy

Ok, these are so blurry, but the colors!!!

Thank you God for the reminder of how great You are!

LEGOLAND

As we were preparing for our trip to the U.S. we knew we were going to LEGOLAND, it was a little uncertain as to when we we would get there, but having two Lego addicted boys meant that we HAD to make it there while we were in Florida.
As it turned out, we skipped Disney all together and did two days at LEGOLAND.  It was the best choice for our family and I couldn’t begin to tell you how magical those 2 days were.  Can you tell how excited the boys were?

On Day 1 we arrived bright and early and were there for the opening ceremony.

As we entered the park we made our way to the back.  I had read online that if you head straight to the back and then work your way forward you won’t have to make a long trek at the end of the day when everyone is tired.  It was a great tip!
However walking past rides that had  NO lines proved to be too tempting for us to pass us.  We had a blast on these two water rides.

How exciting is it to see a giant octopus when you are 6 years old?  Amazing!  One of many moments that day that made us so glad that we had chosen to come to LEGOLAND!

We also had to stop for pictures with the shark before we trotted to the front of the line—with no waits at all!

Here we go one boating school!
Miller refuses to steer.  I have no idea why!
The vignettes were so adorable!
I even got talked in to riding a ride that spins—slowly.  I can’t do any spinning…thanks to my two older brothers!


We tried again to enroll Miller at the Toddler Driving school.  No dice, he refuses to steer.  They gave him a driver’s license anyway!


On the way to the big roller coaster we had to stop and give a few hugs to some peeps on the way!
Allen and Jackson went on this rollercoaster.  It was one of the 2 in the park that Miller was not big enough to go on.  We were very pleased that there were only 2.  Good job LEGOLAND!

We went to the Safari ride where all the animals are made out of LEGO!  So cool!

The next part had nothing to do with LEgos, but the boys thought it was a blast and stayed in there way too long  I have issues with “ball pit” type things.  “petri dish pits” if you ask me!
The next ride was a big hit too!
After lunch we caught one of the shows.  It was fun little tale about pirates that mixed in water skiing.
The cutest part was seeing Miller meet the characters after the show.  he really believes.  I love that about him at this age!
More cute photo ops!

Jackson is really getting into posing for pictures!  I love it and know that this stage will be too short!
There were plenty of places to stop and build with all the different types of LEgos.


Then we had the only little snag of the days.  Allen and Miller went on this ride and it got stuck.  They were only about a foot off the ground, but the seatbelts were locked.  It didn’t take long to get them out.  it was much better than the people who were at the top of the ride when it broke!!
That afternoon Jackson was able to sign up for a LEGO robotics class.  He was the only one too!  He built an alligator and then used some computer programming software to make it open and close it’s mouth different ways.  He loved it.
He was the only one who signed up, so he had a private class!  Amazing!


This was the other big roller coaster that Miller wasn’t tall enough for.  Jackson loved it!!

The details are amazing.  This mural was in the ladies room had this one that made me smile!



A full sized Ford Explorer made of LEGOS.  Guess who wanted to drive?

Since 46 pictures is not enough to sum up our time there, I’ll do a second post this week about our amazing time at LEGOLAND!
I have a funny surprise too!
Have you ever been to LEGOLAND?