by the end of this week

By the end of this week I will have

• finished a triathlon (16 minutes faster than last year)
• handled 4 nights and 4 days with two kids by myself
• gone to my own school's two open houses
• managed to get my daughter started in Kindergarten, yes Kindergarten 
• started my (almost... if you count part-time years) 9th year teaching 

That's a pretty impressive list in my opinion.

Also, you may not have noticed, but I am late writing Josh's 22 month letter.  Have no fear; I'm getting to it.

fresh from the garden

Last day before school starts

all smiles

Jules and I took this little man to his first day at school today.  Julianna says she's jealous because she doesn't get to go to school until the END of next week.

Anyway, I only took him for a half day this morning to try to get him adjusted and used to full days. Tomorrow he'll go a little longer and Wednesday we'll try a full day, nap and all.  Can you tell I am nervous about that part?  We'll see how he does laying on the floor on a mat for nap time.

He didn't cry when I left although you could tell he wanted to.  The teacher took him over to the window to look out on the playground right as we left and that helped distract him.  I think I had a harder time than he did. He is my baby, after all.

When I picked him up he was a happy, happy boy.  We watched him play for a few minutes before he realized we were there.  He was so excited to see us and they said he did great.  I did chuckle a little when the teacher told me that he didn't really eat his lunch, just drank all his milk.  No surprises there.

Now, one down. One to go.

doughnut man

my latest pirate adventure

We have quite the thing for pirates around here apparently.  

Anyway, a few weeks ago I got free tickets to Carowinds like I did last year and my sister, Jules and I headed south for some amusement park fun a couple of weeks ago.  It was so darn hot but we didn't let that stop us.  We rode roller coasters, kiddie rides, and water slides.  We ate frozen lemonade shaved ice and won stuffed animals at the crazy water shooter game.  We laughed at the couple with the giant banana that was so heavy it tipped over their stroller as soon as their kid got out.  The best part of the whole trip, in my opinion, was shortly after we arrived.

As soon as we entered the park, used the restrooms, and looked around a bit we got right on the first ride.  It was Snoopy's Flying Ace Aerial Chase, a pretty decent roller coaster.  It didn't go crazy or anything but it was one that shook your head around a lot up against the head safety bars.  It was the same ride we rode first last year and I remember being shocked that my 4 year old was pumped and excited afterward. It was a nice-size thrill ride for a kid.

Well, as soon as we jumped off that ride we found ourselves coming up on a pirate ship ride.  I knew from last year's experience at the beach that Julianna was fine with pirate ship rides (even the big ones) so we ran up and got right on as the ride was about to begin.  Probably thirty seconds into the ride I hear my sister say, "Um... does this thing go upside down?" right about the time I was thinking the exact same thing.

Needless to say, we were screaming, we were laughing, we were hanging on for dear life every time the ship reached the top.  Those things are a bit scarier when you're 33 than they were when you were 17 (especially with your 5yo "baby" next to you).  So there I was telling Jules over and over again that it was almost over and we could gradually feel it coming down but we were still laughing so hard that there were tears rolling down our cheeks and we were squeezing the lap bars so tight our knuckles were white.

Of course, we called Daddy to tell him the story of our crazy mistake right after we got our balance again.  Then we headed straight to the next ride.

My girl is BRAVE, y'all.

Questions of the Day:


-- Are you a roller coaster rider? Or do you prefer the more calm rides?
-- Do you get motion sickness?  I do in cars and on boats, but never have on a roller coaster.
-- What is the best ride you've ever been on?  I need some new favorites to try out.

PS - Don't forget to enter my giveaway if you're interested in some free food. The winner will be chosen tomorrow and so far your odds are really good. :)

around the interwebs

I saw this a month or two ago on not martha, I think it was but I'm too lazy to go back and link directly to the post.  Anyway, it got me curious as to which sites I visit often that I wouldn't normally think of.  She opened a new browser window and typed in each letter of the alphabet to see which sites pop up first for each letter.  Here were mine a few minutes ago:

A is for Amazon
I look up stuff there every day it seems like.  Most recently I visited to price a Pokemon Wii game for Jules.

B is for https://bitly.com/
I still use this URL shortener for all kinds of posts, but mostly for links to our condo rentals.

C is for http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivor/
Don't know why this one came up since the only show I've been following this summer is Big Brother and Survivor isn't even on right now, but whatever.

D is for http://discovercard.com/
Obviously, this one for financial info.

E is for http://www.ebates.com/
I love Ebates.  Whenever I buy something online I go there first to get extra cash back from my purchases.  Check it out if you haven't tried it!

F is for http://fitnessista.com/2008/11/something-worth-waking-up-for/
An oatmeal breakfast cookie recipe I tried recently.

G is for http://www.goodreads.com/
I log all of the books I read here and also keep track of books I want to read soon on there.

H is for http://www.hungryrunnergirl.com/
Another healthy living blog I read regularly.

I is for https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#inbox
I guess the "I" is from mail or inbox and not surprisingly I visit my gmail inbox multiple times a day.

J is for http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivor/
Again, what's with this Survivor thing? And why on the "J"?  Anyone? Bueller?

K is for http://wsfcs.k12.nc.us/site/default.aspx?PageID=1
"K" should be for kindergarten! I can't believe my baby is starting Kindergarten in ten days!!!!

L is for https://livingsocial.com/redeem_invite/7784704-courtn?ref=lnk
Love Living Social!  Great deals for local places there and I've also been checking out the travel deals a lot lately.

M is for https://www.mysurvey.com/index.cfm?action=Main.activityRouter
I've done surveys here for YEARS for cash.  If you'd like an invite, let me know and I'll send you one.

N is for http://www.nickjr.com/
One of a handful of websites Julianna loves playing on.

O is for http://oldnavy.gap.com/browse/GeneralNoResults.do?requestedurl=http%3A%2F%2Foldnavy.gap.com%2Fbrowse%2Fcategory.do%3Fcid%3D55386
Not sure what this was...

P is for http://pbskids.org/
Another of the sites Julianna frequents.

Q is for https://www.google.com/calendar/b/0/render?tab=mc&gsessionid=OK
I use google calendar for everything.  I'm confused about the Q though and how that relates...

R is for http://www.restaurant.com/
I used to buy these dining certificates a lot but lately they haven't been as good for my area. No doubt that's from daily deal sites like Groupon and whatnot, but nevertheless I recently tried to redeem one at a local restaurant and they wouldn't honor it so I went online to contact customer service and they sent me a free certificate.

S is for http://www.shutterfly.com/
This is another one I'm not sure about.  I haven't visited Shutterfly in a long, long time so I don't know why it came up as a recent site.  Does anyone buy picture prints anymore?

T is for http://dailydeals.target.com/?ref=sr_shorturl_dailydeals
Target daily deals I check every single day.  It's like Target, but cheaper!

U is for https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#inbox
see "I" above

V is for http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/index.html
My dad works for Verizon Cellular Sales and we're an all-droid family. I probably went to the website recently to pay a bill.

W is for http://www.wxii12.com/index.html (Really it went to WSFCS but since I've already linked that I took the second one instead.)

X is for http://www.ixl.com/
Another website Julianna plays on.

Y is for http://www.youtube.com/
I would not consider myself to be a "YouTube" kinda person. In fact, I have a tendency to get annoyed with YouTube videos as they seem to be a huge time-waster in my opinion.  That being said, I obviously went to their site recently.  Probably to listen to this again.

Z is for http://www.youtube.com/
Yeah. Again, I have no idea why "Z" invoked YouTube.

So there you have it.  What websites do you frequently visit?

giveaway!

The kind folks at Van's Natural Foods sent me a free products and a couple of extra coupons to giveaway.  I tried the Wild Blueberry Muffin Crowns and the Multigrain Waffles both of which were pretty tasty and much healthier than comparable products.  I found both in the frozen foods section of Whole Foods.

Leave a comment below if you'd like to win a coupon for FREE Van's products.  Leave a second comment if you post about this giveaway on Twitter.  I'll choose two winners on Friday morning.

two very funny questions

Two very funny questions Julianna asked me today:

1. (from across the room) Are you on Twitter or Pinterest now, Mom?
2. Do I have hair under my armpits?

it's not easy having a big sister