Isaac Pictures

What a good lookin' kid...!!

And the mustache for good measure...

Vote Isaac

Isaac ran for 6th Grade Student Council...  It was pretty cool to see him be excited about running, the poster, the business cards to hand out, the speech, etc.  He was pretty nervous about the speech and was a little disappointed that most of the kids that won promised things like longer breaks between classes, ice cream in the lunch room, and new vending machines.  His frustration was based on the fact that he knows Student Council doesn't have the power to chance or provide those things.  I am so proud of him for running.  And very proud of how he handled losing.  He sure is a mature kid.

I love you buddy...!!!

Birthday Party Time

Lexy wanted a sleep over party for her birthday.  That's kind of a tough call these days.  So, with some idea help from a friend, (Thank you Mrs. P), we had a late night movie party in PJ's.  We didn't start the party until 6:30pm.  Asked the girls to wear their pajamas and bring a pillow and blanket.  We started off with making candy apples.  Wow..!!! Sticky, but fun.  Pushed a quick game of girl talk Jenga in the middle.  

Then off to gifts.  What a spoiled little princess...

  

 After the gifts the pizza finally made it to the house and the girls all ate their fill of pizza in the back yard on their blankets.  The weather was so nice, just cool enough, no clouds and not too cool.  Once the pizza was gone we switched over to the cake.  Lexy's big pink 'L' cake...

The Payne girls shared their new tradition with Lexy by smashing her face in her slice of cake... How fun, frosting everywhere... 

 Some party favor horn blowing to get the noise out...

 ... and on to watching Mirror Mirror projected on to the wall of the apartment building next to the house.  We had that screen maximized to about 30 foot.  Then hooked up the Bose speaker, kicked back, and enjoyed the show.  Averi's mom hooked us up with a theater style popcorn popper, we had a cooler full of drinks, and a big bowl of individual sized candies.  All to enjoy during the movie.

The evening ended around 9:45pm with a PJ dance party as the credits ran... "I believe, I believe, I believe...!!!"

I hope it was a birthday to remember Lexy.  I sure Love YOU...!!!!

Lexy's 9th Birthday Cake

It's birthday time at our house.  Lexy has been counting down to her birthday.  I hope that we made it memorable for her.  Here is the cake story for her. If you follow this blog very long you see that we go ALL OUT with the cakes for birthdays.

This year Lexy wanted an 'L' for her cake.  I couldn't let it be that simple.  We had to go big, so I broke out the quarter sheets, filled them with cake batter and off we went.  Here's the rough cut cake stacked up.

 Frosted pink, of course...!!!

How's that for a cake cross section....??

 We took Butch a big piece.  He asked if the cake was really that tall...  Ha... YEP...!!!

Strings

Lexy has decided to follow in Isaac's footsteps some on the strings front.  She wants to learn to play the cello.  So, now that she is in 4th grade and the strings program is available to her at school we got her a cello to play.  She is so excited, almost as excited as Isaac.  She spends half the time the cello is out asking Isaac to give it back to her.

Are you guys for SCUBA...?

I can't talk about SCUBA with out thinking about that line.  

The kids and I got the chance to 'try SCUBA' on Sunday evening.  The local dive shop was running a special on just one session of diving, so we scheduled and went.

Isaac has been several times.  He was only about 2 sessions short of a Ranger certification in St George before we moved to West Virginia.  He hasn't been since.  I guess it's like falling off a bike, he jumped right in and off he went.  Lexy on the other hand has never been and I figured she would take just a little coaxing to get rolling....  I was wrong.  She jumped in, geared up and as soon a they would let her she headed for the deep end, UNDER WATER.  She was off like a fish.  She was back and forth, up and down, all over the place.  She had an absolute blast!!  She was trying to get her own gear by the time we were done for the evening.  I guess this is another item we need on the things to do list, all three of us need to get certified.

Here are a few pics that a lady at the pool took for us.  The 'ok' sign is used in diving rather that thumbs up because the thumbs up in used to say 'let go to the surface'.

 Here's and underwater shot, you can't make out faces, but you can tell who is who...

Rib Fest 2012

Aaaahhh... Isaac's favorite holiday, Rib Fest.  And boy did we do it up this year.  We made it down there twice, AND did the rides.  Every year here in Charleston (or South Charleston) they bring in 4 or 5 rib cooking crews and through down some major ribs.  So we ran down there on Friday evening after soccer practice to get our fill.  

 Friday night's ribs left MUCH to be desired.  Mine tasted like they were picked up off of a dirty gas station bathroom floor.  N A S T Y ..!!!  Saturday we did much better. :D  Lexy ate corn on the cob both nights and even some fries on Saturday.  There is also a guy that shows up with a root beer trailer, you buy a stainless steel cup from him and pay a small fee, then you get free refills all weekend.  Root beer, vanilla soda, orange, birch beer, and diet root beer.  Yes, we did drink our fill.

I typically strongly avoid the carnival rides that travel into town.  They always cost way too much.  But I caved in this year and bought the kids wrist bands.  Isaac loved this big 'ol spinning swing.  If you look really hard at the center of this photo you can see him in the middle on the far side, thumbs up and ready to go.

 Here it is in action. Yep Isaac is on there somewhere, spinning and whizzing around.

 Lexy took it a little slower.  She enjoyed the swings and the tilt a whirl.  I like this picture of Jojo, Isaac and Lexy on the swings waiting to go.

We can't wait for Rib Fest to make it back next year.  Maybe we'll try to sneak over to Huntington to catch them there too. ;)

Birthday Time

Arrow of Light

Isaac earned his Arrow of Light in Cub Scouts and it was awarded to him last night.  For the non-Cub Scouters out there, the AOL is the top award in Cub Scouting and the only one that can be worn on the Boy Scout uniform.  There are all sorts of achievements along the way that Isaac has got through with the help of Mike and Steve his Webelos leaders.

Here he is getting the patch pinned to his uniform.

Here is the awesome plaque that Mike and Steve made for him. It has his initials, that year, pack number, and everything, including a real arrow.

Thumbs Up for Isaac's Arrow of Light..!!

Charleston Distance Run 2012

This year we all three ran the Charleston Distance Run 5K. It was pretty cool, we trained a few times by running along the river or at Danner Meadow Park. Not to mention all the sports the kids have been doing. The kids both ran the Kids Fun Run the night before (more to come on that), then we lined up at 7:30am at the Capital Building.

Here is a shot of Lexy running along.  It was fairly early in the run, but she looks exhausted.

Here's Isaac at the finish line.  Oh yeah, he was sweating...!!

Lexy ended up finishing 2nd in her age group, WAY TO GO Lexy...!!!!

Isaac is looking for the next run, he wants to do the Run, Row, and Ride in mid-September here.  Not sure if we'll do it but it sounds fun.

Labor Day

We got a little riding in today...  Mr Mike from Lexy's school invited us to ride with him and his group, but I figured the would ride a bit harder than we could.  So we followed him out to the spot they were riding from.  It took us a bit to get all the bikes going, but we gottem' going.

Here's Isaac ready to rip...  It was so nice to see him shifting up and down, remembering how to ride the 65cc.  Now he's on the hunt for at 85cc, he's certainly big enough.

Lexy had such a blast riding the little 50cc.  It was a bit small for her.  Her knees were in her chin, I'm sure it would be easier for her to keep her balance on a bike that fit her better.  Never the less, she did lap after lap after lap after lap after lap...

Lexy got comfortable enough to hit the roads.  I was so proud of her.  We rode up some of the roads from the base camp area.  She did great climbing up the roads and riding the breaks back down.  She even wanted to ride them by herself as I was packing up that trailer to go for the day.

Here's a quick pic of them both on the road up the hill from the camp area.