Laine's Dance Recital

Laine did a wonderful job at her first big dance recital. Once again though she seemed to forget to take her smile out of her pocket :) She really knew her steps and had a great time. She got many "Shining Stars" of congratulations for her adoring fans, a "Dance" medal and of course flowers from her Daddy. She was very proud.

Garrett's First Tennis Tourney

This weekend Garrett played in his first Tennis Tournament with his friend Kirk. Garrett's coach hosts local tournaments to give the kids exposure and some experience before to sending them off to compete in bigger tournaments. Garrett has been hesitant to play a singles tournament, mostly because of all the rules. So when the opportunity to play a doubles tournament in our backyard came up Garrett took the opportunity to learn from his friend Kirk, who has more tournament experience. They placed runner-up and Garrett had a great time. He is going to play on and off all summer and hopefully feel ready for his first singles tournament this Fall, when it cools down.

Garrett Rocks 5th Grade

Garrett had his promotion ceremony this past week promoting him from Elementary School onto Middle School. He was awarded for his accomplishments in reading, math and his overall academic achievement. He received a special Presidential Award signed by Obama for receiving a 4.0 and teacher recommendations for leadership. He also received the most AR (Accelerated Reader) points for the whole school at 489 (he needed 80 to pass 5th grade). His name will go on a special plaque in the EES Library. He had a great teacher and really grew in his confidence and leadership this year. We are very proud of all of his accomplishments. Look out EMS here comes Garrett.

His favorite part of the ceremony was not having to return to school after it was over (at 10:30 am) and the fact that the 5th graders were excused from the last day of school. He loved sleeping in while Walker had 2 more exams and Laine went off to the last day of Kindergarten.

Free Ice Cream for a Year

Both Laine and Garrett won in their age categories for the City of Eustis Decorate a Cone Contest. Free ice cream a week for a whole year from our local Strawberry's Dessert Parlor. Awesome job kids. Check out the link from the local paper.

http://www.dailycommercial.com/localnews/story/060810cones0810cones

City of Eustis Cone Contest

The City of Eustis through Strawberry's our local ice cream parlor is having a contest to "decorate a cone". We picked up our cones then Laine and Garrett got creative. Bet you can't tell which one is Garrett's ;)

Garrett's is a Lego castle with a fire breathing dragon and a princess in the cone tower. Laine's is an undersea adventure. They are judged by age group and we will find out how they did next week. The prize is free ice cream. Yummy!! Good Luck kids!

Waverly for Memorial Day

We had a great trip to Waverly Woods over Memorial Day. There were 5 families there this weekend and mostly all girls. Walker and Garrett did not seem to mind too much ;) Everyone got along really well and had a great time.

The girls !!

We had a Low Country Boil. Laine loves the shrimp.

Made mud creations and mud fights ;)

Mark mowed one of the many fields and we all played a little softball and got a little wet from a coastal shower but that made it even more fun.

Laine tried the zip-line for the first time. She rode with her Daddy and for now, once was enough. She promised Mark last year she would ride the zip-line when she was 6 and she kept her promise.

She also finally let go on the swing. Last summer she would fly out over the water but not let go, she would just drop. This summer she was flying.

The kids had a blast setting "jug traps" for catfish. They let the jugs float over night with a hook in the water and in the morning they were excited to see what they caught. Every kid had a"jug" with their name on it and the biggest catfish got $5. Carrie won because she caught one that evening before we even got all the jugs in the water and one overnight. The one caught in the evening was the biggest. The Ford kids were not so lucky. Garrett was the man in the Kayak paddling around in the dark dropping jugs. He spent a lot of time kayaking this weekend. I hope a kayak is not on his Christmas list this year :)

Daddy snuck away and took the boys armadillo hunting. They had a great time

Ford Boys 2 Armadillo 4

Sorry no pictures but I am sure you are all OK with that ;)

Kindergarten Awards

Laine received her Kindergarten awards for Reading and Math Superstars today. We are very proud of all her accomplishments this year. She is adding and subtracting, writing "paragraphs" and reading. Laine is very ready for 1st grade.

Her teachers put together a great picture DVD of the kids throughout the year. Laine kept telling me "your gonna cry Mom, your just gonna cry" She was right...my big girl is growing up. Congratulations Laine!

Instead trophies year after year EES gives the kids a lanyard and their awards are pins that they accumulate throughout elementary school. I hope Laine can hold her head up by the end of 5th grade :)