Lise's 1st Day of School

Drum roll please........Lise' is an official Kindergartner today. The day is finally here, and I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. Of course, we're happy. Our move to Florida has been good, but Lise' doesn't have any friends her own age yet, so I'm hoping that all changes in the coming weeks.

We bought the backpack, the lunch box and all the supplies weeks ago, and until today, they've been tucked away in the spare room just waiting to be used.

B stayed home this morning to make pancakes for the special occasion-Mickey Mouse, of course.



Compare the above picture to the one below. It's from Lise's first day of Pre-K last year.




And then we piled into the car and drove the mile down to school. It's still hot here after all, and we had a lot of supplies to carry.

The drop off was fairly uneventful. She sat where she needed to sit, said goodbye to each of us, and out the door we went. Before we left, we wanted a picture. You can see she wasn't very cooperative.

We told her we wouldn't leave until she looked at the camera.


The school does a staggered start, which means this whole week, 4 to 6 kids start each day. Tomorrow the entire class will start. Lise' being an "S" is at the end of the alphabet, so we started today. Sorry boo, I was a "D", and I don't quite understand that end of the line thing.

So now, Abri and I are home alone the whole day for the first time in her life. Before Daddy left for work, she convinced him to play the game where you fish for fish going around in a circle. Then she talked me into doing a puzzle. She followed that with a bubble bath with her princesses and a few games on the Wii. Who knows what is in store for the rest of the day. All I know is that I can't forget to go get Lise'.

I've been forewarned that the line at pick-up is a nightmare. You have to line up one hour before pickup. We literally live 1 mile from the school. It's an easy walk on a cool day, but it's August in Florida. Need I say more? So for now, I'm going to say that Abri and I will walk to get her. If only I had remembered to ask B to get the jogging stroller out the attic. Maybe tomorrow.

And, last but not least, I've been trying to play catch up on the blog. Keep scrolling down. You may not have seen the latest and greatest.

What do you know

I just posted the pics of all the deer that have been gracing our back yard this afternoon. Within an hour of the post, I looked back and noticed one nibbling at the grass outback. I thought it was strange that it was alone. I have no idea at what point the males leave their mother's side, but that was one thought that crossed my mind. Then a few minutes later, it was all answered. HE showed up. (Click on pic for larger view)

There was a moment of silence in our house as he graced us with his presence. He is a beautiful chocolate brown with a stripe running across his hind end. I counted 5 points, and the other one must be his doe.

I have to laugh because I've had terrible luck with cameras lately, and the latest arrived just today. I ripped it out the wall to get this shot through the blinds, and I'm just thankful I could figure out how to get it on.

What can I say...we love our deer

There are two fawns in this picture. One is next to its mom, the other is at the base of the pine with the brown in the top.

Click on this pic to enlarge. She spotted me through the kitchen glass.



As far as I can tell, there are 3 sets of deer. One set includes 3 does and 3 fawns. Another is a doe and her two fawns and a third is 2 does and 2 fawns.

At the beginning of the summer, we saw them almost every morning. They'd eat and leave. One afternoon we got the special treat of the pack of 6 coming and staying for a while. They ate and napped. As the heat increased, so did the length of time between visits. In the past week or so, we've seen them two or three times, and the fawns you see in the pics are now quite bigger. If they have any spots left at all, they are quite faint.

Swim Lessons

Both girls started in May. Lise' had experienced a few lessons at the YMCA in Jersey, but it only succeeded in getting her comfortable with the water and putting her face down in it. My goal for both girls was that if they fell into our pool without my knowledge that they could get themselves to the side.


I loved how the lessons never put any type of floatation device on the kids.
At first, Lise' was a thorn in her instructor's side. She was so thrilled that she could go underwater. She would continually bob up and down like a cork.

By the end of the third lesson, she was swimming across the pool.

Abri was a little slower at the whole idea of going underwater.


I'm happy to report that both girls are now official fish. Both have exceeded my expectations. Lise' is a natural and hasn't worn any type of floatation device since May. Abri evenutally came around once she figured out it wasn't so bad. Now I can't keep her out of the water, and although she can swim without a float, she's a dare devil, so unless all my attention is focused on her, you'll still see one around her waist. Her favorite thing is to dive down to the bottom, and she can do it. Sometimes she shoots too high and runs out of air on the way up.

Unwelcome May Visitors

May marked our first month in the new house. I don't remember a lot about then, but here's a few highlights that were hard to forget.

This was the week the South had that splendid little cool snap where you could leave your windows open and let the breezes flow through. That's exactly what I did as unpacked box after box with the doors wide open. It was nice not to have to worry about insects flying into the house because we have the screened in porch.

What I should have been worried about were snakes! Two of them to be exact. It was mating season after all.

Thankfully, it was B who saw them before me. I promptly shut the doors and sent him to let them know our warm pool deck was not welcoming visitors of their kind and to "shoo" them back into the woods.

They wanted nothing to do with being shooed anywhere and retaliated by being defensive and striking back at B.

So, it was OFF WITH THEIR HEADS



Turns out they were black racer snakes...look it up. They are the "good" snakes you want in your yard b/c they keep the poisonous ones away. But, we didn't know that, they wouldn't go, so now they're raccoon food.

At the end of the day, there was one Mother's Day pic, although I took it myself, and Lise' was not present. Maybe next year.