Kindergarten, Kindergarten, Kindergarten!

The title of this post reflects what Emma was chanting as she jumped out of bed this morning.  Needless to say, she was pretty excited about being a big kindergarten girl!  Of course the excitement did not entice her to get ready with any more haste than normal but then, she wouldn't be Emma if she didn't have to be strongly encouraged ~1000 times to get something done.  She did manage to get ready in time to take a few photos before we left the house.  The first photos are courtesy of an idea on Pinterest.  The idea is that she will wear the same t-shirt on the first day of school up through her senior year to show how she has grown from year to year. 

 

 

When we got to school, Emma wanted us to just drop her off.  We quickly vetoed that since she will only have one first day of kindergarten and like it or not, we were walking her in.  Of course, once we entered the building she was off.  She did stop by the library to get a hug from Ms. Neesvig and then was off to her classroom.  She was off and running but did indulge us with a couple of photos and we were able to get hugs before we left although we had to ask because we were the farthest thing from her mind.  On the bright side, it is good to know that we have a confident, independent child!

 

 

 

 

We had a back to school dinner at the Purple Cow tonight and based upon her recap of the day, I think it is going to be a great year for Emma in Ms. Fortenberry's kindergarten class!

Florida 2013 - Day 2

Monday morning started off with some storms and we were scrambling trying to figure out what we might do with our day since the aviation museum in Pensacola is closed on Mondays.  Fortunately, the weather cleared up for us again and we got to head out for some fun in the water.  Neither Emma nor Josh was too excited about getting in the ocean but did enjoy playing in the sand before heading to the pool.  At dinner, they requested a photo with the statue outside the pizza place.  Fortunately we did not have to head to the ER after Josh tried to stick his finger into the industrial fan sitting outside the restaurant.  He about stopped my heart!

After dinner, we stopped for ice cream.  Can I just say that Emma loves her ice cream?  She polished hers off and when Josh decided he didn't want anymore, she graciously offered to finish it up!  Unfortunately she did not get to as we felt she had already had enough.

 

 

 

Florida 2013 - Day 1

After the traffic we encountered last year trying to get to the beach on Saturday, we pushed back the schedule by one day this year so we headed out the Saturday after the 4th of July.  Our destination on Saturday was Hattiesburg, MS, which would give us a relatively short day in the car on Sunday.  The week before vacation, Florida had a lot of rain and storms so we definitely had our fingers crossed that vacation would not be a complete wash especially since we went through rain all Sunday morning.  After taking a bit of time leaving Hattiesburg on Sunday, we hit Pensacola just in time for lunch.  Fortunately it was about this time that the rain started tapering off a bit and when we checked into our hotel a short time later, the rain was pretty much done.  The kids were ready to hit the pool immediately so we headed down for a little swimming.  They did indulge Brad before dinner with the obligatory photo on the balcony and it is unbelievable how much they have changed since our first trip to Florida.

 

Emma wanted dinner at our favorite place, Crabs on the Beach so of course we indulged her.  They had hermit crab races and all the kids got to choose a crab to race.  Josh did not pick well and his poor crab barely made it to the final round.  Unfortunately neither of their choices made it out of the center and to the edge first so no t-shirt, which left poor Josh in tears.  Somebody was a little tired.  They did enjoy playing on the playground and sitting in the lifeguard chair.  Brad and I enjoyed our Voodoo Juice while watching them play.  After dinner, we walked back to the hotel along the beach and started the immense collection of shells that we brought home.