Field Day

Harding held its annual Field Day on Friday. The weather could not have been more perfect. It was in the 70's and sunny and the kids had a blast. Anna's class could not decide on a color to wear so they chose to wear Harding t-shirts and white bandanas. They participated in 10-12 different activities and were wired at the end. A great day to enjoy a celebration near the end of the school year!

Anna with Kennedy...crazy girls indeed.

Lainie, Anna and Kennedy

Anna was pretty good at navigating the bouncy ball through the cones...helps that we have one of these at home!

wearing a bucket on your head while your teammate tosses beanbags in it....

enjoying a break with bomb pops! these girls were so fun!

Mother's Day

Glad to spend Mother's Day with my mom and the girls. Caroline's Junior K celebrated Mother's Day a week early with a nice luncheon. The kids sang a sweet song and made all the mom a book to keep. Caroline was so proud and the lunch was yummy too.  On the actual Mother's Day, we joined Mom and Dan for lunch at J. Alexander's after church. Due to the Grizzlies playing Game 7 in the playoff series with the L.A. Clippers, I think the restuarants decided to open early. I called earlier in the week and they indicated they would open at 11am. Mom arrived at 10:45 and they had been open for a while and we were up to an hour long wait. Not a big deal but annoying. We enjoyed lunch and giving Mom her gifts. Sad that the Grizzlies lost their game, but a great morning and afternoon. Dad, Julie, Blair, Kim and their kids all joined us for dinner hosted at our house to celebrate Mother's Day with Julie. We dined on spaghetti and the kids had a great time playing together with their cousins. Overall, a great day and so glad my mom lives around the corner and I can share some of the day with her.

Lunch with Caroline

Three generations on Mother's Day

Love these crazy girls

Grizzlies return to the playoffs

The Memphis Grizzlies had a great season, albeit short season, but managed to score the 4th seed in the Western Division playoffs. This landed them home court advantage against the LA Clippers. The Clippers are very evenly matched with the Grizzlies and it was not until the very last game of the season that the Grizzlies won and the Clippers lost that we knew Memphis had secured home court advantage.  Memphis had a HUGE lead in game 1 (over 20 points with 8:00 to go in the 4th quarter) but blew it. This set the tone for the series but Memphis tends to not give up too easily. We were hoping to get to attend a game, but all were at 8:30 at night on school nights!! Luckily, Gary's work had a pair of tickets for each game in their corporate seats that are very low and great seats and Gary won a pair for Game 5 in Memphis. It was on Wednesday night starting at 8:30. We were ready! The girls were excited for a mid-week sleepover with the grandparents and Gary and I were hoping for a good game and the energy to make it until the midnight finish!! The Grizzlies played a good game and managed a solid win. We had a great time and enjoyed the atomosphere of the playoffs. We did not get to bed until after midnight and were exhausted the next day but each of us managed to get a workout done and be somewhat energetic!! Fun times!!

love our believe memphis shirts and growl towels that everyone received!

Last 3rd grade project

We knew at the beginning of 3rd grade that Anna would have between 6-8 major projects during the year. Gary and I split them up and alternated supervising the projects. There have been ones where we had to build something (landform....a fjord as well as the 3-D scene from a book) as well as book reports that required costumes (clara barton) and the final one was a doozy. Anna had to make up an imaginary animal, complete with adaptations that helped this animal survive in its environment and then build the animal and its ecosystem. No real direction was provided on how to build the animal, how large this should be, etc. Technically it was my turn but I am not a great "builder" for projects so Gary and I tag teamed this one.

Gary spent some time with Anna by themselves planning out what she wanted to do. She came up with a "Camonkey" meaning a monkey that could camoflague itself within its environment. They came up with the adaptations but not really how we were going to build it. We took a family trip to Hobby Lobby and after 1 solid hour of looking up and down the craft aisles we got some ideas and all the supplies to build the camonkey and its ecosystem.

I was not a huge fan of this project as I thought it took too much parental guidance and help. However, it was the last project of the year and we wanted Anna to have a good grade on it. The camonkey was green and ended up being larger than the tree that we placed in the ecosystem, so then it looked like Godzilla, but Anna was pleased with the final product. She typed out the report that accompanied the built structure and was proud. Luckily she got a 100 on the project and she said that she went above and beyond what some of the other kids did such as just drawing their animal on a piece of paper and the ecosystem was drawn in the background. Oh well, just call us the over-achievers!!

Thank goodness we are done with 3rd grade projects....now to think about having to do a science fair project next year....wow!!

the camonkey with its berry trees, cave for shelter with stored nuts inside. hilarious but done!

Anna, the saver

Anna has always been a big saver of any money that she has received. She loves to save and then count what she has. She very rarely spends her money. She prefers to use gift cards received as birthday or other holiday presents and save her money. She has been very interested in opening a savings account at the bank. Right after her birthday Gary took Anna into First Tennessee with her wad of money and let her fill out the application for a savings account. Other than calling me for her social security number, she knew all her information. She was so proud of herself.

She also asked for a raise for her allowance after her birthday. She now has more chores to do to earn more money but is required to put at least $10 per month in her savings account. Last weekend she deposited $20 which was great! She really does like the process and she is like me in that regard. I was always counting and saving my money and rarely did I spend....maybe she will be an accountant one day?

anna with her money in hand waiting her turn

the customer service rep was so proud of anna!

Spring soccer

Caroline came out of retirement to play spring soccer at Hope. Gary was the assistant coach and we had a few familiar faces on our team. We had a crazy league this time. Either the teams were awesome and killed us or were terrible and we scored and scored and scored. Only one week did we have an evenly matched opponent. We won about half of our games and enjoyed the season. We did not have a single rain out and it was blazing hot for most of the games. Last spring we had constant rain and it was freezing at several games. Great season....now will she retire again or keep playing??



i think that it was over 90 degrees at the finish of the game!! sweaty hard playing caroline!



St. Jude Country Music Half Marathon

The weekend is finally here for the St. Jude Country Music Half Marathon. It has been on my calendar since December and I have definitely put in the miles required to finish the race.  I had a horrible Germantown half marathon so was truly trying to be prepared mentally and physically for this race. I had heard plenty of horror stories about the crowds, the heat, the hills and the fact that it is a very tough race. I really wanted to give it a try since this was the first year that St. Jude Children's Research Hospital was the primary benefitting charity, so I gave it a good try!!

Gary and I were joined by our friends Zack and Lauren for the race.  We drove up on Friday mid-day and hit the expo unon arriving in Nashville. The expo was HUGE and had been going on for 2 days. I could not believe the sheer volume of people and stuff. Zack had registered originally for the full marathon but upon injury this spring to his achilles, opted for the half. He was placed in starting coral 1 (yes, the FIRST coral) based on his estimated time to complete. I was in coral 14 which to me did not sound that bad when I saw that there were going to be over 30 corals!! We got our numbers, swag bags, t-shirts (they had ladies cut shirts which was great, but I hate a red shirt) and headed to the hotel to check in. We reserved our room back in January and glad we did because it was centrally located and was not to far from the finish line.

Gary and I then headed out to the St. Jude Heroes Pasta Party to honor all those runners that had fundrasied for St. Jude in the months leading up to the race. I was excited about the dinner and for Gary to meet folks that I work with, to hear from our CEO and to hear patient stories. There was even a short concert by country artist Jo Dee Messina. It was a great night with good pre-race food.

Headed back to the hotel so we could all get a decent night of sleep. Zack and I decided we needed to be up at 4:30 so that Gary could drive us to LP field and catch the shuttle buses to the start line. There were so many folks catching those buses it was insane. Very well organized and we got on and to the race start by 6am.  Took a potty break and took my place in my coral for the 7am start time. It would take about 20-30 minutes for my group to be called to the start line but still just wanted to be in place. It was cool/cloudy at the start but we knew it was going to be hot with a forecasted high temperature of 84 and lots of sun.

The race was the toughest thing I have ever done. It was hot by about mile 3, hilly before we even hit mile 1 and hard the entire race. It was nice to have the distraction of the bands along the way and there were cheerleaders lining the course the entire way. That was impressive to me. Gary met me at mile 3 and mile 9 which were St. Jude cheer stations. Surprised that I saw him but glad to see a famliar face. He knew that the hills were tough and told me afterwards he could not believe them when he saw them. I knew I could finish. I ended up walking 2-3 times for a few minutes to catch my breath or make it up a hill or eat my food that I had brought along the way. It was a good race. I finished in 2:29 which is my slowest half marathon to date, but it was the hardest. I know that I can run faster and finish with a quicker time on a flat course. That will come in December for the St. Jude Memphis Marathon.

Glad I raced. Proud of myself for my training. So happy that Gary was along to cheer for me. Zack finished in 1:36 which was 10 minutes slower than he was shooting for, but an amazing race for him. Lauren was a great cheerleader as well. She and I are going to do the Road Race Series this summer/fall and do the Memphis half in December. Should be fun!!

zack and i are ready to go at 5am!!

all smiles at the finish line!

notice zack has showered and returned to the race site by the time i finished!!

me with my cheerleader for the day!