Tuesday, August 07, 2012

Greetings blogger friends.  It's been a long time.

Life has been absolutely crazy.  Liz graduated from the University of Florida,  Emily graduated High School, Mark finished elementary school, and Greg, well he's just plugging away at USF.  He got accepted into the College of Exercise Science which he was working very hard to achieve.  He also just today got his NASM certification.  Not exactly sure what it stands. He is currently working as a personal trainer and it has to do with that.  Obviously you can tell I am not up on personal training.  I guess now that I have one in the family,  I should maybe start training.

Steve and I managed a trip to New York City in July.  We were celebrating our 25th Wedding anniversary.  It's not until October, but we decided to take our trip in the summer before Mark started school.  We had a blast!  Neither one of us had ever been so that made it even more fun exploring somewhere we had never been.  I loved it! I can't wait to go back someday.  We saw  the sights (Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Empire State Building,  the 911 memorial site, Rockefeller Center).  We stayed in Times Square which was CRAZY full of people.  We even managed two shows....Jersey Boys and Phantom of the Opera.  Such great shows.

Here we are in Central Park

Mark starts school next Monday already.  Middle School!  Hard to believe.  It was really weird getting all the back to school stuff and only having to get it for one kid.  I am done to one school for the first time in YEARS.  I've always had the kids in different schools and on different schedules.  It's kind of sad.  It's been an adjustment not being needed all the time.  I know the kids will always need me, but now they are self-sufficient.  I know it sounds weird but I do miss it.    Usually dinner consists of just Mark and me.  Steve gets home later and the kids are all gone out or working.  I never know if they will be home for dinner or not.  

Finally, I got a job.  I am a scrapbook/Paper-ed instructor for Michaels.  It's started off slow.  It's hard to build classes and get people in but maybe now that school will be starting soon, I can be a tad more busier.  It's been fun and I have learned so much from the training.  I've been trying hard to make more time for my scrapbooks.  I have always loved creating them and over the last few years, I just haven't spent as much time on them as I'd like because of all the craziness with the kids.  So, I've decided to make that a top priority.  I am in the process of creating a new blog in addition to this one so I can post some of my layouts.  I am hoping to get a bit more creative by doing it and hosting some challenges and swaps.  I used to be in a group on the old AOL boards and we would do all kinds of swaps and fun stuff. I really miss that and hope to start again soon.  I will keep you posted as soon as the new blog is up and running.  

I am going to end this post with some random pictures and I am going to do much better at updating this blog.  I miss blogging.  I've tried to keep up with all my friends blogs but Facebook has pretty much taken over. I'm actually getting kind of bored with FB. It's great to keep up with all my old friends and family, but I miss my blog buddies.

Anyway, have a great Tuesday.  Hope it's a good one.

 Yes!  She did it.  It was down to the wire, but she's done with High School

 Here's the little man all decked out for his 5th Grade Celebration.  So handsome.

Prom.  She was beautiful.

Our college graduate.  Go Gators!

Oops, guess I really need to get some pictures of Greg.  He's not one to get his picture taken.  He's the one who always disappears when the camera comes out.  Guess I need to work on that!