And Just How Many Days Has The Tortoise Been Out?

There are a lot of pets in this house. We have dogs, and a cat; a terrarium full of lizards and frogs; a gecko and some fish; a rabbit; three rats; and a tortoise. And well, sometimes when the tortoise gets out the boys forget that they have gotten him out. Then, two days later while we're sitting in the kitchen home schooling, he walks on by like he owns the place. I have to then ask the inevitable question of "Hey guys, how long has Deleno been out?" The boys get all shifty eyed, blame each other, and refuse to give me a straight answer. Best I can guess, this week, Deleno roamed my house for two days without a care in the world. And that folks, is my life. 

I'm going to make this quick, because in just about an hour Calib will be home, followed by Hayden and Spring Break will be upon us. Then I'll have very little time or desire for blogging. We have our fun plans all out on the chalk board for the next week, but I left out the Spring Cleaning projects I am determined to accomplish, the great clothes shift-down of 2013, and a required reading and academics time slot every day. Geography for Calib, flash cards for everyone else. They can whine about that later. 

Our highlights of the last week or two, included Asa and Calib making a trip to One Buc place. As I mentioned, we are season ticket holders for 2013, so we get invited to special events. While I LOVE football, I wasn't thrilled with going to a regional combine and having a tour of One Buc place at 8 am on a Saturday, so I passed. But, Asa and Calib had a good time. 

We also got a lot of stuff done. I finally turned Calib's closet into a study area, and my new freezer came. Both, super exciting. Which makes me old and lame, but I really don't care. 

Asa's birthday present arrived early. He his thrilled with his nexus, and is pretty engrossed in it. But that's ok, because he's playing draw something with me. Which is the most I've gotten him to play any game with me in awhile. 

Saturday was a fresh market weekend, and the boys were not into going so Asa and I got an unexpected mini date. We're working on going a little farther from home every time. So far, so good. And I picked up the herbs for our newest home school project- an herb garden. We're going to work on it over spring break (Peyton doesn't even know he's getting tricked into 'school' work over spring break!) I spent the rest of Saturday cooking to make all kinds of freezer meals. One day of cooking for a bunch of days of not cooking, kind of an awesome deal. 

Monday was our Florida Anniversary, but everyone had school and work (Hayden even had a zoo field trip, so he didn't want to skip) So Sunday we headed out to celebrate. Our passes for Seaworld and Busch Gardens expire soon, and with Disney, the Bucs passes, and a VERY full summer, I don't think we'll be renewing soon. So we decided to kill two birds with one stone and go to Aquatica one last time. We had an awesome time. Sadly, Hayden is just a smidgen too tall to be in the kiddy area. He was not thrilled with this, as he isn't such a dare devil, and doesn't want to venture onto the big slides yet. But maybe by the time we have passes again he'll be excited for it. 

We all filled out our March Madness Brackets. We aren't usually basketball people, but we try and get into it this one time of year. Everyone has a different pick, and they're all still in. Winner gets to pick someone to go out to dinner with. Two years ago Hayden was the winner with the surprising pick of Butler to go all the way, while they lost in the finals, it still got him enough points to win. So we're seeing if his Colorado State pick holds up. He does have them losing in the finals to Florida though. I think his Florida pick is much more realistic. 

Monday we officially celebrated our seven years in Florida with a cookout. A waterpark, and a cookout in March, a nice reminder you don't live in Ohio anymore. 

Other notable events this week: 

The rats are getting pretty tamed, and we're having luck with getting them to settle down when being held. 

Asa passed his very very difficult Database exam, so we had strawberry daiquiris (non-alcoholic of course) to celebrate! 

Oh, and Peyton and Hayden got a fun package. Their flat selves we're sent out to our friend Rachel Baker in Alabama. She took them around to the Space and Rocket Center, and sent the boys some things. Kind of awesome. 

Next Up: Asa turns the big 3-oh, and we have spring break plans! Yippie! 

Week Something Or Other: Getting You Up To Speed, Waterstraut Style

Look. I know, ya'll love my blog. You've been thinking to yourself for months now "I wonder what happened to Corinne and her AMAZING updates about all the FABULOUS things those AWESOME Waterstrauts do in BEAUTIFUL Florida." Well, here's the thing. I am a procrastinator. And the 'I'll update next week' has turned into three months. And while I also have OCD and would love to go back and write all the weekly updates I missed, I'm coming to terms with the fact that if I want to keep on keeping on with the Waterstraut Waterspout, I'm going to need to be a little less OCD about having all those weeks, and just get you all up to speed. So, here we go. Buckle your seatbelts, folks. It's about to get crazy up in here.

I last left you in December. Specifically, the weekend we hit Ohio for our Christmas time visit. It's probably better I write about this now, as opposed to when it first happened because you probably would have gotten 1,800 paragraphs on how I ended up with a flight delay, sicker than I've ever been, puking in the airport bathroom, arriving home at 2 am, with two kids in tow. But, instead, you just get to look at happy pictures of the trip. Calib went to Jeffs, Hayden stayed with Asa, and Peyton and I got to be around for cookie day, and some visits with some of my favorite people. (But you know what, I'm going to be even less OCD about the pictures, and not even make it look all pretty- insert image is all you're getting here, people)

Then it was Christmas time! Short story: The boys got stuff, they were happy. Hayden got a kindle, he was ecstatic.

A couple of days after Christmas, we went with our neighbor to pick some oranges. We've picked strawberries and blueberries before in Florida, but never citrus. The boys loved using the grabbes to get the fruit down.

After Christmas was the annual mom visit. And my favorite: New Years Eve at Sharkys. Complete with watching the sunset for the last time in 2012.

We had our usual New Years Day cookout, and later that week Mom babysat our kids and Angela so that we could have our much anticipated Waterstraut/Crandall double date night. Also fyi; new fun game, trying to match the speed of your ball as close to the random person in the lane next to you as possible. Other variations: see how fast and slow you can send your ball down the lane.

We did fit in a Disney trip with mom while she was here. We made it Epcot and Magic Kingdom and didn't have too many crowds to deal with. And, my mom bought me a Lady pillow pet. Plus we got to watch the electrical light parade which is amazing EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. 

January saw a very busy weekend: Clint and Jess were in Florida the same weekend of Katie and Kevins wedding. Both good times, despite the fact Justin went missing and was presumed dead, and Clint brought crappy cold rainy weather with him. 

We also finally made it to the new fantasyland at Disney- including the Enchanted Tales with Belle. The boys were not thrilled with the prospect, but Asa got to play a knight, and Hayden got to play Chip. He still talks about it. Awesome stop if you're at Disney, even if you just have boys. Other things we learned that disney trip: The grassy area in Epcot's parking lot makes for a great picnic area, School bread in Norway is amazing, and there is one horse on the carousel that has a ribbon on it's tail- that's Cinderella's horse! 

February was very busy around here. It started with the super bowl, and while I was heart broken the Falcons didn't make it in, I was glad I had someone to root for in the Ravens. Our super bowl party was a success, but we learned the prop bet board is going to have to be more specific next year; especially when it comes to straight or curly hair.

The day after the superbowl, I let Calib skip school and we headed out to Disney for the day after the superbowl MVP parade. We were there last year for Eli Manning, and this year we knew we'd want to be there for Joe Flacco. If you recall last year, we accidentally ran into Eli and Hayden got to talk to him. We figured they'd take the same behind the scenes route with Joe, so we headed over to a certain gate and waited. Calib totally got a Joe Flacco high five, I stunk at getting a picture of it though.

That same week was Hayden's birthday. We used a groupon for putt putt, went to play some games at Chuck E Cheese (which I hate any other day of the year, but he REALLY wanted to go), and went bowling.

Hayden also requested his presents be found via a pirate map. Peyton and I made it during home school, and Asa added authenticity by burning the edges. It was a total success, and he loved it. We had the ever popular Pasta Bar for dinner, and cake for dessert. A total successful 7th birthday.

One more family addition on Hayden's birthday: The boys all got pet rats. Rats are awesome, and make way better pets than say hamsters. Their names: Ulysses, Simpson, Grant. (You know, like the 18th President.) 

The next weekend we hit the Florida State Fair. (A fair in February! How great is that?) There was lots of goat/cow/sheep petting, and everyone (minus 'I'm too cool for that' Calib) milked a cow. We went light on the fair food (talk about expensive!) and got an elephant ear.

In late January it was announced Live with Kelly and Michael would be taping at Disney. I watch them most mornings, so I was all about going. Calib was all about seeing Michael Strahan (a former NFL player), so I signed up in the hopes of being picked to get tickets-- and I did. So, on the 18th, I let Calib skip school again (I know, bad parenting-- but come on! It's not everyday things like this happen, and his grades are awesome anyway!) and we went out to see the taping. It was a super fun day, we got up early and had Tonga Toast (AMAZING Disney food, btw) at the Polynesian. We were the second taping, so we were there for the park opening, but then had a little time before we needed to wait in line, so we hit space mountain with hardly any wait.

Then we lined up for the taping. Our seats were decent (but we were never actually on tv- boo), and then after the show, Calib waited hoping to get a high five from Michael. He ended up getting Kelly instead (he had his hand out yelling for Michael, and she just came out from nowhere), he was unimpressed.

The end of February, Asa's cousin Zac came to visit. I had never had another guy come stay with us, so I wasn't anticipating just how loud y house would be. But it was a good time. We hit the beach and the pool despite it being way too cold for us Floridians, went to the Mosi ropes course, the boys went to Airheads for some trampoline jumping- but mostly there was just lots and lots of nerf gun fights, rock band, and messes to clean up.

And so, here we are just finishing up the first week in March.The biggest March news: Asa got his bonus check. We used it mostly to pay off bills and boring stuff, but it was a really good bonus and I wanted Asa to get something he wanted, because he did get a really good bonus for working so hard all year. His decision: Buccaneers season tickets. When you buy season tickets, per game cost is ridiculously low and they even have kids prices, making it super affordable. And, he is so excited. Calib and him are even getting to go to One Buc Place (the Buccaneers training facility) on Saturday. You get a lot of perks with the season tickets, and everyone is pretty excited about them. Plus he got an awesome Bucs flag sent to him.

 Last weekend, we went out to Angela's birthday party. Lets hope next year we get some warmer temperatures. It was really, really cold. I'm hoping things warm up, because I am pairing entirely too many socks.

And there you go. That's it in a nut shell. I'm hoping to return next week with your weekly updates back on track. But, lets face it, I'm a procrastinator, and I make no promises. Absence makes the heart grow fonder though, right?

Up Next: One Buc Place, and Adventure Island Opening Weekend (please please please warm up, Florida)!