Sunday Night Live - Update

It's been 2 months since my last post, and I'm not sure anybody is still visiting the GRITS corner of the blog world. My Stat Counter tells me the blog averages 8 hits a day. Thanks, Mom.


I can't say my email or facebook page has been overflowing with messages demanding my return, but here I am.


If you have been a regular reader, you KNOW there has certainly been plenty to blog about. I've just taken the easy road out and not written about it.


Soooooo, what have we been doing the last two months?! A little bit of everything, that's what. You know, no update here would be complete without photos.


Swimming. We've had two swim meets and I am PROUD to report that both LegoMan and the Princess represented team GRITS well (or is it good?)





Football. Saturdays in the South are not made for blogging, they are made for college football. DUH! I had the pleasure of taking Papa to watch Alabama pound Florida. ROLL TIDE!





Homecoming. I must admit I have done the blog world a complete disservice by not posting pictures of my kid's dressed up for Homecoming Week. Such a shame. Here are few of my favorites:

Halloween. I must say, this year's costumes will go in the record books. At least LegoMan's will. It was PERFECT. And the Princess' was perfectly PUNK.






So, what's news in your world?!

Summer Rewind

*knock* *knock* *knock* Anybody still here??

We are on the final 3 week countdown until school starts......well, the hubby and I might be the only one counting down.

Our summer has been quite busy around here, it's been filled with GOOD, BAD, and UGLY! (warning: LOTS of photos)


GOOD:

The kids have spent most of the summer in the pool on a summer swim team. They swam 4 days a week and competed in a few meets. Both won several ribbons in their events and Lego-Man made the summer All Star swim team! I am a proud swim mom!!






We also took some time out for visiting family. It's always a good time when the littlest cousins get together for a week. It is non-stop F-U-N.






The local Princess turned the big 9. It's her last year of single digits.....*gasp*



BAD

The biggest bad news of the summer involved this sweet face:




And these cute boys:

As some of you may remember, last year's birthday present was tickets to see the Jonas Brothers. Earlier in the summer we found out her favorite boy band was going to be touring again this fall. The Princess begged for two more tickets for he birthday. I bought them and made plans for a fabulous weekend in Nashville with one of my favorite peeps and her daughter.

On the Princess' very birthday, I received an email that informed me of the JoBros canceling 20 venues, including Nashville (so they could add tour dates in South America????). Insert Sad Trombone Needless to say, I was waiting on a call from Team Jonas to inform my sweet girl of their poor decision making skills. We are still waiting on that phone call.

After receiving the bad news, the Princess settled on a birthday bike....complete with a pouch for her Mp3 player to blare on a speaker. Because the 9 year old needs ONE more distraction while riding her bike.



On another bad note, Lego-Man's summer hairdo strongly resembles Justin Bieber's. Oh baby, puhhleeze.

(FYI, the hairdo situation has since been rectified by the nice lady at Sports Clips.)

UGLY

My little sister and I had an encounter with aliens the Mac Photo Booth:

(Who knew my sister was Janice the Muppet)

We've had a really great summer here at the GRITS house. How about you??

Where my kids at??

This is my newest favorite video on YouTube and I had to share it with my blogging peeps. I think this is marketing at it's finest.

Flashback Friday -- The Cook

This week's Flashback Friday picture takes me back to somewhere around 1979-ish. And it will probably get me a little bit of trouble.....which has never stopped me before.


At this time, my family lived in Hoover, AL in a split level house on a cul-de-sac. Just looking at this picture reminds me of so many things. Even though I was only 11-ish, I can remember spending weekends working in the yard, camel crickets always in the basement, getting out of bed in the middle of the night for an electrical "fire", and watching the United States hockey team win the "Miracle on Ice".

But none of that is what this picture is about. It's about the person in the picture.






Yes, ladies and gentlemen, standing amidst the 1970's kitchen decor is my Momma. This is a picture of my mom in her "element"....the kitchen. During my childhood, my mom always served up three square meals. I'm not talking about Hamburger Helper either (thanks, Mom). Of course, this is not the place I'll talk about her making me sit at the table until my slimy and disgusting beets were gone.

She always served a good breakfast before school....one of my favorites being honey buns warmed in the oven. She packed a mean lunch in the Tupperware lunch box, which was often not complete without a note on the napkin saying "I love you". If my memory serves me correctly, she had a rotating dinner menu.....a dish she called "Rancho Beans" was another favorite of mine.

If you look closely in the photo there are a couple of other items in the photo that remain in my mom's kitchen to this day. Through the years, the tea pots have been replaced, because they are used on a daily basis. Her tea is always fresh, not too sweet, and decaffeinated only!

My favorite thing in that photo is the cookie jar, just to the right of the stove. Inside, my mom's chocolate chip cookies.....voted the "Best on Earth", by her family! Throughout my years in school, those cookies were requested for every classroom party. Mom, continues to keep the cookie jar full every time we go home.


Thank you Mom, for feeding me such great meals except the beets. You are so much more than just a great cook. You are a wonderful Mother in EVERY aspect of life. I love you dearly and hope you have a wonderful Mother's Day!!

All four kids of the Best Mom on the planet, circa about 1980.

Flashback Friday-- Anchor's Away

This week's Flashback Friday is dedicated to someone that is very special to me, who lives on the other side of the world. Literally.


Meet my little brother, Constantine:






We should have recognized early that he would end up in the military:





See Constantine. See Constantine as a "plebe" (freshman) at the Naval Academy in 1996:







See Constantine meet Walter Cronkite on the USS Constitution:





See Constantine graduate from the Naval Academy in 2000:




Constantine has been stationed in Japan and South Korea approximately 7 of the last 10 years. During that time he married a wonderful Japanese girl, Aki.

This week we got the news that he will be coming back stateside for his next tour. He will be stationed in the Washington, D.C. area! I can't tell you how excited my family is. We certainly look forward to having them a little closer to "home".

I sure hope they like visitors!




If you have a Flashback Friday post you would like to share, add your link here:

Nerfin' It Up!

Kristen of We Are THAT Family recently posted about a precious boy named Mason who has been fighting cancer since he was 2. He is now 7. Mason recently completed his last round of oral chemotherapy. How else would a 7 year old boy want to celebrate than with the World's Largest Nerf Party!!

(Photo from Mason's mom's website)

Kristen is helping Mason's dream come true by hosting a virtual Nerf party. She asked her reader's to each have their own Nerf party in honor of Mason defeating cancer and write a blog post about it. We at the GRITS household were more than happy to participate.


Have Nerf guns, will par-tay:




Always remember, safety first:




And wear proper Nerf attire:



Those are the makings for an excellent Nerf party! See:









What's wrong with THIS picture:

Yep, looks like yours truly got stuck with the World's Smallest Nerf gun!


Mason, CONGRATULATIONS on beating cancer!! We were more than proud to participate in your Nerf Party.

Unconditional Love

She was born on September 20, 1995.

Her mother was brown. Her father was yellow. However, she and all her brothers and sisters were black.

Our story together began when she was about 8 weeks old. She was hand picked and I brought her home in a box.

I gave her the name "Bailey". She also answered to just "B". Her voracious appetite earned her the nickname "Pigetha".

She quickly became my four legged sidekick, confidant and 70 pound lap dog.

She loved swimming, playing fetch, car rides and neighborhood walks. The squirrels and chipmunks feared her.

She was a gentle giant with my children from the day they came into the world. And she had a knack for keeping their faces clean and helping them finish that one last bite of whatever was in their hand. They loved her and it was more than obvious how much she loved them.

For the last 14 years she has given me and my family sheer joy, affection, and complete unconditional love.

After a sudden illness we had to say goodbye to our dear Bailey, this past Friday. I think it was the hardest decision I've had to make, ever.

As I sit here and type this, I look at the the place where her bed and bowls have always been. Today those places are now empty.

The backyard is empty.

The place she slept in the hall is empty.

Her barking when I pull up in the driveway is silent.

I keep looking and listening for her.....she is not there.



My heart aches.....because Bailey took a piece of it with her on Friday.

(Please pray for our family....we are struggling)

Homeward Bound

After our last stop in Calica, the ship was headed back towards "God's Country"....Alabama. The only thing between us and our home port was about 36 hours at sea! I think we all agreed we had A LOT of fun over the last 4 days, but we were ready to get back home.

Friday was another "Fun Day at Sea". We took the opportunity to sleep in and planned to just enjoy our last full day on the ship. The only two things we didn't want to miss on board was the "galley tour" and the the "how to make towel animals" class.


Check out some cool sights from our galley (kitchen) tour:

Making crab cakes for dinner.

He carved this from a watermelon!


I just loved this guy's enthusiasm.

The kids went back to Camp Carnival for a couple hours for some last minute fun, which included a short class on how to make the towel animals we enjoyed each night. I think they did pretty well for their first creation:

Lego-Man's Elephant





The Pirate Princess' Elephant

We even got suckered into buying a how-to book so we can impress our guests at home!

We had our final dinner with our awesome waiter, Francisco. He took great care of us all week and the kids really loved him. So, we had to take his photo:








And for the final towel animal of the week....certainly the best was saved for last:

Monkey

Meet our talented room steward, Ricky. I wish we could have brought him home with us!

Thanks for sharing our awesome cruise vacation with us. We had a terrific time. Come back this weekend for a post-cruise wrap up!

Flippers and Fishies

Thursday morning we found ourselves in the port of Calica, Mexico. From what I understand this is a new port that is trying to establish itself with the cruise lines. Other than the local shore excursions, many people took cabs to the nearby city of Playa del Carmen, which has more to offer.







Our shore excursion in Calica was a morning of snorkeling! We boarded the bus and were ready for our adventure!







After a 20 minute ride, we got off the bus at this BEAUTIFUL beach:




We had a quick lesson in snorkeling before we got our gear on and entered the water. Check out the Princess and Lego-Man.






I'll pay for this one, but here is the hubby getting his snorkel groove on:








While I am at it, I might as well roll my snorkeling self under the bus too:




We spent the better part of an hour in the water, which was a bit choppy if you ask me. The hubby ended up with the Princess and I wound up with the boy, whose name should probably be changed to Aqua-Man after this excursion. I could barely keep up with him!


Here are a few of the photos of some underwater sights:

Before heading back to the ship, we spent a little time enjoying the beach:







Care to guess what the Princess' favorite thing was in Calica?!





Yep, you guessed it....she LOVED the iguana's!! They appeared out of the rocks like magic when a local man tossed some DOG FOOD out onto this boat landing. I believe the word "pet iguana" was used on a sign nearby. The Princess actually asked her crazy germophobic mother if she could touch one?! And, no, I didn't let her.


After all the snorkeling and iguana fun one family could stand, we headed back to our ship.





We left Calica and got the ship headed back in the direction of Alabama:


Somebody was worn slap out by dinner time:



And tonight's towel animal......you tell me?!