Welcome Back Y'all!

I had a nice little moment today. You know when you are so proud of your child and you think you couldn't possibly be any more proud? But then you hear something that just brings a tear to your eye because it makes you that much more proud? Anyway, that is the way I felt about Em today at horseback. She has been taking lessons since January and is really getting into it. I have always loved horses so I am happy just to hang out and watch her go! Em was cleaning her horse before lessons today and doing a great job. It is not an easy job either. The stalls are confining and it is very impressive just to watch Em maneuver the horse around the stall, cleaning all sides of it (the horse). I stood and watched her today and she showed me what she was doing and we talked about how and which way to move the horse. The teachers are really amazed by her, as am I, because she is so small and works so well with the giant creatures. The barn owner, Hope, was talking to me outside the stall and she said that Em really is a natural for her age. That Em has a natural comfort with the horses that you don't often see at her age, or even that early in one's career. So we'll see where it goes from there. Em is doing great now, especially after taking that hard fall last week. Thank goodness she got to ride ICE today and not LAZY Daisy! Love you Em, mommy is so proud of you!

Easier than a real update...

Turtle Day 2008

This weekend was pretty busy. We had soccer games Friday evening and Saturday morning, and it was also soccer picture day on Saturday. Paige tied in her game and Emma scored the only goal in a 1-0 win for her team. Emma, Sammy, and Noah played on offense together for 2 quarters and they were all looking awesome... Sweet passing and breakaways over and over, but they only managed the one goal for the day.

After soccer we went to the Marine Science Center in Ponce Inlet for Turtle Day. This place rehabs injured animals and then releases them, and this year for Turtle Day they were sending a logger head named Old Boots back into the ocean. He was a huge 175 pounder! The Schrader's (minus Jen) met us up there and we walked around the science center for awhile and then had to rush over to the beach for the turtle release. We got there just in time and there was a huge crowd there. I had to hold the camera over the heads of everyone in front of me, so these aren't the greatest pics you'll ever see.

Oops! We're a little late.


Yay! One more seagull back in the wild!


Old Boots on the way back to the ocean.


Back in the waves.

Cleanin Out My Inbox

I'm not working today so I went for a nice morning walk by the river. It took over an hour because I was trying to work with Finley. I was hoping to pass more dogs on the way since he always barks at them but I guess they were still inside since it was only 55 degrees this morning!
Here is a pic from warmer times. Greg and the girls during his spring break visit. He had emailed me this pic and I am just getting around to posting it!


One night he was here and we heard the ice cream man. He always comes during dinner and I can never take the girls out there. Since Greg was here he ran out with them and they had their very first trip to the ice cream man....purchased with their OWN money!

Eagney Weekend = Fun

This weekend we had a pretty nice little Saturday planned. I took the kids(all 6) and played while everyone else cleaned! I got the good end of the bargain. Chris and Mike dug up our neighbors tree...a Queen Palm(or something similar) and replanted it in our yard. They were just going to throw it away and we have always wanted one so they said we could take it....but we had to dig it up. No sweat, put the men on the job. Looks great!!!



Bauer thinks Finley can't see her since she is mostly covered by the book!


Sunday we took Paige to practice her bike riding. You can click my bro's page to see videos of the girls riding. Uncle Greg taught Paige how to ride when he was down here a few weeks ago. He got some pretty funny vids of her crying (while she was pedaling) about how she can't ride a bike, yet she was pedaling on her own the whole time! Here is proof that she can indeed ride a two wheeler.


Dog Update. Finley got a new bed today. It matches our bedroom and is so luxurious feeling! He snuggled right up on it!

Happy Birthday to Jen!

Today Jens turns....well it's her birthday. I don't know if she wants me giving out her age or not. You know how us ladies are when we reach a certain age. I like this pic because Jen is wearing her fancy beach hat that protects her from skin cancer. I need one. We are currently eating dinner and getting ready to take a birthday beach walk with the dogs. We got Jen/Abby a pink dog bed for her gift. Hopefully she will like it! Have a great rest of the day!

Beach Pics!

This little number i s a bikini that SOPH got LAST year for her b-day. But Paige decided she fit into it as well!


Em looking very much older than she is!


This is more like the Em I know!


Couldn't blog without the dog!

Olive You. Get it? OLIVE YOU.

What a gorgeous girl! Nice pic thanks to fancy pants Mike. This is a shot from the dog beach we went to when Gregory was here.

Oh the olives. GUH-ross!!!!! Soph loves those but wont' eat a freakin' grilled chicken breast!

I'm surfing of course!

More soccer. Get used to it!

Most of our weekend pictures are going to be soccer related for a while. Paige had a game Friday evening and Emma played Saturday morning. Other than that, we didn't do too much this weekend. We got a lot of yard work done on Sunday in between rain showers. Saturday night we had some storms come through that were strong enough to knock down some of the fence, so we had some yard cleanup stuff to do Sunday. Melissa also thinned out all of the plants around the garden pond. The ferns are taking over everything!

Paige played defense and goalie in this game. Her team played well again this week.


Those shorts might be a smidge big.


Using her patented Pat Benetar technique to keep the other team off of the scoreboard.


She didn't want to use her hands, but she still stopped all of their shots.


And here is the graceful Melissa... She was walking backwards and tripped in this hole they had in the field. I think they filled the hole in after she mentioned this to the YMCA people.


Em's team won again. It was 2 or 3 to nothing, but it should have been about 10 - 0. Em's team just missed or hit the post over and over...

Here is Em on a breakaway! It's just her and the goalie...


And this fat-headed dork who decided to just run her over. He caught up with Emma from behind and just ran right through her. And of course, the referee let it go...I guess it's more important to make sure the players tuck their shirts in than it is to make sure the game is played correctly.


Emma getting ready to go around the same fat-head. She totally cut back and left him running the wrong way. Nice!

A call for volunteers...

As I mentioned, I got a new light so I can do portraits and I need someone to model for me so I can practice. You can see from my first picture that my pool of participants is shrinking. She was sick of it after 3 pictures... That isn't very many pictures before you start getting the goofy faces. She'll sit still for the dopes at JC Penney when she wants a picture taken but not for me! Oh, hold on... the phone is ringing. I think it's the jerk store calling! And they're running out of YOU, Melissa!!!



Anyway, we went for a walk on the Leeper Preserve trails on Thursday. There were about 4.2 billion giant horse flies, so that was gross. Em is smiling because we were just starting out and the bugs hadn't swarmed us yet.


Paige is walking Finley.


Group shot! Greg Sr. is here visiting and went on the walk with us.


Does a Soph pee in the woods? You betcha. She had to go and we were at the wrong end of a mile and a half walk back to the parking lot!