Bill & Bill Retirement Party

Today we had a surprise retirement party for Bill (of Bill & Rita) and Bill (of Bill & Linda). The funniest part of the afternoon was when we all went to give them their retirement cards. Apparently there are only so many retirement cards and with 6 different families giving cards each Bill got three of the same version of two different cards. It was hilarious!
Then after everyone read all of their cards Mark read a poem that he wrote for the occasion - in a Jamaican accent :) Excellent!











On the way home from the party we saw a Hot Rod car show at one of our local restaurants so we stopped to check out some of the cool cars!

Little Man's Last Day of School

My Little Man is officially a Kindergartener!

What a FABULOUS year he had this year. His teacher, Mrs. B, is one of the best teachers ever! She was definitely the best teacher for him this year. She loved my son and really understood all of his craziness. Little Man is SO smart and extremely funny. He needs some work on listening and keeping quiet during class and line up time. Mrs. B really focuses on the positives and tries to make sure that all of the kids in her class are successful and really love school. We are so happy that Little Man had such a wonderful teacher for his last year in preschool.

We also decided this year that we are going to send Little Man to Kindergarten at the private school her currently goes to. One more year in the fabulous school with the small teacher/student ratio will really let him continue to mature and master his listening skills :)

We love you Little Man and are so excited to see what next year brings!

Daisy Scouts Bridging Ceremony

Little Miss has graduated to Brownies! We had her Daisy Scout bridging ceremony this evening. This Daisy troop is so amazing ~ our leaders are so organized and they plan fabulous activities for our girls. So excited that we're going to be with the same troop next year.

Spring Piano Recital

Spring is here and it is time for our Spring Piano Recital. The kids have now been taking lessons for a year and are doing SO great!


Little Miss played Rusty Old Bike and Square Dance.

Little Man played C for Cat, G for Girl and I Can Do It.

Dunlap and the Brain Girls - A&P I & II 2010-2011

A&P I and A&P II have been such a blast! Early on in the first semester of A&P Kim gave me a call (because Darby was busy :) ) and we did a study session on the phone before the first quiz. Since then Kim, Darby, Alicia, and I have been getting together on Monday nights for A&P study sessions. We started out at IHOP but ended up at Cafe du Luxe because the food was better and the staff there is fabulous. We did the last two months of Monday night study group up at school so we could use the white board to learn the information.
There is no way that I would have done nearly as well without them. I ended up with a 99 average in A&P I and a 98 average in A&P II. It was the regular study sessions and the different takes on certain topics that someone in the group had that really enabled me to make such great grades. It was also the expectations of the group that kept me on my toes. I made sure to do my Excell reviews and come to study session prepared because the group expected it. That really helped me stay on top of the workload.
Somewhere in the middle of A&P I the owner of Cafe du Luxe made us a sign to reserve our study area at the cafe. We were studying the nervous system and more specifically the brain at the time and so he dubbed us "Kim & the Brain Girls" and the name stuck!
Thank you Kim and the Brain Girls for all of the studying and amazing fun that we had this last year! I'm going to miss seeing you all so often!

Here's a quick ditty for the best A&P study group ever!
This last year has been awesome in A&P class
Kim & the Brain Girls we became while we studied & laughed
We each go our own way, moving on to new things
But we will stay in touch as we see what the future brings
















Here we are in October 2010 for our first study session at IHOP & a month later at Cafe du Luxe.















Studying the brain in the lab and the beginning of Kim and the Brain Girls.
















We take too many group pics :) Here we are in Nov 2010 and in March 2011.




















Darby loves the white board and here we are teaching about chromosomes and their duplicates.




















We love Dr. Dunlap who is an excellent A&P professor and here we are at our last study session.

1st Annual Mother's Day Crawfish Boil 2011

So today we had our first ever Mother's Day Crawfish Boil 2011!
The crawfish were delivered via FedEx this morning around 10am. My in-laws and my dad came over around 11am to get everything ready for the afternoon's boil. Everyone else arrived at 4pm ~ in all there were 18 people - Bill & Rita, Lara & Ryan, Jennifer and her two kiddos, Linda & Bill, Bill, Mom & Dad, Mark & Lynda, and me & Ryan and the kids.
After dinner we all came inside to exchange Mother's Day presents and Mark (my father-in-law) read us all the following poem that he wrote:

The Wiz

It's 'bout Mother's Day and I been thinkin' just who it IS that is
the Wiz who keeps the family boat from sinkin'.

Now it's sure not Obama, no it's your sweet Mamma,

you know what I'm saying is right.

She's always there full of love and care

so lovely but so fulla dynomite.

She solves the problemas but nobody does she blame-a

she's kind 'n just 'n fair.

But when we get sassy, you'd think she was gassy

She just wanna pull out her hair.

So on Mother's Day, whatta you say,show her you love her and don't be sappy

'Cause when Momma don't smile I'll bet you a pile

That ain't NONE of us gonna be happy.

So on the last verse I will be terse and I'll tell it just like it is.

We love you MOM, you're just the BOMB

And we all know that YOU be the family WIZ !

~Mark --on the occasion of the First Annual HTP Mudbug Madness Pre Mother's Day Party

Little Man's End of the Year School Program

Little Man had his end of the year program tonight - fun as always - Little Man wasn't feeling great but did pretty good :) Cookies and juice after the program seemed to cheer him up!