Football season opens!

That's right, our Upward flag football league played their opening games yesterday! The boys played great! Clearly using the skills that are endowed to all Panique men! Ethan was quarterback on two plays that resulted in touchdowns. He also made a great run up the line, but was called back of going out of bounds. (He still insists that it was a touchdown. Doesn't matter to me, it just resulted in some great photos!)

Chet played center and rusher mostly in his game, but did catch the ball for an extra point after his team scored. I thought they both played very well and were much improved over last year. It was so much fun to watch them out there having a great time!

Can't wait to see what the rest of the season holds!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

AKA The First Day of School! (If you haven't seen that Staples commercial set to that Christmas song, look for it! It is one of my all time favorite commercials!)

Anyway, here we are again the First Day of School! We've had such a fantastic summer, it's a little hard for me to go back to the real world. (Of course, the boys have been on each other's nerve this last week, and it's made this day a LOT easier for me!) Our tradition continues and Grandma has been here for every First Day of School since we moved here three years ago.

It's a little weird to realize this is Chet and Ethan's last year at the same school. Chet will be in middle school next year. Whoa! Time goes by fast! So, I took advantage of Mom Rights and embarrassed both of my boys and took pictures of them with their teachers! While I assured Chet that I wouldn't follow him around to all his classrooms in middle school, his teacher, Ms. Meador, dared me too! I might have to use this as a threat to get him to do what I want! Enjoy the pics!

Meet Your Teacher Day

That's right, today was Meet Your Teacher Day and as such, I should have some sweet picture of at least one of my children with their new teacher. It should be accompanied by some sweet story of how my kids can't wait to start a new school year, how much they love school, but honestly, when you run across a photo like this how can it NOT be the picture of the day.

See for yourself:

Hmmmmm....perhaps we need to find a new grocery store.

Did you ever have one of those days?

Yesterday, I set my alarm and got up at 7:30am. I have not been up at that probably all summer, but I thought I would get an early start on the things I had to do so I could finish early. Wow, was I wrong! It started when I was trying to place an order online. Generally, there are no time constraints when ordering online, but what was ordering was coming from Texas and so it my Godmother, so the plan was to save on tax and shipping and have her bring it. Even though the website said it would be available that day, it would not let me order. So, at 3pm I was finally able to order. When you start something simple at 7:30am, 3pm does NOT seem like an early finish to me.

Then, because I am the PTA membership, I was creating invitations to invite the teachers to a membership breakfast just for them next Tuesday. Again the plan is to start early and get them in their boxes by lunch so they have some notice before the event. Well, those didn't get done until 2:30pm and put in their boxes at 3:30pm (and only because my mom helped me) because....

The night before the A/C upstairs stopped working just before bed! Now again, because I was up early I was able to call the A/C people first thing when they opened. Our guy got here about 10am and wasn't done until 2pm, after we made plans to completely replace the upstairs system. Oh joy.

So, nothing appears to be going my way and then....

it turns in to one of these days....

I got to take my mom to see "Wicked" for her birthday! She and my dad introduced my sister and me to musicals early on. I loved going to the theater as kid! I always felt so grown up and something about live theater makes you feel like you are a part of the performance. I love it and tonight was no different!

I took Mom to Spaghetti Warehouse for dinner (once we found it. Argh, construction....). It was very yummy (15 layer lasagna!) and their service was very fast! Always nice when trying to get to an event!

Then we found our way to the theater (no construction there - yay!). We were in the Mezzanine and had a terrific view of the whole stage. Neither one of us had seen this musical, but with all we've heard about it, we were very excited!

It was Oziffic! The story explains how the Wicked Witch of West (Elphaba) and Glinda the Good Witch got to be who we see in the Wizard of Oz. They did such a great job of filling in the blanks and showing all these events that you have engrained in your head from a completely different perspective. The sets were beautiful and the costumes to die for! The ensemble cast played student, citizens of Oz and flying monkeys. That was one hard working cast with innumerable costume changes! So, we enjoyed every minute of it and I can't wait to go see another musical!

So, while my day didn't start off the best, it certainly changed by nighttime! Sometimes you just need a little different perspective!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Water Park Wednesday!

Well, of all the places I've been this summer it seemed I might miss out on one of my Oklahoma favorites, but thankfully, we made it to the Muskogee River Country water park today!! We love this place. It's just big enough to have lots of cool stuff, but not so big that kids can't go have some fun on their own. Chet & Kacy were the first ones on the big water slides! (We were among the first ones in the park today. Mom and I were impressed with ourselves. We never get anywhere at opening!) They haven't seen each other in weeks and were all over the park today. Here they are on the lazy river:

I was so proud of Ethan today (and this summer in general). He's gotten so brave with trying all sorts of different things. He was up and down the slides on his own and with friends. He managed his way over this floating ropes course:

He fell off almost every time, but he get back up and try again! His determination was so sweet to watch!

I was happy to spend some time with my best friends before this summer comes to a close:

It's been a fantastic summer! It's going to be hard to beat this one!

P.S. I played with my blog layout and design today! Do you like it?

Friends from home!

How fun for us today to have our friends, Charlie and Dollie, here from California!! Charlie grew up out here and with 8 siblings still has plenty of family in the area. It was so cool to see some California people here in Oklahoma! A little piece of home! It's always fun with Dollie & Charlie. I can prove it, because here's a picture of Charlie the last time we saw him:

His kids threw him a surprise 60th birthday party while we were in California this summer! (The surprise was that it was 6 months after his actual birthday!) These people know how to party!

These two are like second grandparents to my kids and second parents to me. They've been a part of the major milestones in my life and they are always pulling for me and praying for me. I am so grateful to God for putting them in my life and my parents' lives.

So thanks for making time to come see us, Dollie & Charlie! It was great to show you around our place finally and share more Oklahoma stories!!!

Grandma's here!

See, even Bo's happy!!!

When we moved out here 3 years ago, my mom drove with us and we arrived two days before school started. She helped me get the kids registered, do back-to-school clothes shopping and meet the teachers. I probably wouldn't have survived without her help! Ever since, Mom's made it a point to be out here for the First Day of School every year. It works out well, because she comes out a week or two before school starts and gets to spend some summer fun time with the boys while they still have free time. So, we have our own little tradition and I'm so thankful for it! :)

Cody's Birthday Party

We spent the day at Grand Lake for Cody's birthday! The boys had a great time celebrating with friends and meeting new ones! I love this picture of E & Cody sitting on the dock fishing. What a perfect picture of childhood!

Then, the birthday boy caught a fish thhhhhiiiiiiisssss big!:

Go Cody!

Even Bo got to go to the lake today.

He'll probably sleep for a week now with all the running around he did up there! Don't feel too sorry for him. As usual, he had everyone there under his spell and spent much of the day getting his ears and his belly rubbed. I wish I could explain it, but people just meet this dog and instantly fall in love. Of course, he is a big love, I just don't know how people know this immediately upon setting eyes on him. I'm just lucky to have the best dog on the planet.

Of course, no party is complete without a pinata!

Chet whacked it pretty good, but this is probably my favorite picture of the day:

I was so happy to capture the pure joy of Tracey helping Cody break open the pinata! And this was the perfect shot of what happens AFTER the pinata is open:

Nice way to spend a summer day, which is good, because they are winding down oh-so-quickly!