The beginning of the end

First of all, I'd like to give a shout out to my husband for making the cool slides for our slideshow that you will find at the bottom of the page. It's awesome! Thanks Mike! Please scroll down to check it out :)

I think today is the official start to the end of our summer.

Tonight is "Meet the Coaches" night for soccer....which we signed Nicole up for the fall season. Tomorrow night is Aubrey's preschool orientation. Thursday night is Nicole's Kindergarten open house....and then school starts next Tuesday!!!!! WOW!

I have to apologize for being gone so long again. I tell you what, time has just flown by this summer! Mike would like to say it's been the summer from hell and "never again will he do this much driving!" Whatever! Yes, we are all pretty much worn out, but it's been fun for the most part!

Ok, so since we last posted, we've been to Myrtle Beach, The Outer Banks, and to Pittsburgh...I guess that does sound like a lot of traveling! Anyway, you'll find lots and lots of pictures below that highlight the last few activities of the summer. Oh, and that includes a fun Jonas Brothers post!

So what's next on our agenda? School, soccer, and dance. School starts next week for both of the girls. That means Nicole will be on the bus- ahhhh!!! I just don't see how I'm going to be able to drop her and pick her up everyday....so the bus it is! She's a tad nervous, but I think she'll be fine once she gets the hang of it. Aubrey starts preschool next week as well. I'm really excited because she'll be with the teachers Nicole had the first year she went and we absolutely love them! We'll learn more about our soccer schedule tonight hopefully. She'll have practice sometime in the evening during the week and then games on Saturday mornings. Last, but not least, both girls will be in dance on Thursday afternoons. I was able to find a class that both can be in-- how convenient!!! It's a tap/ballet class. This is Aubrey's first official activity besides preschool so I'm very excited for her!!!

That's really it, I guess. Oh, wait, did I mention Mike is leaving again? I don't know why I am saying again, the guy rarely has to go anywhere....but ya, he's leaving. And he's going to miss Aubrey's birthday which totally figures. You know, every time they schedule him on a trip it's during some one's birthday. How lame is that? LAME! The only reason he was here for mine & Nicole's bdays was because he had appendicitis. I guess I shouldn't complain, but it does suck.

Hopefully, I will be more on top of the blog since our activities are starting up again. I know I'll be posting lots of first day of school pictures, soccer pics, and dance pics so be ready!

Miss you all.....enjoy the blog!

The Jonas Brothers Concert

Thank God for Kristin! She always scores the best tickets!!!

She called us Tuesday around noon saying she had two VIP tickets to the Jonas Brothers concert that night. Didn't take us long to decide we'd take em! And surprise, surprise, Mike opted to take Nicole. He says he just likes to see Nicole enjoy herself at things like that, but we all really know he's a huge fan of the boys. Haha!

Mike said they actually put on a decent show, and he was glad to see such a positive thing for the kids to be into these days. He was impressed!

Below you will find a video from the concert for your viewing pleasure-- along with some pics-- enjoy!

The Outer Banks

Ok, so our next road trip was to the Outer Banks. Typically, it doesn't take more than 2 hours to get there. We decided to go on Sat which was a horrible move that turned our two hour road trip turned into a four hour road trip. And then, we had the bright idea to take the sentra because we were going to be taking the van to Pittsburgh at the end of the same week....thought we were smart and we'd save a penny taking the old car. Well, we did, but during the 4 hours of stop and go traffic our little sentra just couldn't take the heat while running the a/c.....so we pretty much roasted our asses off during the drive. At one point Aubrey got so mad she was screaming "I hate this!" from the back seat! It was bad. We were never so ready for a cold drink by the time we got there.

Our time there was a blast. We actually crashed Mike's cousins' family vacation....we are so glad we did! They were kind enough to invite us down for a couple of days, and Mike was able to get a day off of work. We absolutely love it there- it's gorgeous!

The only bad part of the trip was Mike coming down with salmonella poisoning. The day we left we thought he was hungover....two days later when he was still pooping and feeling awful he took himself to medical. They gave him two bags of fluids + antibiotics and told him he probably got sick from the raw chicken necks we used for crab bait.

Check out the girls in the last picture.....that was our last day at the beach and they were just a tad exhausted!!!

Medieval Times

Ok, so definitely the highlight of our Myrtle Beach trip was going to Medieval Times. It was so entertaining! I have to say, I think Bill enjoyed himself the most....although, I doubt he'll admit it!

Myrtle Beach

We got to spend a week in Myrtle Beach with Pap, Grandma, and Aunt Katie! We all had a pretty good time. As far as Myrtle Beach, I can't tell you that it's this gorgeous place I have to go to again....it was just so-so....kind of like Virginia Beach- haha! I think there was a giagantic mini-golf course on every corner. Like I said though, we did have fun!

Children's Museum

So our little housing community offers free events to attend throughout the summer. Our names got drawn to attend a night at the Children's Museum. It was great! The museum was closed to the public and they had free food and ice cream for everyone...they took little pictures for us to take home too. It was fun! The girls had a blast!!

4th of July

We had a very small pre-fireworks show at our house before heading to the beach at Kristin's for the real action! Nicole had been running a fever all day so we didn't do much during the day.