A double celebration

As I mentioned in my last post, we spent the morning of my birthday on the water.  Just like we did two years ago, we rented a pontoon boat for half the day.  We cruised up and down a bit, looking at some nice homes on the water and then dropped anchor at one of the small islands that dot this part of the river.

Havi had actually been fighting a fever for the last two days, and we were unsure if we were even going to get out on the water.  Her fever finally broke, but she still wasn't quite herself.

Patrick set up one of the sun shades for us to relax under while the dumplings splashed in the water.

Although not the same islands as last time, we still managed to find two islands connected by a sandbar.  The dumplings had so much fun walking through the brush and exploring, in addition to splashing in the water.  (You can actually see our pontoon boat anchored near the sandbar, just above and to the right of Caleb's head in the shot below.)

After lunch, I snapped a few shots of Caleb and Madeline, and then we attempted a few photos of me with the dumplings.  And just so you know that I'm keeping it real, you can see all that extra sunscreen reapplied and totally NOT rubbed in.  Oh well.

Then it was off to explore the second island.  What Patrick didn't tell any of us was that he had actually spied this rope swing as we went by in the water, which was his reason for selecting this location to drop anchor.  Caleb and Madeline were initially unsure about it, but once they were on, we couldn't get them off!  Even Havi had a turn.

And yes, Caleb is giving his sister bunny ears in the shot above.  

And this is what three tired dumplings look like after four hours of boating.  

And that was pretty much the end of the birthday festivities that day.  Havi's fever came back, and we were unable to go out to dinner that night.  We were unsure if she and Patrick were even going to go with us to watch Caleb play tennis in my sister's neck of the woods.   Thankfully, though, her fever did finally break for good.  And on Saturday afternoon, we all headed out to watch Caleb play.  My sister came out with my niece Leah because my nephew Josh was home napping.  Caleb played up in the 12s division and took second place!  He came so close to forcing a tiebreaker against the boy he played against in the first place playoff.  It was such fun tennis to watch.  We are so proud of him.

Then it was time to head back to my sister's place and get ready for dinner.  We snapped a few photos in the front yard.  And for kicks we tried to replicate the cheerleading photo in the last post, but we were laughing too hard to make a good effort.  Yeah, dress and skinny jeans....probably not the best wardrobe choice for doing cheerleading stunts when you're well past your cheerleading prime. (By the way, I'm in the printed dress.)

After our shenanigans, we all hopped in the car and headed to dinner.  Andy's parents came with us as we were not only celebrating our birthdays but also Mother's Day.  We ate at a cozy little Italian spot.  The food was fantastic, and we all had a great time.

We gave my sister her very own ice cream maker.  So now all the special people in her neck of the woods can enjoy fresh, homemade ice cream without having to make the trek to my house.  To say they're excited would be an understatement.

To celebrate me, Deb and Andy gave me some good old fashioned 35mm film!  Yep, you read that right.  As if two cameras and a smart phone aren't enough, I have decided that I want to give shooting film a try.  And my sis and BIL graciously bought me my first rolls of professional film for my new-to-me 35mm film SLR, which should be on my doorstep some time today.  I'm so excited.  And not only did my amazing hubby treat me to a new film SLR for Mother's Day, but he also bought me a new 80-200mm f/2.8 lens.  After six serious years of shooting digital, I finally have a prime telephoto lens to go with the rest of my fixed prime lenses!  I can't wait to use this at Madeline's dance recital and Caleb's tennis matches (and portraits too!)  Oh, and I cannot forget to mention that my precious dumplings bought me my very own tennis racquet for my birthday!  Now I don't have to keep using Caleb's second racquet when he asks me to hit with him. lol

Anyway, it was quite the action packed weekend.  Lots of love being shared and good ole memory making at its best.  I am so blessed with a wonderful husband and dear children.  And I'm so thankful that my sister and I live within driving distance so we can still celebrate our birthday and Mother's Day together.  With our mother and gramma deceased, it means so much to celebrate these times together.  I love being a twin, and I love her like crazycakes.

Happy Birthday and Mother's Day, Deb.
And a belated Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there in the blogosphere!

Helping out friends

Recently I had a friend that I met in the blogosphere (and finally in real life) ask a favor of me/Madeline.  Her daughter Jaelyn was looking for people with limb differences to participate in her science project.  She is looking a foot, eye, and ear dominance to see if it's possible for people with affected limbs to still show dominance for the affected side.  Madeline has always kicked a ball with her left foot.  So I was quite curious to see how she would perform on the rest of the tasks.   Madeline performed all tasks but one (kicking a ball) with her right side.  

Little Hav Hav insisted she participate too.  So I let her kick the ball.  She also kicked it with her left foot.  Anything else, she would have simply copied me because her English isn't quite there to follow commands like these.  Still, she had to push her way in front of my camera.

Would you just look at the new and improved fake smile? 

No more overbite on the fake smiling thing. lol
And if it weren't for the curl in her hair, she would most certainly be sporting an awesome toddler mullet.

Well, as I suspected last weekend, all of Caleb's tennis matches were canceled due to rain.  He was so bummed, even though he was expecting it.  Fortunately, we had a very big Sunday planned which wasn't rained out!  Patrick bought tickets for Caleb and me to see the finals played out at the Delray Beach Open by The Venetian.  Oh, did that ever make up for the previous two days!!!  I took a ton of photos with three different cameras.  So as soon as I'm done sorting through them all, I will get a blog post up.  Suffice it to say that Caleb declared the day to be one of the best days of his life, ever.  I love that boy!

So for the next couple months, Caleb will be back to Friday nights under the lights as he participates in the middle school tennis league.  He is so excited that the weather will be cooperating this week.  He also has a local tournament on Saturday, which he's also looking forward to.  Alrightie, I'm signing off for now.

Have a great weekend!

And it's...more tennis

Sorry for the delay in finishing up our second weekend camping trip.

I have been busy sewing Halloween costumes, and I'm still not done yet.

Anyway, let me back up to (not last weekend, but) the weekend before.  On Saturday Caleb played in his first regular draw tennis tournament.  Up to that point, he had been playing in a Round Robin format, which is great for beginners because it means continous play.  For U10 tennis regular draws, there is also a consolation round, which means at least 2 rounds of play.  These tournaments typically last two days, so there is a bit of a time commitment.

 Caleb played a tough opponent in his first round.  And although he didn't win, he played very well.

 I didn't take too many photos because I know he can hear my shutter clicking, and I didn't want to be a distraction to him during a bigger pressure tournament.  After heading out for some lunch, we came back and waited for a court to open up for his consolation round match.

 Madeline was a trooper and let Havi play with her face/head.  They both laughed pretty hard.  It was sweet to watch.

 Havi eventually fell asleep on the blanket we laid out during his second match.  He played very well, even better than the first match.  But it wasn't enough for a win.  Still, we let him know that just two months ago, he came to the very same courts in his first ever tournament and played very differently.  He's come so far in such a short amount of time.  He looked like a completely different player out there this time around- greater confidence and skill set.  Anyway, after the match it was time to pack up and head back to our campsite.

Since Havi had taken such a late nap, she was up late.  I let her play with my iPhone for a little bit.

On Sunday, we hit the beach again, except I wasn't feeling very well at all.  So I didn't take my camera with me.  We had a super great time camping again, though we are looking forward to some camping without tennis just so we can relax a little more.

This past weekend was just tennis, both on Friday and Saturday.  Caleb played in his Friday fun night matches, again mixed doubles.  And on Saturday, he played in a Junior Grand Prix tournament.  This type of tournament is also a Round Robin format.  We thought he was going to play other 8-10 year olds, but it turned out that he was playing against 11 year olds! And he ended up in a three-way tie for first place!  We were so proud of him. And as we were getting ready to leave in the parking lot, he said, with a huge smile on his face, "I'm just so proud of myself!"  I don't think I've ever heard him say that before.  It just melted both my heart and Patrick's.

This weekend coming up will look a lot like the last two.  Friday night will be the last in the Friday night fun night tennis series.  I'm not sure when it will pick back up again.  Caleb really enjoys playing, even if it's doubles.  Then Saturday we will head to my sister's neck of the woods for another Junior Grand Prix tournament over there.  The girls will get to hang out with their cousins while Caleb plays.  And then on Sunday, we have some sweet family coming in from out of town.  We can't wait to get everyone together.