Abby's spring pictures!

Abby had these great pics taken at daycare, by a woman who lives in Tremont and is getting a great start at a new photography business. She took the pics of the kids last summer at the river ... and I'm going to have her do Drew's senior pics too!

Driving Skills for Life

Drew had a great opportunity to participate in a school program funded by Ford Motor Company over the past few weeks ... and it concluded this week with the announcement that Tremont and one other area h.s. tied for first place in their school's development of a safe driving campaign. This means the school gets additional funding from Ford, and all 25 kids on the THS Safe Driving Team receive $500 savings bonds. There were 7 area high schools in the competition.

Kids from all 7 schools had the chance to spend a 1/2 day with professionally trained drivers from Ford behind the wheel of the "Skid Car" ... which is specially designed to help them learn how to correct a vehicle in a full skid situation. The pics in the slide show are of Drew driving the skid car, which just happened to be a beautiful red Mustang! It was a great experience for all the kids, and it's great to see such a large corporation be a good community partner. They have already stated they will return again next year to work with the kids again.

Here's a link to the Ford Motor Company "Driving Skills for Life" site that explains the competition and prizes. Congrats Tremont!

http://www.drivingskillsforlife.com/content/view/68/17/lang,en/

Prom Night!

Enjoy the photo show of pre-prom pictures with Drew and his friends ... they all looked wonderful and (sniff, sniff) so grown up! It was a gorgeous afternoon for pics. After the kids had their fill of the lens, they had a little fun in the last pics doing their best "James Bond" pose in honor of the prom theme ... 007, as in 2007.

Then it was off to the high school for Promenade. The You Tube video below is from this event, where all the kids come out by couple and are introduced. It was really fun to see all of the dress and tux choices. Personalities definitely shine through!If you have any trouble viewing the You Tube video below, you should be able to see it by going directly to this link ....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcnkIAXJjFc

Award Banquet

Congrats to Drew on receiving an award tonight for the work he has done with the Tazewell County Youth Board and Tazewell Teen Initiative. There is a very small core group of kids who has put hours into developing educational programs for area teens in hopes that it will make an impact and help reduce the large number of teen driving deaths in our area. The award he received is named in honor of a woman who dedicated her life to making the life of Tazewell County citizens better, and we're proud and honored to see him receive it. Shown with him in the pics is the Director of the Youth Board, who is a wonderful mentor for Drew, and two other Youth Board members from an area high school.

Ahhhhh ... SPRING!!

What a beautiful weekend it has been, and how great it is to feel that Spring is finally here to stay!

Big spring milestones ... the boat is in the water now. We spent the afternoon at the marina yesterday, and TJ and Mitch spent the night on the boat. Abby and I headed home for the night, and Drew was at an overnight youth board lock-in. He left there, went to church to sing in the choir at the 8:30 am service, and is now officially crashed. For the day, I assume!

Big week coming for Drew. On Wed, the juniors are taking the ACT test at school. Then on Thurs, it's PSAE test day for the juniors. Friday is a full-day school driving safety day, and it sounds like it will be a great event. The faculty is grilling pork chop sandwiches for the kids for lunch, the kids will be moving through several different stations to demonstrate driving safely and how impaired driving affects you ... such as wearing the Fatal Vision goggles and driving a golf cart, driving a golf cart while typing a text message, etc. Local police and ambulance service will be on hand to talk about what to do if in an accident, how to act if pulled over, etc. And the Lifeflight helicopter will land on-site to talk with the kids about accidents and emergency airlifts. I'm taking the day off to help, and one station will be my car ... showing the kids how to properly install a car seat when transporting siblings or children they are babysitting for. Or someday (hopefully not too soon!), their own child.

The timing of that is good and very important with Prom being next Sat. Will be lots of fun with dinner/dance and then after-prom in Peoria. Another all night event for Drew, with next Sunday being a day to sleep!

A week from tomorrow, on Apr 30, Drew starts a new job. He'll work 16-20 hrs a week (after school) for a local transportation company in their accounting dept. He's very excited about the opportunity to learn some new things and make some moolah!

Will post some prom pics next weekend.

The Music Man!

Drew's high school had opening night for The Music Man tonight ... they have put in long hours on the production, and are doing a great job. They will do performances through Sunday. This is Drew's last h.s. musical since THS only does one every other year.

I took some photos last night at dress rehearsal, but they are pretty fuzzy. The house lights were up and the props weren't in place ... but you can see the size of the cast (even from our small school!). Drew is in the back row, 4th from the left. His role is in the barbershop quartet, and they do several songs in different scenes. It has been a fun experience!

A great spring break!

We rolled into Tremont about 2am Sunday morning after driving straight through from Destin ... long trip!

I put together a Photo Show with pics from the trip, some you have already seen here on the blog, but many new ones as well ... copy/paste this link into your browser to view:

www.photoshow.net/watch/sZ8qu3ZD

The Gulf got calmer and more turquoise each day, as you will see from the pics. Fairly heavy surf (red flag) when we arrived, then an intermediate day that was perfect for boogie boarding, then a couple of really nice calm and flat days. The last couple of days were about 20 degrees cooler than the gorgeous 82 degree days we enjoyed early in the week ... but it was still nice and we were able to have some sun time.

The kids slept in and enjoyed a quiet Easter at home. The Easter Bunny's assistant sure was glad she got the baskets together before she left for vacation ... can it really be April 8 already?

Big week for Drew with the high school play (Music Man) running Thurs-Sun. He starts very intensive dress rehearsals tomorrow after being gone for a week (there is no school Mon). The week will be a blur, I'm certain! I'll post some play pics later in the week.

Beach Days

More beautiful days in Destin. It has been about 82 all week, which is warmer than it usually is when we're here. Not looking forward to returning to the cold at home we're hearing about! It is a little cooler here today (Thurs) than it has been, but it's still nice. It has been a relaxing week with lots of beach and pool time ... our favorite kind of vacation! Couldn't drag me away from here to tromp around a theme park for all the money in the world! :-)

Here are a few pics from the last couple of days!

Beach Time!

Beautiful, beautiful day in Destin on Monday! Lots of sun and sand, pool time and beach time ... here is a slide show of the kids working on a sandcastle ...

And here is a YouTube movie of Abby "Gettin' Jiggy on the Beach!" :-) Click on the arrow to play.



Mitch's parents arrived late afternoon on Monday, so the kids are busy showing them around the area this morning! Looks like another beautiful and warm (82) day, so I'm sure it will be a good day!

Hello from Destin!

We're safe and sound in Destin, enjoying our time! We had a good drive down Fri night, and got away a little earlier than normal at about 4pm. That put us in here at 6:30 am ... so we cruised the beach road, checked out the area to see what is new from the last time we were here, grabbed some breakfast at one of those little silver diners, and went for a beach walk. The picture (above) is of Abby and daddy checking out the beach about 7am. After breakfast we went to the condo complex to wait for the pool to open, as we couldn't get into the condo until afternoon.

We spent a couple hours swimming and enjoying the sun, then did our grocery shopping for the week after we got into the condo. Mitch and Abby crashed pretty early (he was up all night driving) and the boys and I went for a walk, did a little shopping/browsing, and came back and played Monopoly! At 10pm their mom told them they were each receiving an early inheritance of 1/2 of her money and 1/2 of her property, so they were set and contined to play. It was fun.

Today (Sun) is looking a little cloudy, so it may be a good day to get things in order around here and then do a little nosing around in the car. It's 8:30 am and the boys are still snoozing, and Abby and daddy are out for a walk. It's nice to be back in Destin, it is a relaxing place that brings back lots of wonderful family trip memories for us!