St. Augustine/Jan's birthday celebration

On Saturday I met up in St. Augustine with the very best friends a girl could ever ask for to celebrate our friend Jan's birthday. We met for lunch at 11:30 and then shopped on St. George Street for a couple of hours. We did have a nice time shopping but we also were serving another purpose...we were keeping Jan busy until her children could arrive to surprise her for her birthday! Her son and daughter-in-law drove in from the Panhandle and her daughter flew in to Jacksonville. Then the three of them drove down to St. Augustine and once we knew they were there we casually walked down to the winery where they were waiting to surprise Jan. Once Jan realized that the person she was looking at was actually her daughter and not someone who just looked an awful lot like her daughter ;-) she was absolutely speechless! :-) It was priceless. She was (obviously) overjoyed and she certainly deserved every minute of happiness she experienced during her birthday celebration!
Our group of 8 had a wonderful afternoon celebrating Jan's birthday!

Heaven

Some people say Heaven. Some say Soulmate. Me? I say Tall 4 Pump Pumpkin Spice Latte at Starbucks. It's back!!!!!!! Oh how I love Starbucks for offering a pumpkin spice latte during fall. I went on Facebook last night and saw the post from Starbucks that it was back and I knew my one and only goal for today would be to get to Starbucks and get my PSL. I didn't make it there until about 2:30 this afternoon while I was on my way to a client's office but ahhhhh, it was soooo good!!!

One more day of resistance tomorrow and then I get to FINALLY put out all of my fall decorations. I couldn't be happier!

I have zero willpower...

When it comes to Autumn I have no willpower. I tried this year to wait until September 1st to do anything fall-ish. I came oh so close! Today is August 26th and I just couldn't stand it any longer and I added the banner (above) that counts down to the official start of autumn. I start celebrating fall on September 1st but I still liked the countdown to the official start of autumn. I've had to stop myself many (many!!) times this month from just putting out all of my fall decor and today I just couldn't stop myself. Maybe this banner will help me hold out until next week when I can put out all of my beautiful pumpkins on September 1st. Eh, we'll see. I have a feeling it's going to happen on Sunday. :-)

3rd grade!

Today was Libby's first day of 3rd grade! Wow, I have a 3rd grader!! We met her teacher on Friday and her teacher is WONDERFUL!! You can already tell she really enjoys teaching and she really cares about her students. This is going to be a much better year for Libby - especially since her 2nd grade teacher couldn't even bring herself to sign Libby's yearbook at the end of last year even though Libby asked her every single day for 2 weeks if she would sign her yearbook.

This year our county implemented a school uniform dress code so now the students can only wear solid colored collared shirts and blouses and solid colored shorts, skorts, dresses, or pants. Libby was NOT happy at the end of last school year when it was announced that they would be wearing school uniforms this year. She has been mad about it all summer. This morning I laid her uniform out on the chair in her room and I woke her up. She opened her eyes, looked around for a minute, and then saw her uniform on the chair. The first words out of her mouth were, "Mommy, I hope there is a riot today over those stupid uniforms!" I couldn't help but laugh. I told her she just needed to make sure that SHE wasn't the one starting the riot!! :-)

I picked her up this afternoon and she was full of stories about her day. I asked her to rate her day on a scale from 1 to 10 and she enthusiastically said, "10!!" I'm sooooo happy that she is already much happier than she was on any given day last year with her 2nd grade teacher. Yay for great teachers!!!!! :-)

Here is the picture that shows how Libby feels about wearing uniforms:

Here is the picture when I told her I was actually sharing these pictures with people:

Here she is ready to head out to 3rd grade:

And here she is at her desk in her classroom:

I think it's safe to assume I must be getting sick. I've had a scratchy throat for a few days and felt sort of "achy" but didn't think much of it until two nights ago. It was 8:00pm, it was still 89 degrees outside with a heat-index that was still in the 90's. It had just rained so it was beyond muggy and you could see the heat rising up off the street (even at 8:00pm!). We were heading to Best Buy and I walked out to the garage wearing jeans, a sweater, and drinking hot chocolate. Ryan told me it was time to admit that I may be getting sick. :-)

But here is something that will make you smile no matter how bad you are feeling...
Take a quick visit to www.jockey.com. Well, once you get there you won't leave quickly...you'll sit and gaze at Tim Tebow in all of his yummy awesomeness!!! It will make you drool but you can just clean that up later. :-)

This past weekend Libby, Karen, and I went to Jacksonville to meet up with our friends Debs and Jan. We went to Jan's place and she invited another friend over and Jan made a wonderful lunch for us. It is always nice to have lunch with friends and Libby is always thrilled when she gets to be involved with a girls day.

Here I am with the best friends a girl could ever ask for!



I can't believe that it is already Thursday evening! This entire week flew by way too fast. Just a little over a week left and then it will be time for Libby to head back to school. Wow, nearly ready to start 3rd grade...where does the time go??