It's heeeerrrreeee!

Well, almost. Autumn is almost officially here...Tuesday is the official date. I can't wait. Even though we don't get a break from the heat and we don't get the crisp cool fall air and our trees aren't ablaze with the beautiful colors of autumn I still pretend like all of that is happening. :-) A new way that I decided to officially kick off autumn this year was to have a Fabulous Fall Ladies Lunch with a few of my friends. I've invited six ladies to come over this upcoming Saturday afternoon for a fall lunch and to sit and chat and hang out. Some of them haven't had a chance to see my new house, yet, so I'll get to show off my house to a few of them, as well.

This weekend (like all the others) flew by entirely too fast. Friday night we just hung out at home. I'm always absolutely exhausted by Friday night after a long week at work so our Fridays are always very quiet and laid back. Saturday morning I cleaned the house and by the time I was finished it was time to watch the Gators play Tennessee. Ryan's friend Brett had some people over for the game so I went over there and joined them there to watch the game. The Gators won (of course!!) 23-13. I just have to say that I adore Tim Tebow. Every time they start focusing on him and talking about the kind of person he is or they show him pumping up the team, etc, I get the hugest smile on my face. Ryan said that if it were anyone else but Tebow he'd be jealous...but since it's Tebow he completely understands. You can't help but absolutely love that kid!

Tonight while we were at the table eating dinner Libby took a bite and swallowed it and then started to say something and in the middle of her sentence a burp snuck out. She put her hand over her mouth really quickly and then said, "Oops, that bite backfired!" It was so darn cute. :-)

This past weekend

This past weekend was nice. I was able to catch up on a little bit of sleep Saturday morning which was more than necessary. Saturday at 12:21pm was the kickoff of the Gator game so the next three hours were spent watching my beloved Gators and Timmy Tebow. After the game was over I headed to Toys R Us to pick up two birthday presents. Libby was invited to the birthday party of one of her classmates from her original class this year...and that class mate has a twin so this birthday party required two presents. I found two cute projects for them and was satisfied with my findings so from there I met up with Ryan at his friend's house. His friend Brett has five (except now it is 6!!) televisions in his living room. Three of those televisions are big screen tvs. It is SUCH a bachelor pad! :-) But with college football now in full swing that is Ryan's heaven.

Sunday Libby was brought home early from visiting her dad because of the birthday party that I just mentioned. It was a pool party that started at 4:00. We got there right at 4:00 and the children immediately got into the pool. They swam for about an hour until it was time for pizza and birthday cake. It wasn't too hard convincing them all to get out of the pool for pizza and birthday cake but it wasn't as easy keeping them from going back in as soon as they finished eating! We finally let them all back in and they swam until 7pm when it was time to go. She had such a great time!!

Today it was back to school. Things are going great in her mixed grade class. I was reassured that only the smartest 2nd graders were chosen as the few 2nd grade children who were joining the third grade class so that just reaffirms that my Libby is one smart little cookie! :-) She really likes her new teacher and has tons of friends in her new class so Libby is just loving life right now. :-)

Libby's new class

Today was Libby's first day in her new class and it went well. She really likes her new teacher and so do I. Her original 2nd grade teacher was very cold and stand-offish to me. It was so hard for me to get her to even acknowledge that I was in the classroom every time I would try to communicate with her. Ugh. Anyway, her new teacher is much better. Libby was thrilled to find out that she already had two friends in her new class. They are both girls that she knows from her afterschool. That made her day when she saw that she already had friends in her new class. Today they didn't do much...it was basically like the first day of school all over again.



Tonight was Ryan's first softball game of the new season. The weather was actually great...it was about 78 degrees and every so often there was a slight breeze. It was so nice. To make it even better we won 14-13!



Oh, and sorry Tanja and Karen but I actually didn't take a single picture all weekend last weekend! :-)

More changes

As if little Libby hasn't had enough changes this summer she is in for one more! I got a notice from her school that she is being switched to another class. She is being switched to a second/third grade class. There are some things that she'll still be working on at a 2nd grade level but there are now also things that she'll be working on at a 3rd grade level. Not bad, eh? Tomorrow she and I will get to meet the new teacher so we'll see how that goes. Moving to the new class means that she'll be moving over to the third grade hall and she's sad thinking that she won't get to see any of her 2nd grade friends but I promised her she'll see them - just not as much. :-)

This past weekend Ryan's niece was dropped off on Friday and we packed up the car and headed to Indian Harbour Beach where Ryan's parents have their condo on the beach that they closed on recently. His parents where already there by the time that we got there on Friday night. We hit two bad traffic jams...two different times we sat on the interstate with the car turned off for an hour. A three hour trip turned into a five hour trip! :-( We had a great time there...Libby and Deandra spent plenty of time in the ocean and in the pool and we came back on Sunday evening. Deandra spent the night with us on Sunday and she and Libby played until they fell asleep and then they were up early Monday morning to play some more. We met up with Ryan's brother Monday afternoon for him to pick up Deandra and then we just came home and relaxed after a busy weekend.

Sucks

Well I've been waiting for this moment since May and it finally came tonight. The Board that governs my place of employment decided tonight to enforce the policy against having relatives employed together which means I'm out of there. They've given me until October 16th to find another job but I'm obviously leaving at the first possible moment. I'm not going to give them one extra moment of my hard work...if they don't want me then they don't get my talents for seven more weeks. I know I sound bitter - and that's because I am. 10 years of dedicated service and being the employee that everyone knows that they can go to for assistance and they decide to let me go because I got married? I'm not going to be the one who suffers...I'll get another job. Good luck to them finding someone to fill my shoes at that job. They can easily find someone to fill my position but finding someone to fill my shoes? 10 years of knowledge of the job, I've held every position in the department, and I know my stuff inside and out. Ha. Good luck to them - they are going to need it!

Libby made friends today!

I picked up Libby this afternoon and she made several friends today!!! Whew! She has two friends in class so far...Katie and Melanie. She also made several friends in her afterschool program at school: Holly, Emma, and some other little girl whose name I can't remember right now. Unfortunately, she is most likely going to be going to a different afterschool program next week but at least she now knows these little girls and they are all also in 2nd grade so when she sees them at lunch, recess, and around school she can talk with them.

I need to change her afterschool program because I currently have her signed up at her school and the only downside to that is that when there are teacher workday/student holidays there will be no daycare and I definitely need daycare on those days. I'm going to check out the other program on Thursday afternoon and hopefully I can get Libby signed up with them. The only difference between the other afterschool program and the one that she is in right now is that the other one is open for teacher workdays/student holidays. Woo hoo! :-)

Today was definitely a success since Libby made friends! I couldn't be happier!!!!!!

First day of 2nd grade!

Today was Libby's first day of 2nd grade. She told me all summer that she was excited about starting a new school and meeting new friends. Well, the time actually came this morning and she was a little bundle of nerves. I could barely get her to crack a smile. I got her up and she got ready and had breakfast. Here she is at breakfast at least giving me a silly smile...

Before we left to head to school she asked if she could take some "friends" so she grabbed two of her favorites to make her feel better on the way to school...

We got to her classroom and she wouldn't look up at anyone...she just sat at her desk with her head down looking so sad.

I wish I had a magic wand that I could wave over her and make her not be shy! Her teacher emailed me after school that Libby did participate in class but at recess she was still shy and hung around the teacher the entire time of recess. :-( Hopefully in the next few days she'll start making friends because I hate seeing her so sad!! Keep your fingers crossed for her!

After I picked her up we came home and had dinner and then we had brownies that Ryan made. Brownies make everything better, right?? :-) We played outside for a while and then it was time for a bath and bed and that was our day.