tennis

once upon a time, i was doing rotations to end my last year of pharmacy school.  i strategically planned this one rotation at the vet school at MSU during the end of basketball season.  it was fabulous.  the basketball...not the veterinary medicine.  i honestly don't remember much of what i learned because no one since then has asked me to recommend an antibiotic for their dog or horse.  (you don't use it, you lose it, right?!?)  anyway, after spending days in the OR with an injured horse (the horse OR is pretty awesome...it's like an operating room for giants), on rotation with vet students, or just playing with the pups....i got to go home and grab a bite to eat before heading to the hump to watch whichever SEC team was coming into town that week.  except it wasn't my home.  i was married and lived in jackson.  i lived with a couple that we've been friends with for a long time.  they had a pool.  they had a lab that loved to go for long runs.  (and by long...i'm talking like 3 miles.  3 miles is way long for me, people.)    they lived not far off of campus.  i was loving it.

another thing i had was a roommate.  you see...this married couple had two extra bedrooms.  one for me, and one for this other guy.  i don't remember why he was living with them at the time, but maybe he was in between apartments or something.  who knows?  this guy happened to be one of chase's best friends, and we'd known each other for years.  but when you live together for 6 weeks, you tend to get to know each other a little better!!  you also have no problem beating on his locked door and screaming at him to just turn off his alarm and just get up already!!  why do people feel the need to let alarms scream at them?  especially if those alarms are marvin gaye singing at 530am.  he's married now.  maybe i should pray for her!  :)

fast forward almost a decade later.  metz is the best tennis coach around.  he is one of the most fun people to be around...whether it's on a tennis court or not.  mix that with his mad teaching skills, and little kids can't help but have fun.  william and wes got a taste of that this past week.  wes has the attention span of a fruit fly (i'm going to start praying for his kindergarten teacher right now), but even he was out there giggling and having fun.  and i'm going to give the little guy some props...he's a got a pretty good little forehand.  until he spots a grasshopper outside the fence that needs to be played with.

even reed hit a ball or two.  this kid thinks he's not 2.

i'm trying to talk metz, his wife, and their little boy into moving in with us.  i'm also trying to talk chase into building a tennis court on the lot next to our house.  i'll provide the food in order to see this every day!

but i'm buying him an alarm clock to use.  i don't think i'm ready to introduce marvin gaye to the little people just yet!

relocation 2012

chase is adamant that a vacation with little people is no vacation.  it's a relocation.  seeing as how i always come home from "vacation" more tired than when i left...i might have to agree with him.  but nonetheless, we still had a blast on our relocation this year.

we made sure to hit the beach as soon we got there since rain was in the forecast the next day.

and then we hit up the steamer for some grilled shrimp and crab legs.  reed got the hang of the pliers!

that was followed by sunset beach time (we were worried about rain, remember?), followed by the first of many popsicles.

the weather turned out to be great, and we had nothing to worry about.  we got in plenty of beach and pool time during the week.

we got in plenty of playtime as well.  we made sure to do the most important thing when you go the beach....race cars!

william and wes were even tall enough to drive their own this year!  and they took that job very seriously!

we got a few pics before supper one night...

and then after eating alligator...

we held an alligator! (so sad we didn't have our swamp people t-shirts on for this pic!)

we also made it to the putt putt course this year!  we let everyone keep their own score.  reed won.  he had 18 holes-in-one!  go figure.

the very last afternoon we were there, we took the boys on a pirate cruise.  william and wes loved it.  reed would've been fine staying at the condo!  he wasn't tall enough to see over the side of the ship, so we had to hold him.  and by the end of a 2 hour cruise, he was lying on the deck bored out of his mind. the other two got to defend the boat in a gun fight (with every other ship we passed), get their face (or arm) painted, get dressed up (or not), play limbo, search for the dude that stole the gold, drink pirate juice, have a water gun fight and even drive the ship.  a great time was had by them.  after 2 hours of bouncing with the waves and listening to the jake and the neverland pirates soundtrack...i was ready to jump ship, however!  but they really did have fun!  if you have boys, you should definitely look into it!

i'm tired just reliving it through this post, but i'll leave with my favorite picture of the trip.

long live relocation 2012!