Friday, April 21, 2006

Donte's new tatoo

Donte just had to get one when he came home for R&R.

A few pictures of us.

Here's Donte coaching the boys Basketball team. He is truly great with kids.


Donte Hanging out with his brother after the Fall Festival.


The day Donte got back from Iraq at Green Ramp. You can see the exhaustion and joy in his eyes.


Daniel wondering why I am taking pictures of him just laying on the couch.....Dont I know that he has to pose for the pics.


Donte and I right before we took him back to the airport after his two week R&R.

Jordan, Donte, and Yvonne

Here's a picture of the crew...as usual Donnies is caught clowning around. :)

Ok I Know It's Been Awhile....

Well what can I say but "life is hectic" I had gotten on the blogger a few times here and there but couldn't really get started. I feel like I have done 1001 things since the last post and if I made a list I would probably overload my blog :).

I went on a field trip with Donnie to San-Lee park about a week and a half ago. I was told that there would be paddle boats and swings and a wildlife center that we would explore. Donnie has two buddies in class that he is close with, Jordan a fun loving old soul (I swear he's Eight on the outside and 55 on the inside) and Yvonne, One of the sweetest little girls I have ever met. Well Deb (Jordans Mom) and Yvonnes Grandma were going as well so we all decided to car pool. I had never met Yvonnes Grandma and was a bit nervous because she speaks no English at all just Italian...but my reasoning was well she should know some German or French....WRONG!!! but we made do and she was a lot of fun. Anyway I met her and Deb at the principals office and we were off to the park. Mind you I didn't for once think that I needed to dress like I was going on a camping trip. I wore Jeans a blouse and some slip on sneakers. Well the classes were split into groups and they proceeded to tell us that we would be doing the nature walk first (still no alarm going off) Well we get to the lake that has this old wooden bridge an I see a sign that says "DON'T FEED THE TICKS"....are they being funny? Well....No....they weren't....We start on the trail and we walk up and down and all around through it all. There was a point that the there were so many leaves on the ground that people were slipping and sliding like they were on ice.....now remember I have my slip on sneakers on and am pretty sure that if anyone is gonna fall in the middle of the woods its gonna be me. So we walk, and walk, and walk...............what seemes like 10 hours later we make it back to civilization and its lunch time. By the time we get there all the other kids are sitting and eating. There are about six tables full of overly excited eight year olds and another table with teachers and parents.....well to be honest the teachers are nice and so are the other parents but I really wanted to sit with Donnie but at the same time held back from saying anything because I didn't want to make him feel like he was obligated to sit with me. So we went and got our lunches and Donnie says "come on Mom there's an empty table over there (you guys know that I was beaming from head to toe)Deb and Jordan Joined us as did Yvonnes Grandma and a few other kids and parents. The rest of the day was spent learning about animals and plants and all the fun stuff....they even had a display of live snakes that they had caught there.....they were lucky that I didn't know that before the hike....Donnie and I wouldn't have gone on the hike we would have been swinging on the playground. Well anyway it really touched my heart that my big boy still has a soft spot for his Mom.

Big Donte ran track all this week and is feeling mighty young. He won 2nd place in the 100 His best time was 9.75 and his relay team won the Gold. The boys had a blast sitting on the back of his truck cheering him on. My friend Tracy brought Baby Taylor and came out there one day too so Donte had his own personal cheering squad.

You see North Carolina has its good and bad, there's nothing like sitting on the back of a truck with the sun beating down cheering and acting like you are 18 again but on the flip side I could do without the snakes and all the buuuuuuuuuuuuugs.