Dallas !!!!

Morgan and I were able to get to Dallas last week for a visit with my sister Suzy and her family. I went to see everyone but I think Morgan was most interested in the kiddos'. Suzy and Jillian came to the airport to pick us up. Jillian said she "caught" us there. This is a picture of Jillian when Suzy had just got to the airport. She didn't really know what to think of us. The last time we saw her was at Christmas last year and I think she forgot us :(We then went to grab some lunch and take Suzy back to work, then we had Jillian for the afternoon. We took her home for a nap, which was much needed after being left with strangers and momma deserting her. She woke up and decided that Morgan and I were just fine. We had already planned to take her to Build A Bear Workshop, and we wanted to do it without her parents, so that she would remember Morgan and I when she saw the bear. We had a really good time. She got to name the bear, which she named "Pickle Bear".

She is giving the heart a kiss before it is placed in the bear.
Jillian is standing on the peddle that fills the bear with the fluff.

Morgan and Jillian are bathing the bear.

Morgan and Jillian are getting the bear dressed.

After we got done with making the bear Jillian wanted to play on the play area at the mall. The play area looked like it was made with ceramic slides and stuff, but they are all made of foam. It was really very neat. All of the malls have them.

When Jillian was on this train she would sit on the front and say "Choo, Choo, Choo". I thought that was really cute.

When we got home from the mall Rick and Suzy came home and we got to see Jake. Suzy and Rick have a life group at church that was having their weekly get together at the local Going Bonkers. This is a big room that has a maze thing in it. Jillian was really excited about going to Bonkers. Morgan and Jillian went in first and then Suzy joined them. I think all the kids had a good time. I sat and visited with Suzy's friends who knew that we were going to be there.

Family Vacation

We went to Fort Lauderdale and Deerfield Beach for our family vacation. As most of you know Morgan and I are going to Texas to see Suzy's family next week so this is our first vacation of the summer, but Don is not going to Texas so this is his only vacation of the summer. We decided to do a little back to school shopping at the Sawgrass Mills Mall on Thursday. This is one of my favorite malls to go to, there is something there for everyone. We decided that we were looking for pants for Morgan and shoes for Don. I am planning on finishing Morgans stuff when we are in Texas. We ended up with shoes for everyone and pants for Don. Morgan did find some shirts in the Izod store, and they were having good sales in most of the stores. Mom and Dad both gave Morgan money before we left so that she would have money to spend while we were gone. This is what she did:

Morgan had seen on the Internet that the mall had a build a bear and she asked if we could go there, and I had told her no that we were buying school clothes and not toys, but when she had her own money she asked again and we decided that we would let her go if it was in a part of the mall where we were at (if you have been here you will understand that part) and it was in the area that we were shopping in so she was very happy that she go to go there. She really had a good time at the Build A Bear Workshop. Morgan named her Peace Bear "Summer". While we were there we decided that we are going to take Jillian to the one in Dallas while we are there. That is a sure way to win some points with the kid.

After we got done shopping we went to lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. Morgan really likes to go there. I think that her favorite part is when the "rain" happens in the "rain forest". If you haven't been there this is when it gets dark and lights flash like lightning and it thunders and then there is rain that falls on the fake trees and fake animals. It really is neat. Don's favorite part is that there are tons of huge saltwater fish tanks all over the restaurant. Usually they ask you if you want to sit by the forest or the fish, and we sat by the fish the last time. I got to pick this time and I told the lady it didn't matter as long as I could sit in a booth. Well all the booths are in the forest area, so we were by a huge monkey. It was really neat.

The hotel that we stayed at was in Deerfield Beach and it was about 20 min away from the mall so we went to check in. We had reservations to go on a deep sea fishing trip at 7 pm and buy the time we got checked in to the hotel and all of our stuff stored in the room it was pretty much time to go get on the boat, good thing we left early because the traffic was really bad. Thank goodness we had the GPS from Mom and Bob, she got us to the right place no problem. Here are the results of the fishing trip:
What you say that you don't see any fish! That would be because Morgan and Don each

caught one fish that was not legal size and then at the end of the night Don caught one fish, and he gave it away. No sense cleaning and storing one fish. The little girl in the pictures was only 8 years old, and she caught more fish than anyone else on the boat. Her and Morgan became friends right away and they spent a good part of the night together. We teased Morgan that she is just like Grandma Bob, she makes friends everywhere. The ocean was relatively calm and we had a good time, even thought we didn't catch anything. It was a nice evening and the wind was blowing so it was not even hot out there. We got back off the boat about midnight and went to the 24 hour IHOP for a really late dinner.

On Friday we went to Hollywood so that we could check out the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino that they have. We are not people who gamble regularly, but Don likes to see how the other Casino's are and check things out. I understand that, I like to see other jails and see how they do things. We had gotten a booklet that showed that they have other things there and they have a shopping center and a Seminole Indian Museum, so we thought there would be things to do. While we were driving we were talking about vacations that our friends had taken and we talked about the pictures on Heidi's blog of the trip her family took to the Keys and I was telling Morgan about the Iguana's and we got to talking about the problem in south Florida with them running wild. Well what do you think we saw at the Hard Rock?

The four of them were sitting on the patio of a restaurant watching this water show. It was so neat to see them after we had been talking about them being in the wild.

We ate lunch at one of Morgan's favorite restaurant's, Hooters, she said that her Grandpa Bob would be jealous. He is the one that introduced her to chicken wings, and when she was younger you had to spell it if you didn't want to have to make a trip there. She would get mad if he went without her.

We went back to the hotel and went to the beach. Now I am not one that particularly loves the ocean, I am more a pool girl, but this beach was awesome. I loved every minute of being there. We stayed at a hotel that was only 600 feet from the beach, so we were really close. We walked down there and stayed for about 2 hours then went back to the hotel pool for a little bit. We had to teach Morgan how to jump in the waves to not get pushed over, I thought that was just something that you knew, but I guess not. She had a really good time. Normally when we go to the beach we go to the Gulf and the waves are not as bad as the Atlantic.

Later we went to a restaurant that we found in the little book that the hotel had. It said that the restaurant was a casino in the 1920's and was famous for hosting past presidents. The book said that you had to go to the marina and get on a boat to take you to the island that the restaurants is on. The boat took us across the canal, as Don called it, and we went to Lighthouse Island to Cap's Restaurant. The place was an old wooden building that looked about 100 years old.

I had a really good chicken dinner, Morgan had Dolphin and Don had a Seafood Medley. Unfortunately Don and Morgan were both unhappy with the food that they had. Don ate most of his, but said it wasn't very good. Morgan ate 2 bites and said it was gross. Oh well. I thought it would be neat, but I thought wrong. When we left this cat was on the porch.
When we were waiting on the boat to take us back to the car we saw this crab on the dock. That was pretty cool. Then on the way back to the hotel we saw this huge crab walking in the road. Don saw it first and stopped so we could see out the front window. When I saw it I grabbed my camera and got out of the car. Morgan got out and we were in the middle of the road taking pictures, who cares about the cars stacking up behind us, we were tourists! While we were taking pictures of it his legs were clapping together, he wasn't happy with us being there. If we had picked it up he would have pinched us for sure. This picture just does not show how big this thing was. I was impressed by his size.

Well, I think I have told you everything, so I am done boring you now.

Stampin Up Birthday Card Party

I am having a Stampin Up birthday card party on August 8th from 12:30 to 5:00 and if you are interested let me know. We are going to make 10 cards and the cost is $20. I would like you to call me and let me know that you are planning on coming so that I have enough materials for everyone. If time permits I would like prepayment as well. Some of the cards that we are going to make are shown here. Some may vary with the ability to use different colors to suit your needs better. You can call me at 441-3287 or you can leave me a message here or e-mail at Cathykeck@hotmail.com.

Making Hair Bows

I have got to get busy making some hair bows for my niece Jillian. This is something that I told Suzy I would do like around Christmas of last year. I even have all the stuff, just need to get on it. Well this afternoon while I am home alone AGAIN (Morgan is at a friends house and Don is working) I decided that I need to get busy. Here are the results of the effort. I am going to have to practice more and get more ribbon, cause these aren't really very good. If any of you readers make these maybe you could give me some pointers.

Summer in review, so far

I think that since it has been a while since I posted that I will just do a summer so far in review. We have been keeping busy this summer, not as busy as Morgan would like, but busy enough for mom and dad who thought that summer was for slowing down.

Crocodile Dock Vacation Bible School

We started the summer with a trip to the Bayou with the First Baptist Lake Placid Vacation Bible School. This is always a time that I enjoy. If you have never been a helper for Vacation Bible School you are missing a great time. I truly enjoyed the time that I spent with the 5 Kindergarten graduates that were entrusted to me for a week. They have such personality and a whole lot of energy. We always start the day with a play type program that progresses throughout the week and concludes at the Friday evening parents night. Some of those pictures are here.

Morgan had a slumber party

Morgan was able to have some of her friends come over to play and then have a slumber party. I must tell you that 3 "tween" girls make for a really really LOUD evening. I was so happy when Don came home from work at 11 because then he was able to listen to them for a little while.

Confection Connection

I was able to go to my first Confection Connection at the church in June. This is a wonderful evening program for women where they have a speaker and coffee and desserts. The speaker in June was Renee Kole who spoke about fitness and was a great speaker. Then in July Morgan and I both went and were able to listen to Mary Rucker speak about Beauty and the fact that beauty is really measured by what is inside and not what is on the outside. I thought that this was a good message for all women even little women like Morgan.

My Birthday

Well I got to be a year older and celebrated a birthday in June. I got really nice presents and birthday wishes from my family and friends. Don and Morgan got me a Sizzix Big Shot that I have been wanting. This is a die cut machine that I can use in my stamping business. Mom and Bob gave me a plane ticket to go see Suzy and the kids. I am so excited that I will be out there in just 3 weeks. Then I will have lots to blog about!! Morgan is going with me, but that is a secret. (I can share that here cause she doesn't read this). I think that she will have a good time in Texas and will enjoy seeing the kids and Suzy and Rick. Sorry Rick, I guess you are an afterthought.

Planning Vacation

We have changed our vacation plans a couple of times in the last few weeks. I have made and cancelled so many hotel reservations that Don says I am going to be on a watch list soon. I don't care. We have finally decided that we are going to Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach and we are going to go shopping at Sawgrass Mall (I love that mall) and then go to the beach and go deep sea fishing. I hope that we have great weather and a good time. Also hoping to find some other school clothes for the picky and hard to buy for child. I feel that in a mall as big as Sawgrass we should have some pretty good luck. I will tell you more about that later.

Last Day of School

Yesterday was the last day of school. This was a good thing to Morgan. To me this was a bitter sweet day as this was also her last day of Elementary School. I had a tear in my eye when we picked her up today knowing this was the last time we would get her from that particular school. We have really enjoyed Morgan being at Lake Country the last 6 years. Everyone there is so nice, and they put up with me very well. We are not zoned to go to this school, but it was the school that we preferred so that is where she went, although that meant that we had to take her and pick her up every day. No buses when you go out of area, bu this was definitely worth every trip.
Morgan was glad to go, and is looking forward to Middle School. I am still reminiscing about the first day of school for her at Grace Academy in Sebring (where she went for Pre K and a few months of K). She was excited to go to school, but she was worried about how Grandma and Grandpa Lane were going to do with her gone. Grandma and Grandpa Lane kept her when she was little and they to were a little upset about her going to school, as they had become a bit attached to her. They all did fine, and Morgan was very close to her Great Grandparents because of this time she spent with them. It wasn't long before we went from 3 days a week to a full 5 days a week, and the grandparents still did fine.
I am sure that we will be posting shortly about all the excitement of middle school, so please say a prayer for patience for Don and I. :)

More Beautiful You

I have been listening to this song on the radio a lot recently and just received a CD with this song on it. I love it. As the mother of a daughter I can see both of these scenarios happening. I think that if more girls heard this message from their parents we would have less of the problems in society that we have today. I tried to upload a video, but I guess I am not smart enough.

More Beautiful You

Little girl fourteen flipping through a magazine
Says she wants to look that way
But her hair isn’t straight her body isn’t fake
And she’s always felt overweight

Well little girl fourteen I wish that you could see
That beauty is within your heart
And you were made with such care your skin your body and your hair
Are perfect just the way they are

There could never be a more beautiful you
Don’t buy the lies disguises and hoops they make you jump through
You were made to fill a purpose that only you could do
So there could never be a more beautiful you

Little girl twenty-one the things that you’ve already done
Anything to get ahead
And you say you’ve got a man but he’s got another plan
Only wants what you will do instead

Well little girl twenty-one you never thought that this would come
You starve yourself to play the part
But I can promise you there’s a man whose love is true
And he’ll treat you like the jewel you are

So turn around you’re not too far
To back away be who you are
To change your path go another way
It’s not too late you can be saved
If you feel depressed with past regrets
The shameful nights hope to forget
Can disappear they can all be washed away
By the one who’s strong can right your wrongs
Can rid your fears dry all your tears
And change the way you look at this big world
He will take your dark distorted view
And with His light He will show you truth
And again you’ll see through the eyes of a little girl