Cinnamon Beach--Summer 2009

Cinnamon Beach is the site of our Gabb Family Reunion 2009. I think it's called Cinnamon Beach because the sand has a cinnamon type coloring. Some of the sand has little crushed shells in it and other sections of the beach are much nicer sand.

We had fun taking pictures on the beach...big groups, small groups, candid shots, etc. Here are all the girl cousins

Ama and PapaBen and Luke vie for the football!
Here's a view of our condo from the golf course! BEAUTIFUL!
Adia, Maggie and J.B.
The four year olds!
Sunday-Monday:
We've been letting the kids have little sleepovers with their cousins. One of the Cioe boys asked Aunt Anne after he had been watching movies and eating popcorn: "When is the sleepover going to start?" I guess his expectations were a bit high as to what actually happens at a sleepover! :-)
The Gabb men got in a free round of golf on the beautiful Oceans course by our condo. I don't think they shot as well as they wanted, but got their money's worth!

Tuesday
We had some rain today so we did lots of playing inside for the first part of the day: reading, LEGOS, bracelet making, movies, Webkinz, etc. By late afternoon we were getting cabin fever (or maybe just the adults!) so we took the kids to the beach and/or pool. Some of us were able to catch some pretty good waves on the boogie boards. We learned that Luke is a fast swimmer! He beat Mark and Ang in a length race. We'll have to try to beat him tomorrow! Tacos for dinner were a hit and we sent the kids to bed early because of their late night last night. The adults got in a bit of Rock Band on Jacob and Luke's XBox and some are still finishing up a game of Phase 10 as I write this!

Wednesday
The Phase 10 group stayed up until 1:50 AM playing and I guess Aunt Kim was the victor! The kids got caught up on their sleep and Hannah took the prize for sleeping the longest: 13+ hours!!! The Gabbs and DeNoyers went down to the beach and the Cioes headed to the pool. We all got stuck in a torrential rain shower, but Uncle Mark, Maggie, Hannah and Jacob and Luke all braved the rain in the waves and did some great boogie boarding! After the rain stopped, Aunt Sarah and Aunt Angie got in on the great waves too! What a rush! Hang ten!

We got to see the Space Shuttle Endeavor blast off today after 2 other tries. We got to see it in the sky for approximately 2 seconds before it disappeared back behind the clouds. Some of us stopped in the model home in the development where we're staying. It was such a beautiful house that Maggie and Adia wanted to stay there! When we asked the realtor how much it cost, he said it was actually a pretty good deal: only eight ninety nine....hmmm...well, I guess I have some money lying around....I'll take two! :-) But really this is a nice new area....they've only been renting out the condos where we're staying since 2006!

Spaghetti and meatballs were great for supper and the kids did a craft and had another "sleepover". Ben and Rachel and Chelsea came over for the night and we played some cards!

Last day of school

School is out for the summer!!! Here a few pictures from the last days of school.

Dance recital 2009

The girls' third year of dance is over...ending today with more great recital performances. Jacob even got to "enjoy" the whole show and I use that term "enjoy" lightly. He was making the ladies around us chuckle when after each number he'd say "Is it over now?" No, Jacob....just 10 more dances.... yeah. But we made it and have a few pictures to show from the day.They both took ballet and jazz and unfortunately, most of my pictures of them in Jazz were too blurry because they were just moving too fast. In fact, when Hannah watched herself on our video recording, she asked Mark, "How come you recorded it so fast?" I think she thought she was moving slower on stage than she really was. Their numbers were real toe tappers and crowd pleasers.

April 2009

It's hard to believe that April is over half way over! We had a great Easter and Spring Break week. Mark and I are anxiously awaiting our big race in Nashville this weekend. We're both running the 1/2 marathon...his fourth and my second!! As someone at church put it: we're driving a long way to run a long way, and then driving a long way again! But it should be exciting!! We took the kids to Sea World over spring break and they had a blast. We picked a day that was kinda rainy in the morning but by the time we got there in the mid afternoon, it was clearing up, but we didn't have all the crowds that other days might've had due to spring break vacationers.

We enjoyed a visit from Melissa for a few days. She and Kyle got a lot of work done on their upcoming wedding, and we got to spend some good quality time with them camping at Blue Springs for a couple of nights.

this and that

The kids were all in the Easter Pageant last week. Unfortunately, I only got pictures of Maggie in her costume. She was Mary Magdalene. It was an amazing job put on by the entire school. I think the kids learned a lot by putting on the play! Maggie is pictured here with her student teacher, Miss Smith. Miss Smith has been here for the past two months and will be returning to Minnesota on Saturday. Maggie has taken a real liking to her and is going to miss her terribly!

Jacob enjoys playing with his friends these days! He asks almost every day to have someone come over or go to someone's house. I grabbed this picture of him and his friend Eli while playing in our backyard.
Hannah really enjoys climbing trees! Here's one of her climbing a tree on church's property! Grandma and grandpa reminded her that her mom and aunts used to climb trees when they were little girls! Must be in her genes!

Little Red Hen

Jacob's preschool class just put on the musical, "The Little Red Hen". At home, he's been starting to call me "mama" instead of "mom" like he used to do. I liked the sound of it, but couldn't figure out why he had started doing this. Well, he played a "chick" in the play and one of the songs the chicks sing is "Mama mama mama, I'm hungry as a hog..." Mystery solved! Anyway, he did really great and except for a little squirrlyness by the class in general during the evening performance and an announcement by the red hen in the morning performance that she "had to go pee", it went very smoothly and everyone enjoyed the "cast party" after the final performance.

Lowry Park Zoo

Last Friday Hannah, Jacob and I headed down to Tampa for a field trip with their class. It started off drizzling, but was beautiful by the end of the day. We enjoyed seeing the white tiger and her two babies, the giraffes, the carousel, the primates and much more.