Our "win" for the summer

 Back in June, Kevin had to go up to Orlando for an insurance convention.  Kaelyn and I rode up with him and then just hung out at the motel pool and stuff during the day while he was at the convention.  A lot of the companies that are at the convention do drawings for various things.  Of course, we (Kevin or Rod) never win anything big usually.  This time however, Kevin had just dropped his business card in the jar for a drawing by one of the companies they use, and about 10 minutes later he heard his name called.  He had won a 42" flat screen TV!  As you can imagine it was quite exciting to win ANYTHING that nice/big.  We didn't know HOW we were going to get it back home in our car but thankfully the company that was giving it away was just south of us down in West Palm.  The rep. that was there said she would just bring it back down and since she had to stop by the office for something else later the next week, she would just "deliver" it to the office in Hobe Sound.  What's more, we had been "collecting"/saving gift cards for 2 or 3 years now from Christmas, birthday, etc. to go for a new system.  We already had enough saved for a new screen but we didn't want to get one until we also had enough money put back for a new entertainment system (or wall mounting equipment because we knew we would have to have it) and some other things.  As it turned out, by winning the tv, we were able to use our gift cards for an entertainment system, a blue-ray player, a receiver for our surround sound (the old one had gone bad so we had the speakers and stuff but we had never replaced the receiver), and the various wiring and stuff we needed to get it set up.  Kaelyn was a little traumatized at first because she thought that we had to get rid of all her movies even though we tried to explain to her that that was not the case.  She has adjusted just fine and we our really enjoying it now - particularly the blue-ray player because there are various things that it can stream from the internet like youtube, netflix,etc.  And we're happy we waited and saved so that we were able to get what we wanted!

Kaelyn enjoyed playing "in" the old entertainment system after we got it cleared out.

We were working on getting the bracket mounted to the back of the new entertainment system and I looked down to see a little face peeking out the hole in the back of the entertainment system.  :)

The new entertainment system.

The screen

Kaelyn was a bit puzzled over what all was going on.

OUT OF THE BOX!

And... into the box!  :)

I know I posted some pictures of Kaelyn and Buster playing in the box but I don't think I posted these particular ones.

She was jumping up out of the box scaring us.  :)

If I would've thought about it before, I would have just bought a tv and had Kevin and Kaelyn's Christmas all taken care of at once.  Give Kevin the tv and Kaelyn the box.  :)  Just kidding!

Yeah, it was a bit confusing and challenging for us but we managed.  :)

The new "setup" before we got the receiver set up and movie in etc.  The entertainment system looks black here but it's actually a dark brown wood.

Weekend

Kaelyn was very, very thrilled to get to meet Jessie from the Toy Story movies during our most recent visit to Disney.  She has never actually got to see her before and she really loves the Toy Story movies right now so a combination of those two things made it really exciting for her.  She had this huge grin on her face the whole time and she talked and talked about it later.  Then the next day at Hollywood Studios, she got to get her picture taken with one of the "green army men" toys also from the Toy Story movies.
(I'm kinda' emotionally exhausted from the drama of Kay starting school so I decided to post something lighthearted that would make me smile).

Getting her autograph first.

Kay and Jessie.

I kinda' like Jessie too.  :)

They had to leave (person switch out) just as we got up to them and only Jessie came back out immediately.  We went to ride a rollercoaster and when we got off and walked back by, Woody was back out so we stood in line again so we could see them both.

She worked so hard on figuring out how to hold her fingers up like guns.  I think she wants a pair of cowboy/girl boots now too - oh boy! (said with a sigh)

Love these characters in the movies!

The "toy soldiers" roam the streets near Pixar place in Hollywood Studios.  It just cracks me up to see them because they look exactly like they do in the movies and in the movies, they look exactly like the real army men toys.

Notice the plastic under the feet - not attached like on the toys but still there.

Weekend "teaser" pictures

We just spent a week up in New York visiting our families. Ideally, I will post more of the pictures later but given my lack of keeping up with my blogging, it is possible it won't happen.  So this is supposed be just a "teaser" or summary of our weekend but if I don't get back to them for awhile at least you will get to see  a few.  I was just going to choose a few but as I went through selecting pictures to post, I wanted/needed to post more than just a few to cover different things so I will try to keep most of the comments brief.

These two pictures (the one right above and below) are actually from my brother-in-law Jon.  Because they were loaded from his camera to my computer, they were first in the folder.  I decided to go ahead and post them first even though the picnic/canoing with my family was actually at the end of our trip.  I thought they were so extra cool looking and eye catching - I think they look like something you would see in a book or framed.  The "sunset canoers" are my dad, Joy, Kaelyn, and Kevin.

Now back to the beginning of the trip...  We were at Kevin's parents Wednesday thru Saturday.  This is Kaelyn and her Aunt Lara looking at pictures on Lara's camera.

We had a [belated] retirement party for Kevin's dad Friday night while all the family was there.  The weather was about perfect that evening and there was a nice turn out of close to 40 people there.

Marianna brought out a bunch of balls for the kids that were there - and not just "regular boring" balls as you can see.  :)

Saturday afternoon, we made the drive up to my parent's house.  We all (my parents and Joy and Jon and Leah) went to Pizza Hut for a late supper Saturday evening.  Then we all went out to the Locks to watch a ship as it went through the locks.  On Monday, Kevin and I went golfing during the day and then that evening, we all went over to a park for a picnic and then did some canoing and played tennis - great times and once again, beautiful weather for the evening!

Eating

Getting Kay ready to go for a canoe ride.  She loved it!

Off they go!

Putting the canoe back on my dad's work van.

Tennis - Joy, Kaelyn, and myself.

Leah

Jon

The wild, cheering fans - okay so maybe they weren't really cheering and come to think of it they're not really wild either so maybe they were just spectators.  :)  Mama took a turn playing a little later on.

Kaelyn and Nana playing together.

Virginia Trip

Right after Kaelyn got out of school back in June, she and I headed up to Virginia to see Rachel and John (they were still trying to get settled in to their new place).  The area where they live is quite beautiful (being in the South and near the mountains and all).  We had a great time and probably wouldn't have been ready to come home if it wouldn't have been for the fact that we left Daddy at home.  I was able to get some good outside snapshots of Kaelyn while we were there so some of you might enjoy the slideshow just to see those.

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Buddies and Boxes

These pictures are from the night we set up our new tv (more on that later).  Of course the box provided lots of entertainment for Kaelyn.  She even got Buster in on the fun!  :)

I don't think Buster was sure what to think about this.

Kaelyn loves kisses from Buster!

He really is her buddy though they have somewhat of a love/hate relationship at times.  :)

If I recall correctly, Kaelyn had gotten him to go in the box and then she was trying to get him to peek out at her through the [handle] hole in the side.