Girls Night Florida

Its become a tradition over the years for us to have a "girls night - no boys allowed" while we're on vacation at the beach. The little girls decorated the condo and kicked us off with a fashion show. We had so much fun this year, eating candy & ice-cream, painting nails, hanging out and watching SOUL SURFER.

Wanna dance?

Ive been bouncing from gym to gym finding zumba classes here in Florida. I met Yana last year, shes from Russia and is my favorite instructor out here. Her style is a lot like mine and her class is a ton of fun. Shes also a bellydancer. After class we were chatting and a guy came up because he overheard I was Irish. He was in Dublin last month teaching lindy hop and swing. A DANCER - woohooo!!! Turned out Joel also teaches/dances salsa....thank you lucky stars....hee hee! He said we should dance - ummmm ok, dont have to ask me twice! So here's the video.....us in the lobby of the YMCA (no music)! When we were done people asked how long we'd been dancing and if we teach lessons, where they could learn from us....hahaha.....we told them "we just met 5 minutes ago....."

What we've been up to......

Hanging at the beach & playing in the sand
Ultimate beach frisbee with the brothers....

Gorging ourselves on seafood at "Aunt Catfish"

Spending time with cousins

100% Irish - Half Mexican

3rd Annual Devine Family Reunion - tons of pics :)

We kicked off the reunion with a circus show downtown. A clown, some contortionists and SUBWAY for lunch, then to Mandys house for manis/pedis. It was super fun to just hang out, chat and laugh like turkeys, cackle cackle cackle.....lol
Mandy made cookies that were to DIE for....so yummy and I think we ate all 6 dozen. This year we began a new tradition of spotlighting ancestors, which was so cool to hear stories about them and see pictures. I decided to start another blog for our family keeping the spotlights and photos for the generations that follow us.
An early morning stroll (umm trudi tried to tag it a "hike") at Floyd Lamb Park. It was such a nice (hot) morning. We walked around the lake and then had a picnic breakfast. Ryan kept the geese away by chasing them and Nana said it wasn't nice to scare them...lol
After the park we went back to our house for water games and then to In-N-Out for lunch.
We had a SURPRISE that Sam, kids and I had kept from the rest of the family. We drove them to an AMAZING pool that we had rented for a few hours. It was SUPER fun...slides, cliffs, swim up bar, a bridge, volleyball court and relaxing patio with the biggest sectional sofa Ive ever seen.
We finished up with the buffet at the Silverton, where Sam pulled a fast one and got us in through the VIP line so we didnt' have to wait two hours. His good looks seal the deal every time.....
Saturday morning we all attended Mandys father in laws funeral. Garth Abbott was a great man and so kind to our family. We will all miss him dearly and know he has gone ahead to do great things on the other side. After a really nice family lunch we came back and finished up our family spotlights, had a talent show and hung out for the rest of the night.
It was a really good time......relaxing, laughing, eating and sharing some tears together. We're already planning for next year and maybe looking at an out of state location....hmmmm??? YESSSSS!!!!

Fourth of July 2011

The 8th annual Salsa congress was in Las Vegas July 4th weekend so this year Sam came with me. It was AWESOME!!!! Amazing performances and amazing dancing after, until 3 in the morning. I'm already prepping for next year.....hahaha! You can see my favorite performance here
The last couple of years we've had a new tradition of staying in Las Vegas to celebrate the fourth of July. We have a big pool party and BBQ during the day and at night all the neighbors come outside and share fireworks.
Somehow this year our house seemed to be the center of the party and we had lots of neighbors hanging out on our lawn so we decided to share a desert and soda. It was fun but before we knew it, it was 10p.m and we had to shut it down and get to bed. Here are some pictures of the night.

Pool Parties up the wazooo.....

If there is one thing we know how to do....its have a pool party! We love it!!! Memorial weekend is when we officially open the pool. This year we had Selena and her family in town. Mandy, Lucas and family came over, Trudi, Tyler & Noah were here from Idaho on their way to Ireland, and Joe, Amy & Lucy. Sam cooked a mean BBQ and we swam all day. The Sunderland kids have grown up with ours and its so fun to get together at least once or twice a year and have the kids get along so well. Our gang is growing.
In years past we've had one big END OF SCHOOL pool party but it gets a little crazy so this year I decided to have a day for each of the kids to invite their friends. It was soooo much better and they could each invite more friends. I didn't take pictures of the boys but here's pictures of Kami and Baili's party!
And alas, the young women pool parties at mi casa.....why stop with just my own kids.

Kicking off Summer

class of 2022 isn't that crazy???

I have seriously almost given up blogging. What the heck? Summer has been busy ever since the kids got outta school and we've been having fun. The first couple of days were tough trying to figure out how to make it three months with no real structure but once we made a weekly schedule and understood that every day WAS NOT going to be party central at our house, we were good to go.
At the end of school, Ryans teacher, Ms Jensen had the cutest little graduation program ever! The kids went through the whole 1st grade year and what they had learned with songs, poems and skits. Ryan went from being a big ham to being "too cool" to do anything, including singing and I found myself snapping my fingers trying to get his attention and warning him, through grinded teeth to participate.......loving as I am.
The parents beside me were falling off their seats, laughing at one of the songs because Ryan was so "street" and "funky" with his "gangster" hand jesters....yeah that's us...so hood! This picture is when he was "bustin a move" and yep those are antennae on his head.......lol
We found out about a great local deal for the month of June at Primm, NV and spent two separate days out there having free fun. They had rides, free movie and the CRAZIEST roller coaster ever created.....I actually lost my voice for two weeks because I screamed so much. The kids had so much fun we went out a second time and each of the kids brought a friend.