Slice of Life: Hello World!

Did you think I'd forgotten about you?

Had you totally given up on me?

Well, I'd almost given up on myself. In fact, I'm so far behind this is taking every ounce of my being to type this blog post. First a confession. In my last post I touted that I had recap post in the hopper. I lied.

Couple that with a camera that has seemingly gone kaput and I might as well throw in the towel. Right?

Well, I've got too much good stuff going on to give up now. Since April we've been busy little beavers. I want to do whatever it takes to capture it in words and photos to remember all the good things we've seen and done.

So, how far to go back? I have well over 400 photos on my camera. A new record for me, I'm sure. And a hundred more or so in my iPhone camera roll.

So here's the recap post I promised. I'll try for brevity, which is not usually my strong suit and not easy considering I've got two good months of photos to tell about.

Backing up to April, we kicked off with Easter. Normal Easter happenings.

Easter treats {bird's nests}.

Egg dying.

A good ol' crawfish boil in between.

Egg hunting and Easter baskets.

And church. Sadly, this was the best Easter day photo that we got.

Next up...Ben and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary on April 20th. What to do to commemorate it, was a point of much contention. I'm one for big celebrations marking momentous occasions. Ben would rather not spend the money and that will be momentous enough for him. I opted for a lavish European vacation. He opted for something cheaper. We compromised. A weekend at the Ritz Carlton Reynold's Plantation. If you've never been to a Ritz {as we never had}. It's definitely worth it! Between the food and the second-to-none service, it was hands down an amazing experience.

We started the weekend with a night in our honeymoon suite at the Paxton House in Thomasville and dinner at Liam's. Like a couple of dorks, I actually talked him into recreating a photo from our wedding night 10 years ago. I in my wedding gown and he in his tux carrying me across the "threshold" of our honeymoon suite. If it wasn't so late and if I wasn't so behind, I'd dig up the photo and show you, but alas I'm too lazy, so maybe another day, right?

We continued north to Reynold's Plantation and this would be our home away from home {sans kids} for the next few nights.

The view from our balcony toward Lake Oconee.

And toward the hotel.

We were treated to champagne and strawberries upon check-in, courtesy of the hotel and flowers sent from Ben's mom. So thoughtful and special.

S'mores were served by the fire pit each night.

We canoed on Saturday morning on Lake Oconee {which started off quite literally with a splash in Lake Oconee when our canoe tipped over and threw us into the frigid waters - luckily the deck hand felt bad for us or felt bad for causing our tipping incident and comped us the canoe rental} and lounged by the infinity pool for the rest of the day while we were waited on hand and foot by our pool boy, Matt. Truly there is nothing like the service at the Ritz.

Everywhere we went, servers brought us complimentary champagne to celebrate our anniversary even by the pool!

And the maids surprised us with rose petals {and more champagne} at our turndown.

May held another adults-only vacation {what in the world did we do to deserve that, I have no idea, but it must be done more often}. For Christmas, Ben's mom gave him tickets to the Tournament Players Championship at the TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra. It was an idea that Nancy had to do for Blaine and we thought to make it a couples weekend with the Clicks, Ginns and us. Three men got very nice Christmas gifts last year! Little did we know at the time that it fell on Mother's Day weekend, so the boys treated us to a day at the Ponte Vedra Inn and Spa for massages and relaxing in the hydra-pool while they spent Saturday at the tournament.

Sunday was spent on the course, which was much more enjoyable than I expected.

We star gazed at Tiger and the other golf celebs.

We sat and drank a while.

We followed the leaders and tried to get on TV.

Then we finished the day at the beach by our house.

After that, May becomes a blur.

The school year ended. Kindergarten is behind us and we have a bona fide first-grader on our hands now. What? Seriously, what happened to the last year? The end of school was a whirlwind of art and music shows, field trip, summer birthday celebrations, field day, teacher appreciation and everything in between.

Our teacher appreciation project for Jack's teacher.

Mother's Day artwork from Paige and Jack {respectively}.

Last school field trip to the Painted Pony.

Jack's teacher has a summer birthday, so she knows firsthand what it was like not to get to celebrate your birthday at school with all of your friends, so at the end of the year, each summer birthday child gets to pick one school day to celebrate their birthday. We sent Angry Birds to school for Jack's big day.

Last day of school {Kindergarten: May 31, 2012}. I sent him to school on the last day in the same outfit as the first day. Look at how much these babies have grown up! I can really tell how tall he's gotten because of the length of his shorts and how little the shirt looks now.

And Paige, well she looks totally different.

In the meantime, I've had volunteer duties out the wah-zoo. Board retreats, presidential duties and responsibilities to attend to, next year chair duties coming to a head and a major fundraiser to chair for the Ballet with only 12 weeks of planning time to make it happen and a lofty budget goal. I've weathered that storm pretty well {although my blog hasn't} and my fundraiser was a BIG hit, so for that I am thankful. Nothing like putting your blood, sweat, tears and precious family time into something and not having it pay off in the end. As one Facebook friend said, "If you missed the Midtown Barre Crawl this year, you missed out." Thanks to everyone that came out. It was definitely worth the blood, sweat and tears.