I've been seriously slacking.

I guess I just got behind with procrastinating updating from Amy's wedding, then the whole crazy week afterwards and now this crazy week. I've been a little information-overload-overwhelmed, what with figuring out the logistics of taking a carload of kids out of state to a competition. Not as easy as I thought. Can you just ask people for donations and disperse it evenly? Apparently not. There's tons of paperwork to be done, and I am NOT one for paperwork.
      But hey. Who's complaining? I get an amazing opportunity to take kiddos on the experience of their lives. No complaints here.

And in other news, my garden finally got planted:

Rewind back to last Saturday. We woke up refreshed and ready to continue celebrating with a lovely bridal brunch at the gorgeous house her parents had rented for the weekend. Hopefully Kelly & I weren't too crazy for Amy's mother-in-law, who's a bit on the conservative side....

Later on we helped Amy organize and prepare everything for the wedding. That girl is seriously talented. She ordered tons of flowers wholesale and had the vision to create her own bouquets (which were BEAUTIFUL!) She'd been collecting fun vases and chubby birds from various places for months; it was our job to label which tables each would go on. 

And we might have taken frequent breaks to hit up the trampoline...

The day's events went by smoothly and without any stress. Everything was completed without any complications and we were ready for the wedding!

World Finals?!

Parents asked, "Do you think our kids have a chance?" I answered, "Honestly, not really. I mean, their skit is great and I know they've put a lot of work into it, but the caliber of teams at the state level are an entire different ballgame. We'll be lucky if they even place above 10th out of the 20 teams."

Time to eat your own words, coach.

They shone up on that stage as if they were born to be in front of a large audience.

They nailed the hands-on problem solving task and came out whopping and jumping for joy.

And when the emcee at the awards ceremony did not announce our names for 5th, 4th, or 3rd place, I thought, "There's no way...."As we sat there holding hands, eyes squeezed shut, praying for a ticket to World finals, I gave it up to God and knew that if we were going to be invited to perform at the University of Maryland, He would provide the funds to get us there. 

Our name was called for a second place! We ran screaming down the UCF arena to the stage where we shook the hands of judges and the founder of Odyssey of the Mind. I bear hugged two of the directors for the state of Florida, one who is a close friend of the family and the other, my former Odyssey of the Mind coach from 6th grade. 

Life certainly comes full circle, and I'm blessed to have had the opportunity to have spent this year with truly amazing teenagers. 

Time for crazy fundraising and my first trip to World and Washington DC!

Rehearsal!

What started out as a peaceful day got a little hectic.

Ames and I went to get our nails done:

But  they started mine first. And didn't start hers until an hour and a half later... and only had an hour until we were supposed to be at the rehearsal. So we all kind of started to stress out. 

Finally we ran to the parking lot at 1:50.

I realized I didn't have my wallet. Amy's freaking out by now.

Kel ran to Annie's car to see if it was in there. Then she ran in the nail place, found it and brought it all out, where the tip i was going to leave for the lady dumped all over the parking lot. 

Kel jumped into the car. I promptly spilled cheese and crackers all over the place. I'm surprised Amy wasn't in tears by this point; she held it in well.

We got there, I shut the door on my leg...

and it was a beautiful day for a rehearsal!

Then Kel fell into a hole. I guess you had to be there, but it was pretty hilarious.

And we got back to the house Amy's family was staying at... 

and Kelly left her purse at the rehearsal.

Amy didn't want to talk to us for a little bit. 

Wonderful rehearsal dinner that night!

...and CRASHED that night (might have thrown a fit demanding to go to sleep...) 

Bachelorette!

     So I'm really bad at thinking back on what went on over an extended period of time. And anything prior to the current day = extended... but I will do my best to try to remember the fun events from this weekend!
     On Thursday Kelly flew in from Melb and we promptly went to the Flying Biscuit for some amazing cheesy grits and cinnamon sugar biscuits. Mmmmmm. Mind you we haven't seen our best friend since Christmas of '09.

When we got back we kicked Amy out to run errands so we could decorate her house for the bachelorette. We ended up creating Prince Paul that fit with the 'Little Mermaid' theme. Paul is a Georgia fan, hence the Gators shirt and jean shorts.

All fancied up and ready to go... to the gay bar! Best. Time. Ever. Especially the drag show. But no pictures of that belong here on the blog...