Downtown Melbourne Christmas Parade

This year we were able to experience the Christmas parade in a whole new way... We were actually in the parade!  Our friends invited us to join them on their float, which was actually a boat!  It was so much fun.  Audrey and Claire LOVED every moment!  We rode in the boat while Brock and some of the other adults walked along side the boat passing out candy.  The parade was at night so the boat looked amazing decked out in lights and garland.  We waved and shouted "Merry Christmas!" to the crowd.  Sometimes the float would have to stop to navigate the turns and the flow of the parade.  When this would happen Claire would instruct me to "just keep waving" and not to say Merry Christmas again because we had "already told this group"...  When we would start moving again, she would tell me it was okay to start saying Merry Christmas again.  It was so cute and also very hard not to laugh because she was so very serious about it all.  At the end of the parade, Audrey and Claire had fun modeling the "Sold" sign that hung on the boat during the parade.  A few photos from the night are below... Enjoy!

Santa's Helpers on the boat 

 Brock and Eddie getting ready to hand out candy

Audrey modeling the "Sold" sign

Claire modeling the "Sold" sign



Our friends took some more photos that I will add to this post when I get them...

Family Time

Okay, I know it has been a while and I promise to catch you up with all of the happenings with our crazy bunch... but that will be the next post (or two)... this one is about our "family time" day.

Brock's travel schedule has been quite hectic lately and it doesn't look like there will be much relief anytime soon.  So while he is home, we try to make the most of our family time together.  This morning we got up and had breakfast (Mom's omelets and cinnamon toast... yummy!) and then a boat ride.  The weather has not been very cooperative this summer so there haven't been as many boat rides as there normally would be.  But today the "stars aligned" and we took advantage.

There's not much that is better than being on the boat early in the morning before the river gets crowded and the sun heats everything up.  It is cooler and quieter and in one word - great!  We went to Bird Island and explored for a bit, but the vegetation had grown so much over the summer that our normal exploration paths were a bit too tight for my comfort zone.  The thought of spiders and ticks kept jumping through my mind.  After a bit of time on the island, we decided to go back to our "regular" island, which is actually a sandbar, just down the canal from our house.  The water level has been unusually high so the sandbar never surfaced.  But the water was clear and cool and the girls had a great time swimming.  Another family was there with their dog, so Duke had a playmate.  The two dogs splashed and ran, and ran and splashed.  Needless to say (but I will anyway), Duke was one tired pup when we got back to the house.  Audrey and Claire swam with the other family's daughter and the parents all enjoyed some chit chat.  We left the island and headed back down the canal to our house.  We cleaned up and went to Grills (a local seafood grill) for lunch.  It was a fun day just being together as a family.  Now, we are gearing up for a family game of Scrabble!  Should be interesting...  I leave you with a photo from today...

The girls on the boat

(with Duke in the background)

Nothing says "Summer" like a good bedhead...

While our plate has been overflowing this summer, we have still managed to take advantage of the fact that summer is a time you may sleep late.  Although my children do not fully understand this concept yet.  Their idea of sleeping late is 7:30, but that is better than their usual 6:00 rise and shine.  And on the positive side, it still gives us plenty of time to have a productive day.  In true relaxed summertime spirit, Claire was sporting the best summer bedhead one day.  It reminded me how relaxing summertime is.  It also made me make a pledge to myself to try to keep that relaxed atmosphere going after school starts back in August.  It is usually a time when we are crazy busy and our schedules get out of control.  But if we keep the right mindset, we should be able to keep that relaxed summer spirit going well into fall... just without the bedhead of course (as adorable as I think it is)!

Our Music Lover

Last night, we discovered a new weekly family outing - Thursdays @ Beef's! Beef O'Brady's is a local family sports bar. On Thursday nights, they have live music on the patio and we really enjoyed it last night. The girls love a lot of different types of music and the band played lots cover songs from a variety of genres.

When Audrey asked for some paper and a pen, I thought she was going to draw and doodle like she usually does while we wait for our food. But this time, she surprised me. She drew a "You Rock" sign for the band. Of course the band, which is two guys - Chris and Dave, loved it and they talked about it off and on throughout the night.

Chris (from the band) and Audrey (their newest fan!)

I know... I know...

I have been a very bad blogger lately.... but in my defense, we have been renovating our new house (quite a bit more than we originally thought we would attempt), packing all of our belongings (it's amazing how much you accumulate over five years... I couldn't imagine trying to pack up everything after living somewhere 25-30+ years), also getting everything moved to the new house (we decided to to that all by ourselves - we did have the help of our friends one weekend), getting our old house ready for our new tenants (I will post about the experience of becoming landlords in another post)... oh and did I mention that my computer decided that during all of this craziness would be the perfect time to die on me... oh yeah... this very digital girl was without a computer for about two weeks... Not good! Thank God for my BlackBerry! I now have my new computer and I am loving it... :) So as everything begins to come together (we still have lots of work on the house to get accomplished) I will try to be a better blogger... I hope to have some before, during and after photos up soon...

-Amy

Tackling the To Do List

Today was one of those days that felt very productive in respect to tackling my ever-growing to do list. After dropping Audrey and Claire off at their schools, Brock and I headed to our new city to take care of some of those moving checklist tasks. First stop - Audrey and Claire's new school. We toured the elementary school and really liked it. It has about half of the student population of Audrey's current school, which is something that we really liked. Brock and I agreed that it had the feel of a private school in regards to the class size and facilities. The school also offers a VPK (voluntary pre-kindergarten) program for Claire next year. But the demand to get into one of the ten slots available is really high. The school secretary said that parents "camp out" in the parking lot the night before to ensure that their child gets a spot in the program. I guess I will be one of those crazy parents because I think the idea of Audrey and Claire going to the same school is great. I think it will also be a nice transition for Claire to attend the same school in which she will enter Kindergarten. Another plus from our tour today was that we discovered a shorter walking path to the school so that will shave about two-tenths of a mile off of our walk each way! :)

Next on the checklist was to open our new P.O. box (Brock uses it for work stuff). The goal was to open a box and with luck get one that wasn't on the very bottom like our current box is. The bottom is not cool when you are 6'4" or even when you are 5'6" and dump out the contents of your handbag every time you bend over to check the box. Well, luck was on our side today - We got a box that's waist high! (Note: Waist height is the highest that the size we needed goes) So, we have checked off two things on our to do list and it is only 10:30. Not bad!

After leaving the post office, we drive by our new house or, as we have come to call it, we stalked our new house. You know, driving by just to look at it. I am sure the neighbors probably think we are crazy or obsessed, or maybe both. Maybe we are, but I like to think of it as just being really excited! LOL!

So after a bit of house stalking, we decide to grab some lunch. We are on our way down A1A and we pass what will be our new Publix. For those of you who don't know this about me, let me tell you - I love my current grocery store! I am in there almost every day. The managers all know me by name and I like that because my store not only has a great selection, I receive great customer service from everyone too. So, I have been apprehensive about moving grocery stores. I know that sounds absurd to many of you, but it is just a fact of my life. :) I made a comment to Brock about how I wondered what the store was like and if it would compare to our current Publix. Brock suggested that we stop in and look around - he knows me all too well! So as we are walking in, I am talking to Brock - "House stalking to grocery store stalking... this could be a sign of a problem... Oh, Hi Mr. Manager, let me introduce myself... I am your new best customer... I'm sure that John P. and the other managers/staff at my current Publix will give me glowing recommendations..." We enter the store and it is love at first sight! The store is bigger and newer and is very organized. While the layout is quite different from my store, I know that I will adapt to the new one very easily. My only complaint is that the store was very cold. But I will keep a sweater in my car... next to my green bags... and all will be good!

So we accomplished three things from our to do list! And yes, checking out the grocery store was on the list, although I expected to do that one by myself. But it was very nice to have the company of my wonderful husband on that task. Not to mention we enjoyed a lovely lunch together... just the two of us... that doesn't happen very often but when it does it's always nice!

Almost Beachside...

Okay... So it's has been a while since you have gotten any new "snip-its" from the Ballard family. Let me catch you up... The main event in our house has been our search for a new house. As many of you know, we have been looking for a beachside house for quite a while. We found a house and made an offer. But after we finally got the negotiations to an acceptable place for both parties, the wife decided she wouldn't sign the contract. That was a pretty big let down. We decided to keep the offer on the table, but also to keep looking. We saw a number of houses. And we found one that we really liked but unfortunately it went under contract...

The next week was full of the sniffles. By the weekend, I did not feel so great. On Saturday, we decided, despite our sniffles and sneezes, to suck it up and continue the house search. We searched the local real estate website and to our surprise the house that we had seen the week before (the one we liked but had gone under contract) was back on the market. I called our agent to make sure that it wasn't an error on the website. Well, it wasn't an error... the house was on the market again after the buyer's financing fell through. The great news was that not only was the house still for sale, the price was lower too! We made an offer that day. It was a good thing that we decided to get out of bed and do the house search thing because our offer was one of two that day. If we had decided not to get out of the house, we would have missed out on this house again.

One thing that I have learned from this whole experience is that Brock and I are not very good at the waiting game. Especially when we knew would have an answer in less than 24 hours. It seemed to be the longest 24 hours... But the next day, we got the call from our agent and our offer was accepted! Now, we are waiting again... for our closing... It has been hard but we are keeping very busy so hopefully March 11th will be here before we know it. The house needs some updating but has really good bones. We are looking forward to making it our own. I plan to keep a record of our renovation adventure. So check back for more details about that...