VAN VOORHIS FAMILY BLOG

Trying to figure out if we should continue to blog…. we had a ton of hits when we first got home, then a lull (no suprise there) – and when I posted pics from Ethan’s birthday, our stats told me that we got over 200 hits that day. Unless the wordpress stats are really out of whack, I think we might need to continue to post occasionally.

What say you? J

What to do with a pinata

Originally uploaded by SisterPV

Max, Ethan, Kyle and Josh all make do with the remnant pinata parts.

Ethan turned 10 today – can’t believe we’ve got 2 kids in double digits now. Not too long till we’ll be empty nesters – yikes!

Ethan started the weekend with a cold and a fever, but it has been managed by motrin and decongestants. He woke up today at 6:30, ready to open his presents and prepare for his party. We had a “low key” friends party today with 4 friends from school and 1 buddy from football – a really nice group of boys. Of course, after having no rain for almost 3 weeks, the skies opened up and started pouring about 15 minutes before the boys arrived. Thankfully it cleared up and they were able to swim for a part of the 3 hours they were here.

The boys swam, played play station (with the new Madden 08) and video games, busted open a pinata and ate cake and pizza – all in all a pretty good day. After they left, we spent some family time in the pool and in the early evening, my parents and Sarah came over.

Nice to have family in town now – weird to know that now they can just stop by and hang with us – a welcome change. More cake, more swimming and then whipped out the travel pictures till they were bleary eyed and calling for help.

This week we’re planning on actually getting the pics transfered to DVD, then we can share them with everyone.

Great day – great to have a wonderful 10 year old little guy (along with a beautiful almost 12 year old and a pretty handsome 40 year old to boot). J

Double Digits

Originally uploaded by SisterPV

Ethan celebrated his 10th birthday today – amazing how time flies!

Ahhhhh, the joys of following up on a 73 day trip! I’ve been spending the past few hours of yet another beautiful Ponte Vedra morning sorting through piles of documents and speaking with travel insurance cariers. Fun fun….

Travel advice for the future: if you have travel insurance and expect to be reimbursed, get all the documentation you can on spot. Names, dates, serial numbers, excuses, etc… Nuff said.

All is well in spite of the general frustrations of dealing with red tape.

One good thing – we finally received the box that we had shipped from Hong Kong almost a month ago. Only a couple of things damaged or missing – could’ve been worse. At least we now have most of our African souveniers and the rest of our Italian ones.

Back to the paperwork! J

Hey all – in case anyone was looking for a recent update

We’re back into the full swing of daily life in PV. Anna is now in middle school, playing volleyball, starting to play flute in band, learning to use lockers – all the fun stuff.

Ethan turns 10 next Saturday – can’t believe he’ll be in double digits – makes us feel old. Ethan starts up with flag football soon – I’m hoping for no broken bones this year.

Sam’s back to work (well, golf…. and a bit of work) and just getting us organized back home. I’m back to tennis, school things and trying to figure out where all my kitchen utensils are No, really, it is nice to be able to do my own laundry and own cooking!

We’ve finally backed up our 5,000 plus pictures from Sam’s computer onto disc and hopefully soon will have them put onto some type of DVD. Our goal with this is to send it to anyone that desires… and also to be able to put it on the screen and bore all our friends here to tears when they ask to see our pictures!

One day soon I’ll print out pictures and begin the task of scrapbooking the trip and making photo albums.

So – that’s it for now – thanks for still popping on to the blog. Julie

After the haircut

Originally uploaded by SisterPV

Ethan went from one extreme to the other after growing his hair out all summer. Nice to see his face!

Ethan at Loisaba

Originally uploaded by SisterPV

Ethan, before his hair cut