handsful

We’ve been blessed to be a part of Acrofitness for the last 3 years.  All 6 kids have taken classes at some point, but right now Marley, Lainey, and Dylan are enrolled.

What is Acrofitness?  From their website…

Our mission is to provide classes that inspire all children to develop a love for movement. Our state of the art programming teaches non-competitive functional skills that will last a lifetime. Our sport incorporates street tumbling, hip hop dance, cheer, parkour/free running, elements of strength and flexibility, and much more.

We’re huge fans of getting our kids MOVING and Acrofitness does all that and more.

Dylan takes the AFFR class, which teaches free running skills…you’ve seen those videos of the crazy guys flipping off park benches, jumping off steps, etc?  With D’s lack of fear and “I’ll try anything” personality, nothing stops him from running with all the guys.  We do have to protect all the gym equipment from his prosthesis (sharp edges could damage), so he wears a long soccer sock pulled up high and sweat pants.

Marley and Lainey both take 3 classes, as they’re both on Acro teams.  The teams are based on age, so Marley is on Senior and Lainey is on Freshman.  Other than their team choreography classes, they each take Fitness Plus (cardio and strength class) and Elite/Extreme tumbling.  As team members, they get to perform their routines at lots of local community events in the spring.  Performance season is just now gearing up, and they’re busy just about every weekend through May….about 12 total.  Team tryouts and camp is in June, so this is pretty much a year-round commitment.  They wouldn’t have it any other way.

A couple of weekends ago, they performed their routines in front of all the parents for the first time.  The routines are on YouTube…just search for “2015.3.21 Fit-a-thon Freshman” to see Lainey’s (she does the first tumbling pass at the beginning of the routine) and “2015.3.21 Fit-a-thon Seniors” to see Marley.  She’s at the back at the beginning, but then you’ll see her being lifted up front/left and then again at the back at the end of the routine.

Here are some pics from that day…

Marley’s Senior Team

Lainey’s Freshman Team

Lainey making the first tumbling pass

Another tumbling pass

Lainey and her friend Gracie

Our Acro girls :)

Can’t wait to watch their other routines coming up!

So, all eight of us (plus Daniel made 9) piled into our van and drove East.

First stop was lunch with old friends from back in our Grace Church, Cary days.  Amanda and her daughter Gabe were in town from Utah…so, we had to take the opportunity to see them (and a whole bunch of other Grace friends who joined in) and catch up.  We basically took over the back room of the restaurant.  We smiled and apologized on our way out.  It was so much fun seeing everyone!

Then, seeing as how we’d driven 2+ hours for LUNCH, we decided to stay in town and do something we’ve wanted to do for years.  You know how those things go.

You never actually do them.

Until now.

We headed toward Raleigh, and found ourselves driving by the apartment complex Randy lived in with his brother during college.  Which also happens to be the site of our first date.  The pool, that is.  Weirdly enough, Randy and his friend Robert were going swimming, and he asked me to come along.  Does that count as a first date?  Anyway, we decided to stop and take a picture by the pool for “old time sake”.

Funny thing?  The pool was gone.  Filled in with dirt, like you would have never known it was there.  A few bushes and a hideous “art” structure thing.

We traded the pool for the art and took pics anyway.

Next up, NC State University campus.  We parked and walked around like we belonged there.  Got ice cream at the student union, walked through the “tunnel of free expression”, and took pics with a wolf.  It didn’t hurt that it was a gorgeous day.

Marley brought her penny board along with her :)

Where to next?  UNC-Chapel Hill, of course.

I was excited to go back to my college…I hadn’t walked around that campus since graduating 27 years ago.  Ouch.

But, given that Randy has basically indoctrinated all of us (even me) into raging NCSU fans, I was prepared for some wise cracks.

Down on Franklin St.

Shenanigans.  I’m not sure it’s legal to do this in Chapel Hill.  (R is making the Wolfpack sign)

Only a few of us dared to drink…I think they were worried it would turn them into Tarheel fans.

Still penny-boarding.  And, did I mention that Lainey spent her day flipping on both campuses?

While we were there, we had to have dinner at my favorite local restaurant.  Randy and I used to go here all the time…

It was SUCH a fun day.  No big agenda, no where to be at any certain time, just hanging out together.

We should do this more often.  Day trips rock.

My post titles seem to revolve around numbers lately!

Lainey has been with us for 7 years, as of 2/18!

I’m not gonna say life with her is always easy.  It’s not.  She’s got a strong personality.

She’s constantly “on”, if you know what I mean.

She needs to know, be involved in, and in control of EVERYTHING.

I’m just assuming that the hard days now mean easy days when she’s a teenager.

Don’t laugh at me.

Despite challenges, she’s our girl and I’ll never doubt her place in our family.

Because of the kids work schedules, and Randy’s travel schedule, we weren’t able to go out to dinner.  Yet.

We’ll pull that together asap.

She’s in love with all things American Girl right now, so the books choice was easy.  She’s working hard on reading these days, and I suspect she’ll have her head in these chapter books as soon as she can.

Love you, Lainey Q.  Happy 7th Family Day :)

She’s 19 years old.  19!

That’s only 1 year from 20.

Not possible.

I was in the midst of a yucky winter cold here…not my best pic.

But, this post isn’t about me.

Abbey ALWAYS chooses her fav steakhouse for her bday dinner.

She loves the country music that they play.

She made us promise that they would NOT sing happy birthday to her.

She’s not a fan.

Sweet picture, right?  Can you tell what she’s holding?

Apparently turning 19 is cause for violence.  Daniel is shocked and alarmed.

Abbey and Daniel.  They’re so cute together.

We had to wait till the next day for her to cut the cake…and, let me tell you, it’s gooooood.

So, we celebrated the beginning of her LAST teen year.

I know she’ll make the most of it.

And, when those 20’s start.  Watch out :)

As much as I prefer to post these pictures one by one, so that I can have captions for each….posting them together, in an album format, actually gets the pictures ON the blog.  Otherwise, I fear it would never happen.

(There are two group pictures near the end…the one taken outside is my dad’s family; the one taken inside is Randy’s mom, Paul, and all the grandkids.  They are out of order, and I have NO CLUE how to get them back in order.  Ah, technology.)

The first pic shows the kids with Randy’s dad and Kathy…they came a week before Christmas, went to one of the kids Testify concerts, we had lunch, and did presents.

The second one is from Christmas eve, when my parents came over to do lunch and presents.  Their surprise for the bigs was season tickets to Carowinds!

From there, we took some pictures of us all dressed up for Christmas eve services at church…we tend to get a little silly at that point, since Christmas is like the NEXT day!

And then…pics of our morning of opening presents together.  The kids let us sleep in, and we finally got down to it at 10am.  So nice.

Two days after Christmas, we headed west to have family get-togethers.  First, lunch with my dad’s family at my parents house.  Loved seeing folks I’d not seen in a couple of years, especially my Great Aunt Jean (who reminds me so much of my Grandmom).  The picture of Ethan playing the guitar…that’s my dad’s guitar, that he’s had since I was little.  So cool that EJ was playing it :)

The next day, we went to Randy’s mom’s house…it’s always a little wacky over there.  And, fun.  Randy and his brother love to “torture” their mom during picture time.  And, Ann…sorry, but that pic of the five of us?  You weren’t smiling in any of them!  Ha…

Hope you enjoy the pictures!

As is the new norm these days, we were a tad late in getting our tree this year because we had to find a time where ALL 8 of us would be able to go together.

Mission nearly impossible.

But, we squeezed it in between a big Testify concert and the littles Testify Too concert.  And, as you can see, we had a couple of helpers too….Daniel and Elaina :)

We found just the right one, dropped off the littles, Payton, and Elaina at the concert.  The others drove home, and Randy and I dropped the tree off at the house.

Run back to the concert.  Enjoy the concert (they did great!)…

Gather everyone up, and head back home to decorate.

Trying out the ladders.  If these were our first kids, we’d probably have a heart attack, thinking they might fall.

But, we don’t scare easily anymore.

Clark (Griswald), wrapping about a zillion lights all around AND inside the tree.  Cause, there has to be DEPTH of light.  It’s a must.

First ornament pictures.  Another must.

Given we started kinda late, it was late when we finished.  Or, shall I say early?  12:30am, I believe.

And, I don’t do late.  Yawn.

The kids were getting silly, too.

House decorated.  Tree up.  Lights in trees outside.  Presents (99.9%) bought.  Presents (67.5%) wrapped.

Merry Christmas :)

Almost forgot to post pics of Dylan’s 4th Gotcha Day with us!

As is our tradition, the special kid gets to choose where we eat out…he chose a nice Italian place that we’d not yet tried yet.

It was a very good decision!

We also choose a book to give each year, one that “fits” for the previous year.  And, this year, Dylan’s favorite movie was The Lego Movie.  I found a DK book that tells you everything-you’d-ever-wanna-know about it.  He loved it.

When I look back at pictures of when we first adopted Dylan, he looks SO small.  Lately, he’s been busy turning into a big kid, more specifically a big BOY.  Loves to wrestle with his older brothers, box with his dad…anything rough and tumble and he just asks for more.  However, he’s also my kid who can sit focused on a coloring sheet, staying completely in the lines, loves to build with our magnet pieces and blocks, and can also sit for hours watching TV.  Ahem, that last one we need to work on ;)

Dylan is a joy, no doubt.

Happy Forever Family day, big guy!