Happy Mother's Day!

Yes I know I am a few days late, but hey at least I got around to it. Hopefully everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day! I celebrated with my Mom on Saturday, nothing like a hot dog and some race cars :) With me working I didn't get to spend any time with Tony or Riley. I got a great phone call from Tony Sunday morning, they were racing (that post coming soon). He tried to win me a race but that didn't happen :( But, at least he tried! Yesterday I had the day off and Riley and I spent some good time together. We snuggled in the morning, little butt monkey woke up at 6:15 am. So much for catching up on sleep. I enjoyed my day with her! It was a great way to celebrate mothers day.

100 years and Hot Air Balloons!

We spent Saturday night at the track, kind of strange to know I am going to live there for the next three weeks and I go there when I am off! The track is celebrating their centennial era over the next three year. This weekend they held a hot air balloon race, which was the first race ever on the property! Saturday night they held a "glow" and had fireworks. It was a pretty cool sight! 33 hot air balloons, and we were standing right under some of them! As it was getting darker they would all light up at once and it was beautiful. We use to have a private firework show on 4th of July so I was really looking forward to the fireworks. The sound bounces off the grandstands and it sounds like there are cars on the track! It is pretty cool. Like normal Riley was a champ and did really well for everything that was going on. The fireworks didn't even phase her. We tried to send Tony away in a hot air balloon but, they wouldn't take him :) Ok not really, he said no way would he ever right in one!

I will try to keep updating the blog over the next couple of weeks. Ron and Tony have a double header this weekend! I have a very strong feeling Tony will be winning his first race at New Castle (don't worry I just knocked on wood) so hopefully on Monday I will have a good update!

8 Months Old!

Riley turned 8 months old yesterday! She is a growing machine :) I weighed her a couple of weeks ago and she was up to 16.5 pounds! She can crawl and pull herself up on things, which is very dangerous! My Mom caught her climbing on one of her toys to climb up on the coach. I would have had a heart attack. She eats just about anything and everything these days. We are still waiting on her first tooth and sleeping through the night. Her personality is really starting to show, she can flirt with the best of them! She is just like Tony when it comes to "talking" she is never quiet and is REALLY loud. Her way of talking is to scream. She is so much fun and I have to say Ron and I are both blessed to have such a awesome baby. I ask myself all the time what I did right to be so lucky, not just Riley but Tony as well. He needs an award for being such a great big brother!

Gazelle Intense!

The "Soccer" Van :0)
She is a beauty!

For those of you that have no clue what my title means then you need to read the Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey! We have been working on getting out of debt for almost a year and a half now. We sold the Tahoe about a year ago to lower our debt and got a Volkswagen Jetta. Great idea at the time but wasn't the best move because we still had a payment and we rolled over some negative equity. Well I have been wanting a van for awhile now, before the Volkswagen, but I couldn't convince Ron of that. Something about his manhood getting taken away :) Well, last week we went out a bought a 2003 Chevy Venture van! Guess what, we have no car payment on it! It has a lot of miles but Ron and I are both excited about it, yes I said RON. I think he realized how convenient that are. We now have the Volkswagen for sale, so if you know of anyone looking for a good little car we have it! It was just way to small for two kids and all the stuff we tote everywhere we go, oh and don't forget Chase since he goes everywhere with us :) Once we sell the Volkswagen we will officially have no car payment! We still have about 2 years to go on being debt free between credit cards and my student loans, but we have cut almost half our debt down and once we sell the car we will be even closer. Our goal is to get it done in a year and a half so we will see how gazelle intense we really are. Ron and I can not wait to live like no one else! :)

If you are in need of some good financial advance I urge you to check out Dave Ramsey, he just makes sense. A good friend from work told me about him and I owe her everything because of it. Ron and I would have been in so much trouble when he lost his job but, because we were going in the right direction the only thing it did was put it back on paying off the debt. We were able to stay a float and not touch credit cards and most of our savings. We are trying to pass it on to Anthony as well, that is why he paid for the water park ;) He gets it too! It has been a long road because we have had to give up a lot of things but we know in the future it will pay off.

Water Park Fun!

If you look closely you will see sprinkles the boys were sneaking to her. She had them everywhere!

Not so sure about this water stuff!

The "dudes"

She loved it after awhile!

Yes Anthony really did hit 1,000 tickets. Ron and I had to sit there forever! This was the one time I felt like they actually got their moneys worth: :)

Best Friends :)

Anthony has been saving his money to take Ian back to the Caribbean Cove water park. We are trying to teach him the value of money and how to work hard for his money. He has been saving since August to pay for one night at the hotel, which includes access to the water park. Between chores and holidays it took him 8 months to save $250.00, not too bad for a nine year old :) We took them there about a year and a half ago to celebrate Anthony's 8th birthday, a little early. They had a blast last time so we knew they would this time. I was able to get Anthony out of bed early all week by counting down the days.

Once we got checked in and and changed into our swimsuits, off they went! They went down the slides play in the kid area, and never slowed down. Ron, Riley, and I just floated around the lazy river. Riley wasn't too sure of it but warmed up really quickly and seemed to have a blast! She didn't like getting splashed in the face but other than that was very happy just floating with us. After several hours of playing we called it a day and went and ate dinner. After dinner we headed up to the arcade. We were all exhausted. The next morning we all go up and ate a quick breakfast and headed back to the water park. Anthony and Ian spend most of their time on the slides. Ron and Riley spent a lot of time hanging out in kid pool. She really liked it! We didn't stay too late Sunday, we had a lot to do that day but both boys had a blast. Anthony is still tired today :) I know I am exhausted but that is because Riley did not like sleeping with Ron and I, she is worse than Tony when it comes to moving around!

He scored a GOAL!

Yes Tony comes up this kids armpits! He is a little smaller than the rest of the team :)

Go Bubba Go!

Tony had his first soccer game on Saturday with his new team. He was VERY nervous. Since it rained so much last week he didn't get to practice with them at all. We was nervous because this team is older than him, this team is 10-12 year olds. Once he got into the game and started playing he loosed up. By the end of the game he knew almost every one's name and was cheering them on. With about 5 minutes to go, Tony got the ball and SCORED! He was so happy :) It was definitely a confidence booster, he didn't stop smiling for hours!

What a bummer of a weekend!

I had to work all day on Saturday :( Silly Non-Profit Groups think they need trained to feed people at the largest sporting event in the world ;) So, I missed soccer. Tony's team smoked the other team 6-1! We had some issues with the coach so Tony is getting moved from the U10 team up to the U12 team! He was suppose to have his first practice on Monday but the rain just wouldn't go away and it was cancelled. I think in the past month he has had two practices out of 8. I will be glad when all this crummy weather is gone!

The weather forecast for Sunday wasn't looking so good for karting. I didn't think anything of it since they normally run in the rain. Well, Saturday late morning they had already cancelled the race :( Talk about two grouchy boys. We took advantage of the day and cleaned the house, planted our garden, and Ron went and worked on the kart for the next race.