chris and the national honor society

Chris was inducted into the National Honor Society (NHS) at Lamar High School.   As a junior, he is ranked in the top 10% of his class.  See the video below for the induction ceremony.  Way to go, Chris!  We are so proud of you!

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visiting Grandma Allenday

On our way back from Florida, we stopped in Opelousas, LA to visit with Connie’s grandmother.  Connie has seen her more recently, but the kids and I haven’t seen her in a while.  It was a fun visit and Grandma really enjoyed seeing her grand and great-grandkids.

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spring break in florida

So, the McGee family piled up and the ol’ family cruiser (to steal a term from the Griswold’s) and headed off to the remote, private gated community of Barrier Dunes on the Cape San Blas peninsula in Florida.  We were looking for a family friendly location for Spring Break, away from all of the drunken debauchery that you see on most beaches..  I know, those that have known me for all my life know that I used to partake in said debauchery.  I guess we all grow up sometime.  ;-)  I performed a Google search on “family friendly beaches” and way down on page 6 was a site at www.thecapeescape.com.  I am very thankful that I had the patience to sort through everything that ranked higher in the search, because we found a jewel, or the proverbial “diamond in the rough”.  After weeding through five star, very expensive resorts, and beaches that are well know for the aforementioned debauchery, we found it.  Cape San Blas.  It is a small peninsula that juts off into the Gulf about 1 hour southeast of Panama City.  We were so excited that Chris would get to witness a U.S. beach other than Galveston and that Stacey was able to take time off from her very busy schedule to come along also.

We arrived on Sunday to a small gated community with a 3 story condo, right on the beach front.  In fact, the boardwalk came right off of our bottom balcony.  We enjoyed a lot of family time on the beach, including camp fires at night, fishing, boating, sailing, boogie board, everything.  It was very relaxing and comfortable.  The condo was well furnished and very comfortable.  The management provides a lot of things that you usually have to take to rentals, like linens, towels, beach toys and chairs, toilet paper (yes, even toilet paper), cleaning supplies and just about anything other than food.  We did have to make several trips into nearby Port St. Joe to get groceries, but we were fairly self sufficient right there on the beach.  We had a little bad weather roll in on the second day, but after the third day, it was blue skies.  The tempatures were generally between 70 and 75.  The water was still a bit cold, but that didn’t stop the kids.  They also had swimming pools, a tennis court and playgrounds for the kids.  They also had a couple of freshwater lakes for fishing.  The kids caught a bunch of perch and Adam worked hard to find that large mouth bass.

The video below shows some general playtime on the beach, but includes a typical sunset on the beach.  The sunsets were awesome!  Enjoy the pictures and if you are ever looking for a place to rest and relax away from the hustle and bustle of most public beach environments, check out www.thecapeescape.com and give Wendy Jackson a shout!

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activities at school

The Friday before Spring Break was full of fun for the kids. For the parents, it is amazing that the school can schedule so many activities on a day when a lot of families are trying to get out of town for Spring Break… I guess for a family like ours, having 4 kids in one school, doesn’t make it very easy either…. Anyway, on Thursday, Aidan had his Reading Cafe where Connie went up to the school for the 1st graders to read to all of the parents. On Friday, I went up for Ainsley’s Rodeo Day, Aaron’s Inventor’s Fair and Abbey’s Math Lab. Ainsley raced her stick horse in a relay race and we had a picnic in the classroom. Aaron developed a new invention, called “Sticky Sticks” which allows a drummer to not only lose his sticks, but keeps them stuck to his hands (via velcro). Abbey and I played the card game, Battle, at her Math Lab and she kicked my behind. Once it was over, we got home and packed up to head to Florida. That, is another post…

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packers first spring camp

We had the first Greatwood Packers football camp today.  Aaron did an awesome job.  I took about 600 pictures of all of the teams and the boys are looking hungry!!  Here are some pictures of Aaron.

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