Normandin Summer Party

Every summer the Normandins have a family party at our Aunt Joyce's so we decided to make the 3 1/2 hour drive home for the day to spend one more day with the family.

 The kids always have so much fun playing with their cousins which they don't get to do very often.

 Like always the best part is playing in the pool.

 

 As the kids get bigger they get braver on the tricks they do and they master them pretty quick and they love to show off for the family.

 You know when the big boys get in on the fun that the party is in full swing.  Both John and Sean had a great time keeping up with the kids as they dove off the diving board.

 

 John is always the toy when he is home with the kids so in the pool its no different.  Katie and Zach are pretty brave in the water so they love to do tricks and be thrown up in the air by John. 

It was a great day and we were happy that we had the chance to say goodbye to the family.  I really wanted to get a family picture taken so this was the perfect day to do it.  We will miss being so close to the family and were glad we had a day together.

Goodbye House

The time has come to say goodbye to our house and move on to our next adventure.  We were so lucky to sell our house and our closing came about a month before we are able to get into our home in NJ.  Part of Johns relocation package was they hired a moving company to come and pack our home and load up the truck. What a wonderful blessing that was for me since John has been in NY working and that would all have been left for me to do. The kids spend one day with Grandma and Grandpa Shattuck and the other with Nana and Papa so I could get things in order and supervise the movers.

 Zach's good friend who lives 2 houses down from us came over to say goodbye and that really made it real for us.

 It was sad to see our house empty.  The kids ran around in all the rooms and it reminded me of the night we moved into the house and it was empty and exciting.  They forgot how big the house really was with all of our things out of it.

 

 It was hard to say goodbye to the house.  We spent a wonderful 4 years there and loved every minute and made so many memories there. The kids said a final goodbye to their rooms and then came out and hugged the house goodbye.

We were all a bit sad and we were wishing John was there with us but we are very excited to start our new chapter and move onto our new journey in NJ. Goodbye Old Keene Road we will miss you!!!!

Pool Crazy

It doesn't really matter where we go the kids always find a way to spend most of their time in a  pool.

 We have spend much of our time while at the hotel with John at the pool and the kids have come up with some fun tricks and they play so well together most of the time, its fun to watch.

 When we are home we get to go to our Aunt Joyce's house and swim in her pool. The kids love it there and being able to go down the slide it is a special treat for them.

 They truly are water kids and any chance they have to be in the water they take it.

It has been busy with getting things ready to move so we love when we can take the time and go swimming for a while.

New Jersey Bound

We had made a trip out to NY a month ago to find a house and we ended up finding one and making an offer on it.  They excepted our offer and for 4 weeks we went ahead with getting things ready to move to NY.  After a tough look at the house and some small money matters it came to an end and we could no longer buy this house.  It was tough and sad for us but we had no choice in the matter and had to quickly move on to find a new home for our family.

 After a quick search on the Internet and John talked to some of the people in his office we found the town of Vernon NJ.  We ended up looking at 11 houses in one day and found one we loved.

 We made an offer on the spot and after one counter we accepted and moved forward the the purchase of the home.

 Its a little older home but it is in beautiful condition and has a wonderful yard for the kids.  It only has 3 bedrooms so the boys will have to share and that is one of the things I was trying to avoid but couldn't be helped. 

  We have many ideas to make the place ours and it even has the family room in the basement we wanted for the kids.  So from now on we are residents of Vernon NJ and we can't wait to get in and make it our own.

July 4th

We took a week off from cleaning the house and getting things ready for the move to go and stay with John for the week.  Since the 4th of July was in the middle of the week he didn't have any extra time to come home and its no fun to be alone on a Holiday.

 We found a zoo in the area and decided to spent the day walking around with the animals before we headed off to fireworks. The first one we found were brown bears and there were 2 of them so we decided they were brother bears and they loved to walk back and forth next to the fence it was fun to see them close up like that.

Of course Aaron couldn't wait to find the monkeys and to his surprise they had 3 different kinds  of monkeys and he loved every since one of them, for sure that was his favorite part.

 It wasn't a very big zoo and the animals that took up the most space were the many deer in a couple different areas but they were fun to see and they kids even got to feed them a little.  It was a fun day and we saw lots of animals but we were hot and hungry so we went back to the hotel to get ready for the fireworks.

 John talked to some of the people at work and found out were the best fireworks were and that's where we ended up for the evening. We got there a little early so put our chairs out to claim our spot then we headed off to the field to play some soccer to pass the time.

 Once it got a little dark we got out our glow stick.

 There was a stage with bands playing lots of different songs so Katie had a good time getting into the music and dancing her heart out.

It was a great day and the fireworks were definitely one of the best I have ever seen.  

  Happy 4th of July!!!!!

We Sold Our House

With John taking his new job in NY we knew that it would be a challenge to sell our house but as part of his job the company has a relocation package they gave us and it come with them buying our house from us but only after having up list it for 90 days.

We promptly put it on the market not expecting to much action on it.  After about a month of no showings we finally got someone to come and look at it and they ended up making an offer.  With only one counter they excepted and we had a sold house. It truly is an answer to our prayers and a confirmation that we are making the right decision for our family to move for this new job.  Now that we have a sold house in MA we have to get into full gear at finding a place to move our family to.

Soccer Camp Playoff's

On the last day of Camp the kids all play a couple games and that leads up to a championship game for each age group and this year John and I were able to go and watch them play.

 Aaron's team and the other little kids just played around and didn't really have a real game at the end but Aaron  did get to kick the ball in a few times.

 Aaron's team ended up not winning so he was done early in the day and sat around watching is brother and sister.

 Katie always plays hard and tries her best but her team was not very good and they ended up losing in the first round.

 

 This is her the rest of the afternoon walking around with her friends.

 In the end she just ended up sitting on the sidelines watching the other games but mostly she was chatting it up with her friends.

 Zach was moved up to the Primer league this year so he was playing with the older kids 12 and up and he did a great job keeping up.

 They all play really tough and its a long hard game each time they play but he had some good moves and made some good plays. They ended up losing in a shoot out in the last game to make it to the championship game and it was only won by one goal. Zach worked really hard this year and he also learned a lot and now he will be ready to try out next year in our new area.

 Aaron received a participation certificate and he was so excited to be called out to get an award.

Zach received the coaches award for his group for keeping up with the other kids as he was the youngest in this group.  We had another great week of soccer camp, what a great way to start the summer.

Summer Soccer Camp

The first week after school is out every year the kids attend the local soccer camp and they love it so much they made sure that we didn't move until camp was done.

 

 Knowing from years past that we needed to make shirts of each of the teams they were put on we got right to making them when we found out which team they each were on.

 

 Aaron was put on New England Revolution 

 Katie is on Team USA

 Zach is on Manchester United

 They all helped make their shirts and they all did a good job and I think it might just be my best crafty work ever!!

 I let them pick their numbers and we made sure to put their name on as well.  They all look good and will represent their team well.