Bowling with the Hoffmans

Family Bowling at Shamrock lanes

Here is Jonathan getting ready to bowl. The kids were so excited to go. It was a special deal for the families. One game of bowling and shoes for $10.00 per family. We had great fun.

Here is Sarah just waiting for her turn.. This was her first time bowling... She really enjoyed herself. Good thing for those bumper guards.

Jonathan did really well, this is not one of his strikes, but he had many... he almost beat us all!

As you can see from the score board Barb and Jonathan did pretty well, for not bowling in a long time. Tyler said he let me win, just like our first date when I beat him at bowling.... Hmmmmmmm!

Here they are at the end of the night. What cute kids.. We missed having Abigail and Hannah with us but I am sure they are having lots of fun on their trip with the youth group.

Can you say MOOOOOOOOOOOO

This would be a great time for some readers to comment. I would love to see what all of you would do for a free meal. Well as the next few pictures will show, we will absolutely embarrass ourselves to get a free meal. I will give you a short history, Chick-fil-A had national cow appreciation day today. If you dressed like a cow you could eat for free. If you only dressed up half way you got to pick a sandwich, if you dressed up from head to hoof, you got a free combo meal of your choice. Well of course we had to dress up. We went to the chick-fil-A website and printed off the cow ears, nose.tail and spots. Then we proceeded to our local Chick-fil-A on route 29. By the way just a side note, WE LOVE CHICK-FIL-A!! With the economy and gas prices as high as they are, we have had to cut out how often we go to Chick-fil-A. A meal for all 6 of us is about $35.00. So tonight we were very excited to get it all for FREE! Thank you again Chick-fil-A! Please be sure to save the date for next year, it should be around the same time next year also. We are already planning our costumes. Well sorry for the long description. Here are the pictures. Please try not to laugh too hard when you see the last picture. But it was worth it!

Here we are in all our glory! Moooooooooooo

Well I had better close now, Abigail and Hannah are leaving in the morning for Charleston, West Virginia for Middle school camp, and I have to get up early.

Barb

Happy Birthday to You!

I just have to say I have the most wonderful husband. Today was his 41st birthday.

As you can see from the picture of the cake below, it was homemade. I was cleaning the house all day, so I let Abigail make the cake by herself with very little input from me. I explained each step as she was making the cake. She absolutley loved doing it for her Dad. She was so proud! It turned out so good. I frosted it and put the sprinkles on it. We hope he liked it.

Hope every one is having a wonderful day. I am up kind of late finishing some cleaning and of course blogging. Looking forward to a great weekend.

Barb

Happy 4th of July

I hope you all have some wonderful plans for today and tonight. We had a great night last night! The girls got home from choir tour and they were tired. I had to work this morning at the Westside club. We actually had a lot of kids. I was surprised. I didn't think that many people would come and use the nursery. I brought a fun art activity they all seemed to enjoy. I decided my own kids that were at home still asleep with Tyler might enjoy doing it also. Once I got home from work we had a great time making our 4th of July pictures.

Here they are making the pictures. You blow small paint blots with a straw to make it look like fireworks. They all worked really hard. I think some of them even got a headache. I didn't think it would bother anyone, we have enough hot air in this house to inflate a hot air balloon.

Working hard

Even Daddy got in on the fun!

Sarah showing off her work and Jonathan with his.

Hannah and Abigail with their pictures.

We even had a lot of fun with this, they really look like fireworks, we added glitter so they sparkle. Okay don't laugh people, we were doing this for the kids. No Really! Hope y0u all have a great rest of the 4th. I may post later if we do anything cool. Peace out. I hope you all enjoy the music I added. I will add some more funky songs later.

Barb

We had a wonderful trip to Pennslyvania for Tyler's sister's wedding. It was a wonderful time of fun with his sister and brother and their families and friends. We started our trip on Friday at 11:00 am. We dropped our two older girls, Abigail and Hannah off at the church with
Bucky the youth pastor for them to leave on their choir tour. Then we headed out. We had an uneventful trip up, which is always a good thing. It was a little scary watching the gas prices rise as we headed north. But it was worth the money to see his sister get married!!! We had to go straight to the church for the rehersal. This is the view we saw as we came down the street the church was on.

Look at this beautiful little church.

The rehersal was fairly short and sweet.

The next day was the wedding day and we were excited. Here are some shots of us while getting Angie ready to walk down the isle.

Here I am helping her get her garters on. Her daughter Ariel is next to her. What a good shot of her. It was harder to get her to look at the camera as the day went on.

Here Angie is showing off her garters and her legs.

They are the cutest brother and sister I know besides Jonathan and all his sisters. This was right before they went to go down the isle.

This is the happy family with the Pastor after the wedding was over. Austin (Bruce's son from a previous relationship, they have custody of him) Ariel, Bruce, Pastor Moats and Angie. Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Fittry!!!

This is our family posing all together with the happy couple. (minus Abigail and Hannah) If you can read this girls we miss you!

Tyler and his sister dancing at the reception. It was an open air reception pavallion. So needless to say it was VERY HOT! We changed into shorts after all the official stuff was done.

We had a wonderful time at the reception. Angie and Bruce did a great job planning the wedding and reception.

Well Sunday morning came before we were ready to leave. Tyler's brother Darby and his girlfriend Christy, his sister Angie and her HUSBAND Bruce, and the four of us met at TGI Fridays for lunch. We had a fun time and then said our good byes... Angie and Bruce are planning on coming to South Carolina for Thanksgiving and we may see his brother Darby and Christy in September if we go to Pittsburgh for my cousin's wedding.

We headed out for the long drive. We decided to stop on our way back at a place we always pass and wonder what it is like. So since we were not really in any rush to get home we decided to stop.

The story behind this is, The older girls always call Jonathan Johnny Appleseed. He says he doesn't like it but he was the one who wanted to stop when we gave him the option.

Here Jonathan is with the very large statue of Johnny Appleseed outside of the restaurant.

I had to get Sarah in the picture too !!

This small playground was right behind the restaurant and hotel. It was a very nice opportunity for the kids to stretch and have some fun playing in the middle of a very long ride for them.

I even got in on the fun. I hope you enjoyed hearing about our wonderful trip.
Come back soon for some more fun with the Hoffmans !

Well how long has it been ?? I have been so busy it has been 2 plus months since my last post... That is shameful! I will try to do a quick recap of the events of the past months. Sorry this will be a long one. On April 25th Sarah and her kindergarten class went to the Greenville zoo. Here are some recent pictures of her and her friends.

Sarah on the bear by the exit gate.

Sarah and her best friend Julia Kate.

Sarah and her friend Evelyn. How cute they look. This was a fun day for all.

That evening we had to go to Owen Cieluch's Birthday party at the Westside club. It was also knock down doubles night... so a fun night was had by all.

On Saturday April 26th Jonathan and Sarah were in the children's choir performance of Splash Kingdom. It was a wonderful musical. Jonathan had a lead roll. He was Dew Drop the surfer dude for the play part. Here are some shots from the musical.

Here is the entire cast of the musical.

Here are all the lead speaking roles.

Sarah and Jonathan after the musical was over. Jonathan had some big hair!

Sarah and her good fried Kate Elizabeth.

On Wednesday April 30th We went to Converse College for the South Carolina Junior Scholars Program. Abigail received the award for scoring very high on her PSATs. We are so proud of her. This was a big deal and all of the districts were present with their winners also. District 6 had a large number of students that did very well. I believe that the highest scorer for Spartanburg county came out of district 6.

The blur is Abigail shaking Ken Kiser's hand.

Wow that sure was a lot and we are just through April.

May started out busy and stayed that way. On May 3rd we had a wonderful Progressive dinner with our Sunday School class. We started at our house for appetizers. Next we went to the Mason's for salad. We then proceeded to the Baileys for our main course. Our night ended at the Cieluchs for dessert. We played games at each house (Thank you Wendy) and had a wonderful time. On Sunday we had Celebration Sunday at the Spartanburg Memorial Auditorium for church. It was a wonderful service. Our Sunday school class got together and had lunch at Wild Wing downtown. You can go to the Mann's website http://www.themannquiver.com/ and see the pictures she took. I forgot my camera. Afterwards some families stayed downtown and enjoyed the Spring Fling.

On Tuesday May 6th Hannah had her Kids of Character Ceremony. She was nominated by her teachers for this wonderful honor. I will add a picture of Hannah with her shirt later.

May 9th was Jonathan's 9th Birthday. We always let the kids pick were they want to eat out on their birthdays. Jonathan picked out Kanpai. It worked out pretty good because the older girls were out with the youth group from church, so we saved a little money on the bill. We are still working on planning a party for him. He can't wait!

May 16th was Sarah's end of the year program for Kindergarten. They had an ocean theme this year.

This is a shot of Sarah saying her line.

Everyone wears a bow and a visor to the beach, right??

I had my last Day of Preschool on May 16th also. We ended the year with a picnic at Cleveland Park in Spartanburg. Sarah got to come with me since we found out she was running a fever before we left her school. (We went to the Doctor after the ELC picnic and she had strep.) It was a fun year but I am excited for the summer break. On May 23rd we packed up the car and the kids and headed to Oak Island, North Carolina for a long weekend at the best beach house ever! We were able to see my family and have a great weekend of catching up with family and sleep. By the way the ocean temperature at the end of May in North Carolina is still a bit chilly if anyone was wondering!

Upon returning we had several (3) honors day programs to attend and Abigail's 8th grade graduation program. My baby is going into high school. Where has the time gone? The kids had their last day of school on Friday May 30th. Wow we are so excited about getting to sleep in! But not for too long...

On Friday after school we had Abigail's 14th Birthday party. (Her Birthday is April 6th) I know we are so slack, but it is always so crazy for us we just had to wait until now. She pick having her friends for lunch at Fuddruckers. We had a great time. Here are some pictures of her and her friends.

Stephanie, Abigail, Bethany, April, and Rubi at Fuddruckers

Abigail opening presents.

What a beautiful girl!

Stephanie, Abigail and Bethany.

Rubi, April, Bethany, Abigail, Sarah and Stephanie after their tummies were full.

On Tuesday the preschool summer camp that I am the Director of starts. Oh well so much for sleeping in.

On Saturday May 31st Hannah celebrated her 12th Birthday. Yea! We celebrated by going to Chandi's Bistro for lunch on Sunday for their Sunday Brunch (her choice). We are also still working out the details for her pool party. With school getting out it has been hard to have a weekend when we don't have a bunch of other things going on.

On June 3rd we had the first day of the preschool camp. It was a fun day for all I believe. We had a great week of camp.

On Friday June 6th Sarah had 10 inches of her hair cut off for the locks of love charity. Here are the after pictures... I did not get the before pictures from Bama (Debby Cash). She does have them. I may post them later.

Here she is with her 5 ponytails.

This is an after shot.

On Sunday June 8th we started VBS at our church. It was a fun and busy week. Between my work at the Westside club and helping with all the crafts it has been very, very busy. It was a great week. The kids had an amazing time. Abigail and Hannah helped with the preschoolers. Tyler was in charge of the Recreation. I was in charge of the crafts with Heather. Jonathan and Sarah got to come and have a wonderful week learning of God's wonderful love.

After Vbs we had another week (June 17th - 19th) of preschool camp. This week it was Prince and Princess week. I think it was enjoyed by all. This was an easier week to get ready for since most of the major work was done before the first week. Along with working at camp in the mornings, I worked at the Westside club at night.

On Wednesday June 18th Abigail had her hair cut off for Locks of Love also. She was the original reason we had even looked into Locks of Love. Her hair was so long and so thick. She had 10 or 11 inches cut off, she left a little more than Sarah so she would still have slightly long hair. She loves it ! Here is her after picture.

Hope I haven't bored everyone to tears. We are headed out this weekend so I will have some more to post when we get back. Tyler's sister is getting married so I will post some pictures of them when we get back. Abigail and Hannah head out for a week long choir tour with the youth group from church. The house will be very quiet next week. I pray that they have a safe trip and impact many with the presentation of the gospel through song.