White Christmas!!

We had a great Christmas this year! On Christmas Eve, we had two stops to make: Irma's house for the Phillips family, then to Douglasville for the Casey family. Harrison got to see all of his cousins and got some cool gifts. We got home really late that night and had to go straight to bed so Santa could come.

On Christmas morning, the kids didn't wake up until 9AM....which was crazy because they were so excited. Harrison got clothes, boots, hockey stuff and a sheet of plastic that like ice! He can shoot and puck handle on it. Around 11:00, we were all getting ready to go to Nana Phillip's house when all of a sudden.....it started snowing! It snowed almost all day and we got a couple of inches at our house. The bad part was, we had to leave it to go to Nana's. We drove in snow the whole way there. It was snowing there too, but not as much as at our house. When we got there, we got to see the Cobb's and Aunt Linda and Uncle Louis. It was a great day!

We headed home before it got dark so the roads wouldn't be bad. Once we got home, we started a fire and played Mario Kart on the wii for a while. It did stop snowing in the evening, but the best part was the next day- there was still snow to play in! So, of course, the kids bundled up and went out for a while. Here is a slideshow of our White Christmas:

Fourth grade=Honor Roll

Now that harrison is in 4th grade, he gets graded with A, B, C, D or F. For the first nine weeks, he recieved all A's with ONE B!! He also earned Perfect Attendance. During his conference, his teachers told me how great he is doing and what a pleasure he is to have in class. Keep up the good work, Harri!

Here is a recent picture of my little Bear:

Back to school

Harrison is in 4th grade now....where has the time gone? It seems like just yesterday, he was my little baby boy...


Anyway, he loves school this year, because he gets to change classes. He has Mrs. Barden for most of his classes and goes to Mrs. Connor's class for Science and Language Arts. In Music, they are learning how to play the recorder. He brought it home over the weekend and I taught him how to play "Mary had a Little Lamb." he practiced it all weekend until it was perfect! I couldn't believe how dedicated he was to working on it.

In the sports world: Harrison has decided to hang up the soccer cleats (again) and stick with hockey. He tried out for the Squirt team at the Ice Forum and was asked to move up to the AA team this year. His team from last year moved up to Squirt as well and are staying in Single A. It was a hard decision for us to make, as he had to leave his friends. But we decided in the end that the best thing for him would be to play at the higher level. They have already started practicing and games will start in late September

He's a genius!?!?

Harrison had a great 3rd grade school year! We found out a few weeks ago that he had passed the CRCT, but we just got the scores with his report card yesterday. Not only did he PASS the Math part...he Exceeded Standards!! This is great because in 3rd grade, you don't move onto to 4th grade unless you pass Math and Reading. So definitely a sigh of relief! His report card was great too, all 3's with a couple of 2's. They get 1,2,3 instead of A,B,C.....3 being the highest. So.....4th grade here he comes!

Here is a cute picture that we took at the ballpark last weekend:

TPH in Detroit, MI

Harrison was invited to tryout for the Top 30 Prospects Hockey Program back in March. He was the only player from his team to make the team of 18 boys. They had a weekend training in Nashville back in Mid-April. Then, over the weekend of April 29 - May 2, we flew to Detroit to play in a tournament. Harrison had a great time with the boys off the ice, going to dinner, swimming in the indoor pool and hanging out at the hotel. On the ice though, was a different story. The coaches had him playing Forward, but he normally plays Center. This was frustrating for him and for us. We won 1 of the 4 games. We had a hard time getting goals for some reason. Probably because we have not been playing together all year like the other teams had.

On Saturday we had a six hour break, so we drove over to lake St. Clair. It was beautiful! We found the Edsel and Eleanor Ford Estate and drove in to take a tour. it is 87 acres so we just did the free walking tour. We were able to go in the Garage and the Playhouse. Here are some pictures of the estate:

Josephine's playhouse

Player of the Game

Harrison's hockey team was invited to play at Philips Arena after the Thrasher's game on Sunday, March 14. Also, he was chosen to be the Player of the Game! Which means he was able to dress in full gear, sit in the Penalty Box during the pre-game warm up, then skate out with the players during the National Anthem. This was a really cool thing for him to do and we were all very excited! Several of our friends and family bought tickets and joined us for the evening of fun. His fan club included: Nana Phillips; Papaw Lamar and Monica; Amanda, Greg and the boys; Louis and Linda; Nana Tammy, Phil and Jacob; Bronson and Tamara; MaryBeth and Bob! It was wonderful to see so many people there to support him! Jason stayed with him in the penalty box and they came up to our seats after the anthem. Once the game was over, we all went down to the seats on the glass and watched his team play against the Atlanta Fire.....and win! It was a great night all around! Here is the video of the anthem. Be sure your volume is up to hear them announce his name!

Champions AGAIN!!

Harrison's hockey team traveled to Nashville, TN this weekend to play in the Country and Western tournament. They started out a little rusty, but ended up winning the whole thing! Jason and Papaw Lamar went on the trip with him and they stayed at the Opryland Hotel.

Here is a video of one of his goals. He is #4 taking the face-off beside the ref.

SNOW............

Cobb County Schools closed 1 hour early on Friday because of the incoming inclement weather. It started snowing at 1:00 in Kennesaw and lasted until around 11PM. We got around 2-3 inches. Here are the pics to prove it!

Make a Smilebox photobook

So our trip to Canada was a blast! We flew into Buffalo, NY on Wednesday morning. We rented 2 vans and a couple of cars to drive across the border. After going through customs, our hotel (Sheraton on the Falls) was only a block away. It was right on Niagara Falls! There was a foot of snow on the ground too! We spent Wed. afternoon unpacking, eating lunch (at Hard Rock Cafe) and playing in the snow at the falls. We ate dinner at Boston Pizza and the kids played video games.

Our first game was Thursday morning. We lost 4-2 but the boys played great! We had another game later in the morning and also lost 3-0. Since our afternoon was free, we had lunch and hung out at the indoor pool for a while. We went to Ruby Tuesdays for dinner and then back to the pool for some major diving competitions between the boys. Early to bed though because of tomorrow's early start!

On Friday morning, we woke up to lots more snow! It kept snowing all day, which was cool because we don't see that in GA! We had an early game, so we headed to the rink. The boys played much better this game and pulled out a win of 5-2. After the game, the entire team had a pancake breakfast upstairs while overlooking the next hockey game. Then we headed back to the hotel for a couple of hours of rest and lunch. The first Quarterfinal game was that afternoon. It was a very close, very exciting, very tense game. I think the parents were more stressed out than the boys were. Since it was now single elimination, you must win all games to stay in it. Those boys played their little hearts out! But in the last 2 minutes of the game, the other scored to make it 3-2. Our boys tried and tried to score again, but to no avail. The locker room was quite a sad place to be. The boys were crushed. Jason told me later that all of them were welling up with tears. They wanted to win that game so bad!

We headed back to the hotel and everyone kind of did their own thing for the evening. We went over to Boston Pizza again. On Saturday morning we all met up and drove into Kitchener to visit some ex-Atlantans. They were transferred back to Canada 3 years ago and when they found out we were coming up, they invited the whole team over to skate on their outdoor rink. They boys absolutely loved this! They had goals and pucks, so they even had a scrimmage going for a while. They fed us lunch and were so much fun to talk to. In the afternoon, we drove on up to Toronto to visit the Hockey Hall of Fame. This was pretty cool as well. There was tons of hockey memorabilia from the first game back in 1917 all the way through the most recent inductees. Plus, the Stanley Cup was there! After 2 and a half hours of this, we left and went looking for dinner. We ended up at a local Italian restaurant, right down from the Air Canada Center (where the Maple Leafs play) By the time we got back to the hotel that night, it was time for bed!

Sunday morning was clean up, pack up, load up. And off to the airport we went.