Ben in Braces ????

Well it was a big day in the Fleury household today... My big boy got braces! Not only is he over 5' tall with feet as big as mine, but now he looks like a teenager with braces. The process went very smoothly, but just now he is starting to complain - after all who likes braces. I remember that they just ache and feel yucky for quite sometime.

While we are on the subject of Ben... here is a picture of him from his piano recital last weekend. He did just great! He is already hard a work thinking about next year... he wants to learn how to play "Eye of the Tiger" - yup! the one from the Rocky Movie. We love this piano teacher because he does not insist on all classical music.

Cate's 1st Communion

Well our little miracle made her 1st Communion on Saturday (May 1st)... she looked beautiful and did such a good job. She was LAST - so hard to wait your turn patiently on the alter, but with some help from Grammy she did it perfectly!!!!

Okay - so the pretty, sweet, white dress thing only lasted so long before our little tomboy decided it was time to do what she does best... shoot hoops! Here she is playing basketball in the driveway in her WHITE dress. Good thing she does not need to wear the dress again!

School Picture Candids...

We had picture day last week and I must confess I get a wee-bit crazy when it comes to school pictures (don't know why, they always come out terrible). Believe it or not, the kids still looked pretty cute when they got home from school, so I snapped these pics of them...

p.s. When did they get to be so big????

Bright Boy Ben

Here is a cute picture of Ben from March when he got promoted from a Wolf Scout to a Bear Scout. I thought it would be nice to share a picture along with the great poem I just found in a package of work that came home from school. The assignment was to write about where you would live if you had the chance to to go to another country. Instead of writing a paragraph, he decide to write a little poem. I thought it was so creative and cute that I wanted to share it, so here goes:

Austraila

by Ben Fleury

If moving to another country was what I had to do,

I would go to Austraila, to see it's big zoo.

I'd also like to ride a camel, across it's dessert planes,

but maybe instead, I think I'd take a train.

If learning's what I had to do,

I've always wondered why,

Austraila's a country and a state,

my-oh-my-oh-my.

My trip to Down-Under is almost complete,

The only thing that's missing,

Is the people I would meet!

Disney World

Welcome to our Disney Vacation!! We have sooo many pictures and sooo many great memories, this is really only a tiny glimpse into the "Magic"....

Ben and Cate relax in the lobby of the Boardwalk Villas where we stayed. The flight was easy and 0nce we checked in, we spend the rest of the day by the pool and strolling the boardwalk.

Our first night, we had dinner in Epcot. We ate in Mexico at the San Angel Inn. It is such a cool place... you feel like you are eating outside on a beautiful evening in Mexico. The kids even got to ride on the Gran Fiesta Tour Boat in the Mexican pavillion. It was a great start to our vacation.

Can you believe the size of this breakfast!!!! It was a buffet and Ben took that VERY seriously! Over the course of the next hour we met Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, and Donald. Yes we got pictures of everyone, but this pictures is by far the best of the day!!! And yes, he did eat almost every last bite.

Cute picture of Grammy, Grandpa and Cate waiting for the raft on Tom Sawyers Island in the Magic Kingdom.

Cate's favorite ride, by far, at the Magic Kingdom was "It's a Small World" She rode it 3 times. This is a picture of her pointing to "everything". Every 2 seconds she would see something and point it out saying "Look at that..." She also sang the song AT THE TOP OF HER LUNGS for most of the ride.

Here's the whole gang at the Liberty Tree Tavern in the Magic Kingdom.

Yup! We are eating again!!! This time it is a late night snack at the Magic Kingdom in Tomorrowland. Ben had just finished riding Space Mountain for the first time (he rode twice more for a total of 3 times during our trip).

Oh my goodness... is that Cate with June and Quincy? Yes it is. She was soo excited. Our only sad point was that Handy Manny was no where to be found and she really wanted to meet him. She also got her picture taken with Leo... not sure where Annie was??? Maybe with Manny (hmmmmmm!!!) I wonder if Kelly from the hardware store knows about that??? A little inside joke for all you Playhouse Disney Moms.

Here's Cate rockin' out at the Playhouse Disney Live show. All her favorites were there and they actually encouraged standing, dancing and singing loud. If she had not already been to heaven, she might have thought this show was it! By far her absolute FAVORITE of the entire vacation.

Epcot... Mission: Space... Orange Team. Where is Mommy/Audra? At home with Cate, too chicken to ride. The green team (aka "sissy" version) experience the day before was just fine for me thank you very much. I left the really scary stuff to Dave and the Grandparents. Just for the record... despite how perky she looks in this picture, post ride, Grammy looked a little green!

The Fleury Family Welcomes you to Animal Kingdom!

We had a big group today... Memere and Pepere joined us for a couple days and we were all able to see Animal Kingdom together.

We really were this close to a giraffe! The Kilamanjaro Safari in "Africa" was the highlight of our trip to Animal Kingdom. Well maybe Dave, Ben and the Grandfathers will say it was Expedition Everest, the rollercoaster with a "yeti" that jumps out at you. But being a giraffe lover, this was my favorite! We also saw a lion, elephants, rhinos, etc... so close you really could have touched some of them (not the lion of course).

Ben and Cate hooked up with some locals in Africa and just started jammin'.

Our last day, we headed to Downtown Disney for dinner at a great Irish restaurant called Raglan Road - very good food and so fun with step dancing and music. The highlight of the excursion for Ben was the Lego Store... yup, the transformer behind him is made up entirely of Legos. Does it get and cooler for a 9 year old Lego lover???

Well that's it... a quick summary of our trip to Disney. We had a truly "magical" visit and are hoping to convince the KS Ayotte's to join us for a trip in 4 or 5 years. We think that 7 and 9 were just about the perfect ages to visit.

Happy New Year!

I guess, seeing as we put this blog in our Christmas card, that one of my New Year's Resolutions should be to keep it up to date. We will start things off with a couple of pictures from Christmas Eve. We opened our presents from the Kansas Ayotte's and got lots of great things, but I love this funny picture of Dave opening up his "Poison Ivy Itch Relief Spray". Once again he suffered a VERY bad case of poison something after deer hunting and I guess Keith and Tanya just wanted to be helpful...





This next one is of Cate and I... I got a cute little sign that says "Always Kiss Me Goodnight" and Cate took it pretty seriously. Can't say I mind a little smooch from my little cutie...

These next couple are from Christmas morning. Cate was VERY excited to get a new dolly (Nina) from Santa...

and here is a cute one of Ben posing with his new Patriots boxer shorts from Grammy and Grandpa.

We spent Christmas day with the O'Briens. The boys took a break from Wii-ing to build and play with Michael's great new Lego Cargo Ship... Can you believe how big they both look in this picture...

Last but not least... how about this cute picture of Cate in the new shirt she got from Uncle Keith and Aunt Tanya....

That's all for now folks, but check back soon... I really do promise to post often!

Whoops! Forgot the Camera

I know... you are probably checking the blog to see a cute picture of Cate riding a horse, because that is what I told you I would post. Well, I am sorry to say that I forgot to bring the camera to her session so no cute horse picture. In lieu of that picture, I found this picture of the kids from the summer when we went on a hike. It's not so great of me, so please try to focus your attention on the cute kids.... Check back soon!