The Shockley Girls

the latest news on

Emma:

remember the picture we posted on the blog that she did in school? the water color with crayon? She entered that picture at the William King Regional Art Center last week during our Abingdon Highlands Festival and we got a call that she won an award to come down to the museum. Emma was in the K - 2nd grade class and next to her picture was

"First Place Winner"

go Em's!

Hope:

today was yearly check up for the girls and Hope is the magical age of 4 which means school physical, ie. SHOTS.... 5 of them to be exact and a finger prick to give more blood. Our poor little pin cushion survived barely... and Emma with a mere single shot and moi aussi - seeing as I had to keep her distracted. Did I mention that Dad has taken them out tonite to see "Space Chimps" at the theater??? popcorn, drink and junior mints.

Rachel:

she has started or is just getting ready for Volleyball camp which is to take place right up until it's time to start school... I can't wait to see her next week and check out her forearms and see how bruised they are. The coach of the volleyball team at Blacksburg Middle School scouted her out last year and told her to try out for the team this year! Rach is going to be a 7th grader ( how did that happen ) and only 7th/8th graders get to be on the school teams.

So please say a prayer for the girls, for their wonderful achievements and great nature that just make Dad and I so proud and love to be part of their lives.

Savannah 2008

We made our annual pilgramage to Skidaway Island to see the Shockley side of the family. We got Rachel early the night before we planned to go so we picked her up and went and spent the night with Uncle Booboo and GiGI and the cousins. Nothing like having family come in at 8:30 at night - we extended everyone's bed time and let them have some fun in their great play room. Said thanks and bye to Brian the night before as he goes to work around 5am -- after playing some more in the am we thanked Jennifer hit the road. We made good time to Savannah and after giving love to Nana Hazel - hit the pool! Nothing better than a pool especially with the new slide Dave rigged off the side of the porch. The uncles Chris and Sean showed up shortly after and we had a bigger pool party. Good food was had by all as David and Chris made shrimp and sausage pasta with assorted left over curries in the frig! We hit the beach the next day and did lots of body surfing - wave jumping - shell gathering - we watched a seagull attempt to fly off with a full pack of nab peanut butter crackers!!! Back home for a little quiet time - a golf cart ride - more pool - then Graddaddy Dave made it home from Norfolk, VA -- dinner Tandoori Chicken -- more pooltime - Next day ..... THE MALL, Hope had a wallet full of birthday cashola - Nana gave the other girls a few bucks and somehow we spent 5 HOURS there... yikes! But all the girls were troopers and appeared to be very happy with purchases made and food eaten. The little girls went to the Build a Bear workshop and now we have 2 new addtions to the family - Ella and Isabella! We got home and yup, pool time -- see a pattern here? Dinner - curry, grean beans from our garden, marinated flank steak. Last day - we were headed into downtown Savannah when the van started to over heat - thank goodness we were still on the island, we made it back to the house - noticed that the radiator was totally empty, whoops, at least it wasn't on the hwy home! by that time it was mid-day so we hung out and went for golf cart rides and pool time and a LONG nap for the girls......... David, Sean and I went to Dave's fish monger - she get's shrimp in every day and we brought the cooler and got 20lbs of frest caught that am shrimp! $3 per pound............. -- she iced up the cooler and we are the envy of the neighborhood. Last night, dinner, fresh fish caught behind their house, Dave caught the first fish and since he didn't have a bucket stuffed it in his shorts pocket! What a sight to see his pants wiggling... then the girls got into the act and started playing with the fish in the bucket, making them talk to each other and kisss.... must be that sea air. Did I mention we saw the alligator in the back lagoon? Sorry - a lot of the stuff is on video rather than camera shots.
We made it home safe and sound.

This is baby Christopher - whom we need to start calling Little Christopher since he is about as tall as Hope after his 2nd birthday -

Rachel made a perfect backflip - true story!

The body surfing champs!

Tide was coming in and the waves were just right - after a while the kids were all up on the beach playing in the sand while David and I were body surfing the waves, I looked at David and said what's wrong with this picture? Took me a little while to get in the groove, I don't think I have done it since Mum and I did it in the Caribbean. I had so much fun I didn't really mind all the sand in my drawers afterwards.

We liked this picture because of the cool looking water!

and Emma's big smile.

Hope is soooo like Rachel it's spooky.

I think I covered the water in a mask earlier.

All were snuggled together on the couch after a big day.

Ok, it's swim time but little did we know what talent Emma has for basketball!

She grabbed one of the balls and started shooting and I lost count how many she got in a row! All by herself! Sean and Rachel better practice your A-game of Horse because Em's is going to whip you guys when she gets a little taller!

I'm in the water swimming.... really, all day every day - face under, face above, with mask, without mask, doing cannonballs off the side, going down the slide, body surfing at the beach.

ok, so it starts with the fact Rachel forgot to pack skivvies for the trip to Savannah - so she went with David and Uncle Chris to Walmart to get a few things and some new drawers.... To the men in our lives please understand that you will never understand women's clothing and clothing sizes.... yes, Rachel is a 10-12 in juniors but size 10 in women's underware results in the above picture. In women's skivvies she would of been a 4 or a 5 - or find the junior section.

Wow, look at that smile!!!

Happy Birthday Hopie

My Little Pony... one of Hope's favorites... Thanks, Jeni! The girls ate through a lot of Japanese Chicken and Rice to get to the good stuff at the end! More Icing please Mom!

Hope woke up from nap and the cake was made - we are taking it to dinner tonite

Emma... not yet!

Thanks for having a birthday and getting new stuff for us to play with Hope!

Not a too shabby way to start your day -- presents!

Smartie Candy flip flops/a bratz doll/a barbie island princess computer/ and a barbie colorforms set......... this is all before 8am!

I will make sure we update the blog but this is a good start.

How is Hope 4 years old?

A week in July

It's back to being HOT again. So we got out the sprinkler to ease the afternoon heat. We have had a good week, Emma is in Art Camp this week at the local regional art center, her class will have a show this friday and we get to see all that she has done. She has been very excited and we hope that she keeps up her creative artworks. Hope and I have been hanging out during the day - we have hit the pool, the park and the library, since we are going to be in the mid 90's... I'd say it's a good bet we will hit the pool tomorrow. Hope is doing good on her swimming, if we could just get her buoyancy figured out - she can float on her back ( with wings ) and she can swim dog pattle and side stroke and she loves as of yesterday to swim face totally under the water and kicking ... but if i take the wings off she sinks like a stone, soooo close. Maybe dad can get it to click for her.

Um, Lilly is out again...............

What a way to wake up........

Cleveland-Cliffs and Alpha Natural Resources to Merge, Creating Cliffs Natural Resources, a Leading Diversified Mining and Natural Resources Company ... for $10 BILLION dollars!

David woke up this morning to see this on the ticker at the bottom of the tv screen newscast this morning - talk about a bigger jolt than my first cup of coffee in the morning.

More news as the day progresses - per David's inital info on his email release Accounting will stay put - prayers would be appreciated today. Thanks one and all.

#4

Yup number 4 came out today - thanks to me - poor Em's said her tooth was bothering her and it distracted her from slip n slide of all things, can't have that so after she got me a tissue and a small tear... it's out! Get this - her other top front tooth is loose... that's going to be quiet the first grade photo this fall.

V B S Week

I took all the kiddo's pictures so we could make picture frames for our craft during the week.

Here is Emmo looking all grown up.

Here is Hope looking - um, I don't know

Emma and her buddy Rachel

Hope having snack... I hear it's one of her better subject's.

One day I had SEVERAL people come and ask me if I let her have Cheese Doodles very often because of the mass quantity that she consumed.

Here is Hope in her usual spot on the church playground, it's her favorite play house and she's taught all the other girls how to play restaurant.

VBS is not Vacation Bible School, rather it is VERY BUSY SKITZO children..........................
.
I thought I would do something different this year and instead of teaching an individual class I volunteered to be the Craft Leader. Craft leader for almost 100 children. The 3 and 4 year old class had 34 kids in it... yes, 34 littles ones - with stickers, glue, string, and various other objects of destruction. Yeah, taking it easy this year. I think I need a weekend at the spa to recover or a bottle of really good tequila for a Margarita party for one.

Pictures will come next week - I still am taking pictures of all the other 98 children this week and didn't want to download the ones so far on to the computer.

Say a small prayer for my back and feet this week, I thank you one and all.

Big Butts?

The Shockley's have struck again. We were invited to have pre-dinner festivities at the Tolar household last night. It was raining so we ate inside and split up - the adults upstairs and the kids ate and played downstairs. We all were finishing up our dinner when Erin, Elizabeth and Emma came upstairs to clear their plates leaving the young Mz. Hopie downstairs to herself. I should inject here that the Tolars have one of those little exercise trampolines at their house and it's the perfect size for the kiddo's to jump and dance on. Well we could hear Hopie gradually getting louder with her singing as she must of gotten momentum from the trampoline, and then it dawned on me what she was belting out... at the Tolar's... Robert is PASTOR Tolar remember... " I like Big Butts and I cannot Lie" " You other brothers can't deny" " I like Big Butts" What could we do? Explaining that we just saw Shrek just didn't seem adequate, I personally was looking for a convenient spot under the dinner table. Go Hope!

A picture is worth a 1000 purrs...............

Lilly has been more friendly since our return from vacation and she loves to lay in the window sill by the kids area downstairs, at night I go around looking for her to make sure she didn't slide out the door and find her - black against black in the window. She must be getting used to the girls as she decided to take a nap this afternoon on their table... nice glare I got for disturbing her nap and taking a picture.

T-Ball Picture

We got back from vacation and got Emma's team picture, trophy and certificate -- the picture was great and she's smiling!

Our friend Zac got it to us as we missed the pool party and he said it was a good picture and they used a real ball field as background with none other than the Atlanta Braves and when I looked at it - it showed Smoltz on the mound pitching no less, how cool is that?

Before and After

Here is Emma with...................................

and Emma without..........................