HANOVER BASKETBALL CAMP

Madeline just got back from the basketball camp at Hanover College. She had so much fun and learned alot! This was her first time to go to a camp like this and to be this far from home on her own. There were 7 girls total from her team who attended and she was able to room with one of them. I was glad to hear about that.

Here she is laughing it up during half time with her team mates. lol

Go Madee Go! She did a great job in her position. She is a post player and is considering attending the post camp that is coming up. We'll see.....

Now these next few pics are funny because this girl who is in Madee's grill used to be a girl scout in our sister troop, back in the day...lol and anyway...madee was all over her like white on rice as you can see.....
and again, this time knocking the ball out of her hands......

and again........

until this hapened...(*@^#*^!).... ouch... Madee got an elbow to the left temple. It hurt just a bit and she tried her best to shake it off, but I think all the emotions of being away all week over took her. She cried a little bit with mom in the audience. I think she was more mad about that...lol. So here she is nursing the wound with some ice. We are still so very proud of her and all her hard work this week!

As you can see in the top pic Madeline received the 'Most Improved Player' ribbon. I am partial to this ribbon because the only true competition you ever have is the person that you were! You should always strive to beat your own personal best! =]

Columbus Flooding....

We have gotten numerous calls from all of you asking if we were effected by the recent flooding in Columbus. The GOOD NEWS is we were not. It didn't get withing a mile of us. We were shocked as we live in a pretty flood prone area. Most of the flooding happened on the North side of town as levys broke and wreaked havoc on the middle of town. (This photo is of Washington Street downtown by the Coca-Cola bottling plant.)

Our hearts ache as we drive through town and see the devestation that we once experienced when our home did flood in 1998. I remember all too well being loaded into a boat from my front door 6 months pregnant with my 2 daughters who were 5 & 2 at the time. It was so scary and we lost alot. Just the smell brings back memories that I was happy to forget.

My friend Diana had water in her house, but is doing great things in her neighborhood for others-and I am so proud of her! My friend Karen had water under her house, but praise GOD it did not get in! Her brother was not as fortunate and basically lost everything he owned. We know of several others who are in this same situation.

These are shots of Gavin's work. He works at Cummins Tech Center and it was hit pretty hard. The building had 5 feet of water standing in the basement. There has been no power and employees could not report to work. I am so relieved for all the families of the employees, as Cummins has continued to pay their salaries! They have allowed them to particpate in the cleaning phase and rebuilding process! Could you imagine losing all your posessions and your income too? What a blessing that they can do this.

This is Columbus East High School, where Gavin graduated from. It is a mess as the lower levels were completely flooded. They were holding Summer School there this summer, but now it has been switched to North High School. Who even knows if the school will be ready for students in the fall. This may pose a serious problem when school starts as you can imagine... Caitlin was scheduled to attend East but we switched her to North last Semester so she could particpate in their band program.

Our hospital and several shopping centers were completely washed out. They had to close the hospital and evacuate all of the patients to nearby hospitals in other cities. We currently do not have a hospital-which is sort of scary. If we have a serious emergency we would have to drive to Franklin or Seymour for assistance. We will pray we do not need to make a trip to either of them. =]

This truly is a time to reflect and to re-adjust your priorities. Please keep our city in your prayers as it will take years I am sure to get back to any sense of normal around here.

BACK HOME AGAIN

Well, everyone made it home safely and we are headed in to a really busy start to summer! Madeline has band camp every morning and 2 basketball camps this week, and a game every Thursday night. Caitlin has Power Elite and CNHS Band camp in the evenings. The boys both have baseball games twice a week and Miss Mimi is along for the ride! So, we will keep you up to date as often as we can...

Check back in a few days and I'll try to have posts up from the last weeks of school!

CANCUN DAY 7

Today was a wet and rainy morning in town. Mom, Caitlin & I went into town after breakfast to do some last minute shopping for gifts. The boys stayed here with the other kids. It was nice to just have a morning without dragging them out of all the tourist trap stores... lol =] The kids were in the pool all day.

Thane & Seth painted by the pool a piece of ceramic art each. It was cute and I will have to take a pic of them and post it later. You will enjoy it.

Since we will be leaving early in the morning, we had to say goodbye to Kike today. He wantewd a picture of him and Mia. So here it is Kike...we hope you like it! We have had so much fun here with you! BIG HUGS from us! ( Oh...and the second one my mom snapped while you were talking...it is really good.. =] )


We took tons of pice of our kids tonight before dinner. I will post a few here. We bought each of the girls a wrap dress that you can wear 100 different ways. So they all wore them tonight. SOOO CUTE!!! And there are lots and lots of neat places to take pictures here. I think I will just do Caiti's senior pics myself on our vacation that year! lol =] Leave us some comments and let us know what you think!

Dinner pics tomorrow. As, we are headed there now....

Hugs,

The Wilson Fam- still wishing we could extend this merriment... =]

CANCUN DAY 6

Hey everyone! Well, this morning we started out with breakfast and more shopping. We went to the Plaza Coracol. It is a pretty high end mall. We picked up a few gifts and then headed over to the Isla. It is an even bigger fancier mall. Dad was looking for the Harley shop and the kids wanted to check out everything. We had reservations at the Aquarium there, to swim with the dolphins at 3pm. I FINALLY got to swim with dolphins TODAY!!! It has been a dream of mine since I was a little girl. I can’t believe I can now check it off my life list! =] yay for me! Anyway, my niece and nephew also swam with them. Check out the pic of my very special dolphin kiss! I am so excited. Altho, I have to be honest…I was a little nervous as we were entering the pool. Lol.

After all that fun, we rounded out the evening with another great meal and headed to bed pretty early. Everyone was so tired! ;) Tomorrow is our last full day in CanCun and we have lots of plans…well the kids want to be on the beach or in the pool all day!

Mom and I will most likely run into town in the morning to check out Chocolate City a store in the mall. Somehow we missed it the other day and just have to go back! =]

More pics later…thanks for staying tuned….

Hugs,

The Wilson Fam- who secretly would like to miss the plane and hang out here another week…

CANCUN DAY 5

Look what was waiting on us in our rooms last night... lol In my room they put the swans and and a monkey for Mia, in the kids room there were these puppies. Made out of towels...can you believe it? So cute.

Today we did not get as much accomplished as we hoped. We started out with a great breakfast, and a meeting with Kike. He took us to the newest resort that is owned by our resort chain. It was really nice. We then came back to crunch numbers to see if it would benefit us to upgrade our current agreement or not. It worked out for us to upgrade so we did. Yeah!! We love vacationing here.

After that, of course the kids were ready for the pool, so of course we decided to do that. We will have reservations tonight at Marco Polo restaurant. It is a 4 star place and I will post a pic later of us at dinner.

CANCUN DAY 4

Today was shopping Day! It was so much fun! We headed out to Kulkulcan Plaza to check out the deals It was so beautiful. It has been 6 years since we were here last and it has changed so much! We were able to pick up some silver chains, some blankets and lots of little souvineirs for the kids. Here are soms shots of the kids just chillin in the mall. And, of course we made our once a week trek to WalMart- even here! lol

We then came back to the hotel to relax by the pool and catch some sun before dinner. Mia is getting more comfortable in the water and Thane learned to swim on his own today! Yahoo!

Tonight we had a formal dinner for the members of the resort! STEAK & LOBSTER!!! YEAH!! It was wonderful. We were met by hors-dourves and champagne cocktails, roses and linen draped chairs! It was amazing. We were met by our Rep Kike again. He is so sweet and quite the looker.... =] We were also entertained by an amazing violinist and man on a keyboard. I will post pics of the food for my friend Karen.. Luv ya babe!

CANCUN DAY 3

Today we got up early and headed out for a 2 hour bus ride to the Myan City/Center of Chichen-Itza. We have been there before, but it is so cool to see and has recently been named as one of the new 7 wonders of the world. Our tour guide was amazing and so funny.

We enjoyed the ruins altho it was hooooooooooooooot.... I mean way hot. The humidity here is so high! So we are so sweaty...Here is Caiti with our Member representative from the hotel His name is Kike,

We then went to an incredible sink hole called a cenote to swim. It was so beautiful it looked like heaven! The water was only 65 degrees though...but we got in! My battery is dying I will post more tomorrow....enjoy!

The Wilson Fam

CANCUN DAY 2

Well, we had our first full day in CanCun today! We started the morning out at a breakfast for the members of the hotel. We were introduced to the other members who will also be here this week, and we met the staff. It was a good time and they give away alot of stuff. Gavin and I were called on stage for a dancing contest. Can you believe it? Gavin can't dance at all and I am just average. So funny….they pitted us against a couple who were taking lessons. They asked us to cha cha and meringue…lol. That is not exactly what they got, however, Gavin was a good sport and we gave them a good show. After 2 tie applause counts, we had a dance off and were finally named the VICTORS!!! YAHOO FOR US!! We won 2 t-shirts and 2 hats!

It was pretty hot so we hung out at the pool all afternoon. We went to the ‘party pool’ and the kids participated in some of the games and dances. We also walked down to the beach to check it out.

The girls decided to get their hair braided for fun. They look so cute! Mia didn’t know what to think about all of it though and got quite bored waiting. We promised her some ice cream for being a good girl and you can see she enjoyed that!

In the evening we went to the welcome dinner. They hosted it downtown at Carlos & Charlie’s Restaurant & Bar. Oh my goodness! It was soooooooo much fun. We had a blast! Everyone got a drink in a yard glass full of whatever…mine was a pina colada..lol! We danced on our chairs, were serenaded by an incredible mariachi band..check out Caitlin with the trumpet player…and the kids got balloon hats and animals! So much fun….

We then walked a bit and saw this golden man. It was a guy, in his spankies, covered in gold glitter. Yummy right? Just kidding. Anyway you could tip him to take your picture with him…so we did. Caiti was first, then mia, then made. It was hilarious. Mia was posing with him and cracking him up. I love it!

Well, that is all for today. I will try to post more tomorrow with pictures from the myan pyramid at Chichen- Itza.

Lots of love- The slightly sunburned Wilson Fam