You won't believe the things you can buy from Beachbody!

As we get further into our journey with BEACHBODY coaching opportunities, the parent company of P90X, we discovered that there is really just nothing that they won't sell. I mean, you can buy all kinds of great stuff from them, but when we opened this box and discovered they sell toddlers? I mean, how do you turn that down??

Happy Friday, all!

{I have to admit, that's some great packing they've got over there!}

First day of third grade, eighth grade and with it come the traditions!

So, this is our ninth year to celebrate the "first day of school" - for a grand total of 15 between all the kids. Paige celebrated her first year of preschool last year and since I will be testing out the waters of homeschooling her for Kindergarten this year, today is a first of sorts for her too.

Jonathan started third grade today. I expect the full report in a little while as I find ways to fill my time before he gets home.

Ashley is once again top of the school, an honor reserved for 5th, 8th and 12th graders.

Last year we tried something new and the kids loved it, so we're here again makin' memories. The first day of school we have pepperoni pizza and do-it-yourself root beer floats. The year before Neil found a cool song that we've adopted and listen to on the first day of school. It's by Jack Johnson {for all you Curious George fans out there}. I'm putting this same song on the blog playlist for you to listen to it. {if you look at the playlist, it's the first song listed}

**And if you don't believe that a year makes a difference, join me in a walk down memory lane of previous first days of school to prove that time flies!**

{Jonathan, first day of second grade - 2008}

{Jonathan - first day of school, first grade - 2007}

{Ashley, first day of school, seventh grade - 2008}

{how she really felt about the first day of school - I asked for the pout to show the pre-teen angst that is middle school}

{Ashley, first day of middle school, sixth grade - 2007}

{and the first day of Kindergarten and fifth grade - the *one* year they both shared the same school!}

Lotsa ground to cover, so let's get started!

OK, we've been back from Virginia almost two weeks and I need to round out our blog entries on our trip. So, with our last post diving into the trip back home, I'll continue to go backwards.

Our last day in Virginia - Saturday - was spent digging for treasures on the infamous Route 11 crawl. I blogged about that last year {you can see pictures of the insanity HERE} and then we helped our niece, Anya, celebrate her first birthday. We played some "cornhole" type game and ate lots of good food, followed by the most delicious cake with the BEST fondant.

On Friday, we had a girls lunch out and then my sil, Jes, made some DELICIOUS fish tacos that were marinated - seriously good.

Later that evening my bil, Dave, came up with a game of Euchre, tournament style. He worked out the details and how individual points could be accumulated and we spent the next two hours vying for the champion title! I think Mary Ann won with the most points overall.

Thursday, the older cousins found two crayfish and a boatload of tiny frogs swimming in the pool. Later, while cooling off after a workout, Neil found an unidentified snake in the pool. YIKES!

Ashley, Rachel and Brendan spent nearly the entire day at the skating rink/arcade/bumper cars/etc. while we geared up for the younger cousins to come out for a few days. The guys all left for their annual guy time - translation; golf. I had Neil take some pictures. I mean, you always hear about them playing, but I wanted some proof. So, here are a few snaps from their day out along with some unexpected visitors.

After they got back from golfing, we were short one Euchre player, so Neil played on both teams.

Trip to Virginia to be continued...

Let's work our way backwards, shall we?

{all pictures with the exception of the stock photos taken with my iPhone - that explains the poor quality!}

Our trip this year took much longer than any other trip before. We ended up getting home at 9 p.m. after two hard days of driving. I'm not sure what caused it to be so much longer, actually. It didn't seem like we stopped more than usual and even though we stopped at the Bass Pro Shop in Garland, we were only there for 1.5 hours, putting us home at 7:30 and that still would have been a longer day.

But as it was, we needed to stop and stretch our legs, so I thought we should stop at the Pro Shop because we always see it on our way to Virginia. If you've never been to a Bass Pro Shop...well, put it on your list. What makes this particular location a fun stop is that it sits on the shore of Lake Ray Hubbard. See these stock photos to understand what I mean.

So, as we were about 30 minutes away, my cousin who works one exit down from the Pro Shop, texted me and said to wave 'hello' as we passed by her work. Well, one text led to another and we arrived close to 4:30 so she was able to meet us there. They have a restaurant in the store too, so we killed two birds with one stone and had dinner and got to visit a while before we headed home.

{the view as you go down the stairs}

{they have footprints in the floor - very cool!}

{me and my cousin Lisa}

Breaking news! This game *IS* called Cornhole! Who knew??

If you're scratching your head, you're not alone. I thought Neil's Uncle Rick was being funny when he said the name of this game {common among the K family side} was Cornhole. It had always looked like some bean bag game with made up rules, lol.

But a recent FB status update of mine revealed that the game was INDEED called Cornhole and that the rules and regulations and specifics to the board size and weight of the bean bags made it a completely legitimate game. Several friends, scattered all over the country, knew exactly what I was talking about when I said the name of the game.

So, as I was planning on blogging about our VA trip, I was initially going to start with our most recent adventure and move backward. But this topic made me want to blog about this today. I'm sure you'll see these same photos in the big blog entry commemorating the vow renewal. Stay tuned for that!

To understand this game a little better, I encourage you to visit THIS site and check it out. You may know it by another name.

{Opposing team members play side-by-side and throw different colored bean bags}

{skill and precision score the most points}

{no points...yet. Any bag that lands on the board not touching the outline around the circle earns one point}

{bean bags that land/touch/bumped onto the blue circle - but not in the hole - get two points; any bean bag that goes through the hole gets three points}

{teammates - or brothers in this case - take a minute to talk trash before the next round}

{any points matched by the opposing team are canceled out and the winning team takes the remaining points}

{in this scenario - assuming the blue one in the air goes through the hole - since one blue and one yellow are both touching the yellow outline of the hole, the points cancel out. No other yellow points are made, so blue walks away with "1" for the bean bag on the board and "3" for the one that went through the hole.}

{losers hang heads in shame}