perfectly invisible by kristin billlerbeck

Life after high school is so close . . . and yet so very far away.
It's Daisy Crispin's final semester of high school, and she plans to make it count. Her long-awaited freedom is mere months away, and her big plans for college loom in the future. Everything is under control.
Or is it?
Her boyfriend is treating her like she's invisible, and her best friend is making her sell bad costume jewelry in the school quad--and hanging out with her boyfriend. To top it off, Daisy's major humiliation of the year will be remembered in the yearbook for all eternity. It's enough to make her wonder if maybe being invisible isn't so bad after all.
Can Daisy get her life back on track? Or is she stuck in this town forever?


Perfectly Invisible by Kristin Billerbeck ~“Available July 2011 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

This was a cute youth story.  I think anyone so close, yet so far away, from graduating high school would be able to relate to how Daisy felt.  I enjoyed reading it, it was an easy read... I will probably save it for when Samantha is a bit older...

Destination Disney: The Letter *E*

Join Heidi at Heidi's Ramblings, Reviews & Reflections for Destination Disney The Letter *E*

Everybody!

Ears!

Baby Elephant!

More EARS!

Apricot Girls

Samantha and her friends spent the morning at Apricot Girls having a spa day & getting a make-over!

They were all excited about it and Sam came home glowing...

Waiting patiently for her turn...

Face decorations...

LOVE THIS ONE!!

 Time for TOES!

Making her own hand lotion...

I wasn't there, so I don't know what all went on, however, these two pictures were back to back and I found them too cute.. I can only imagine what they were talking about...

CurrClick Twitter Party

"We are excited to announce that Currclick will be co-hosting a back to homeschool TWITTER PARTY with The Homeschool Village, August 3rd, 9pm EST.  This is a fantastic opportunity to win FREE curriculum and hang out with your homeschool friends!"

Stupid phone~

The kiddos and I took off today, headed out of town to visit a small swimming hole type lake.  Things were fine, I grabbed my phone (cause it has a great camera on it) and we packed a lunch and headed out.  All was going great, talked on the phone, got a couple of text messages & then we get out of the car and I check to see what time it is and NOTHING… dead… it was 100% charged when we got there… remember, I wanted the camera part of it.  I tried EVERYTHING!!  Nothing worked… I gave up on it… sad that I couldn’t take any pictures, but more concerned because I was supposed to meet Gramma some where and we hadn’t established a meeting place and I had NO IDEA what time it was!! The kiddos had a blast playing, jumping, sliding, swimming, diving and I laid in the shade and read.  I guess my instincts kicked in because I called them out and we loaded up and the timing was just about right… I could have let them play for a few more, but we were fine…

So, I get proper kiddos to Gramma and head to the AT&T store - walk in, hand them my phone, started explaining what the deal was and *~*POOF*~* it came on for her like I was an idiot!!

Ended up meeting Gramma again for a catfish dinner and then home to crash! We were tired from them being in the water all day!

Boy Scouts Family Camp Day

Every summer, Troop #542 has a family camp weekend at Heber Springs.  We were going to go for the full weekend this year, but Samantha and Riley were going to be recognized at church on Sunday for Promotion Sunday, kiddos going into the 1st & 6th grade… and, since they were the only ones, I thought it may be nice for them to attend!

Anyways, we still took off and went up to the lake on that Saturday and hung out with the Troop.  We reserve 2-3 campsites and a pavilion for lunch on Saturdays.  The campsites are not far from the swim beach, so kiddos are all over the place up there during this time.

We started off at the swim beach, but I headed to the pavilion when lunch preparations started & ended up staying there for the rest of the day.  It was pretty warm out, so I was glad to get ready to head home when we did!

End of the Season Swim Team Banquet

Sadly, last Saturday was the last day of Swim Team - we are looking into year round team, but that’s a little $$, so it is in discussion mode!!
Samantha had a pretty good overall first season!  She raced in three different styles and got a seed time in all three styles!  So, rather we swim year round or she swim teams next summer, she will have starting times!
All participants were awarded a trophy, there was dinner and a slide show in addition to a pretty nice presentation of many awards…

Team building with my Girl Scouts!

Saturday started off with all my girls (minus my one favorite loud mouth!) here at my house for some team building activities.  We did some hula hoop games:

This was trying to move the hoop around the circle without using our hands.

Followed by *helium hoop

Then there was this human pretzel that we had to get out of…

Learning how to flip a tarp while you are standing on it…

Then we did some trust exercises with a rope…

We had lunch, one of the girls sang the Johnny Appleseed blessing and sure enough… it started POURING! Hanging out, trying to stay chill before the afternoon workout, we played some below the surface games..

And what’s a girl scout gathering without some songs?

( we all know frogs go

ladedadeda ~ ladeddadeda)

Loaded up and headed out- in the rain- and headed to Little Rock Climbing Center for the afternoon!  I was so proud of the girls- everyone of them (even my *I can’t* scout) jumped right in.  They all climbed to the top of the walls… even those who were struggling in the beginning..

They were all exhausted after the day, but we had a lot of fun, and got a lot of business taken care of while we were together.  I’m sure it was a day the girls will never forget.

ALL ABOARD!!!

Yep, that’s where we went! 

Really cute restaurant in Little Rock. We took off after our last rehearsal of Splash Kingdom and treated them to lunch at All Aboard Restaurant and Grill.  It was really cute, maybe a little high priced, but the kiddos enjoyed it (so did Gramma!)

You place your order and receive a key.  You put that key in a thing on the table and wait.  A train on the tracks high above your head comes driving by and drops your food off on the platform and it lowers down to the table. 

Splash Kingdom

Each year a local church (Cornerstone Bible Fellowship) hosts a one week Music & Drama Camp.  We found out about it through Samantha's piano teacher and participated last year and enjoyed it enough to want to do it again this year. 
Last year was America Ideal.. kinda cute.. This year was Splash Kingdom… SUPER CUTE!!


They got up bright and early everyone morning for the week, worked really hard on learning songs and hand motions.  They are at the church from 8-12 each day and by the end of the week, they are beat, but they pull off a pretty cute show. Of course, Samantha and Riley were on either side of the stage!!

Splash Kingdom was about the kids that wanted to get into the water park, but their name was not written in the book.  One was pretty freely giving with his money and tried to buy their way into the park, but the guard at the gate.  He had to tell them there was only one way into the Kingdom and it was to learn their ABC’s (Admit, Believe & Confess).  There were many cute songs throughout the play and a small bit of acting between about 7 kiddos (my two weren’t ready for a *part* yet- they just wanted to sing).
Best part for Samantha- one of her favorite friends was also there each day:

Destination Disney ~ the letter D!

So, I’m trying to catch up on Destination Disney and the linky is already closed, but you can still leave your link in Heidi’s comments.

Our first stop with D was DONALD DUCK!

 

After a ride in the teacups, we were DIZZY!

Chelle and I braved the DINOSAUR!!

And we can’t forget DUMBO!!

First place we went and waited in line ~ just for Chelle!