Singing in the Rain.

Well, the first night Mark and Malinda were here we got rained out.  We went to Ft. Myers to sit out on the street and listen to the band.  The band got canceled cause of the rain, so we sat inside.  Then we went shark fishing.  Not a bite.  Apparently the sharks don't bite when it's stormy.  It's ok - the kids still had a great time, they loved they storm.  They just danced in the rain all night.  I would have danced in the rain too if I wasn't holding a baby.  It ended up being a fun night.  

 

Let the Festivas begin!!

Ok, that means let the vacation begin!  Actually, the vacation is over, let the vacation "Blogging" begin! Yea, I know, sometimes other peoples vacations can be kinda boring.  I'll try and make it a little interesting.  Just pretend you were there on the beach with us:)

My brother Mark and his wife Malinda and their 4 kids-Makayla (10), Emma(8), Derek (5), and Jared (2) came during Darren's break. We seriously had such a great time.  It was soooooooo good to see family!!

What is the first thing you need to do when you get to Florida?  Go to the beach!! So that's just what we did.  I wanted the weather to be perfect for them, but it was cloudy and windy.  It actually just made the waves bigger and the kids had a great time playing in them.

Setting up "camp"

Mark having a great time getting subliminally sunburned!

Mark and Jared

Ellie and Emma are like soul mates.

A funny bird that kept looking for fish in Paul's casting net and in his bucket.

Because of the wind a bunch of wind surfers came.  It was awesome to watch them!

Me, Darren and cute baby Gabe

Remember that metal detector Darren got me for Mother's Day?  There it is in action!! I love that thing!  We found a penny, dime, quarter and 2 metal lids from yogurt.  It was a ton of fun the kids were so excited, but I think Mark and I had more fun with it than any of the kids!

There are always a bunch of these tortoises along the side of the road.  So cool to see. There were also a bunch of sea turtles nests roped off on the beach.  I forgot to take a picture.  Oh well.  

 

 

Well, that was the morning of day 1.  More to come tomorrow!

My little Ellie

Ellie at her year end project

On one of the last days of school I brought a treat for Ellie's birthday.  Her birthday is during the summer so her teacher said they could celebrate it just for fun.

Ellie is my little babysitter.  She and Gabe love each other sooo much!

So cute!!

Our Family Heritage

Oh end of year school projects.  Paul had a big family history project called "Paul's Prelaureate Project"  (by the way I don't know what "Prelaureate" means or if it's actually spelled correctly)  Besides the fact that I was running around like a chicken with it's heard cut off for the last week of school, it was a fun project. Paul made the poster and Darren made a fun Dutch food called Oliebollen for him to take to class.  Oliebollen is kinda like a doughnut.  They were delicious!! I brought in some fun things from Holland.  It was fun to walk around the classrooms and see all the kids and their posters.  I love different people and different cultures.  

Here was his board.  He did it all himself!  I was so happy all the kids made their own.  It drives me crazy when kids have a project like this and the parents do it all for them.

Holland Coat of Arms

My Reflection!
What a family!  I can't believe I'm Dutch!  I love Holland and my Dutch accent.  I am doing a project on my family's past, and I have finished the story, so let us begin.
In the beginning, about 60-70 years ago, my great grandfather and grandmother had my grandpa, Paul Debry.  He grew into a strong fine boy, and became the kind, loveing grandpa I knew he was.
How did they come to live in America, you may ask?  Here is the whole story.  About ten years after my grandfather was born, they became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  A year later, they moved to America to be closer to the capital of the Church.
How did I get here? Here is the full story.  In America, my grandfather married a good women, Rita Debry.  After they got married, they had my mother, Emily Debry, who after marring Darren Ernst, became Emily Ernst.  A few years later, they had me, Darren Paul Ernst.

So now you know the story.  As my life goes on, we might even move to Holland ourselves.  It may be hard, but we would make it through, just like my grandfather and great-grandfather did about 55 years ago.

Here is Paul's interview of my dad.  

 Opa,
Hi this is Paul. I am doing a project in school where I need to interveiw someone that knows about my family history. I am also talking about Holland in my project. Make sure the awnsers are not very long, about 2 sentences each please. Thank you and I love you.

1)      What is your full name? (My name is Paul DeBry) Why did your parents select this name for you? (My mother told me that I just looked like I should have that name) Did you have a nickname? (Not that I can remember).

2)      How did your family come to live in America? (they joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Holland and moved to America to be closer to the church headquarters).

3)      What was your favorite thing to do for fun when you were a kid? (I loved to ride my bike to the Salt Lake City Zoo and watch Princes Alice the huge, 2 ton elephant. I also liked to watch the monkeys. The zoo was free then and I would go many times during the summer. I also like to play tennis. I played every day but Saturday and Sunday. I won a lot of tournaments.)

4)      Who were your friends when you were growing up? (my best friends were Johnny West and Craig Mecham and Billy Latimer). What is a fun thing about them? (We made up a special name for Johnny. We got it from a lot of places. We called him "Jonathan Swaka Senior Junior Adameriah Page the 3rd West". We thought it was a cool name. That's still what I call him. Billy got hit by a "soap box" at the annual kids "soap box derby race" and it broke his leg. The ambulance hauled him off and we thought we would never see him again. We had no idea where he went. A soap-box was a little cart that kids would make and we would race them.)

5)      How did you celebrate holidays? (On my first Halloween I was rabbit. My mother made my costume and I thought I was really cool with those long ears. For Christmas we were told that if we were not good we would get a lump of coal in our stocking, so we were as good as possible-for a few days. We got lots of presents. My favorites were a cowboy had, vest, and a cap gun in a holster with a horse painted on it).  Did your family have any special traditions? (Every birthday was special. We had a lot of Dutch traditions that we followed on Christmas. On New Year's Eve we would eat "Oliebollen". They were Dutch donuts.  They were bread dough with raisins. They were fried in oil. We then put sugar on them. They were delicious.)

6)      What is the full name of your spouse? (Rita Rae Leckie DeBry - she is wonderful) Does she have any siblings? (she has one sister and five brothers. The boys were all champion wrestlers in high school).

7)      When and how did you meet your spouse? (I met her at a square dance in the Wilkinson Center at BYU. I liked her a lot, right from the first. She had other boys she was interested in, but I bought her a BLT sandwich and a chocolate malt every day for lunch and she finally got to like me. We have been married many years and are still in love).

8)      Where and when did you get married? (We got married for time and all eternity in the Salt Lake City Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is neat to get married that way, so that we will still be married in the next life after we die).

Here is Paul eating Oliebolen- which was a hit.  The kids loved it!

A lot of the kids had family heritage from here

 And here

                                                                             And here
I love that my kids get the opportunity to go to a school with diversity.  It's good for them.

Face Book Hacking

Paul has started watching this show on Netflix called Primeval.  It's about a portal that opens up in England and Dinosaurs and reptiles go through it.  People also travel through it and study dinosaurs and reptiles.  There is a character on the show- she is a young pretty girl that works in a zoo.  She works in the reptile area and LOVES reptiles and lizards.  Paul's type of girl.  It's kinda low budget but Paul likes it.  So anyways, today he got on my Facebook page and sent the following messages to a her.  How he got her name, I do not know. How he got the idea to do this I also do not know.    

Message to Actress Hannah Spearritt from Paul via Facebook- 

"I am my mother's son and I have started to watch Primeval and you are my favorite character. I also love to catch brown anoles in our front yard and study their behavior patterns. Not strangely, if you put two male anoles in the same cage, they will fight over dominant male of the Territory. I also love dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals and want to learn more about them.If you could answer my questions, I would be very happy. in episode #1, when cutter was observing the scutosuarus, it looked bigger than I thought it was. Is it life size? another question- is spinosaurus the biggest predatory dinosaur, or gigonotosaurus, or tyrannosaurus, or were they the same? I would also like some questions from you personally. Not from your secretary or whatever. thank you."

I didn't have the heart to tell him she is just an ACTRESS  and not really into reptiles and dinosaurs and probably doesn't really even know what an Anoles is.  (It's a lizard by the way.)

Memorial Day

All right, well before I start all our summer fun I have a few end-of-school posts.  Which was a complete whirlwind.  Then we went straight on vacation with Mark and Malinda.  They left and today we are celebrating Darren's birthday! So, lets go back a few weeks.

They had a program at the kids school on Memorial day.  It was cool.

There is Paul! See him in the middle covering his eyes?

 

There is Kyle in the middle!

Cute Ellie

There is Ellie reading her part.  She was so excited and nervous!! It was 1 sentence long.  I didn't even have time to record it.

This is Paul's awesome teacher!  Everyone loves to hold Gabe. 

To Tan or Not to Tan

Deep Breath.  So, since we moved to Florida I have been lathering the sunscreen on me and my kids.  55+ at all times.  Today I decided I wanted to get a little tan.  I put on 8.  We spent 4 hours at the beach.  ugggghhhh.  I spent half the time in the shade of the umbrella so I'm not fried- but I did get burnt.  I think there is almost NOTHING that I hate more than getting sun burnt.  Trust me, I like to be tan, and I tan pretty easy, but I am getting old.  Not that old, but old enough to not want to be a wrinkly prune when I am older.  I spent a lot of my teenage years getting tan and now I am pretty much freaked out about it.  It is hard to be at the beach all the time and not be getting a beautiful deep tan. But Darren says white is the new tan.  And I guess for all the times we have gone to the beach and pool in 9 months I have only gotten burned twice.  That's not too bad.  What do you guys think- to tan or not to tan? Do you wear a 55 for no color or a 15 to get a little color?