Friday, May 23, 2008

SCHOOL'S OUT!!!






Well we all made it through our first year of school here in Georgia! Vincent will be heading to West next year for his first year of high school and Dominique will be left by herself in middle school! This year flew, I can't believe that it is over. Of course we still haven't sold the house in Florida yet but we are confident that God has a plan and it will sell soon!! Danielle was up a few weeks ago and had the opportunity to participate in Gary's FCA Dodgeball Tournament! It was a blast, of course the Sylvestri kids really got into the spirit and made shirts, blacked out their eyes and went ready to dodge,dip,dive,duck and dodge!!! Danielle went back to Florida (we are still hoping that she moves up here soon) and just last week we were able to pick Nick up at the airport!! We haven't seen him in 15 months while he has been serving our country in the Air Force over in Turkey! Of course I almost got arrested at the airport for running through the "secured area". But who can blame a mom who hasn't seen her son in that long???? My sister was in Hotlanta for her new position at work and got to come spend the weekend with us! Nick is here with us for 10 days and then he will go to South Florida for a week or two and report to his new base in Tampa! Summer is here and we are ready for football, soccer, sun and fun!!

If any of you get up this way this summer, give us a call!!

Friday, April 25, 2008

Warm Weather Again




Finally the cold weather is gone...I think. We survived our first real winter because winter for us was usually 50 degrees. We saw snow, ice, sleet, hail, had to go to the basement twice for tornado warnings and we are in a drought! I thought hurricanes were bad!

To catch everyone up, we still have not sold our house in Florida but are hopefully that it will happen soon. Gary's parents came up to visit and we had a great time with them. My mom is back up here now that the weather has warmed up and she will stay till June then head to Ohio and then back here for football season! Vinny is growing like a weed, 5'10 150lbs and has started working out with the high school football team. Dominique is kicking butt in soccer, we were just at a tournament in TN and they made it to the semi-finals. Nick comes home from Turkey next month and Danielle is actually flying up for a visit tomorrow! Soccer is in full swing and Spring football starts soon.

We miss everyone back home in South FLA but we do love it up here and have made some great friends. If any of you make it up this way, come visit....

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Girls Gone Wild!

I can't remember any time before that Dominique and I have been alone without the rest of the family! Gary and Vinny are out in Oklahoma with my brother Mike and his family for the Jim Thorpe Awards Banquet. For those of you who don't know about that award, it is given out to the best defensive back college football player. My brother happens to be the Director of the Committee and invited Gary and Vinny to go out and be a part of it with him. So that leaves Dominique and I home alone together for the very first time just the two of us. We dropped the boys off at the airport on Sunday and then headed back to Cumming for Dominique's soccer game, which of course they won!! Coach Hepler, Heidi and Frankie came by the game to cheer her on! Our good friends invited over to their house for dinner after the game and then we came home to a very quiet, large and dark house! Of course Dominique slept with me and we tried to stay awake to watch the Grammys but passed out I think as soon as our head hit the pillow. We got up yesterday and went to school and work. After work we went to dinner at a place called Cinco's (great mexican) and then returned the cheering and went and watched Frankie play soccer against North Forsyth. Frankie's team (West Forsyth) beat North 1-0. We came home and again had all intentions of playing DDR, laying in bed, snacking and watching TV and I think we were both asleep within 10 mintues. Tonight Dominique has soccer practice and then we will grab a bite to eat and hopefully be able to stay awake to at least see the rerun of General Hospital on Soapnet! Gary and Vinny come back tomorrow so I guess we will have to settle down a little!! Even though we haven't had the Party Time we thought we would, it has been so nice to get some girl time with my baby! She is growing up way too fast!!

Thursday, January 17, 2008

SNOW DAY!





Its Thursday at 1:00 and we are HOME from school and work! Today was our first official "snow day"! Yesterday afternoon about 4:00 we started seeing little snow flurries while we were driving home from school. We got home and within the hour it was really coming down. The funny part was you would have thought there was a Hurricane coming! We ended up with 1.5 inches but when you turned on the TV the newscasters where all over the metro Atlanta area talking about the snow and there were "closings" running across the bottom of the TV screen. I thought "this is it, we moved from Florida to get away from hurricanes and now there must be a blizzard coming"! They closed all the schools in the county for today all of 1.5 inches!

It was awesome though, the kids, Gary and I all went out and had a snow ball fight, made snow angels, we even did hamburgs and hot dogs outside on the grill in the snow!!! I think our neighbors thought we were nuts but we had fun. The kids were so excited because this was their first time seeing snow (we had a few flurries on New Years Day but nothing that stuck) and being able to play in it.

Enjoy some of the pics!

Love and miss you all!

Friday, December 28, 2007

Happy Holidays




Sorry that I haven't updated my blog in awhile, things have been kinda crazy! Gary's grandma, after 90 great years went home to Jesus! We packed up the car and headed back to Florida for her "celebration". It was a sad reason that we made the trip but Mema had her way of getting the family together around the holidays! It was great to see everyone and spend time family!

We headed back to Georgia and tried to carry on Mema's (and Grandma Sylvestri's) Christmas Eve tradition. I even bought a pizzelle maker and attempted to make Mema's cookies. Dominique and I followed Mema's receipe and I think that they came out pretty good! We had some close friends come over Christmas Eve and had the Italian Christmas dinner, Chicken Parm, Sausage & Peppers, Baked Ziti, Ziti with Broccoli, garlic and oil, artichoke hearts, caprese, fresh bread, etc.... I even made Aunt Donna's famous chocolate truffle for dessert!

Christmas Day was a little weird without Danielle, Nicholas and Grandma James with us in the morning. It was though the first really cold Christmas that I can remember in a long time, it actually felt like Christmas. We did Christmas morning with just the 4 of us and then headed over to our good friends Tammy and Damir's for Christmas dinner. They had a typical "California" Christmas dinner, grilled asparagus wrapped in bacon, TriTip (a select cut of meat that is very popular in California but hard to find anywhere else), baked potato's and salad! We missed all of our family very much but are very grateful to have meet such great friends!

I hope that you Christmas was wonderful and I hope that you all have a Great New Year!

Friday, November 30, 2007

TGIF - I MISS MY GIRLS


I am so glad that this week is over! I woke up Monday with a sore throat and feeling achy, Dominique wasn't feeling well and it Vinny's allergies were acting up! Ended up at the Doctor with Dominique who turned out to have a sinus infection, so we started medicating her to get her better. I let her and Vinny play hooky today and stay home to be spoiled by Grandma! I wanted to stay home and be spoiled to but of course that didn't happen!

Of course they stayed home from school today but tonight we are going to the school to watch Gary coach the wrestling match and then we are going to Sal's for pizza. Thank goodness we found an authentic Italian, making real pizza in Cumming, Ga. Dominique has her last soccer tournament this weekend so I will make sure she gets to bed at a decent time tonight, takes her medicine and has alot of vitamin C so she can "suck it up" and finish her soccer season strong!

We are slowly trying to get the house decorated for Christmas. Its bittersweet, I love the change of season here and the cold really makes it feel like the holidays but I miss all of my buds in sunny south florida! I was looking at pics from our night out before I left and wished that we could all go do it again! I hope to get down there to visit with everyone soon!

Well better to get wrestling! I hope you all have a great weekend!

Thursday, November 22, 2007

I'm Stuffed!






What a great Thanksgiving Day we had! Aside from the fact that we miss all of our family and friends back in South Florida, our first official Thanksgiving in Georgia was a great time! We got up this morning and headed to the football field to play our 1st Annual Turkey Bowl. Of course we haven't had rain here in months, we are in the biggest drought ever, they say we only have like 80 days of water left and wouldn't you know it poured all night long and was still raining this morning when we woke up!! Thankfully the rain stopped before we started our football game. The game was played and no one was injured, well not enough to were we had to go to the ER. After the football game we all went our separate ways to clean up and then all of us headed over and met up at Coach Hepler's house. We roasted a turkey, fried a turkey, had ham and all the southern fixins! I am so full I am about to burst!

We have so much to be thankful for this year, God has truly blessed us with a great place to live and work and a wonderful group of new friends. We miss you all that aren't with us very much and hope that we will get to see you soon!