Roller Skating

We took Madeline roller skating at Jellybeans for the first time. She was a natural and was skating on her own within about 10 minutes. Chris and I had a great time, too. Brought back lots of memories on hanging out at the roller rink when I was a teenager. Maybe Chris and I can go on a date and skate during 'couples skate.'

Here is Madeline and Mommy making silly faces.




Starting to skate on her own....
She's going now. Once she figured out the balance part of it, she did a great job!
She loved skating and we are going to make Saturday morning skating a regular Joyce family activity.

Adventures of Madeline

It's been a while since I've posted anything, so just wanted to post a few pictures of our summer adventures.

We went to see fireworks for the 4th of July in Rolesville. We had a great time with the Myers' clan and Miss Cé Cé.

Here is Madeline making spooky faces in the flashlight


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Madeline recently began taking a dance class at one of the local gymnasiums. She is learning tap, ballet and basic gymnastics. Here are some pictures of her classes (sorry for the blur...taking from behind the glass windows...no parents allowed!!!).





We have put the final touches on Madeline's princess room. While visiting Grammy this past weekend, we we able to put up the castle mural. She was so surprised when she came home.

We tell her that her room is her castle. She informed us that her room is at the top of the tallest tower and Mommy and Daddy's room is the tower on the far right. Ginger, being the Royal Cat gets the full run of the place.

Big Girl Bed

Madeline has upgraded to a big girl bed. We found this awesome picket fence bed frame on Craigslist (LOVE me some CL...) and after many frustrating hours of mattress shopping, her bed is finally complete. Tonight is her first night sleeping in it, so we'll see if it ends the couch and guest bedroom sleeping! We'll be painting soon, so we'll have more pictures of her room soon.

Swimming Lessons

Here is Madeline sporting her swim suit getting ready for her first day of swim lessons. She did such a great job and we look forward to taking her to the pool this summer.


Here she is perfecting her kick with Daddy's help.
Next was jumping off the side of the pool. She was a little unsure at first, but after the first plunge, she wanted to keep jumping in.

Swimming with the kick board.
The last day they practiced pushing off of their parents and reaching for the side, and then going back to their parents.

Her reward was a new princess bathing suit and floaties. Watch for her in a pool near you this summer!

Fun Times

We have had some great times these past couple of weekends. Had a great day with the Myer's at Pullen Park, picked strawberries, went to a wedding, the beach and visited family in New Bern.

Here are some pictures of our adventures. Tonight we start swimming lessons. Stay tuned to hear about that!!

May 30th was Kate and Robin's wedding. I work with Kate at the Farm Bureau. The wedding was in Wilmington, so that gave us an excuse to go away for the weekend. Here is a picture of us at the reception.
Lucky for us Kate understands the need to have entertainment for the little one's. They had coloring book and crayons and other activities for the kids. Here is Chris and Madeline decorating a drink koozie....or Daddy....

After the wedding we headed to New Bern, and stopped at Surf City on the way. Madeline has never been a real fan of the beach, and she really does not like the ocean (the sounds of it freaks her out). She finally ventured to the sand. Our beach trip was short lived, however. I finally got her to the water and when the water came about mid-calf on her she fell down. That was the end of the beach for her!

My cousin Sherri and her husband David who live in New Bern have this beautiful pond in their back yard. Madeline loves to feed the fish.
Saturday of Memorial weekend we headed to Pullen Park with the Myers Family. This was the first time we had been there. What a great park, complete with playgrounds, a train and a carousel.
Here is Madeline blowing bubbles.

Madeline on the carousel.
Daddy on his horse. This ride is actually moves pretty fast....hold on!Madeline and Chloe blasting off.
Madeline on the train. What great rides they have a Pullen Park and for $1, you can't beat it!

Chris had to work on Memorial Day (Yes, Wake County school were open...how un-American can you be???). Madeline and I had a girls day out. We went to the mall, shopped and drive the ice cream truck!We have a strawberry patch about a mile from our house, so we have made it a tradition to go and pick some.

And the best part is that they don't mind if you test eat the merchandise!

California Dreamin'

We recently returned from our annual trip to California. We had a great time visiting family and friends and places...

Madeline loves bubbles. PaPaw bought a bubble gun for her, and that is all she wanted to do- play bubbles.

Here is Madeline with Grandpa. Grandpa showed her the fine art of bubble twirling.


One of Mom's Yorkies had puppies recently, and Madeline had a great time playing with them.. They are tiny (the fit in the palm of your hand at 8 weeks old) so Madeline toted them around. She even put one of them in an Easter basket and carried it around.

This is Grandma and Madeline with a couple of the puppies. It was great to have Madeline spend time with her. My Grandma has Alzheimer's Disease, so this was precious time spent with her.

These are my parents, Wayne and Grace...aka, PaPaw and MiMi.


While in fabulous Fresno, CA, we took Madeline to the Fresno Chaffee Zoo. We've actually been there twice before with Madeline, but this is the first time that she really enjoyed (and knew) all of the animals.



Daddy's wing span.....Maddie's wing span.....

I'm not quite sure what to say. But if you know my hubby, no words are necessary....
I think the elephants are by far Madeline's favorite animal to see at the zoo. They always seem to be doing something fascinating to her. Last fall we took her to the NC Zoo and the elephants were throwing dirt on their backs to keep cool...and this trip they were slinging mud on their backs. I seriously think we could have spent the entire day just watching them and she would have been very happy!


Here is our little turtle....


Chico. Many great memories. Chico is a town of about 90,000 full time residents about 90 miles north of Sacramento, and home to California State University, Chico- aka Chico State, and my alma mater. Chris has heard so many stories about Chico that I was excited to finally take him there. We met up with one of my college roomies Clarette and her 2 boys. It was great to be able to take my little girl there. Although I doubt that her college years will be spent at Chico State, a girl can dream.....

This is the administration building at Chico State.
Here is Madeline in the free speech area. Chico, and especially the college is very hippie-dippie, and you never know what you'll see. From political rallies to the Chico Cannabis Club to the Dairy Science Club bringing a cow to be milked during Farm-City week, it all took place in the free speech area.


Madeline and I in front of Plumas Hall- the College of Agriculture.

While in Chico, we went to visit the University Farm. I have logged MANY hours there- from 1am milkings at the dairy, learning how to AI a cow, conducting plant studies, fundraisers...the list goes on.
Madeline loved the animals....

Ahh, the dairy unit. I have seen many hours here. Milking at 1am and 1pm. Milking cows, loosing my rubber boot in mud up to my knee, clipping cows for shows, feeding calves, throwing hay, driving the silage truck- I can do it all.

Well, here it is- the proof that Chris really does like dogs. OK, only a select few, but Merokie grew on him.

There are my brother and sister-in-laws 2 huge dogs, Dex (sitting on Madeline) and Merokie. Madeline loved them cause they were just about as tall as her. Merokie loves bubbles almost as much as she does, so the 2 of them spend a lot of time blowing and chasing bubbles together.

Special message for Brighton....