Spring Concert for Sage!

Always love watching our sweet Sage perform in her school concerts! Here she is with the one who makes these concerts possible, her instructor Ms. Lynch! Sage adores her but sadly won't get to learn under her next year since we are zoned for the new middle school opening in the fall while Ms. Lynch will stay at the old school. Regardless, I have no doubt Sage will continue to thrive no matter who she learns from.



Friends who share the same passion for singing!





It's always fun to end the night at the ice cream shop!

An Easter Miracle...the Roddys get a puppy!

Well, well, well, what do we have here?!? After years, literally years of Sage begging us for a family fur ball, we finally caved. Talk about going from one headache to the next...Just when the house is starting to come together, not to be confused with completely together...we decide the time is now or never. I mean, if we are going to get a dog it should be before the boys leave for college! And how sad for them to not have the same memories Jack and I both had as kids with family dogs, not to mention the life lessons that can be learned from owning a pet bigger than a fish. So back a couple months ago we decided to take Sage to a pet store to just LOOK at all the dogs. This particular store specialized in all sorts of puppy breeds and allowed you to take dogs into small sectioned off areas to spend time with them. We came across this darling Pomsky puppy that we fell in love with. When we asked about the price we were shocked to learn it was $4500. My jaw dropped. I knew getting a dog was going to be pricey but I had no idea dogs even sold for that much. Needless to say we said we had to think about it. Sage and I continued to dream about this dog but after a couple weeks it had sold so it was time to move on. After doing a lot of research on pomskies we came up with our list of traits we were looking for. Because a pomsky is a cross between a husky and a Pomeranian, depending on the parents coloring, sizes, and fur type, you can end up with heaven knows what combination. We knew we wanted blue or brown/blue combo eyes, a white, silver, gray, or black and white coat, the husky mask, one that wouldn't get much bigger than 25 lbs, a plush coat, and of course one that would make a good family pet. Seems easy enough but let me tell you, it was quite the challenge. And what you get as a puppy especially with the pomsky breed can change drastically as they age their first year. So after spending a full month researching dogs, taking with breeders, and then passing them by Sage, we finally found our puppy! Because he was located out of state, he had to be flown to us which I was a bit nervous about but the breeder had already sent a couple to Florida and said that most his dogs are shipped and he had never had any issues. Of course there is always a first and we prayed it wouldn't be with our puppy! We tried to keep it a bit of a surprise by telling Sage that there would be a delay in getting him but smarty pants ended up watching my every move on an app and was able to see the day we were at the airport picking him up. Not to mention in my excitement I sent a marco polo to my extended family sharing the news as we drove back to the house forgetting Sage too was a part of the group chat... So long story but important to know since sweet Nova is now a member of our family and as Jack pointed out, is treated better than anyone else in the family...haha!

As for names, I had originally come up with the idea of naming him a name that reminded us of our Florida chapter. Jack came up with Boca since our first over night trip after arriving in Orlando was to Boca Raton for a water polo game and Connor came up with was Daytona since we love to go to Daytona beach. After taking a poll, it was evenly divided but Sage made the call to go with Boca and we all agreed that Boca was easier to say and just seemed more appropriate. As we spent the first few days calling him Boca we all kind of agreed that it just didn't seem to fit or suit him. So back to the drawing board we went. We pulled out a list I had compiled that included a few names that each of us had come up with. In the end we landed on Nova. While it probably seems a big more girly, it seems to suit our sweet boy perfectly! So here is Nova, our Easter puppy! Born on January 2, 2019 but delivered to us on April 20th, 2019! Sadly this is the only photo I got of him just as they were bringing him to us at Delta Cargo.



As we pulled up to the house we were greeted by not only Sage, but a houseful of the boys' friends! I wish I had a photo of them all surrounding him and petting him. It was quite the arrival scene. In the end the fan that mattered most was this one...




After a peaceful first night's sleep for Nova who was clearly exhausted between the air travel and all the attention he had gotten upon his arrival, we left him in his crate while we attended church! We returned home to find him anxiously awaiting us in his crate and had a lovely Easter Sunday enjoying him, the weather and each other! Also, Grandma Roddy had arrived a couple days earlier so she got to be a part of welcoming our new furry friend to the family!




While he seemed OK with his crate, he wasn't a fan of the leash. Thankfully that changed over a few days...



Yup, it's clear whose dog this is...



While Nova was the highlight of the day, the kids still managed to get excited over Easter baskets and an Easter egg hunt! I loved that even after just a day of being a part of the family Nova was following Sage around like a puppy as she hunted for eggs...oh wait, he is a puppy!



I don't know who was more exhausted after twenty four hours of dog ownership, us or Nova...




It's hard to believe that within 72 hours our dog had boarded a plane, had a layover in Atlanta, made his way to Orlando, celebrated Easter with us, and spent a day at the beach! With the kids in school and Jack's mom only around for another day it seemed the perfect way to spend a beautiful spring day so off we went and in true Roddy fashion, we don't let the kids or now pets stop us! So Nova came along for the ride! What a cutie!!!



Sage will no longer be able to say "mom and dad have each other, Connor and Ty have each other, and I have no one..."

Michael and Michele!

We have been blessed with many wonderful friendships throughout our marriage but there are some that go a bit deeper and the friendship extends to what almost feels like family.  Michael and Michele are that to us.  Finally they made it out to spend some time with us and because they are like family, instead of making sure the itinerary was booked with all sorts of "Orlando" activities, they instead insisted on joining us for our normal day activities.  This included watching the boys participate in their last water polo match of the season and seeing Sage perform in her big musical theater production Aladdin Jr. that she'd been working on for months!  Of course we spent time enjoying the lake and pool and got in a beach day too!  It was an action packed but super fun extended weekend!

The boys last water polo game of the season! They may have lost by points but they won in spirit!!!



Aladdin Jr. starring Sage Roddy and three costume changes!



The fan club:



Of course photos with friends in the show and those fans who came to support are a must!




Sage is sure going to miss her teacher Ms. Lynch next year when she is zoned to attend the new middle school. While I'm thrilled for her school to be so close to home, I'm sad to see how sad she is about leaving so many good friends and teachers who will stay at the old middle school.



Aladdin! Oh how we laughed as Ty ran around the auditorium asking all the cast members for selfies with him. It was so cute to see how excited they were to see someone excited to have a photo taken with them. The cast member who played Aladdin is a close friend of Sage and what started as Ty getting his photo you can clearly see turned into practically our whole gang bombing the photo...lol!





The most perfect way to end our time with M & M was to take them to Cocoa Beach and end the day with some ice cream! Now we just start the countdown to their next visit! We love you M & M!