Waiting for the Parade

Monday night was the annual Christmas parade in Blackshear. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend because I had to go to a school function for the Junior class (I am one of the class advisors). I did have time, however, to take Owen and Olivia downtown to meet up with Gigi so that they could watch the parade. These are a few of the pictures that I snapped before I left- no pictures of the actual parade, only a few of everyone waiting for it to begin. I did get a full report, though. Apparently, the parade was a huge success. Owen slept through most of it, but Olivia had a great time gathering the candy that was thrown to the parade spectators. She must have either been working really hard to get the candy or else she had help because we have a huge bag of candy at our house. After the parade, everyone went to Granny Buie's house for soup and spaghetti. I think that the kids really enjoyed themselves, and I wish I could have been there.

How I Spent My Thanksgiving Break

For the past week I have been on Thanksgiving Break. Not only did I not have to go to work, but I also got a lot accomplished (and had a lot of fun). From Monday thru Wednesday, I worked on my dissertation, and I am almost done with the first three chapters. Of course Thursday was Thanksgiving Day, and I enjoyed being with family. However, all of these things must take a back seat to what is quite possibly my favorite day of the whole year. Of course I'm talking about Black Friday. I seriously think that I look forward to this day more than any other. For the past eight or nine years, Hannah and I have participated in the Black Friday sales event. Most of the time Quincy has gone with us, too. What made this year so special, though, was that Cassie was able to go. We stayed in Valdosta overnight on Thursday, and got up early Friday morning. Our shopping day began at 4:00 am and ended at 3:00 pm. We hit almost every store in Valdosta, and I got 95% of my Christmas shopping done.

The week ended with us cleaning and decorating the house for Christmas. This is still a work-in-progress. We did manage to get the tree up, though. The kids were really excited to put their ornaments on the tree. Overall, this was a very productive Thanksgiving Break, and I look forward to Christmas Break which is a mere two-and-a-half weeks away.

Fun at the Fall Festival

This weekend was my school's annual fall festival. I have to say that it was a huge success and that my school raised a lot of money to help pay for our spring field trips. Once again, we took Owen and Olivia to the festival. Olivia remembered riding the horses last year and went straight to them again this year. Owen also got to ride the horse once, but he was not quite as excited about it as Olivia was. Both kids were also able to participate in various games- such as the "Dino Dig" and the "Ring Toss". One good thing about our festival is that most of the kids games only cost .25 cent to play, and most give prizes to the kids for participating. Our winnings included bubbles, a 2-liter Mountain Dew, and several plastic fish.



The petting zoo was a big hit with both kids this year. There were various farm animals that the kids could touch- including a cow, chicken, turkey, goat, and bunny rabbit. Owen was glad to touch any animal, while Olivia seemed to keep going after the rabbit. The petting zoo was located near the school playground, so naturally we had to spend a lot of time on the playground equipment. The quarno-kids were here and went to the festival also. Zach and Mackenzie were both very helpful with Owen and Olivia on the playground, and they helped the kids get onto the structures that were too tall for them to get on by themselves. I didn't get to stay with the kids the whole time because I had to work the last hour and a half at the popcorn booth, and then I had to clean up for about an hour after that. Brian has figured that the kids were at the festival for about three and a half hours and that we only spent about $10. You can't beat that!

Pirates, Fairies, and Boys Who Don't Want to Grow Up

Trick-or-treating was held on Thursday night in Blackshear this year so that it would not conflict with the GA/FL game on Saturday (Halloween Day). Even though I think that it is lame to schedule a holiday around a football game, we still went trick-or-treating at the designated time. This Halloween makes the second year that we have had a family "theme" for our Halloween costumes. Our theme was Peter Pan. In case you can't tell, Brian is Captain Hook, I'm Wendy Darling, Olivia is Tinkerbell, and Owen is Peter Pan. We had a lot of fun with this theme- especially Brian who really seemed to like chasing the smaller kids around with his hook.

The first stop of the night was Granny Buie's house where we met up with the Murray family. Ava made a beautiful Snow White, and Claire was a sweet little Tinkerbell (quite the popular costume this year). After taking loads of pictures, we set off for downtown to hit all of the businesses who were giving out candy. I was very surprised by the large number of people who were downtown. Apparently, this is the place to be on Halloween. There was even a firetruck set up on Main Street, and the kids were able to climb in it. After leaving the downtown area, we headed back to Granny's to trick-or-treat in her neighborhood. The kids ended up with quite a bit of candy. I think that they really had a good time. Collecting the candy was the easy part. Owen and Olivia now face the daunting task of trying to protect their candy from the evil Captain Hook (who still has the hook and is not afraid to use it) and from Wendy Darling who is known for having a sweet tooth. They may need a little extra Pixie Dust to pull this off.

SeaWorld

We have just returned from our fall break trip to SeaWorld. We really did A LOT for such a short (3 night) visit. Instead of recounting everything about our trip, I am just going to give my top 5 favorite things about the trip.



Favorite thing #1: The kiddie pool at the Marriott Grande Vista Resort. Our hotel pool was really cool because it was shaped like a "fort"- it even came equipped with "cannons" that sprayed water on other swimmers. The pool was also zero-entry which meant that both Owen and Olivia could play in it without us having to worry about it being too deep. The kids really liked the pool, and we stayed in the pool area until well after dark on two of our three nights.

Favorite thing #2: Spooktacular. We visited SeaWorld during their "Spooktacular" event, so the whole park was decorated for Halloween, and there were several Halloween-related events that happened throughout the day. The kids were able to walk down a designated path to take part in the events- which included trick-or-treating for candy (which we didn't let them have), seeing people dressed up in costume, and playing in the bubbles that were blowing everywhere. Owen especially seemed to like chasing the bubbles while Olivia was excited to meet a mermaid.

Favorite thing #3: Getting up close and personal with the animals. I love all of the opportunities for animal interaction that are available to guests at SeaWorld. Although the kids were too small for us to participate in many of them, we were still able to do a few. We saw all of the animal shows and exhibits, and were also able to feed both the dolphins and the sea lions. I liked the dolphin feeding because I got to touch the dolphin as he came up to get his food. Another fun thing that we did was to get tickets to "Dine with Shamu". This was a really neat experience. We were seated at a backstage area of Shamu stadium where we had a buffet and were treated to a private show with Shamu. Since we were seated right next to the tank, we had a front-row seat to all of the action.

Favorite thing #4: Grandparents. Brian's mom and Charlie came with us, and it was such a treat to have them around. Not only are they loads of fun, but they also help out so much with Owen and Olivia (and with two days in a theme park, we need all of the help we can get). They even watched Owen and Olivia one morning at the hotel so that Brian and I could ride all of the rollercoasters at the park.

Favorite thing #5: The coasters. Of course, no trip to a theme park is complete without riding the rollercoasters. There are two rollercoasters of note at SeaWorld, and we were able to ride both twice. But, Brian and I were not the only coaster-riders. Olivia was just tall enough to make it onto the kiddie coaster which she rode 3 times (all in the front seat- we are beaming with pride). This is good. It is very important that she likes coasters (otherwise she will be miserable on virtually every vacation that we go on). There were other rides in the kiddie area of the park that both Owen and Olivia were able to go on, and they enjoyed those, too.

I had forgotten how much fun SeaWorld could be. It is a really big park, and it took us two days to "conquer" it. This was definitely a great fall break vacation spot, and I would like to return when the kids are a little older.

First Haircuts

This afternoon I took the kids to get their first haircuts. I think I could have gotten away with letting Olivia's hair grow a little more before a cut, but Owen's was starting to look scruffy. Olivia went first, and she did so well. She climbed right up in the chair and did exactly what was asked of her. Owen, however, was not so well behaved. He cried the entire time- poor little thing. I had to stand right beside him and hold his hand while Denise cut his hair. I'm actually amazed that Denise was able to cut it as well as she did with such little cooperation from Owen. Although I'm pleased with the result, I am sad that Owen lost all of his curls. He looks less like a baby now and more like a little boy. Anyway, after making it through the haircuts, we headed next door to the bakery to get a celebratory cookie. Maybe the memory of the cookie will remain with Owen so that he'll be more likely to cooperate next time.

Olivia's 3rd Birthday Party

Even though Olivia's actual birthday is next week, we had her party last night at my mom and dad's house. The theme of the party was "The Little Mermaid". A girl I went to high school with (Beth - see website) did a fantastic cake for the party. The cake was a big deal for Olivia this year, and it has been the topic of much discussion for the past several months. Since seeing Ava's "princess" cake in April, Olivia has talked nearly non-stop about what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday. She stated numerous times- very specifically- that she wanted an "Ursula" cake. Yes, that's Ursula the evil sea witch from "The Little Mermaid". I didn't want Olivia to have a bad-guy cake, so I had Beth design a cake that featured Ursula but was not entirely devoted to her. I think that Beth did a fabulous job. Seriously, this was one of the cutest cakes that I have ever seen.

After eating the cake, it was time to open presents. Olivia received a lot of nice gifts this year including princess dress-up clothes, hairbows, everyday clothes, and an "I Spy" quilt from Aunt Connie . Her big gift from Brian and I was a kitchen set. She really liked it a lot and wanted to play with it the second that we got home. I think that she will get many hours of play out of it. After opening gifts, all of the kids (and some adults) loaded up and went on a hayride around the block. We did this last year, and had such a good time that we had to do it again this year. The kids liked seeing all of the animals in the neighborhood and really seemed to enjoy themselves. Overall, I think that the party was a success, and I can now take a break from party planning until March when Owen will turn 2.