Emily's Bridal Shower

Emily's bridal shower was a nice little event, held at Blair Mountain B&B, which of course, is run by Aunt Tracie & Uncle Johnnie. Aside from certain persons getting lost, and still the most important person being AN HOUR late... it was a nice time. The food was plentiful & yummy, and the company enjoyable.




The girls did a good job organizing the games and whatnot. The most amusing of them was the 20 questions quiz in which Em had to guess the answers to about Wayne. She ended with almost a full pack of real Bubble Gum. She was drooling and could hardly talk too. Funny and gross at the same time. Ha!

The other game, to which I have a photo, was that we took turns being blindfolded and had to apply makeup to Emily's face. Too funny! It was nerve wracking to do, especially as I had the EYELINER to do (me, who doesn't do makeup in the first place to do someone else, blindly? Are you crazy?) So, I purposefully found her cheek and made my mark there. We were going for the clown effect anyway, right? Good times, yup, good times.

Floyd

Floyd is now part of our family. He has been for awhile now- in fact since the middle of August. He had some anxiety to get over since moving here, and some new rules to learn too. But, within 3 days he was good to go. Now it's just the children (still) learning the rules of behaving with the dog.

Floyd is a good dog, and very laid back, although happy and a bit peppy. When I had Gwendolyn over, she was having a heyday climbing all over him. He was a little annoyed, but tolerated the "attention" very well! It's nice to have a good dog around the house.

Kindergarten!

I can't believe that it's been more than a month since Nathaniel started Kindergarten! It is a full day program here, and honestly, I had a lot of anxiety about it. He is a homebody, and admitedly a Momma's boy. He loves to play with other kids- but not for hours on end. He really does love his alone time, and will literally push others away when bothered too much. But regardless of our nervousness over this new adventure, he was a great sport!

He was so happy when he got off the bus! He told me all about his day and friends he made... he was good to go- that is until the next morning. While eating breakfast, he said, "Mommy, I'll stay home today to eat lunch with you." Aw, isn't he sweet? That was his way of saying he didn't want to go to school. So, I sent him on his way, and he was not happy about it, until we walked to the bus stop with our neighbors. By the time the bus came, he was ready to go. What a relief! Now there are still a couple days when he'd rather stay home and have lunch with me, but usually he's very excited to go to school and learn something new!

First Day of Second Grade

I can still hardly believe that today was the start of a new school year, and that Ariel is now a second grader. There was so much excitement at our house this morning. She absolutely loves school. She could hardly wait to get out the door and to the bus stop!

We went out last night to get her new sneakers, and her excitement just overtook her. She wanted them to be just so, and she was not happy that Mommy wouldn't let her get whichever she picked. They had to have flexible soles and no elastic tabs, no loose fitting heels, etc. We finally agreed on a pair, and she just beamed!

This morning she was happy to show them off, and since today's special was gym, she'll break them in good, I'm sure. I'm looking forward to her report on the day's activities and who is in her classroom this year.

Binder Park Zoo

The trip to the zoo was a nice little adventure that my mom and I took the kids on. It's been YEARS since I've been to the zoo back home, and this year they're celebrating the 10yr anniversary of Wild Africa. This is the first time I've seen the Wild Africa exhibit, and it was nice. They had a short trolley ride to get there, and then they had an outdoor museum type thing set up to make you feel like you might actually be in an African-European settlement. They had drums for the kids to play on, and a view of the field with deer and zebras and birds of all sorts.

We followed the path and found the giraffes- quite the hysterical thing. They were going crazy trying to get the lettuce that everyone was feeding them. I bought some lettuce so that the kids could feed the giraffes. They thought it was fun and so gross! lol

The rest of the hike had various activities to keep you interested thru the hike and I especially liked the bird sanctuary with exotic birds. After we were done there, we took the trolley back to the main part of the zoo and the kids rode on the carousel. Nathaniel picked a Panda, and Ariel chose the Red Panda. All in all we had a nice time visiting the zoo!