Sunday, October 31, 2010

Happy Howl-O-Ween!

More to come on our incredibly busy weekend!

**Little side note: I really didn't put 1 and 1 together with the title and picture until after it was put together. A little on the slow side? Sadly, yes!

Friday, October 29, 2010

Another Season Finished!

(photo taken by Matthew Thornbury with Whitney Weber's camera!)

Mission Safety:

Your next task is to learn what happens when you want to teach the children of Lewisville how to stay safe.

13 schools in 13 days. This was the first season that I was fully involved in the clown program, a.k.a, showing up to most of the shows (I only missed one!) and helped set up, break down, take pictures, and even once, subbed in as Mrs. Dousefire.

What a fun time shared with great people! I have met new friends, got to know acquaintances, and learned a little about the business of entertaining and teaching children...

Some of my favorite memories of this?

Someone (I won't mention names) had a microphone on and went to use the 'little clowns' room before the show. They forgot to mute the mic, and a couple of the helper clowns got to hear it. Fortunately, I heard nothing but a flush, but it was a blushing event none-the-less...

The next show, another someone walked behind stage, where they produced a decent-sized belch. This time I think the big speakers were on. Fortunately, no kids in the room, just the clown helpers!

Cary got to join us halfway through the season, so we would also take turns bringing Brylee. Everyone seemed to really enjoy her, and she got really used to seeing her B-pa as a clown. She even let Radio hold her! But the funny part of this is that before the last show, Ashes was holding her and suddenly said, 'uh-oh'....and as he handed her to me, we saw a little puddle of urine on the gym floor. She got his vest, too! Poor Ashes! Fortunately, that was the only part of his costume that was hit, but he had just got that vest, and looks quite dapper in it...after the show, Cary, Brylee and I went on a mission to try to find a 'back-up' one for the future if that (or any other mishaps) were to happen again. No luck. But I'm glad to see that Ashes got a laugh out of it afterwards!

Last night, after wrapping up the final performances for the kids, we did 2 more shows in an empty auditorium so it could be put on video. We could tell that the clowns were tired at 8:00 p.m., so Cary and I decided to help 'pep' them up by standing in front of them in the cafeteria, playing their parts right beside them...Ashes and Radio say that they struggled to keep a smile and extra laugh from escaping them, but looks like they held it really well. Cary and I just hope we were as entertaining as they were!

Thank you, Lewisville LAFS, for letting me be a part of it this year. What a fun way to spend a month!

Monday, October 25, 2010

Pumpkins, Storms, and Caching

Last weekend brought (what else?) lots of running around and having fun!

On Saturday, Cary, Brylee, and I drove to Sulphur Springs to see Brad, Faith, and Helen and go to Winnsboro and see the Autumn Trails, the annual Fall Festival held there.










The big news of the day: look who became buddies with her uncle...finally!










Lunch was delicious barbecue, and then on to walking along the streets, checking out the antique cars, stores, and vendors all around the area.




























And of course, we had to check out and find a cache. And with the help of Brennan, a (boy)friend of Helen's, we found one, adding to our total, and getting another county under our belt as well!

(this picture is of us, being sneaky and signing the log....)



















After walking the festival, we drove to Bright Star, Brad and Faith's new school, and got a little tour. What a cute little school! Currently, they have 1 classroom that teaches 4th and 5th grade, and have more rooms that they can grow with as the school expands.

I didn't get enough pictures of the school because I was fascinated with watching Helen and Brylee interact. They are so adorable, and Helen is awesome with her little cousin!
































And just around the corner was Mema's house, so of course, we went for a visit!










Then, of course, what is the weekend without a little more caching? We had to get Brad out of his '13' slump, so off we went!

The clouds were threatening, but that didn't stop us from running into a graveyard with the wind kicking up and the temperatures dropping! There we found 2 caches...yay!










Cary, Brylee, and I headed home about 4:00, but it took 3 hours as opposed to the usual 1 1/2. Why you ask?

It was pouring rain as we drove. Water slamming on our little car. We also stopped at a quick-e store to grab ourselves some snacks since we were starting to run into dinner time, and Brylee needed to stretch her little legs. We took our time while there, sitting in the parking lot, playing with Brylee and talking.

Once we got on the road again, I thought it would be smooth sailing, getting to my parents' house in time to give our little dog his medication. But oh, I was so wrong!

Once we got onto 635, Brylee managed to pull off a small piece of plastic, put it in her mouth, and after I tried to get it out, she managed to throw up all of her food. So Cary had to pull over and make an emergency clean up. By the time we got to our apartment, I had to literally hop into my car and drive to my parents' house to give Chester his medication and then take him home, while Cary gave Brylee a bath and we stripped her car seat down and washed every washable part...

Needless to say, we went to bed exhausted that night!

Sunday morning, however, was much better, starting off with going to Live Oak church for their service. Seeing old friends and letting Brylee socialize is wonderful!

Afterwards, we went to lunch, and while Brylee slept in her (clean) carseat, we did a little geo-caching. Oh, what a beautiful day to do that!










Flower Mound has several pumpkin patches this time of year, and we went to one of them, excited to get pictures of Brylee and lots of pumpkins. We did not anticipate how busy it was there. Tons of families, pumpkins, fun and games...our favorite was the Pumpkin Chunkin', which consisted of putting a small pumpkin into a long slingshot and trying to make it fly between Lucy's (or a former Charlie Brown) mouth. If you did, you got a free pumpkin!




































On the drive home, mom and dad wanted to see if Cary and I could find a cache that they had found, but Cary had not found before. It was called Kirkpatrick meets it's end. Apparently the cache was in a tree stump...and when we got to that tree stump, it was gone. I guess this cache met it's end!











Here are the clouds that we saw on the drive home. Apparently, in some counties there were some severe storms that night. Navarro County had a tornado rip through, causing lots of destruction. Crazy how the weather can be so dangerous, but yet so beautiful at the same time!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Lewisville Fire Department Open House 2010

On October 9, 2010, the Lewisville Fire Department had their annual Open House, inviting the community to come out and see them, their apparatuses, and enjoy free food. Cary and I were there to support the clowns, and of course so was Brylee, revealing her new clown identity: L'Ashes.

I promise, tons of pictures were taken of the clowns with kids that were visiting, but I decided to not to post them, realizing that as a mom, I might not want just anyone posting pictures of my kid on their blog. Family and friends are fine...but complete strangers who follow clowns around all the time? Hmmm...might be another story altogether.

But I hope you can enjoy this photo-filled post!

It was wonderful to see old friends, and even a lot of family!








































































































Tuesday, October 19, 2010

The One With All The Colors

Wednesday morning brought us getting around, packing out last minute things, and saying our goodbyes to our house in Plymouth. We had a busy day ahead, including driving to New Hampshire to see Cary's favorite house, find a cache, and enjoy a brief picnic lunch. And then drive to Boston, MA to catch our flight home.

The most eventful thing that happened on our journey was the rainstorm that came up on us as we drove through NH, making the streets beautiful and bringing out the bolder colors in the fall leaves. Unfortunately, I did not get the opportunity to take a ton of pictures as I would have liked, but it was so beautiful!












This chair sculpture was really cool...and we drove past it everyday--and I never got a picture of it until we were leaving Woodstock!






















Cary's favorite house: it sits on several acres of apple orchards in East Andover, NH. Beautiful (and expensive) dream home!





















The plane trip home was much more uneventful going home than going to (thank goodness!). Brylee was slightly irritable, but because she was sleepy. Once she got a nap in, she was a happy baby, making the people sitting around us smile as she played peek-a-boo and hug them. One lady was heading home to Tulsa to see her 1 year old that looked just like Brylee. She was a very sweet lady and let Brylee giggle and play with her earrings and glasses.










We arrived home to some beautiful flowers given to us by my mom, who also picked up a few food supplies as well. What a wonderful welcome home!












Ahhhh...I can now breathe a sigh of relief that I have finished this vacation log. We have now been home for almost 1 month, and it took that long to get all of this in!

Now it's time to catch up on other posts! Thanks for your patience!

Thanks To Susan T For The Suggestion...


Now Brylee is a proud new owner of a walker/shopping cart. There is no stopping her now!

(Also huge thanks to t-ma and b-pa for being 2 out of 4 of the greatest grandparents ever!)

Lemonade


Some of the lyrics to Chris Rice's song:

Life gave me lemonade and I can’t imagine why

Born on a sunny day, beneath a tangerine sky
I live life without pretending
I’m a sucker for happy endings
Thanks for the lemonade
Thanks for the lemonade!

I’ve got it made

Rest in the shade
And hold my love
While God above
Stirs with a spoon
We share the moon
Smile at the bees
More sugar please
He really loves us after all
We’re gonna need another straw!
We’re gonna need another straw!

It's taking the spin on the quote, "When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade". But Chris says this far better. He's saying that we already have lemonade in life. God's love and forgiveness made our lives already full of lemonade. Tart and sweet. And He is always taking care of us, even if we see nothing but the negative.

This has been Cary's song for the day. And perhaps, the rest of the week.

You see, we reached a new chapter in our book yesterday. What was originally going to be scary and unknown is now here and known. And God is very good to us, as He has always been.

Cary can now focus on something that he has been neglecting, granted that Brylee, Chester, and I do not pester him too much. This goal will lead to the next pitcher of lemonade, and so on.

I will leave it at that for now, ending this post with,

"Thanks for the lemonade!!!"

Monday, October 18, 2010

The One With All Of The Scarecrows

Tuesday morning brought fog over a river and the prospect of traveling to Manchester, for clothes, food, and fun.











And when I say fun, I mean socks!





















Just before leaving on the trip, I found that I had 13 regular pairs of socks, not including the holiday ones. So it was hard to narrow down the great variety from hundreds, to five, and then ultimately, 3. But I walked away happy, and Brylee was carried away rich with socks as well, thanks to her awesome Oma.

While driving through Manchester searching for a baby clothing store to get Brylee some better-fitting jammies, we found a large area of land that held a lot of tractors, potentially a future museum. So of course, we had to check it out!











We had lunch at one of Gary and Brenda's favorite sandwich shops, the Little Rooster Cafe. They had tasty sandwiches, but I am a simple sandwich lover, so my sandwich (the Ethan Allen?) came with no apples. Just lettuce and meat. But very yummy!




































Afterwards, we started to head toward our favorite Christmas store, but along the way we found a cool pumpkin patch with so many scarecrow decorations. They even had a corn maze, but we did not go through it due to time. But oh the fun it would have been!


























































































































After going crazy in the pumpkin patch, we made our way to the Christmas Store, which the last time I had seen it, it was covered in snow. But the inside had not changed much, and we walked around showing Brylee the beautifully decorated Christmas trees and looking through the ornaments to see if we could find the 'perfect ones' for gifts.











Dessert! We found a bakery right next to the Little Rooster and had to stop there for something. I had this tasty cupcake, while Cary had a Raspberry brownie of some sort. And Brenda had her favorite: blueberries! (in a pastry form, of course!).











At one point, we were going to attempt to drive into New York state to get Brylee to visit her 6th state in her short 10 months, but she got fussy, so we decided to stop in a nearby cemetery to stretch her legs and let her have some fun running around dead people. Yeah...morbid, huh? But fun!
































































That evening brought more basement game playing and then drive to our favorite ice cream stand for dinner. Yep--they served hamburgers!






























And finally, one last shot of Brylee for the day, modeling her adorable new jammies that her Oma bought. She had managed to get both her feet into one leg in her other ones, but these were fleece, so less stretching and less escaping to get her little tooties too cold. She slept well that night! (Which also happened to be her last in the state of Vermont)

Ninjago With A Special Guest

So we took B to go see Ninjago, The LEGO movie a couple of weeks ago, and by we, I mean Cary, myself, my dad, and...my grandfather. Odd co...