The Dragon Boat Festival

This year we decided that we were not going to miss the Dragon Boat festival. And lo and behold, we actually made it happen!


Hannah with this year's "Miss Asia". Hmmmmmm, maybe that could be Hannah in a few years?


Cole and Hannah posing... get it? Bridging East and West? I know, I am a dork.


And they're off!!



As a benefit to the victims of the Japanese earthquake, there was booth where you can be instructed on how to make a paper crane.




A lovely day!
:-)

Gaslight Circus, Peepshow Cabaret & Pittsboro

After a few minutes of relaxing after the Liberty Antiques festival, we decided to walk into downtown Pittsboro to see what was going on. Lucky for us the Gaslight Circus and the Peepshow Cabaret were in town!

Apparently, the Gaslight Circus is one day event where downtown Pittsboro gets turned into a Victorian Circus. The performers were stationed throughout different stores in town performing all kinds of mini-acts. They also offered face painting. When Hannah was asked what she wanted her face painted like... she said a gypsy princess. I think the end result was pretty convincing.




Next we stumbled upon the Peepshow Cabaret. I was really impressed with the performance. All of the performers performed skit after skit of really professional routines scenes set to music.


They even had mimes!


And a guy on stilts!


Hannah was impressed too.



Hannah wanted to talk to one of the mimes after the show. He was the only performer she wanted to meet. And of course it looks like she is yelling at him in this picture, but actually she was playing with him.


The next morning, after a de-li-cious breakfast, we decided to take walk around the neighborhood. Again, we got lucky and stumbled across this gem of a park.






As you can see there was lots of different things to do at this park. But by far, Hannah's favorite was the huge sandbox.


Hannah and Daddy made a few castles.


And then Hannah made it snow on the castles.


Seriously, I had to beg her to leave the sandbox. Poor thing, she used to have a sandbox at home until her mean parents threw it away (because it was filled with ants). And now her new sand TABLE is stuck in purgatory (otherwise known as the garage).



After the surprise secret park, we walked back to the downtown area and they were having yet another festival. Apparently, the first Sunday of the month is a mini crafts show complete with things for the kids to do... like chalk!


and bubbles...!


and rubber duckies...?!


and a bouncy house!
I gotta say if this series of events does not convince you that we lead charmed lives that we are extremely thankful for, I don't know what will.
:-)

Hannah's Bookcase

Inspired by this bookcase but not by the $199.00 price tag along with the fact that this item is out of stock, I went on a search for a more cost effective alternative. On a whim, I stumbled across a listing on craigslist and less than 4 hours later we were the proud owners of this baby:



And after some much-needed TLC along with "Hannah's ruby red" paint job and some leftover vinyl decals, here is what she looks like now:


Of course, we went ahead and placed all of Hannah's books on the shelf right after this picture. Can you believe that she has enough books to almost fill this sucker? I'm not complaining, I'm just impressed.
:-)

Liberty 2011

Here are some scenes from our favorite antiques show. Luckily, one of the Liberty Antiques Shows falls towards the end of April (the second one is in September). And since our wedding anniversary and our family day anniversary are also at the end of April, we usually make a long weekend of antiquing, lounging and lovely family time.


One of the reasons it is our favorite show is the stuff. They seem to always have good quality reasonably priced stuff.


There is also a nice variety of items to look at. We never get bored at this show. By the way, we bought the smaller rug hanging up in this photo. It's new home is on my side of bed. Love it.


Ain't he cute? Don't you want to buy this hub cap for him so he can eventually install it on his truck? Yeah, me neither.


Another reason we like this show (this one may be all me) is the homemade root beer stand. One of their signature tin mugs is $6 but it comes with $1 refills for life! Our mug is from 2008 and you can bet your bottom we have been bringing the mug with us ever since. You can also see Hannah's sweet ride in this photo. Apparently several people remembered us from the previous year driving Hannah around in her wagon... or maybe they just remembered Hannah, or maybe they remembered us struggling to pull Hannah after the wagon was weighed down with antique goodness. Oh knows.


Must. not. buy. expensive. metal. numbers. Must. resist.


Another reason we like this show is that the dealers are friendly and knowledgeable. You can feel comfortable asking them anything. See the two black chairs in this photo? The one on the ground is worth a couple hundred dollars and the one on top of the table is worth several thousand. Confused? Apparently the one on the table has the original finish and is an original Windsor chair made in blah, blah, blah-biddy blah... yeah he lost me at several thousand. But he was still very nice and knowledgeable.


I've been digging these white porcelain pitchers lately, but I haven't been able to bring myself to buy one. There is so much I can do with one, but I guess my hold up is where I would put them. Sigh.


And since Hannah was very well behaved all day, she got to pick out three costume jewelry necklaces. Here she is displaying her lovely jewels. Oooohhhh, aaaahhhhh.
:-)

Easter Loot

After all the Easter egg hunting, you would think that Hannah was all tapped out. But alas, thanks to her generous grandparents (ahem... and us) Hannah also got thoroughly spoiled on Easter morning. Here are some of her favorites...





Easter morning Hannah was asked to say a little prayer in front of the congregation. She said her sweet Good Night prayer that she says before bedtime and brought the house down. Sweetie pie.
:-)

Egg Drop 2011

Hello all! Before we get too far away from Easter, I wanted to share some pictures. We went to two Easter egg hunts this year: one at our church and the second at the Lazy 5 Ranch.


The weather was pretty iffy in the morning so the church's egg drop was inside.


By the afternoon, the skies were clear and the ground was mostly dry. The Lazy 5 Ranch was crowded, but thankfully there was enough room for everyone. The helicopter did a good job of scattering the eggs.


This is one of my favorite pictures from the day (too bad it is blurry). I think it really captures the chaos that is an Easter egg hunt. I even managed to get the lady dressed as the Easter bunny on the right side of the photo. On the other hand, this photo does make Hannah look a little more aggressive than she truly is. At least when it comes to egg hunts.


This shot is more like it. Hannah likes to mosey. She would walk to find the egg, and when she spots one, slowly bend down and SNAP! it's gone. She would then do a half shrug and move on to the next patch of grass and SNAP! SNAP! two more eggs are gone... you get the picture. She really didn't care much about the eggs at all. I guess she is an easy-going little girl.


Hannah was much more interested in holding the bunnies. The Lazy 5 Ranch set up a penned area for the kids to torment some cute bunnies.


Whatever these bunnies got for participating in this event - it was not enough. Can you see the look of terror in their eyes? Sorry to the lady bending over in the background of this photo... if I had more time, I would try to retouch you out, or at least hike up your pants.


After the egg hunt, we went to visit the animals. Here is Hannah's favorite, the turtle... or I guess this is a tortoise.



After all the families that came through and fed these guys, I could not believe that some of them were still hungry. Or maybe these are the backup animals that don't usually make it to the fence in time?



After the egg hunts, bunny holding and animal feeding (and subsequent hand sanitizing), we thought it was as good of a time as any to drive through the animal park. This time we decided to drive our own car - which was nice because a good portion of the animals were very plump and seemed to be getting their mats out for nap time. Having our own car gave us the flexibility to zip past them (at a whopping 3 miles per hour, mind you).


I think Hannah's favorite part was that she was allowed to sit on my lap as we drove through. It was like a whole new world was opened up to her.


Davis family on safari. Chris looks concerned.


"Don't feed the zebra!" as Hannah and I say this in unison (we remembered this instruction from our last trip) Chris holds the bucket out for Mr. Zebra and he quickly RIPS it out of his hand. There goes bucket #1.



We lost the second bucket because I basically threw it at one of these longhorns in order to get his head out of our car and so he wouldn't mistaken Hannah for a white bucket of feed.

We are not good at the bucket thing.
Happy Easter!
:-)