CCAI Reunion in Knoxville, part two

Our hotel was not far from the hotel, so after a quick rest we headed to the zoo to check in. I think the zoo is smaller than the Asheboro zoo - but that was perfect because it was hot and we only had three hours before the reunion party.

Rhinoceros's, Meerkats and Sheep - Oh my!
Isn't the first picture weird? It looks like Hannah is in the middle of some psychedelic rock poster from the 70s. Or maybe it's the acid I took in college just rearing its ugly head again... oops was that outloud? Anyway, Hannah made some friends in the Jefferson Airplane tunnel and then off we went to find more animals. The meerkats seemed to like her, the rhino couldn't care less and the sheep just hung out. I think all of the animals were too tired and hot to care. Tough day to be in a cage.



Hannah was a good sport despite the heat and uncooperative animals. I had to take this picture of another little girl wearing the exact same outfit. Who do you think wears it better? Yeah, me too (but we are biased).



The last two pictures just show how neither of us can get a decent picture on the merry-go-round. And Hannah gave us PLENTY of opportunity. The reunion event included free carousel rides. We rode the thing about five times. I'd like to think its the camera, but maybe it is us. Sigh.
:)

CCAI Reunion in Knoxville, part one

We had a wonderful weekend. We left our home on Friday night and arrived in Knoxville around 1:00am (thank you traffic, and thank you Mapquest... not!). We got up on Saturday morning around 8:30am and headed to the Marketplace in downtown Knoxville. We got lucky because they were having a farmers market in the square. Hannah got to play in the fountains and hold a butterfly. She wasn't sure about the butterfly - I think she liked it better when I was holding it. Then we walked over to the park that was created for the Worlds Fair back in 1982. They built a really nice park with an amphitheater, river and fountains. They were setting up for an Irish festival, so it was nice to see alot of activity. I think I took some pretty decent pictures of the Sun Sphere. This picture that I took of Hannah on the rock surprised me. She did that pose all by herself - doesn't she look older?
Next stop: Pictures at the zoo.
:)

Finally, 7 Interesting Things About Myself

Paula from http://www.playswithmud tagged me back in February. Wow, I am SLOW. Anyway, I need to tell you seven interesting things about myself. While this sounds like it should be easy, I found it really hard to come up with 7 interesting things, so I'll go for the "seven somewhat unusual things about me". Here goes:

I have eight toenails. Ten perfectly (ahem.. croaked) normal toes, but both of my pinky toes have what looks like tiny "seeds" sticking out. They are about the size of a sesame seed. It is what I imagine our finger and toenails look like when we are still in the womb. And no, I don't get a discount when I get a pedicure, which I only started getting a few years ago... because I was embarrassed about my freaky toes.

I was highly allergic to citric acid as a kid. If I had just a little bit of it, I would swell up and start to swallow my own tongue - nice. Citric acid is in EVERYTHING. So I was the annoying kid at your birthday party that asked "Is this cake lemon? I can't have it." or "Is that Hawaiian Punch? I can't drink that." It wasn't until COLLEGE that I tried an orange. It's funny, people talk about experimenting in college, but I don't think they are talking about fruit. Thankfully I just grew out of the allergy.

I hate peanut butter and jelly. The thought of the two textures together makes my stomach turn. I've only made a couple PBNJ sandwiches in my life and I think they both were for Chris. Awwwhhhh, that's love. Needless to say Hannah has not had a PBNJ sandwich yet.

I love green bananas. I like the metallic taste they have. Once a banana gets one black spot (even if it is a small one) I am out.

If I eat pizza for dinner, I have bad dreams that night. Pizza for lunch does not have the same affect. So invariably I will go a while before I eat pizza again for dinner, and then over time, I will forget about the nightmares and eat pizza. And then I wake up in a cold sweat at about 2:00am and I remember all over again.

When I was a kid, a bicycle almost cut my right foot off. I was riding double on a bicycle without any shoes on. I was sitting on the bicycle's seat while a friend was pedaling while standing up. She went over some bumps and I immediately pulled my feet under myself to catch my balance and I put my right foot directly. into. the. spokes. of. the. moving. bicycle. Cold shiver anyone?
Anyway, the next thing I remember is watching my Mother come running from down the street towards me while I lay on the ground. She looked so far away. The spokes came very close to severing the tendon, but I was lucky. Now I just have a long scar that wraps around my heel. Another reason why I was hesitant to get a pedicure. Oh, and before I forget - the last thing my Mom told me as I left the house that day was to put some shoes on. Yes, that's right kids, always listen to your Mother.

I believe I have mild psychic ability. Not anything truly helpful, but every once in a while I will get a feeling. Not a vision, but its more like a nagging thought. A perfect example is that a few years ago Chris and I spent the evening in Atlantic City while on an antiquing trip (this was of course before Hannah). In order to check in to the hotel we had to walk through the casino. While walking past a current bank of 25 cent slots, I had a feeling. It was like "you should play one of those slot machines". Simple as that. The next night, we had some extra time to kill so we did a little gambling. I did not immediately go to the beckoning machines - and quickly lost most of my money. I gave in and went to one of the machines and proceeded to win about $400. Coincidence?

Well, that's it. I hope this post proved to be at least somewhat interesting.
:)

The Playroom Project

Here are the "before" pictures. These were taken before we moved in (even before we closed on the house). Everything was wood paneling... and I mean EVERYTHING. And everything that couldn't be covered with wood paneling was painted to look like - you guessed it - WOOD PANELING. Candice Olson would have thrown up. I hope the end result would have made her proud.



And here are the "after" pictures. We completely gutted the room and put up insulation, stripped the ceiling and mantel of that pesky lead paint. We removed the small closet and had two built-in cabinets made by a local carpenter. We installed new windows, a stained glass window, recessed lighting and a beautiful French light fixture. Oh and let me not forget the GIANT FLAT SCREEN TV. You think it is a little much for a child's playroom? Yeah, me too. But it makes Hannah's Daddy happy. We also moved one of the interior walls about 2 feet into the room to make more room for the downstairs bathroom on the other side of the wall. That will come in handy when we start that project. Anyway, we finally finished her playroom the morning of Hannah's third birthday. Whew!

The deconstruction of our home will commence again in a few weeks, but for the meantime, we are enjoying not having to paint, scrub, wire, cut, build, install, nail, screw, scrape, sand, stain and peel anything right now.

:)

Hannah and the Giant Peach

Mr Woody was kind enough to drop off some of his delicious peaches. In the bunch was this huge peach and he said it was one of the largest he had ever grown. I made a peach dessert with them tonight and they were delicious. Thank you!
:)

Thank you Aunt Ashley...

for the beautiful daisy outfit. Hannah loves it.
:)

Oh yeah, she knows who Mr. T is

When she started putting all of her "jewels" on today, we asked her if she knew who Mr. T is and she said "Yes, he serves tea."
:)

Hannah's 3rd Birthday

Hannah had a wonderful third birthday! Her grandparents from NJ were here and she got to spend alot of quality time with them during their visit. Her party was on the same day as her birthday this year (usually we have it the week before), so it was nice to really go all out on one day instead of spreading it out over a few days (although her birthday has spread over a week now... sigh). She slept in that morning (I think she did that last year too). Geez, she wasn't up until 3:30am working on her playroom like Chris and I were! Anyway she woke up to "Happy Birthday" and her birthday waffles complete with strawberries and whipped cream in the form of a smiley face. Once she finished her breakfast we had to hurry to get her dressed in time for her guests to arrive. She got to wear her princess crown all day and we did not bother with potty training - it was HER day, so she could pee if she wanted to.

We had around 16 kids - a really good turnout for a holiday weekend. Hannah got a lot of wonderful presents and had plenty of help opening them as you can see in the picture. For the most part, Hannah kept her cool. As much as I can expect from a three year old. We did "make your own strawberry shortcakes" instead of cake this year. Hannah really loved the strawberries. But I think pink lemonade was her favorite thing. She still asks for it now - I'll have to start keeping Countrytime in the house.

The bouncy house went over very well. Although it took awhile for Hannah to get in and even then Daddy had to go in with her. She still doesn't bounce by herself. She is getting really good at falling.

Once all of her guests left, she got to change into her "3" tee shirt and spend some quality time with her cousin Cole. She passed out that night around 8:00pm (which is early for our girl). We passed out shorty thereafter.

Happy Birthday to our sweet Hannah.

:)

Fun times at a newly discovered park

My Mom has been recommending a park in Salisbury to us for awhile and last week we thought it would be a nice outing with the grandparents while they were visiting from NJ. So we took a break from working on the playroom (pictures to come, I promise) and off we went. This park had a zoo, train, petting zoo, carousel, lake, camp grounds, picnic area and gem mine. What a great place! Hannah especially liked sifting through the sand for gems. Although I don't think she cared if she found any gems or not - she liked the sand the most. Great suggestion Mom!
:)
P.S. that is the black bear enclosure behind Hannah, if you look close you can see one of the bears.

Fourth of July parade '08

Here's pictures from this year's fourth of July parade. This year it seemed to be a little bit longer than last year - in a good way. And I think Hannah got way more candy this year - check out the stash next to her chair. Now I don't have to buy Halloween candy... hee hee. Hannah was very good about waving to everyone and yelling "Thank you!" as they threw candy.
:)

swimming pool and choo choo

In other words a full weekend for Hannah. A couple weeks ago we happened upon a small town's craft festival complete with a train and pony rides. Hannah did not seem to be interested in the pony but was all for the train. And no, I do not know the kid that was waving at me in the picture - thanks kid. After the ride with Daddy, the train people offered for Hannah to ride the hand crank "train" that the kid's could crank the handles and ride alone. Hannah was much faster at going backwards than forwards.
Later that day, we broke out the new small pool we bought to replace the hole-ladden one from last year. We were still working on Hannah's playroom (painting trim) so I made a workzone with chalk reading "CAUTION WET PAINT" and to just be fair I made sign in front of Hannah's pool reading "CAUTION WET HANNAH". What a mischevious look Hannah has in this picture - she is up to something. Overall a great weekend.
:)