Last weekend.......

Last weekend seems like forever ago. That's what happens when I take almost an entire week to blog about it. Oh well-it happens.

I spent most of Saturday shopping with my mom and my sisters for baby stuff. Mandy has been having a tough time making decisions on things like bedding so we went up to Maryland to "Great Beginnings". I think the multitude of choices there made things more difficult. The nice thing is that I was able to see an example of the set I had found online there. Unfortuantely they didn't have any left to purchase so I still had to resort to buying it online. http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3066859 . It's super cute and can work with any other theme like cars, trucks etc. Travis' old bedding set will be going to my parents house for the crib they have set up there. I was tired of looking at it and I knew my mom could use the extra pieces! After leaving there we headed over to Fair Oaks since Mandy wanted to look around at Pottery Barn. I think going there made things even more confusing for Mandy! :) Eventually we left the mall and I came home with Mrs. Fields cookies for my 2 favorite boys!

Later in the day Tammy and Mandy came over to visit Travis. Unfortuantely he was in a mood so he only wanted to play video games etc. At one point we did get him to play a board game with us but his focus was all over the map for some reason. Oh well. They eventually left and we spent the rest of the evening just hanging out!

On Sunday we headed out to the Nats game. This was one of the 1st times Evan had left the house in almost a week! We had lunch at the Red Porch which is yummy and has a great view of the field! After the 1st inning we headed over to our seats. The game was moving pretty quickly and before we knew it-5th inning already? At this point Evan was getting tired etc from all of the activity so we were going to leave. At some point it was decided we should let Travis go to the playground there. We waited in line for a HOT 15 minutes and then he was let in. About 15 minutes after that we headed home. Whew! We were all soooo hot and tired! Slurpee treats on the way home! :)

Travis and Jayden sparring during the test! Funny though it ended in a tie.....

Nice day off......

Friday we were supposed to head up to Baltimore for the Chelsea vs. AC Milan game with Ann Marie, Val, Rob and Andy. Unfortunately with Evan's injury he didin't think that would work out too well. I already had gotten the day off and didin't feel like going to work so it turned into a nice Sandy & Evan day instead!

Evan had a follow up doctor's appointment with his surgeon in the morning. I took Travis to school and then drove Evan to the appointment. He was very nervous about the appointment since I told him the doctor would more than likely remove his band-aids. Evan said he would "punch him in the face" if he did. He was kidding of course but I'm glad I warned him since that did in fact happen.

After that we headed over to Tysons since Evan really wanted to see the "Bruno" movie. I had free passes from a time Travis and I were there and the movie was busted so that was nice. Free is always a nice thing! :) The movie is quite funny but you have to be OK with gay jokes and full frontal male nuditity. ;) Then we headed over to the TGI Friday's in the mall for a quick lunch.

At that point Evan was beat since he gets winded etc quickly since his surgery. I drove him home and went shopping for some baby stuff! :) I registered for a few things at Babies R Us, bought a new car seat (since Travis' had technically expired) and bought some clothes for this baby since the seasons will be all wrong. Carter's had a ton of their summer stuff really cheap so I got a bunch of outfits for this baby for next summer. I know I have 0-3 summer which won't work but I can't remember what size Travis was the following summer. My guess is the other summer stuff is 18 month which will be too big but if there are any 12 month summer items from Travis those may work. We shall see. Need to start digging all that stuff out at some point. I have it all "space bagged" in a closet right now by size.

I picked up Travis early from school and let him know we were headed over to Kate and Jackson's house to play and for me to scrapbook with Cynde. Travis was very excited by this and kept asking if it was time to go yet. Finally it was time to go and we packed everything up in the car. They had a great time playing though there were a few boo boos on all sides. Later in the evening Evan came to take Travis home and I stayed until around midnight with Cynde to finish a few pages. Good times! :) I will try to post a few pictures but they don't have titles-they are works in progress.

It's a........

BOY! Yep we found out this baby is another little boy! Mom and Evan went with me to the appointment. Evan was pretty uncomfortable because of his incisions etc but he only groaned a few times. ;) We saw the male parts, legs, arms, feet, head and hands all very clearly! I do have to go back in about a month when the baby has gained more weight/gotten bigger since they said 18w3d is too small to get a clear picture of the 4 chamber heart and the front of the face. The could see the heart had 4 chambers but in a few weeks they will be able to get the view they want. They said everything was perfect and he was measuring about 8 ounces-about a week ahead of the average. I go back to my normal doctor this week so I'm sure I will get more feedback then. Travis was very happy to hear it was going to be a boy.....I'm sure he would have gotten over it if it were going to be a girl but trust me.....this makes all of our lives easier. :) I will get a picture on here soon-need to figure out the CD they gave me. :)

Who needs an appendix anyway??

This adventure started last on Sunday night when Evan was complaining that his stomach hurt. Well if you had seen what he ate for dinner you would have understood.....he ate 2 Bubba burgers, 2 ears of corn, mashed potatoes, a dozen grilled shrimp and one of those tiny $1 ice cream containers. So naturally I told him he ate too much.. He had no issue going to sleep so I thought that would have been the end of it.

On Monday morning he still felt crappy but went into work anyway. After the new TV was delivered he attempted to go back to work. Apparently he left so terrible he tried to barf on 2 separate occasions but was unsuccessful. It was at this point he went home. I told him if he didn't' feel better by 3pm he needed to go to the doctor. The fact he hadn't been able to barf meant to me it wasn't a virus. So he got home and crashed in bed for a few hours. I called him at around 3 (woke him up-oops) and told him to go to urgent care. At about 4:15ish he calls me to say they think it's his appendix and for me to take him to the hospital ASAP.

It was at this point I called Mandy to see if she could get Travis at school. The ER is no place for Travis (or any kid that isn't sick). It would have sucked to try and keep him occupied while we were there. Thankfully Mandy was free and met me at the urgent care so I could give her his booster seat. Oh the fun of arranging these things on the fly!!

We got to Loudoun hospital at around 4:45pm not knowing there had been a huge accident in Ashburn a few hours earlier (the kind that closes the road etc) and most of the patients ended up in this ER. This meant we had to wait about 2.5 hours to get to the actual back part of the ER. Everyone was super nice about it.....sometimes you just have to wait. If Evan had been barfing a ton or something of course they would have taken him sooner but he was stable, no fever etc. My parents showed up at some point in there to wait with us etc. Mom was so cute telling the nurses how Evan's parents were in NC and they were the "2nd team". The doctor comes in at around 7:30...feels around and says "I think it's your appendix". They take him to get a CAT scan (they had him drink this contrast stuff in the ER). At around 8:30ish the ER doctor comes in and says...."yep it's your appendix-you will need surgery either tonight or tomorrow morning." Evan got wheeled up to the surgical prep area at around 9:45pm where we met with the surgeon. There had been a lot of hot appendixes that day since Evan was going to be his 3rd one!

Mom and Dad left when Evan was wheeled into surgery at around 10:30ish and they went over to my house for a bit to see Mandy. At around 11:30pm the surgeon came into the waiting room and said everything looked great and went fine. I had to wait another hour though to see Evan. So finally at around 12:30am I got to see Evan in recovery. He was pretty out of it and kept falling asleep. We had agreed that I wouldn't leave until Evan was in a normal room (not in recovery). Finally at 1:30am they took him to his room on the surgical recovery floor. It was obviously at this point I left the hospital for at least a few hours! I got to the house at 2am and a very sleepy Mandy was glad to go home! :)

Unfortunately for me Travis woke up at 6:30am on his own the next morning. Booooo. Oh well. I told Travis where Daddy was (since he was asking) and he immediately started to cry these huge tears and sob "daddy". It was too sweet. Eventually I got him to stop crying and told him Daddy would be home that night. We got dressed for school etc and Travis requested a trip to Dunkin Donuts. Since I wasn't going into work we had the time to spare this morning for the donut run and to sit there and eat them (normally he takes them in the car). Evan called when we there and Travis wanted to talk to him. He was so worried about his Daddy. :( I got him off the school OK and then I headed over to the hospital.

All of the nurses at the hospital were soooo nice. I'm sure it can be a thankless job at times but they were all so great! When I got there he was eating breakfast-it looked so good-well maybe not! :) From that point on we watched TV, used the computer and he slept. LOL. At around lunchtime they said he could go home! It took about 3 hours for us to leave-typical with paperwork etc. Evan was glad to get home! He has 3 tiny incisions and seems to be doing very well!

Mitty

Not sure if I had posted about this already but our old big screen TV was dying. It was a 55 inch Mitsubishi that we bought about 7 years ago when we moved into this house. A few weeks ago it was having some issues. The color would fade out etc so Evan looked intro fixing it. The person that came out said it would cost a bunch to fix it and that was assuming he could even find the part. So after a lot of sole searching we decided that it was best to just get a new TV. We ended up with a 73 inch Mitsubishi DLP that Evan lovingly calls "Mitty". Now the one in this picture isn't the original Mitty. The original Mitty started making this awful high pitched whining sound after the 1st day of use. There was no denying the awfulness of this sound. So the original Mitty was delivered on Friday....the noise mostly on Saturday and Evan took a video of Mitty making the noise to the Big Screen Store on Sunday. Needless to say the TV in this picture is the replacement "Mitty" that was delivered Monday morning. The picture looks great and I think we are going to really love this new "Mitty"!

Travis at the dermo???

On Thursday we took Travis to a dermatologist in Vienna. A few months ago his pediatrician told us he had "Mollescum" on his chest. We thought it was bad excema or warts but they said it was mollescum. Apparently 50% of kids get mollescum and it eventually goes away on it's own. Well the issue is that it can easily spread and we had noticed there were some spots on his arm as well. I had seen pictures of kids with them all over their faces and I didn't want that to happen so the pediatrician said we should see a dermo since they have other treatments etc. Travis was very good when the doctor was looking at his spots etc.....UNTIL....she mentioned the options..... Option 1 was a creme we would put on that would cause a rash in a few weeks that meant it was healing, Option 2 was a creme she would put on then that would cause a blister but meant no pool for a few days-this made Travis cry and sob immediately, Option 3 was the cold stuff and then burning them off-more crying and sobbing. Eventually he calmed down enough to tell us "no option 2 or 3....I want option 1". So we are trying option 1 and seeing how that goes! Fingers crossed!!!

1st sparring class!

This picture was taken from Travis' 1st sparring class. He was so excited to try this out. Ever since we signed him up for TKD he has been intrgued by the sparring class. I think it is the whole getting to punch and kick people without getting into trouble thing that he is attracted to. It took a few minutes to get all of the pads on-there are 8 total and that is including new territory for us.....a cup. Crazy that a 5 year old would need a cup but it was part of the deal. At first Travis complained about it being uncomfortable but I told him "no cup= no sparring" and that ended that conversation. He really got into the class itself and Master J seemed to be pleased with how Travis was doing even though it was his first time in that class. When the class was over he was a sweaty mess-wow! The real question now is whether or not we can keep him from hitting other people in the regular classes as well......only time will tell.....

Koz and Kristin get married!

We left our house at 7:30 to start our adventure to Richmond for Koz and Kristin’s wedding. Travis was great the whole way there except we had to listen to his Star Wars movies the whole way there. Once we got into town we had some time to spare so we went over to Target to get a drink and some lotion for me since I forgot to put some on before we left. After that we piled back in the car and headed over to Evan’s old neighborhood so Travis could see the house he lived in when he was in high school. Travis thought it was neat but the best part was watching Evan’s reaction when he realized the people had painted the house yellow (it used to be white). He must have said it 10 times in about a minute. Later I found out this was a topic of conversation to him since he spent part of his summer one year painting it white for his parents. Now I know why he was taking the new yellow color of the house so personally! :)

When we got to the church it was time to get Travis dressed for the ceremony. He wore the coat for about 5 minutes but I do have a picture to prove he did wear it. Thankfully he made no fuss about the pants and the shoes so I was taking it as a “win”. Walking into the church Travis automatically turned into a shy little boy and was hiding behind me until we got to our seats. I brought a new Lego set (an Anklesaurus I think) for Travis to construct while we were in the church. It was a Catholic wedding so I wasn’t sure what to expect time-wise. He put his Legos together and was quiet so that was a “win” also.

Next it was off to the reception.....it was at a hotel nearby-I think it was a Sheraton. We found our names on the table and were at table #12. The name cards were actually a set of glass picture frame coasters which were a very cute gift idea. The other people at table 12? Well we had Kramer, Robb, Erin, Hood, us and Ann Marie! This could get interesting--lol. I brought yet another new Lego set (a jet) for Travis to build while we were at the table waiting for lunch etc. This worked out in general but it took forever for our table to get a chance to get to the buffet so Travis was done with his jet when it was our turn-oh well. No shocker Travis wanted nothing to do with the food and ate 3 strawberries for lunch. I didn't fare much better since everything had stuff in it I don't like so it was a huge plate of fruit for me!

After we ate Travis was getting restless so I took him to the patio area out back. He had fun running around, looking at the bugs and trying to climb the lightpole! Eventually almost all of the tuba people ended up outside as well. This is when the real fun began. ;) The group got together and sang their infamous song "I wanna kiss her butt". Now this is an innocent song that they made full of double entendres years ago. Every time they made the kiss sound and said "butt" Travis was howling with laughter. This was mostly because he isn't allowed to say "butt" in our house. :) After that song the tubas stood for many pics to be taken and somehow Travis ended up in these pictures as well. Then someone had an idea to say "look at the UFO" so they would all point in the distance...this started Travis on a "where? I don't see a UFO....WHERE?" Somehow I convinced him they were kidding. lol

Next it was the time Travis had been waiting for.....CAKE! They had a cute grooms cake made with a Marvin the Martian holding a tuba in Hokie colors. It was to cute. Travis HAD to have the tuba cake! Eventually he did get a piece....so he had 3 strawberries and a piece of cake. ;) Unfortuantely at this point it was time for Evan to sing....for those that haven't witnessed this it is interesting.....After many glasses of wine he asked the band to let him sing "Love Shack". It is a little scary how well he does the Fred impersentation! Pretty much after that it was time to leave......it was around 5:30 at this time. I got the pleasure of driving home of course.... ;)

Congrats to Koz and Kristin!!!

Friday fun with Mommy!

Evan went to work on Friday and Travis and I had a “Mommy and Me” day! We didn’t do much in the early morning other than have breakfast and watch TV…..though after 10am it was non-stop action! The first thing on our list of things to do was to get Travis some shoes for the wedding on Saturday. We went over to Rack Room shoes and I got him a pair of bucs (you all remember them from your college days I’m sure). Though in the process he found and fell in love with a pair of Z-straps by Sketchers. I made him a deal….I buy these and I hear NO complaints about wearing the bucs to the wedding. He agreed and we left!

Then we headed over to the pool from 11-12:30. Travis had fun playing with Robert (from school) and some of the other kids he met while we were at the pool. He didn’t really want to leave but we had to since we had more on our full agenda……

We went home to change and I got in the shower quickly before we headed over to McDonald’s for lunch. Travis wanted to go there since they had the Ice Age 3 toys in their Happy Meals. He got “Scratte” the girl squirrel and at first he was bummed but then I told him that was the neatest one since she was the newest character. I made it up but he bought it so I didn’t care. :)

Now it was around 2:45ish so we headed over to the movie theater to see Ice Age 3. I hadn’t taken Travis to a 3D movie before and was shocked that the cost of two matinee tickets for a 3D movie was $24! Oh well….what can you do? Travis seemed to really enjoy the movie and we headed over to our next thing on the agenda….tae kwan do!

We went to his class but he was super tired for some reason. He had to keep taking breaks and sitting down. It was very out of character for him—no more movies before class from now on!!! Sitting in the dark theater for 2 hours right beforehand must have made him tired. He maybe participated for about 30 minutes of the 45 minute class. Thankfully Master J still gave him a stripe for his efforts. He was excited to have gotten his black stripe the day before which means he is ready to take the test! Orange belt here we come!

One we got home Travis had fully recovered from his tiredness etc and wanted to play with Kelly in the neighborhood. Thankfully this meant he wasn’t getting sick or anything…..We played with Kelly until around 8pm and Travis crashed hard!

Later in the evening Cal and Wendy came over to socialize, drink and play RockBand. We had a good time catching up and the 3 of them drank just a small amount of wine. When it was time to play RockBand we started up a song and about ½ way in the TV dies. Ugh. The TV is about 7 years old and we aren’t sure if the bulbs went bad or something else. Oh well. No more RockBand until we either get it fixed or get a new TV! Fun times!

Blueberry muffins, boat trip, fishing, the pool ,more golf and blueberry pie!

In case you haven't noticed all of the blueberry references....the other day we got 2 flats of fresh blueberries at a blueberry farm. Hence the muffins this morning for breakfast which were fabulous (the crystallized sugar on top made them great) and the blueberry pie for dessert tonight. We will be taking back a few pints of the blueberries with us so I'm sure a few blueberry dishes will be in our future.

After breakfast we packed up our stuff and headed out to Poppy's boat. He has a 34 foot Taiwanese trawler. They used to have a sailboat but it just got to be too much work so a few years ago they sold their last sailboat and bought the trawler. It took us about an hour to get out to the city of Washington and Al radioed in to the dock to have them help us tie up the boat etc. After we got off the boat we headed over to the Estuarium. We have been there before but Travis really likes checking out the turtles that hang out by the dock there. At that point it was almost time for lunch so we wandered over to Pia's. Everyone had a great meal....Al and I had the Ruben, Evan had the grouper sandwich, Jamey had the Thai chicken wrap and Travis had the grilled cheese! Once we were officially stuffed we headed back to the boat. About half way back to the marina we stopped in the water to give Travis the opportunity to fish.....this attempt didn't work out too well.....

When we got back to the marina Poppy said there was a spot by the kayaks that was good for fishing. After he closed up the boat they headed over there to try and fish there. About a few minutes in Travis caught something! They reeled it in and it was a FLOUNDER! He was so excited but no surprise he didn't want to touch it! Poppy got it off the hook and threw it back in the water. A little while later he got another bite and this time it was a CRAB! Except as soon as it was out of the water the crab jumped off the hook and started running around on the dock. This is when Travis started yelling and jumping around to try and get away from the crab. Something tells me the crab was as scared of Travis as he was afraid of the crab! At some point he did catch another crab but this one never got out of the water. That is when they got tired of fishing and called to get picked up.

The next item on the agenda was going to the pool for a quick swim! Jamey and I took Travis over to the pool. He had a blast jumping in and showing Grammy/Jamey how he could swim. Well he doesn't swim but he paddles very nicely! Eventually we all got out of the pool and headed over to the Bait shop to get ice cream for the pie. This place was a little scary. Worms next to the milk and people smoking in the store. Good times! We had yummy bratwurst for dinner and we had some delicious blueberry pie for dessert! At one point after we ate Travis and Poppy went out back to play more golf. He has gotten a lot better in just the few days he has been here.

Fossil dig!

Fossils, wild ponies and the beach!

We started this very busy day with blueberry pancakes for breakfast. Yummy! Then the maids showed up and we got on the road. The first stop was the Aurora Fossil Museum. The town itself was dead quiet but the museum seemed to be the only place that had people in it! It was a nice little place with a bunch of fossils...shark, whale, spears etc. Travis was bouncing off the walls because he wanted TO DIG! Across the street from the museum was a large pit you could dig in. They had all kinds of fossilized shark teeth, coral, shells etc. I'm not sure how old the stuff in there was supposed to be but Travis was LOVING IT! He was all about digging and asking what each thing was. He found some teeth, shells and coral. Eventually we were able to pry him away and move onto our next destination.

Next we went over to Minnesott Beach to try to catch the ferry. Notice I said "try". Apparently the ferry service has had some problems lately and the next one wasn't for an hour and a half (normally they run every 30 min). Al (Evan's Dad) got a little lost to try to get to Beaufort. Just a little yelling in the car--lol. We eventually got to Beaufort at around the same time the ferry would have been picking us up at Minnesott Beach. Not too bad! We had lunch by the water and I think everyone had a great lunch. The places looked over the dunes where the wild ponies are. At one point we saw the ponies but they were tiny specks in the distance. You would really need them to be on the shore to see them and binoculars would have been helpful too. :)

After lunch we stopped for fudge and ice cream. We haven't eaten the fudge yet but I'm sure we will make a dent in it after dinner tonight. Then we headed over to the North Carolina Maritime Museum. Unfortunately you can't take pictures in most of the places in there but Travis had a great time checking out all of the boats etc. Everything was "cool". There was a cool boat he could sit in that you could take a picture in as well so that was the only picture there-lol.

We made it a few miles down the road to Atlantic Beach. Travis was beyond excited since we typically only go to the beach once a year! All of us headed down to the beach and Travis wanted in the water immediately! He got knocked over a few times but came up smiling every time it happened! Eventually it got too hot for us there and we packed up into the car to head back to the house.

Tomorrow should be another busy day! I think we are headed to the boat for a nice ride! Who knows what else we have planned.....

Not too shabby.,.....

On the road to Grammy and Poppy's!

We left around 7am today to get on the road for the 5+ hour drive. Thankfully this is about the time Travis goes to school so it wasn't too hard to get him going in the morning. After about an hour and a half on the road Evan couldn't stand Travis running his mouth anymore so we stopped for breakfast....for both breakfast and to give Travis his meds! :) We stopped at Chick Fil-A and that was exciting to Travis because of the playground and exciting to me since I love the Chicken Minis. When we piled back in the car Travis watched a bunch of movies. I think it was "Spongicus" and "Clone Wars". Once the movies were over-we were almost here!

Jamey, Travis and I headed into town to run a few errands and visit with the people down at the POG (Purpose of God). The POG is a religious based group and the people in his parents neighborhood volunteer over there all the time. Travis was there when he was a baby and they all wanted to see him again. The people that work there are all so nice. They have 57 kids in the daycare/summer camp type program there all run by a person the call "The Bishop". Travis wouldn't talk to anyone when we first got there but the Bishop won him over. Next thing I know he is getting candy and going back to the game room with him! The Bishop taught Travis how to play Foosball-Travis wasn't very good at first but he got the hang on it in the end! Later we went over to WalMart to pick up a few things and Travis asked for and got a mask and snorkel-he was so excited!

Travis opened his birthday gifts and got a VT/UVA checker set and a red Cypress Landing Yacht Club shirt with his name on it. The shirt is just like Al's so hopefully he will wear it on the boat tomorrow! After a great dinner of brisket, green beans, missy potatoes and fruit salad we took Travis out to the golf course to hit the ball on the 17th green. He loved it! It was his first time on an actual course. Video to come in another post. Hopefully he is going to sleep soon....full day tomorrow!

Lazy Sunday

Sunday was a cloudy day so we spent the entire day in the house. I did a ton of laundry-even all of the sheets! Travis watched a bunch of TV and played Legos as well. It feels good to get the laundry basket empty but of course it does get filled up eventually. Oh well. It’s nice when it does last. I spent the late afternoon packing everything for our trip down to North Carolina to visit Evan’s parents. We will be there Monday-Thursday of this week. Travis is very excited since we are going to take him fishing and he will get to ride on Poppy’s boat. Not sure which days we are doing which things but there will surely be blog entries about these adventures! Stay tuned. :)

Video of Travis being cute with Evan on the 4th

4th of July

Travis slept in until 9:30am which never happens but that is since he fell asleep around 11:30ish the night before because of the party. After having breakfast we decided to head over to the pool for a few hours. I have once again failed at bringing my camera to the pool however. One time this summer I will get some pool pictures I promise. Travis is getting better at swimming underwater-just need him to be able to swim better in general so we don’t have to watch him so closely. We will get there eventually.

Later that afternoon we headed over to Chris and Missy’s for a BBQ with them and Chris’s parents. The kids had a blast running around in the backyard and at one point were having a marching band in the backyard. Travis was the harmonica player-lol. It was very cute. Then later I heard a horn of some type and went to find out what it was….Travis had found Chris’ French horn and was playing it. He wasn’t half bad! I guess playing the tuba at Skippy’s last fall paid off!  Evan made his famous burgers (1/2 beef and ½ sausage) and everyone really liked them.

After we all ate we packed everyone up and headed over to Bready Park in Herndon to watch the fireworks. When we got there we realized there was a small carnival there for the 4th of July. Of course the kids all made a beeline for that but it was to be expected I guess. Once they came back the kids wanted something else to eat so Evan, Chris and his dad went to stand in the line. Now this line was the worst thing-it wasn’t really that long but it was incredibly SLOW! They were standing in line for probably 30 minutes? When Evan got back he said it was just one lady working it and she was slow. Yikes. The kids thankfully ate the various things that the boys brought back and then we were waiting some more for the fireworks. Finally at around 9:30 they said it was time for them to start and they turned off the lights. Of course they didn’t actually start until about 9:50 but they were pretty impressive. Travis liked the big ones the best and I liked the ones that looked like swarms of bees the best. Once the show was over we practically ran back to the car to try and beat the traffic. Well we got in the car, pulled out and didn’t move anywhere for about 20-25 minutes. I started to have Nissan Pavilion flashbacks. Finally the people started to move once the people trying to direct traffic let you turn either left or right. The hold up was the fact they were only letting people turn left out of the lot and going left was jammed solid. Travis fell asleep in the car again and was in bed around 11pm.

Video from Friday's fireworks......

1st day of vacation

Thankfully we took more than a week off for the holiday. The maid showed up at 8am and we had to get the house tidy and us dressed quickly so we could get out of her way. We all headed to “The Fractured Prune” for breakfast. I wanted to see what this place was all about. Basically it’s a donut place where they have all kinds of crazy flavors to choose from and they make them all fresh right then for you. The Carnival flavor was my favorite and Travis liked the Rolo one. It’s kind of expensive but nice for a treat-way better than Dunkin in my opinion. The original plan for the rest of the day was to spend most of the day at the pool but Mother Nature had different ideas. It was a cool day on Friday and the clouds just kept rolling in. At one point we even had some rain so instead of going to the pool we spent a good chunk of the day in the basement. Travis played video games and I did a few pages in my scrapbook.

Later in the day we got ready to head over to Traci and Mo’s for their annual 3rd of July block party. I have heard about this infamous party before but this was the 1st time we were invited. :) Mike, Chris, Knut and Andy were the main attraction at the party with their rock band “4 kinds of Meat”. It was kind of funny to see how nervous they all got before it was time for their set to begin……the neighborhood will never be the same-lol. A good time was had by all-Travis ran around like a mad man with Tommy and some of the other kids. When it was light out I had no problem keeping an eye on him but when it got dark it became a challenge. Though when it got darker the sparklers came out and boy were they a hit! The only issue was that Travis thought it was funny to fling them at people…..I had to make a quick stop to that. After the band played their last song it was time for the fireworks! I’m not sure where they got the fireworks but I am sure they weren’t legal. :) It was the best non-professional fireworks display I have ever seen! Travis spent the whole time in awe of the display with his hands on his ears of course. I will post a short video of this in another post as well. After that we let Travis play a little more and finally left around 11pm. Travis fell asleep in the car on the way home of course!

Very proud 2 star boy!

Travis got another green star at TKD yesterday! Master J LOVES his yelling/enthusiasam and that is why he got it. He was beaming from ear to ear. Then later in the class 2 kids were going to be chosen for a kicking contest to break a board. Travis and another kid were chosen for that and he broke the board! He was all smiles......I will get a pic of his new star soon. :)

Trip to the Capitol!

Yesterday we went on a tour of the Capitol. Well we were supposed to be touring the White House but the girl I sent the email to dropped the ball. She claims it was in her spam filter but Evan said there is no way my reply to her message was in a spam filter. Of course she finds it the day before we are supposed to do and it’s too late to send the White House our info for background checks etc. We will reschedule this soon of course but it was a little disappointing.

Travis was excited about riding the Metro but wasn’t a fan of how loud it was when it pulled into the station. His hands were on his ears for a good amount of time. Once we got there we met up with my parents, Mandy and Charlie. The tour itself was pretty interesting but we were bummed when they said the House and Senate were closed that day and would be open tomorrow. Of course we had passes to both of them-maybe on our next trip to DC (when we finally reschedule the White House tour). Evan was even more upset when he realized that Al Franken may have shown up today for the first time and he was hoping to see him be sworn –in. Oh well. Some other tour group will get lucky in that respect.

Travis went back with my parents and Mandy since sending him to school for about 3 hours before TKD seemed silly. At first he was upset for some reason about going with them but then realized he would have fun. They went out to lunch at Mike’s and took a trip to the toy store-I’m not sure who enjoys this more…..my Dad or Travis! :)Mandy took Travis to TKD and he did very well!