Thursday, October 30, 2008

Back from the Sunshine State

We arrived home last night from out adventures in the sunshine state. After picking up Beckham from school last Thursday we headed to Tampa to visit Grandma and Grandpa Watkins. The kids had a great tie and we packed a lot into our short visit. We went to the Fun Center, a museum, saw some of Monte's high school friends, went to Grandma's school carnival and even made it to the beach. We originally went to look in the tide pools but since it was high tide we couldn't. The kids ended up on the beach. Unfortunately we hadn't planned on them going in the water (no suits, no change of clothes and no towels) but that didn't stop them. They got wet in their clothes but they had a good time. Which is all that matters but that is hard to remember as a parent as you are trying to think of how you are going to get your wet kids home in the car. You should have seen Beckham trying to jump the waves. He had a ball. Ainsley didn't care too much for the waves but enjoyed looking for birds and digging in the sand. There are many other stories from our trip but I don't have time to blog about them now. I'll blog more about Disney and other stories later. In the mean time here are a few pictures from the Tampa portion of our trip.
Pirate Ainsley at the Fun Center


Jaws!!

Spider man was at the Campbell Park Carnival.



Grandma and Beckham wading in the waves

Ainsley birdwatching

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Welcome back

A few months ago a friend of mine, the women I had been training with moved. Due to her husband's job she moved back. Yea! On Wednesday I started doing her workouts again and it was a rude awakening. I had been working out the whole time she was gone but I quickly realized it just wasn't the same. After Wednesday's workout I was sore until today! Yep - it took 4 days to be able to walk, go down the stairs, and sit down without pain. I wasn't going to blog about being sore but tonight when I put Ainsley to bed she said, "Mommy my legs are sore from our walk." I guess she got that from me because all weekend all she heard was - ouch, don't touch my legs their sore, don't sit on my lap my legs hurt, ouch my legs (as I walk down the stairs or sit down). Even though it's not fun being sore it makes me happy because it means my friend is back in town and it means progress is being made. Pain is weakness leaving the body right??

Silly Sayings

So I was putting Beckham to bed tonight and he asked - Mom how do I sleep tight? I guess a few nights I said, "Good night, sleep tight." Knowing Beckham he has probably been pondering this for a few days and couldn't figure out how to sleep tight so finally asked. I told him "It was an old saying and to be honest I didn't know where it started or what it means. It's just something people say at night. I probably about having a good night sleep." His reply - "If you don't know look it up on the computer." Smart kid. I guess after I post this blog I'll be doing a little research on what "Good night, Sleep tight" actually means. If you know feel free to post the answer in the comments section because knowing me I'll forget to post the answer and I am sure all of you faithful readers are dying to know the origin of the saying.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

In case you were wondering

what 100 pounds of apples looks like...



So cute!


Ainsley had a ball

Grammy Keeks, Poppy and the kiddos


Beckham trying to lift the bucket full of apples. He told me blueberries were easier to pick because they weren't as heavy.

The Kids and I


Monday, October 13, 2008

Down on the Farm

Fall is in the air, well not really considering it was warm enough to wear shorts today but we are trying to get into the fall spirit. The kids and Monte had off today for Columbus Day (bank holidays are so much better now that Monte works for a bank). If you ask Beckham about Columbus Day he'll tell you all about it. He can tell you how Columbus thought the world was flat and discovered it was round, he can tell you the names of the ships, and all about Columbus. Beckham always gets caught up at the end of the story. He'll tell you that when Columbus landed he thought it was India but he really discovered Bank of America. I guess he hears us talk about the bank too much!!

Back to my original post - Since everyone had the day off we decided to go to a pumpkin patch. We really wanted to pick our own pumpkin not just from a field of already picked pumpkins (like last year). I was told about this farm about 30 minutes away that lets you pick your own and they have a hayride. So, we decided to give it a try. When we got there we had a little bit of time to kill until our friends got there so we walked around. This farm was so neat. It really focused on educating the kids (and adults). There were different trails and mazes you could wander through. You stop at different points to answer nature questions or do activities (jump rope, potato sack races, leap frog). The kids really enjoyed it and learned a lot about the animals in North Carolina. The farm had plenty of picture opportunities where you could stick you face through wood cut outs - which we love. There were slides, swings, toy tractors and dump trucks in a sand box (Beckham's favorite), mazes, hay rides, and much more. We had a lot of fun and the kids did too!! Their pumpkins were a little small this year due to the weather but we had a good time. Beckham's favorite maze was the one through the blackberry field. You had to wander around finding all the wood cut outs of animals that eat the farmer's crops (rabbits, snails, deer, etc). We'll go back to the farm again next year. It was very educational and fun!! The only bummer was Ainsley twisted her ankle while climbing on some of the hay bales.

The Fam

The goat, sheep and horse


Crazy scarecrow drives


Jumping on hay having a ball

Slide at the end of one of the mazes

Corn stock tee pee

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

20 pounds down....

...19 to go. Unfortunately I don't mean my weight. I wish I was 20 pounds lighter but no, I am referring to apples.

The kids and I went to my parents this weekend because they didn't have school on Friday. On Friday we decided to go apple picking. I need to preface that before leaving home Monte joke with me about having fun apple picking but not to come home with 40 pounds of apples. He said it thinking - I'm going to give her an outrageous number so she gets my point of not coming home with a ton of apples. On the day of apple picking we got a little carried away. We try and go apple picking every year (except for last year when the orchard was out of apples) and I usually pick too many. In past years the apples have always been small and at the top of the trees. Luckily I'm tall so I could reach the ones everyone else couldn't. The orchard we went to this year had so many apples. They were low enough for the kids to pick. The apples were also huge in comparison to every other orchard I've been to. So we picked and picked and picked. We were having so much fun and the kids were having a ball. Ainsley was so funny she would find an apple and tell everyone "I found the perfect apple". She's pick it and then 2 minutes later she would say "I found the perfect apple". Needless to say we found a lot of perfect apples. Beckham had fun but once he picked a few bags he had more fun making sure we were following the rules. He was very concerned that we did not go beyond the ropes that said - No picking beyond this point. Any time any of us got close to the line he would make sure we knew not to cross it.

After picking a bunch of bags we head to the front to pay. At this orchard you don't pay per pound you pay per bag. The bags were $3.50 a bag. We figured since they were 3.50 a bag the bags were probably held about 5 pounds of apples. We counted up our bags and we had 10 (well, really 11 but that's another story). We made it back to "His Way Inn" (AKA my parents lake house) and unloaded the apples. As we were taking them out we commented that it looked like a lot of apples. Out of curiosity mom weighed one of the bags and it was 9.8 pounds!! That means we picked over 100 pounds of apples!!! Luckily Uncle Kirk and Aunt Jeannie were in town so we gave some to them, we gave some to my dad's sister, some to a friend, and some to mom's women's Bible Study. After splitting the remaining apples with mom I went home with 39 pounds. There was no way I was going to bring home a single ounce over 40 pounds especially after Monte joked about picking too many and not coming home with a crazy amount of apples like 40 pounds.

Since getting home I've made a huge batch of apple sauce, 2 large apple cakes (I used almost twice as many apples as it called for), apple pie, and of course we have all been eating apples for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Luckily these are really good apples. They are very juicy and the kids seem to love them. Good thing because they have to eat another 5 pounds each. I love that they are so big because it means less peeling when cooking with them (luckily I have the Pampered Chef apple peeler, corer, slicer) Even though we will be eating apple for the next few weeks we had a great time. We only wished Monte could be there.

I'll post pictures once mom or dad emails me some (hint, hint). I didn't have my camera but they got a bunch of good pics.