Happy Thanksgiving La la la

October ended as all Octobers since the kids made their appearance into our world, with a HUGE pile of candy even AFTER I have gone through the bags and discarded all the obvious tubes of sugar like pixie sticks – actual tubes of sugar, every mother’s nightmare.  I sent Jim into work on November 1^st with the offending confections.  When he asked me what he should do with it, I told him to put the pixie sticks by the coffee.  Maybe someone would use it as the sweetener.  Whatever works, as long as it is out of the house!!

The girls barely had a chance to turn around before they were off and running – literally!  Plew Elementary School has a run for Fundz every fall the first week of November.  Both did a great job of raising pledges, collecting their pledges and of course the run itself!! 

Up next was a visit from Jim’s parents for the weekend.  We got to go to the USMC Ball and they got to spend time with the kids.  I am pretty sure I got the better end of that arrangement, but I am sure they would beg to differ.  Although as quickly as they pulled out of the driveway on Sunday morning, maybe not!  HA HA HA

damn the iPhone flash!

Lilly’s birthday was the following weekend, but since we didn’t have birthday parties for the other two this year, I didn’t feel that it would be fair to give one to Lilly.  Jim really tried to talk me out of this.  The more I looked at that pile of candy that could have been stuffed into a pinata and more importantly taken to other people’s homes in goody bags, the more I really was regretting that I was taking a stand against the birthday party.  But stand I did.  I have recently become addicted to Pinterest like many others (don’t worry, no names, you know who you are).  At any rate, I had stumbled upon something cool and different for Lilly to take into school as her birthday snack.  Behold the Rainbow Slushy!

Of course wouldn’t you know it; the weather changed the day we brought the slushys in.  The day before it was in the mid to upper 70’s and the day of – 50’s!  But the kids didn’t care.  They loved it!  I didn’t get to stick around after the birthday song, There was a cake cutting ceremony on base.  Look!  An F-35!!  No, not a Marine Corps F-35 (sigh).  Maybe next month.  I just hope we get one here before we leave.

Now to keep with the Wellons’ family tradition of OVER celebrating birthdays, we took off for Panama City for the weekend.  Jim said it was to celebrate Lilly’s birthday, but I think it was more likely since we are within the 3 month window of the move, we needed to scratch off some things on our Florida Panhandle Bucket list.  So Panama City here we come!!  We decided to go to the beach to go shelling.  Jim doesn’t really like this activity, but lucky for me the kids do.  We found TONS!  I actually found my third, fourth and fifth scotch bonnet EVER!  Scotch Bonnets are North Carolina’s state shell and are IMPOSSIBLE to find.  I found 3 within 15 minutes!  I was in heaven.  We also squeezed in some pool time.  And then some quality Leappad time.  Shameless plug – They love that thing.  2 thumbs WAY WAY up.  We still have the leapster explorer and a DS so there is marginal fighting over who gets what super cool gaming toy.  They have it so hard.

Lunch was at Margaritaville.  I know what you are thinking, that isn’t typically a hot spot for 7 year olds to celebrate their birthday.  I have a sneaking suspicion that Jim may or may not have implied there would be parrots there.  Just for the record, there aren’t.  But there is a big giant Birthday Sundae.  It made up for it.

We also had time to do a little bungee jumping.  WHAT!  I go get the car and by the time I get across the parking lot, Jim has been talked into bungee jumping, well not him, but the kids.

I forgot to take pictures of Lucy’s turn because I basically suck as a parent, but I did get a video, which I did not get of the other two (again the whole suckiness thing).  But let’s move on shall we.  Positive thoughts people, positive thoughts!

We also had a rematch at the bowling alley.  The last time we bowled I beat Jim – handily!  This time, Jim won.  Ben was a close second.  Check out that form guys!

Has this day not ended yet!  They have been going at it for HOURS!!  What else can else can they possibly cram into this day?  Oh I know, how about more sugar!  Once we got home we sang Happy Birthday (again) and we brought out her actual birthday cake.  It was a Rainbow cake; another Pinterest find (is it really a problem if you know it is a problem.  Yes, I do hear what I am saying but now I am not so sure which voice to listen to anymore).

Can you believe we are only 12 days into November at this point in the recap?  I just want to skip to the end.  Next up Thanksgiving!!  We have a tradition of singing "Happy Thanksgiving La La La" in this family.  Thanks to the creepy Hallmark e-card from forever ago.  Last year I stumbled upon a HUGE cardboard cutout of the girl chef holding the turkey platter and quicker than you can say Dum De Dum, I had that thing in my car!!  SCORE!!! Jim would argue that with you - he isn't a fan.  Well of course I broke her out of the attic on the 1st day of November!!  So we had twenty four some odd days of hearing her click clack around singing "Hi there!  Brought you a turkey" because of course I have brainwashed the kids into loving it too!  The tradition lives!!

Ben had his program.  He did a great job!  We were thankful that it was during the day this year.  Last year Lucy's Pre-school program was at night - did not work out so well for us.  But that is a different story for a different time. 
Lucy also her day on stage.  Isn't she cute!!  They had a "First Thanksgiving" for the Kindergarten.  The meal consisted of seeds, cranberry sauce, apple juice and popcorn.  Who knew!  Apparently the Indians taught the Pilgrims how to pop corn.  All those years of watching Charlie Brown trying to feed his friends popcorn for Thanksgiving and I didn't know I was ACTUALLY learning history!! 

Not to be outdone, Lilly also had a solo.  Well technically Lilly’s was for Veteran’s day, but it fit better here, so I am taking a liberty – sue me.

Nanny came into town to celebrate Thanksgiving with us for a WHOLE WEEK!  That silly woman, will she never learn.  Seriously, we loved having her here, especially me.  I am seriously lacking in the adult female 1:1 face time.  That and she is super funny so it was a win-win really. 

We really didn’t have a “plan” for Thanksgiving.  I know you find that hard to believe after reading this blog but it is true.  All that was getting ready to change.  My husband operates by the motto of “which alligator is closest to the boat”.  That being said, he wakes up Sunday morning and proclaims we are going to have a pot luck at our house.  Oh really!  Who is coming?  We don’t know.  So after a quick poll EVERYONE already has plans!  Can you believe it?  5 days out and everyone already has plans.  SHOCKING but true.  Well, we end up horning our way in on some families from the Squadron.  Only kidding of course, but kind of true.  I hope we didn’t totally mess up their Thanksgiving. 

Saturday after Thanksgiving we drug everyone down to see Santa!!

Of course there is one week left in the month, but THANKFULLY it was uneventful.  Or maybe I am getting carpal tunnel syndrome and my wrists are about to fall off from typing.  It is hard to say.

The Lazy Days of October - not so much

Here it is October – HOW DID THAT HAPPEN!!!  Before I sat down to organize my thoughts I was under the impression that October was a pretty lame month.  Nothing really jumped out at me until I looked through the monthly pictures.  WOW!  Could we have crammed more into 31 days.  This should not be a shocking revelation considering who I am married to (his nickname within my family is Julie – as in Julie the cruise director from Love Boat).  So walk with me down short-term memory lane.

Up first was a quick trip to Seaside Beach.  After the scalloping debacle, I decided that I really wanted to attend the Seaside Community Yard Sale.  Jim had other plans, namely the Seafood Festival in Destin.  After a few tense moments in the car, we decided we would attempt to do both.  The yard sale was fun, got a pretty cool dress for next to nothing and a quick trip to the beach.  The beaches here are AWESOME!!!  Stand by, this picture maybe on the Christmas card this year.

The Seafood Festival – was pretty typical.  Lots of people wandering around on the street eating fried seafood – YAWN!.  One week down 4 to go. 

Ben got to visit the Pumpkin Patch!  He was so excited!!  He finally feels like he is a big boy.  I have been to this pumpkin patch for two years with the girls but it felt like I was experiencing it again for the first time.  If you ever need a pick-me-up, go to a pumpkin patch with a bunch of hyper 3 year olds.  We don’t pay his teachers enough!!

Next weekend found us tripled booked!  First up was our neighborhood yard sale.  Generally I am morally opposed to putting on a yard sale, but we are moving in a few months and I REALLY REALLY REALLY need to get rid of some stuff.  So you do what you got to do, am I right?

The yard sale was slow, but nothing that went on the chopping block came back into the house – Thank you Bargain Box for taking our “donation”!!  We hustled over to Fort Walton beach to hit a birthday party at the skating rink.  Now none of my children have skating rink experience.  I found them some skates last year and they have had fun cruising on the sidewalks and lawn, but nothing could have prepared them for the music, lights and 100 other skaters that the rink presented.  I LOVE to roller skate!!  LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!!  I almost had my mom send me my skates from high school, but I didn’t want to seem to eager.  At first I was not planning on even donning skates but after a few laps around the room and a couple of pleading looks from the girls I was hooked.  Lilly, the perfectionist that she is, was really concentrating on not falling or getting run over.  Lucy, the dare devil, was too busy rocketing off to care if she fell or ran over anyone.  It took a bit more to get Ben on the rink, but he finally decided he liked it.

After our excursion to the skating rink, we decided to take the kids putt putting.  There is an old mini golf (and I do mean vintage) place that was holding it’s anniversary celebration and so who were we to not go right?  It wasn’t pretty.  Lilly did really well.  She and Jim were taking it seriously.  Me and the other two: not so much.  I even hit it across the highway barely missing several cars in the process.

The next stop on this crazy ride is New Orleans!!!  We are taking this show on the road!!  But of course we can just drive to New Orleans, we had to make a pit stop in Pensacola to the Air Museum for a retirement ceremony and of course for the kids to run around and hopefully tire themselves out before more driving.  Jim went to the actual ceremony while the kids and I stayed in the playground area.  That is until we were asked to leave!  There were several groups of children running all over this mock up of a carrier deck and doing what children do – have fun- LOUDLY.  Apparently they had too much fun and our noise was carrying over to other areas and disturbing not only the retirement ceremony, but also to where a WW II veteran was giving a presentation.  So we got the boot!  No problem, we just went outside and ran around the displays with the other evicted children.

Finally we were able to get everyone back in the car and started towards New Orleans.  Unfortunately I forgot the DVDs.  We were facing the prospect of a 3 hour drive with no on board movies!  Then I remembered Redbox.  Thank goodness for REDBOX!

 We made it to New Orleans and made a bee line to the trolleys and to get some beignets at Café du Monde.  Lilly was in heaven!!  You can’t tell from the picture, but there is powdered sugar ALL OVER THE TABLE!  Piles of it.  It is a good thing the beignets were so good, because the wait was hellish.

Here we are taking in the sights at Jackson park, what you don’t see in this picture are the groups of people lying on the grass all over the place.  I don’t know if Jackson park is just a good place to grab a nap or if these people were claiming dibs for later.  But it was a little strange.  Even the children clued into why all these people were just lying around.

We ended up on Bourbon Street at some point with Hurricanes in our hands.  We needed it, I don’t know if a Hurricane ever tasted so good.  I was worried about what we would see on Bourbon Street, but since it was still early, we thought we were safe.  We should have known better.  We passed several questionably dressed (and undressed) people wandering up and down the street.  Of course we could hardly judge since we were still holding our Hurricanes as we wheeled the kids in the stroller down the street.  We were in good company though – lots of other families doing the exact same thing!!

The next morning we hit the Audubon Insectarium.  Typically I am not a fan of creepy crawly things if they are inside my house.  Outside, sure they are great.  Important part of the food chain, most bio-diverse of all animals on the planet, blah blah blah.  I got it.  Still insects are not my cup of tea.  I must say it is a really well thought out and displayed museum.  There is one exhibit that displays what life is like underground that has a trap door spider hidden in it and it jumps out at you if you step on the pressure sensitive floor plates.  I have never seen Lucy and Ben move so fast as to get away from it.  Lilly on the other hand kept setting it off.  No doubt the best part was the Butterfly room.  Hundreds of free flying butterflies and moths in a room.  The girls were in heaven.

Afterwards we headed out to the City Park.  Jim had read in his trusty travel book that it was a “must see”, so of course we went.  The park is HUGE!  We drove around it just to get a feel for the place thinking that we would stop, let the kids burn off some energy at one of the traditional play structures, then we saw Storyland, a little fairytale playground filled with play structures from classic stories.

The kids were running around from one to the next until they spotted the amusement park right next store!  Jim was able to get Lilly and Ben to ride the Ferris Wheel with him, Lucy said NO WAY.  She chose to ride the antique carousel instead.  It is so funny the things that make her balk.  Typically she is full on, but she if she is not sure about something, it is not going to happen!  Lilly and Ben are much more susceptible to pressure to try things.  God help us when they become teenagers!! 

One thing that occurred to us while we were at the amusement park was almost without exception everyone (men, women and children) was dressed in New Orleans Saints paraphernalia.  We had noticed it downtown near the stadium, but it was very apparent at the park.  Since we were one of the few people not celebrating the fact that the Saints had a home game against the Colts later that day, our status as tourist was all but cemented.

Our weekend in New Orleans complete, we headed back to Niceville to prepare for HALLOWEEN!!!  Of course our kids love Halloween.  What kid doesn’t?  I really wanted the kids to dress up as The Cat in the Hat and Thing 1 and Thing 2.  How cute would that have been?  Not to mention easy to pull together.  Of course that idea was shot down in record time.  Sigh.  Next I tried a group idea – the Scooby Doo Gang.  I thought Ben would make a fabulous Fred.  We call him Fred all the time anyway so for once he couldn’t grumble “my name is not Fred”.  Lilly could be Daphne, Lucy – Velma.  I really wanted to be Velma, but if I could talk them into it – I would be Scooby!  That left Shaggy for Jim.  I figured that would be the toughest sale.  Jim doesn’t “do” dressing up for Trick or Treat.  If there is a party to go to, he is all in, but just to escort our children around the neighborhood, not so much.  Well it didn’t matter because the children vetoed all my ideas!  I thought about dressing up as Velma anyway, but if you have a Velma and no Gang, you are just a strange women dressed in red and orange sporting knee highs and glasses. 

But before we could get to the main event we had a few more activities, namely Lucy’s field trip to the Pumpkin Patch and the Kindergarten Costume Parade, not to mention two school parties!! 

Lucy got to go to the Pumpkin Patch last year as a Pre-Schooler, so she was dialed in on what would happen.  Basically they do a craft, listen to a story, do a sink or swim game, pick out a mini pumpkin then they turn them loose to explore the pumpkins.  Unfortunately not all the children in her class had her wealth of patch knowledge.  There were kids running around all over that place!

The morning of Halloween Lilly decided that her loose tooth HAD to come out.  We had tried to pull it the night before, but she chickened out after a few twists.  I don’t know why she let me do it again that morning, but before breakfast she had one less tooth in her mouth!  I told her she could stay home tonight and be our Jack o’ Lantern.  She did not think it was as funny as I did.  The Tooth Fairy was going to be able to just walk around tonight without even a second glance.  She must love Halloween!

Lucy decided to dress up as Batgirl for Halloween.  She wanted to wear it to the parade, but I could just see that coming home all torn up and then she would be a grump for Trick or Treating.  I may have been born at night, but it wasn’t last night sister!  I talked her into being just a bat.

Finally we get to Halloween!! The kids picked out there costumes. Ben was a “motorbike driver”,Lucy Batgirl and Lilly was Cleopatra; although if you ask her she would say an Egyptian Queen. All night her wig kept slipping down her back. I tried to get her to take it off but she said no one would know who she was. I told her that was funny since SHE didn’t even know who she was!

We cruised the neighborhood and came home with WAY too much candy.  This is the first year that we actually had candy left in our bowl at the end of the night.  We usually just leave the bowl sitting on the porch with a sign that asks the children to be nice and only take a few pieces and leave some for everyone.  Up until last year, upon our return even the bowl would be gone!  Now I have to come up with a way to get all the extra candy out of the house.  I am thinking of crushing them up and making some type of candy/cookie/brownie thingy that will promptly be taken to someone else’s house!!

Disney World AGAIN?

Yes, that isn’t a typo, we did indeed visit Disney World (again) for Labor Day.  It really is a great time to go.  Hot, but not crowded AT ALL!!  We had two days left on our tickets from February and you know how much Jim loves to give Mickey his money (ha ha ha).  The whole way down to Orlando I got to hear those familiar words “We are NEVER coming again.” Until the next time that is. 

Of course the kids loved it.  Ben and Lucy were finally tall enough for us to ride many of the rides as a family which is nice.  Of course being tall enough to ride and having the desire to ride are two vastly different things.  Lilly, as always, was game for all the roller coasters.  We decided on Animal Kingdom, EPCOT and Blizzard Beach.  Magic Kingdom had my vote, but with all the construction going on in Fantasyland and Pixie Hollow not open yet, the kids wanted to go back to Animal Kingdom.  Sigh.

it's a Bug's Life

I am not sure why we continue to go into this attraction.  Lucy and Ben DO NOT like it at all.  Oh they say they do until the lights go off and the characters start moving around.  Then Lucy starts shaking and Ben starts crying.  The fun really starts when the bug shoots acid (water) at the crowd and those two dissolve into hysterics, ahh good times.

We had another Princess meal.  Ben was not happy about that until that is his girlfriend, Snow White, showed up.  He loves her!  I mean as soon as she walked around the corner he bust out with the biggest smile.  When I mentioned to Snowy that she was Ben’s favorite she said she already had a boyfriend.  Ben didn’t seem to care as long as he got a kiss.  He was totally going for the lips when she pull a fast one and zeroed in for the forehead.

Basking in his after kiss glow

It was a short trip, but as usual the kids made the most of it.  I don’t think Mickey will be seeing us once we leave Florida.  But as my father always says “Never say never.”

September was full of typical schooly things.  Lucy was awarded the student of the week and we got to see her board because she was fortunate enough to snag the coveted week of Open House. 

She is finding her groove in Kindergarten and is adjusting nicely.  Every day she comes home totally psyched about something she learned.

Lilly too is enjoying herself.  Although she has a lot more “work” to do she seems to be up for the challenge.  Right now her biggest hurdles to date are to improve her reading  skills and slowing down to do her work right the first time!

Their teachers just love them!  I am getting to spend more time in both the classrooms volunteering for several different things throughout the week.

Lilly lost her right front tooth this month.  It has been loose since this summer!  Finally she bit into something hard enough to snap one of the roots and it was basically just dangling in her mouth.

Here she is having fun twisting it with her tongue grossing everyone out.  She finally let me pull it.

Now her bottom left incisor is threatening to fall out and the top left is starting to loosen up too.  Thankfully her new teeth seem to push through almost overnight.  I told her she could be a jack o'latern for Halloween with all that empty space in her mouth.

In addition to all the regular school work, we found time to do a bit of camping!  We were somehow able to talk another unsuspecting family to join us (evil laugh inserted here).  Originally we were going to have Marie, one of their daughters who is Lilly’s age, spend the night.  We tried to do this earlier in the summer, but we could not make it happen.  Then Jim decides to throw a twist into the plan by making it a camping trip.  Well Marie had not ever had a sleep over before, so her parents wisely decided that her father, Chris, would come with us to camp.  They had a ball!  Somehow we ended up with only Ben in our tent and that was only because we told him he could not stay in the other one.  NOT HAPPY!!  The next morning the men had a hard time getting the firewood to catch so we used the old stand by method – Lighter fluid!

Everyone survived and thankfully I didn’t lock the keys in the truck this time.  But don’t think I didn’t have the extra set on my person at all times.  Painful take away lesson from our last camping experience.

The next morning after saying goodbye to Chris and Marie we headed east to St. Joe’s Bay to do a little scalloping.  Apparently it is the scalloping capital of the world.  I remember our neighbors in Tampa doing it several times and just raving about how much fun it was and how many scallops there were.  Another Marine in Jim’s squadron had done it the weekend before and he pretty much sealed our fate by his descriptions.  He didn’t know it at the time, but Jim left out some vital information before selling this plan for the day to us.  But I don’t want to get ahead of myself.

We set off after a not so early start and drove an hour to Port St. Joe.  Jim doesn’t have directions per say, but how hard can it be right?  We did find the campground/marina that his co-worker had told him about and the children all piled out of the car eager to start scalloping.

We wandering around the shallows for about 30 minutes not entirely sure what we were supposed to be doing, but one thing we weren’t doing was picking up scallops.  Valiant effort made, Jim said he wanted to try another location.  So we got back in the car and drove another 15 minutes to another spot.  Again we came up with no scallops.  We did see lots and lots of crabs however.

Off to another site.  Jim stopped and got some super secret, locals only information that led us to another spot where we were rewarded with several sites of parchment worms and horseshoe crabs.  No scallops.

So we go back to where we started, the campground/marina to get some more super secret locals only knowledge which leads us back close to where the first insider tip had us.  This time the guy said it was a NO FAIL location.  The scallops are beginning to take on mythical proportions by now.  It is getting onto to noon and I am stuck in the truck with 3 wet, stinky, hungry children who have stopped caring about this animal they have never even seen before and are certainly not going to eat.  Morale was low.

But I digress.  The super secret tip is to go down this dirt road off of the main road (trouble already) that leads to the fire tower.  As Jim is telling me this, warning bells are going off in my head, but there is no use reasoning with him.  His eyes have long ago glazed over and I can tell we are GOING TO GET A SCALLOP IF IT IS THE LAST THING WE DO, which it may be.

So we find the road and we start down to the fire tower.  What the marina guy fails to mention is that you can’t drive down to the fire tower, you have to walk.  So off go Jim and his 3 complaining grumbling hungry helpers.  I said I would catch up because I wanted to lay the wet towels out on the fence to try to dry them up a bit.  Almost immediately Ben comes running back.  Apparently the fire tower is not just around the corner – more like a half mile walk through a horsefly infested trail.  Lilly isn’t far behind.  Lucy is determined to follow her dad and actually makes it to the fire tower before returning to the truck after being unable to find Jim.

About 45 minutes later here comes Jim around the bend with his 5 gallon bucket.  Just by the way he was carrying the bucket I knew that it wasn’t full – by a long shot.  But he did return victorious – 2 SCALLOPS!!  Which we promptly threw back in the water after we returned to the campground for a shower.

On the way home, he was plotting his return the next weekend with the proper equipment needed for his new venture as a commercial fisherman.  All I know is that equipment was not going to include me or the kids!  Needless to say, he didn’t make it back to Port St. Joe’s.