Johnny's 4th Birthday

We had Johnny's 4th birthday Party today at The Little Gym in Holly Springs. The theme was The Incredibles. Besides Thomas and Cars, Johnny really loves The Incredibles. It all started one day when we were eating lunch at Blimpies at the Fuquay Wal-Mart and Mr. Henry had The Incredibles DVD playing on the store TV. We owned the DVD, but the boys had paid it no attention. I replayed it for Johnny at home later that week, and he was hooked.

We were joined today by Madi, Eli, Grayson, Celeste, Delaney, Jonathan, and Steven. There were special guest appearances by Poppop, Aunt Debbie, Mr. Henry, and Mr. Don too. Mr. Corey, Ms. Molly, and the rest of the TLG staff really did a nice job of setting up the party room, leading the kids in both group and free play activities in the gym, and serving up birthday cake.

I ended up using eBay to find the cute party masks and rings. The cute red hats I found at Let's Celebrate at Hwy. 40/42. And, thankfully, our local HT still had the cake template in stock.

I bought a nice short sleeve The Incredibles shirt for Johnny, but it was TOO BIG, so mom used an iron and made one.

I have to mention that we all did miss Jacob and Timmy who were hopefully having fun going to the Air and Space Museum near Dulles Airport today while visiting their maternal grandparents on their way to Omaha.

Thanks to everyone who took time out of their weekend to come help us celebrate today. It was great to see everyone, and Johnny definitey had a blast. This is the first time he knew it was all about him, and you could tell he was delighted.

The rest of today's pics are here. Just scoot past the too low light Egret pics early on in the album.

Remembering...

The Vollmer Family headed out on their journey to Omaha today. It's really hard to see such good friends go. I thought I'd put up a few of my favorite and representative pics of all the good times we shared together while I'm trying to cope.

This is Joey and Jacob at the RLP Clifford class Christmas Party on 12/20/2005. Their love of trains and friendship basically started the ball rolling.

Even thought Johnny and Timmy weren't in preschool yet, they ended up spending a lot of time together because Joey and Jacob were having playdates and hanging out at the park. They're close in age with Johnny only being 6 months older, so they had some things in common and became attached too. Trains were also a common theme for them:-)

We got to do a lot of really cool things with the Vollmer Family like going to airshows that I never would have taken the kids to on their own. Of course there were many zoo trips, a few trips to the beach, and lots of local museums too!

And of course we got to meet a lot of other great, new friends too!

Not too many pictures of me and Patricia since we were always taking pictures of our kids or having our pictures taken with our kids, but Don managed to capture this moment at my 40th birthday party.

Some people come into your life that are truly wonderful and special and no matter how far away they live or what they move on to do, they always hold a special place in your heart. That's definitely the case here!

A Wonderful Surprise

Sometimes on Saturday I'm not sure what I want to do...believe it or not! The boys and I headed out midmorning, and I figured I'd get a coffee drink at Leapin' Lizards and the rest would somehow fall into place. The sky was REALLY pretty today with bright blue and wonderful white clouds. I sure wish the sky had been this way on our trip to Dad's house. Anyway, I decided to take a drive down John Adams Road and then down Norman Blalock Road. Norman Blalock is where the spooky old tree is. I was just hoping for some cool bird to be roosting on it's branches. However, what I found was this brilliant white bird in the pond next to the tree. Apparently, it's an egret, and he's a type of heron. Neat! So, the boys and I were enjoying watching the bird. Occassionally he'd bend forward to grab something from the water to eat. Next thing we knew, a white horse walked up to the pond to drink. I wasn't really even aware that there were horses nearby let alone that they had access to the tree/pond area. The white horse was followed by another mostly white horse and a brown horse. Neat! I figured the bird would fly off right way, but he wasn't bothered by the horses at all. They came, drank, and went back to the pasture, and the egret just kept walking around the pond. How neat is that? I was as close as the fence would let me. Enjoy...

The boys and I ended up running errands at ACM, Party City, Toys R Us, Kohl's and then going to Adventure Landing. We tried to go to Bullwinkles, but they were closed. The boys had a blast playing miniature golf and video games. Joey enjoyed climbing the climbing wall even though he wasn't able to scale it like he did at the fair last year. Both boys got on the go carts, and Johnny had a blast going around once, but then he stopped and hopped out and said he was done. Joey as you can see from his pics was leaning into the curves and having a blast. Anway, we found our something;-) We finished the day with Smithfield's...yum!

Here are the best pics, and here are all the pics.

Maryann's Weekend Nature Trail

Here are some nature shots I took on my way to/from Dad's house in Monroe, NC (Union County) this weekend. We took Hwy 64 out of Wake County to Hwy. 49 then used Mt. Pleasant Rd. to crossover to NC 200 to go to Reed Gold Mine and then down into Monroe. Normally, we'd get off I85 onto 601 or off Hwy 49 onto 601. The route we took this time is much more scenic and had little traffic lights or for that matter, traffic.

I believe the butterfly below is a Pipevine Swallowtail. It, along with the other yellow lantana shots below, were taken in Locust, NC (Stanly County) on 7/12/08. A Spicebrush Swallowtail has two rows of orange dots while the Pipevine Butterfly has one row of 7 orange dots. The praying mantis shot from the other day was a Spicebrush. I've learned that a Black Swallowtail is not necessarily a Black Swallowtail.





There were many types of butterflies and moths feeding on the yellow lantana that day. I took pics of all the larger varieties.





I think the butterfly below may be a Tawny Emporer.

And, the Hemaris Diffinis moth was also present on the lantana.

Sunflowers near Reed Gold Mine in Cabarrus County.

The Pisgah Covered Bridge in Randolph County (think not far from the NC Zoo).

We saw some other neat things like a good view of the Rocky River at a large bridge crossing on NC 200. It was fun. All these stops and sites kept me awake on the ride.

The rest of the weekend shots are here and here.

Poppop

A few of the pictures I took of the boys with Poppop this weekend. The outside fireplace shots were taken at the Lone Star Steakhouse in Monroe. The other shots were taken in Dad's living room. Johnny just loved the rocking chair, so when he wasn't in Dad's lap, he was in it.

Reed Gold Mine

The boys and I took a trip to Reed's Gold Mine on Saturday on our way to Poppop's house. It's kindof on the way to his house. We took Hwy. 64 to Hwy. 49, went through Mt. Pleasant, and got on NC 200. We had a good time walking in an actual mine tunnel, touring the museum, strolling the property, and panning for gold. I did find a speck of gold in my pan, and they put it in a plastic vial filled with water. You can almost see it if you look hard enough;-) Joey was fascinated with the ore cars (think Thomas mine tunnel) and even asked the tour guide a question. Johnny loved panning, um playing in water.

The rest of the pics are here.

Cow Appreciation Day

Chick-fil-A held their anual Cow Appreciation Day this past Friday (July 11th). If you came into Chick-fil-A dressed as a cow, you got a free meal. It's no secret that the boys and I like Chick-fil-A, so I talked the family into dressing up and getting a free meal. I had a cow costume that a wore at Halloween a few years ago. Their website had some cow cut-outs that I used to dress up the boys. And, of course, Joey had to wear his Chick-fil-A Party Animal shirt. They let us order what we wanted, so Rick and I each got a #1 combo, Johnny got a kid's meal, and Joey got a pickleless sandwich and a drink. Yum and free! And, yes, a few people stared, especially at me, but hey, where is their cow spirit anyway?!?

The rest of the pics are here.