Weekend Activities

We had a fun, but very busy weekend here. On Friday night I took Amanda out to see Star Trek in IMAX 3D. I was a little skeptical since I'm more of a traditional Star Trek fan, but it was quite good. Seeing it in 3D was really something. I spent most of Saturday painting. While Noah and I listened to and watched the Indians game the girls took a long walk with Oreo. Later, we went to see the finals for the NCAA Division II baseball tournament. There we saw the University of Tampa whoop up on Minnesota State. There were fireworks at the end, which Noah didn't think too much of. We got to see a few unique things at this game:

1. There was about a 15 minute delay because some of the lights went out.
2. We got to see a great dogpile when Tampa squeezed the last out
3. Some of the fireworks went off sideways and started a small fire in the landscaping behind the right field wall

Overall, it was a great time. Noah and his friend Nathan hung out and didn't watch much baseball. Nevertheless, they had fun. Lily and Rachel enjoyed getting their faces painted too.

A "selfie" Lily took in the car

Lily's flower just before demolition

Of course, this made for a late bedtime, but it was worth it. Everyone slept in this morning. We had breakfast, had a fine time at church, and then came home. I did more painting and the girls took another walk. Noah stuck with the whole game even though the Indians got bludgeoned today (final score 11-3).

Amanda suggested we have a family movie night, which we all embraced wholeheartedly. We watched the Karate Kid. Noah got really excited when Daniel landed the fateful kick on Johnny's chin.

I'm glad that I have the kitchen ready to be painted when the painters come on Wednesday, but it was still a lot of work. I did the trim to save us a lot of money. At their suggestion, I did it before they put color on the walls so I could be messy with the paint. I still have to paint the doors in the kitchen hallway, but I have made terrific progress. I think I'm ready to go back to work tomorrow so I can rest.

Date Night

In an effort to stay connected to Lily I am trying to make a regular practice of going out for coffee after dance class. It didn't work last week when the cafe closed at 8:00, so this week we went to our local Starbucks. As offensive as I find most things about Starbucks (there was an ad on the board asking for meat for the Carolina Tiger Rescue - if you hit a deer with your car give them a buzz!), it is a good place to hang out. We got a couple of hot cocoas, split a cinnamon roll, and played some Mancala.

Lily won the first game pretty handily. I think we tied the next, I won, then we tied. Finally, I won the last game. She had some master plan to beat me, but I foiled it. She is pretty good at that game and is ready for bigger challenges. We need to play more chess and backgammon. I think it's also time to get her into cards. Hopefully she can be the Cribbage partner I have longed for all these years. We will start with Crazy-8s and various flavors of Rummy though.

We had a nice time. I'm finding that it gets harder and harder to connect to Lily as she gets older. I can hardly talk about High School Musical with her, nor do I want to. This has been fun so far.

Date Knight

Our local Chick-Fil-A restaurants had a special evening yesterday. They had "mommy-son date knight." They decorated all the restaurants with a medieval theme, took reservations, and had table service. They had crafts and cupcakes to decorate. Noah said it was the "best date ever." That's saying something for him.

Meanwhile, I took Lily out to eat some fried shrimp. We split a large meal and it was still way too much food. I'm pretty sure that I could have easily fed Noah with it too. We finished with yogurt at Sweet Frog, which is always a hit. I tried to talk her into pie at the restaurant, but she was set on yogurt. That's my girl!

Amanda and Noah even got back later than we did. That's how much fun they had at the restaurant. I heartily endorse any promotion that they have. I plan to take Lily the next time they have a daddy-daughter date night.

Babysitting

We helped out our friends the Stansberrys by watching their three kids Friday night. We also did a babysitting swap with the McKenzies for Valentine's Day, so we had Brenna here as well. If you're keeping score, that means we had a total of six children in our house.

I got some Little Caesar's Pizzas and baked some leftover cookie dough from Thursday night. Everyone seemed to enjoy the food and after some pretty crazy running around, the kids settled into their places. The youngest was 3 year-old Katie Stansberry, who ended up watching Cinderella with Amanda and me. The others ended up playing video games in the basement.

Of course, the evening had a few incidents. I had to rescue 6 year-old Ben after he got himself stuck on my pull-up bar. Katie managed to climb up onto the pool table and couldn't get down. This was after she found her way up to Noah's top bunk and couldn't get down. We didn't get anything outrageous like Jake asking to borrow a reciprocating saw, so it really was a good time.

The only downside was that it was the second consecutive night of our kids going to bed around 10:00. As she was getting ready for bed Lily seemed really frustrated. She asked us, "Do you have any idea how hard it is to control all those crazy kids?" I was really glad she couldn't see my face when she said that because I was rolling around laughing. She felt like it was her job to keep order.

Last night Bill and Brenna came over while Amanda and I went out. Lily got to bed at her normal time, which was good. I still think she and Noah are going to bed a little early tonight.

Zipline!

It's customary for a traveling businessman to bring back gifts for his family or at least leave gifts for his family. Since I knew that I likely wouldn't find anything suitable for Amanda while in Anaheim, I took advantage of an Amazon Local deal for a zipline tour. This is something Amanda has wanted to do for a while anyway, so this worked out well for us. We set up babysitting with Uncle Bill and Aunt Tiff and then headed out to High Point.

I didn't take many photos since the video on their website really does a great job of showing you the experience. I did take one of Amanda getting suited up.

Although the various guides had some scheduling problems, the operation as a whole felt very safe and professional. I would be shocked if anyone had an accident there. Here you can see Amanda's first flight. The hollering and other random noises are from the people below. This facility has a corn maze and a bunch of other family things to do.

Here I am coming in for a landing. Note that I am so cool I do it 90 degrees differently than everyone else:

Finally, here is Amanda coming in for a landing at another platform:

Our final take is that we had fun, but we are not eager to do it again. Neither one of us found it to be that thrilling. Amanda is fairly fearless about such things and I trust physics. The reason I came in so slow in my video is that I tried to hold myself up by grabbing the trolley. You really can just hang and be fine. All it requires is picking up your feet and letting gravity do its thing.

Date Night With Lily

Lily has been on me all year to take her to a football game. Last night was senior night at Cary High, so we finally went after having dinner at Chick-fil-A and getting a cupcake for dessert at Harris Teeter. Lily insisted on the doggie cupcake, which was interesting because she was talking to it and making up stories about it just before I split it with a knife. I thought it was kind of macabre, but she enjoyed it.

The weather was a little cool, particularly sitting on aluminum bleachers, but we made it into the 3rd quarter. Lily enjoyed the halftime show, but I thought that the flag corps was dressed inappropriately. I also found it fascinating that the show was based on the idea that Stonhenge and Easter Island were left by aliens who are still living among us. Part of the show was members of the band making circles around these false stone monuments and bowing to them. Combine that with the uniforms that made the flag corps look like they were to be guests at a Roman orgy and I was left shaking my head.

When we left Cary was beating Green Hope 21-0, but it was 21-2 as we walked through the lot back to the car. In case you're wondering, Cary held on to win 28-8. Green Hope's football team is nicknamed "No Hope" for a reason.

Normally Lily insists that we stay for the whole game (that's my girl!), but we left early to head up to the fairgrounds. We finally got to see the fireworks show. We found a good spot to watch it from the parking lot and then were able to beat the traffic out. When it was all over Lily got to bed around 10:20, but it was worth it. Let's hope she sleeps in a little bit this morning as tonight could turn into a late one too.

Ballgame

We had tickets to the Bulls game on Thursday, so I took Lily. As much as I love Noah and want to encourage his passion for sports, I'd rather take Lily so we can watch the game. She did a great job with that and is starting to understand what is going on.

We started off the evening with dinner at Chick-fil-A so I could use a coupon I had for a free sandwich. We got milkshakes for dessert, which saved me from having to eat a funnel cake at the ballgame. We did get lemonade and a pretzel, but Lily was full enough that she didn't really get into it too much. That was fine.

Lily Ready for a Ball

The only downside for Lily was that she got annoyed at the boys behind us who kept yelling for no good reason. An example was when there were men on first and second with less than two outs. Someone hit a fly ball to the center fielder and the boys were yelling "RUN! RUN!" Lily wondered why they would want to run since it was a fly ball. I was very proud of her question, as you might imagine.

Lily did her fair share of glaring at them. I'm not sure if it helped, but it made her feel better. Sadly, I'm afraid that she inherited this from me as I was like that as a kid. Hopefully she will grow out of it.

We saw the Bulls win 4-1 and overall it was a good game. At the end of the game the Bulls throw out "victory balls," which are vinyl balls stuffed with batting. The catcher tried to throw one to Lily, but it landed a couple of rows short. Fortunately, a college-age girl gave it to Lily. That was a nice way to end the evening.

Date Night

We have date nights coming up tonight. I'm taking Lily to the Bulls game to see the Columbus Clippers take on the Bulls. Normally I would take Noah too, but I'd like to watch this game rather than spend all of it at the playground. I only really care about seeing the Clippers since they are the Indians' farm team and I know the names of many players. Lily is excited about eating hot dogs for dinner. We'll see what kind of treat we end up getting. I plan to put my foot down before we delve into cotton candy.

Meanwhile, Amanda is going to take Noah out. He says that he wants to go to Burger King. I'm not sure what his fascination with Burger King is, but he does like to identify them as we drive by. At any rate, he should be a pretty cheap date.

The only negative to this is the weather. It's supposed to be 95 today. The good news is that our seats are under a giant fan. I can't say that I'm real excited about the heat, but we'll manage. I'm also not real excited about getting Lily up for school tomorrow, but she will survive.

Spring Fling

Yesterday was Northwoods Elementary's annual carnival that they call "Spring Fling." They typically have inflatables for bouncing, lots of music, popcorn, assorted treats, etc. Lily has enjoyed it to varying degrees in the previous two years. But this year she got to go with a classmate who invited her.Amanda said that she was pretty giddy when she picked her up.

I took Noah out for a milkshake since I had taken Lily out earlier in the week. Plus, Amanda wanted the house to herself. Noah has decided that he too likes Chick-fil-A's banana pudding milkshake. We split that, went to Sam's Club to get gas, and then hit Play N Trade just to hang out.

Today is a big day with Lily's dance recital. After that we'll probably eat a meal out to celebrate a successful end to another year of dance. After that Brenna is coming over to spend the night. And after that we are welcoming a very special house guest for a week. We're watching a corgi named Piper that belongs to our friends the Stansberrys. They have an opportunity to spend a week at the beach for free, so we're helping out with the dog. He's a great dog, but I suspect that he will send the adrenaline levels to 11 with the kids. That's OK as we don't have to get up early tomorrow.

Date Night

I took Lily out on a date tonight.  While we were in Ohio Amanda discovered that you can get a kid's hot chocolate at Starbucks for $1.20.  Since we have a Starbucks a mile away in two different directions, we did that with Lily's new Mancala board.

Lily actually won two of the games and I was not letting her win at all.  We also tied one game.  I think that this is going to be good for her concentration.  Eventually we will work our way up to chess, but we need to take this slowly.  I think we went for chess way too soon.  That was the overzealous father in me a couple of years ago.

All I know is that for less than $5 we both had a great time.  I hope to make this a regular practice.  Noah and I do lots of things together already, so it's good that Lily and I have something we can do.  I get the sense that we are entering that critical stage where I need to make sure I have her heart or it could get ugly in a few years.

No More Snaggle

It was a busy day yesterday.  So busy that I didn't even get a blog post written.  I took Lily to a benefit concert for an orphanage in Kenya.  We got to hear some cool drumming and then Lily enjoyed the ballet that followed. It's neat that she knew some of the dancers.

The highlight of our day yesterday was the canoe trip that got postponed from a month or so prior.  We were scheduled to do a sunset canoe tour of Lake Crabtree one Sunday evening, but it got thunderstormed out.  The weather could not have been better yesterday.  It was in the mid 70s with a breeze.  We spent a couple of hours in a canoe on Lake Crabtree while Aunt Nat sat with the kids.  It was nice to get out.

Meanwhile, Lily lost her other tooth.  She had been actively wiggling it all weekend, and finally let Amanda yank it out last night.  I had a hard time finding the tooth fairy pillow and Lily actually woke up when I came into her room the second time (I had to ask Amanda where it was).  I told her that I heard she lost a tooth and wanted to see it.  That's when I surreptitiously exchanged the tooth for a dollar.  I'll post a pic when one is available.

Fair Night

I took my bride to the NC State Fair last night to see Casting Crowns in concert.  Frankly, I am starting to sour a bit on the whole CCM scene because so much of it is saccharine.  But I have to say that they put on a pretty good show.  They weren't real high on showmanship (Third Day is very much worth seeing in that respect as are the Newsboys).  The performances were basically like listening to a mix tape of their big hits, just really really loud.  But it was great to pray with them and hear about their heart for the church.  Plus, I really enjoyed my piece of deep-fried pecan pie before the show.

Uncle Bill sat with the kids.  He of course got sucked into playing Wii with them.  He said that the kids behaved well, which is all we could ask for.

Dates

I had a busy day yesterday.  Lily had a free kids meal from Red Robin coming to her for her birthday, so we went there for lunch.  We also hit doggie day camp, the carousel at Cary Town Center (she rode it by herself!), the used book store, and Lowes.  The highlight at Lowes is that she got to see one of the kindergarten teachers from Northwoods who works there.  In fact, we waited in her line specifically so we could see her.

After that I took Amanda out to dinner and dessert.  We were supposed to go on a canoe trip on Lake Crabtree, but we were getting some much-needed rain.  That has been postponed for a month.  Hopefully the weather will be better then.  I really would not mind having to wear sleeves.

Today is the big day for Lily to eat her lunch.  I really don't want to have to take away Isabella.  But the good news is that this may delay her getting a dog for another year.  She has to decide if it is really worth it for her to put up this fight.  Look for an update tomorrow.

Night Out

Aunt Tiff came by yesterday to sit with the kids so Amanda and I could attend a wedding.  One of my coworkers married one of my former coworkers.  The wedding was nice, though not particularly remarkable.  We were looking forward to some dancing, but the music was not really suited to us and the facility was having problems with their air conditioning.  Being sweaty just sitting is not conducive to dancing.

Tiffany reported that the kids were very good.  Lily miraculously came back from playing with Katie at exactly the time she was supposed to.  She and Noah behaved very well.  Plus, Lily actually did a cartwheel.  This was quite an achievement for her.  Her friend Katie is practically Mary Lou Retton doing a floor routine down our street.  Lily -- not so much.

The kids were still awake when we got back from the wedding, though they were in bed.  It was nice to be able to tuck them in and say good night.  It wasn't the greatest date night, but it was nice to get out.

Going Out

Lily had the day off yesterday, but fortunately the weather was nice, albeit a bit blustery. Amanda took the kids out on a picnic, which of course they really enjoyed. It turns out that Noah really likes a Wendy's jr. cheeseburger. I think the boy has Ohio in his blood.

As I type this the kids are at Uncle Bill & Aunt Tiff's house. I took Amanda out to dinner last night and then we headed to Target to nearly complete our Christmas shopping. It feels good to have things mostly done for everyone on our lists, though there will be some small things for teachers at school and Sunday school teachers.

In a couple of hours we're going to get our kids and then take Brenna for the day and night. I'm planning on doing a little bit more shopping for Amanda so that Amanda's morning is mostly child-free. These child-free mornings are nice to have once in a while. I enjoyed not going out running until 6:40 after sleeping in until 6:00. And now I can get some reading done for school without worrying about getting breakfast together.

I do enjoy hanging out with our kids, but the breaks make the heart grow fonder.

Third Day

Yesterday was an eventful one here, but not in a bad way at all. Amanda's parents are in town for their annual trek down to the Sunshine State and are staying with us for a few nights. They arrived in the early afternoon. Then almost as soon as I came home from work Amanda and I left for the state fair to see the Third Day concert.

We saw them a few years ago at the fair and enjoyed the show, but were not that impressed. This time the show was very good. We finally learned our lesson and got seats on the floor instead of up in the grandstand. The acoustics were much better and we could actually hear the vocals without a ton of echo.

Of course, no trip to the fair is complete without some fair food. I eschewed the fried snickers bar this year and instead opted for a waffle cone of pumpkin pie ice cream. Amanda got some fudge. Overall, it was a very nice time and it was good to get out sans kids.

Date Night

It was great to get out last night. We enjoyed a great dinner. We started with an order of fried green tomatoes with a shrimp remoulade as well as an order of hush puppies with a basil mayo. For our entrees Amanda got pan-seared scallops and I had venison meatloaf. We finished with a hunk of chocolate cheesecake accompanied with carmelized bananas.

The rest of the evening was not as glamorous. We took advantage of the babysitting to hit the thrift store where I got some new sweaters and shirts. It's nice to be able to retire some of the ancient shirts I have that are full of holes. We actually ended up staying out until nearly 9:00 PM! That's pretty late for us.

Wow -- Another Date Night!

Lily's dance teacher watched the kids last night and Amanda and I had a nice, though not super-exciting date night. It started with a romantic dinner at Chick Fil-A and then we moved to Target to finish up our Christmas shopping. We did enjoy a great banana nutella crepe at Coffee and Crepes. We finished up at AC Moore to get a few stocking-stuffers.

The funny thing is that AC Moore is in the same strip as Bed, Bath, and Beyond. We didn't make it there though...

Apparently the kids were great for Miss April. It's always nice to get that report, isn't it?

Getting Out

Amanda and I had a nice long date last night. We left the house around 4:00 and enjoyed looking through the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit. The way they do it is pretty clever with a wand that plays prerecorded bits at the various stages of the exhibit. You type in the number, hit play, and listen as you look at the exhibit. It took us a little over an hour to see the exhibit and then we hit the streets of Raleigh to get some dinner. We ended up at a cajun restaurant which was tasty.

We made it back to the museum in plenty of time for a lecture about the scrolls. We got to see Emmanuel Tov give a lecture about text-criticism, which is his specialty. It was interesting, but we didn't stay for all of the Q & A since we wanted to get dessert. We ended up stopping at the Cheesecake Factory and brought it home. No time for Bed, Bath, & Beyond.

Amanda commented later that she missed the daily interaction with Lily about her day. Still, it was good to get out for a long date. I don't think she missed spending the evening with Noah as the days can get pretty long. He is generally really good, but it is good to get a break.

Unattached

Amanda and I enjoyed a date night tonight. We went to Great Grapes to check out what they were pouring tonight. We had some wonderful pizza at Z Pizza (with coupon, of course). And we finished with dessert at our favorite coffee place. (Laura: No time for Bed, Bath, and Beyond)

What made this so great is that we have no kids in the house tonight. Lily and Noah are spending the night at the McKenzies because Amanda has to be at the hospital very early tomorrow for a minor surgery. It's eerily quiet. You can almost feel the absence of the kids upstairs. It's nice for a night.