A fun day! (And a HUGE shock!!!) - Edited

We had a great day at the NC State Fair today.  For the first time since we started taking Katie two years ago, we decided to go early(ish) and forgo the nap (regular naps are still pretty important for her to not be cranky later).  So, we headed out the morning (a little later than Jim wanted) and arrived at the fair about 10am when the rides opened.  By sheer luck, we parked (FOR FREE!) on the same side of the fair as Kiddieland.  Yay!  Going in the gate directly to Kiddieland was awesome.  In the past, by the time we walk from the car to the fairgrounds and then from the gate around the fair to Kiddieland, it's practically time to go home!  This year, direct entrance to Kiddieland and arriving right as the rides opened was AWESOME!  We didn't have to wait for many rides and used most of our ride tickets in the morning.

Ready to go to the fair!

The first ride we started off with was what I would call a "transition" ride.  It was definitely a Kiddieland ride, small and not super fast but definitely faster than many of the kid rides.  This surprised (and terrified) my rather timid child at first.  Fortunately, riding with Mommy makes everything better and by the 5th time around we were having fun with a slightly more relaxed white knuckle grip on the safety bar. 

We had a great time riding the other rides, too.  Katie was big into rides this year.  She wanted to go on everything...well, everything that wasn't too scary.  We had a great time on many of the Kiddieland rides.

Ignore the boy.  He doesn't belong to me. :)

We had to pause to get her face painted.  This would be the princess design.

 After all those rides, we had worked up an appetite.  One family rule that we have for the state fair is that we can mostly get whatever we want to eat.  That includes Katie.  So, we all indulged in corn dogs, kebabs, corn on the cob, ice cream, and pizza.  Katie, as usual, wanted to eat a WHOLE bag of cotton candy.  We managed to convince her to pace herself so that she ate it over a couple of hours rather than all in one sitting.

(Apologies ahead of time for the shouting.)
The food brings me to the SHOCKING incident midday.  By SHOCKING I mean COMPLETELY, TOTALLY UNEXPECTED and CRAZY.  Katie had eaten her corn dog and some of her cotton candy already when I looked at her during the magic show.  That's when I noticed something odd about her mouth.  I asked her to come closer and show me her teeth.  Sure enough, THIS is what I saw:

YES!  THAT is a GAPPY grin you see.  My not quite 4.5 year old child has just lost her first tooth AND WE DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO IT!  I can only imagine where it might be right now...To say the least, the tooth fairy was TOTALLY unprepared and had to scramble a bit.  We wrote a nice note to leave under Katie's pillow for the tooth fairy so she knows Katie really did lose a tooth. We went to show Daddy after the magic show was over and he was as confounded as I was. 

We rode the Ferris wheel, did an obstacle course, went down a cool slide and rode some more rides.  We also watched a juggling act and a magic show that were both pretty cool.  At the end of the day we managed to check out the State Fair Ark of neat animals, watch cows get milked and catch a few minutes of a ventriloquist.  Overall, it was an awesome family fun day at the state fair.  Can't wait to go back next year!

The last ride of the day: The Dragon Wagon!

Road Construction

NC-540 is a new toll road going in 1000 feet west of our house, basically out the front door.  Because of the construction, the greenway we have been taking to Kelly Road park is closed through June, and we have a nice trail straight to the construction area in the back yard.  There's another park on the other end of the trail, but it's for team sports rather than a playground.

We went to the end of the sidewalk where we saw a crane, some pillers without their concrete yet, and the temporary construction roadway to help them build a bridge over the marsh.  They were working on the road today, on a Saturday.  We heard a pile driver off and on this morning and continue to hear construction noise, though it is not bothersome.

For Ricarda

Katie will be taking ballet lessons this school year. She's had two so far and loves it.  She learned the Plie this Thursday and has enjoyed showing it off.  She was very excited to get her first leotard and particularly wanted the one with a skirt.  She is napping in her ballet outfit, complete with ballet shoes, right now.

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Katie's Sister and Brother

Katie has a brother and sister.  We've never met them.  (Funny that, us being the parents and all.)  But she has told us about them on many occasions, and been mostly consistent with her tellings.  They are from Ireland, or at least they've been to Ireland.  She said they were going to drive there, but when I explained that there was an ocean in the way, she said they were going to a different Ireland - one of three.  Ok, I can work with that.  They were going to Ireland to see the leprechauns.

The next day, my Irish co-worker headed back home for a month or so.  I told her of Katie's siblings and their mission.  She said she'd relay the message to the leprechauns.

I told Katie of my co-worker that night, explaining that she was on the plane to Ireland.  You will never guess who was on that same plane. Sure enough, her brother and sister were on the same plane as my co-worker!  So says Katie.

These siblings are not just any siblings.  They are especially ill-behaved.  They bite, hit, kick, lie, and talk about the potty at all manner of inopportune times.  In fact, other than the trip to Ireland, I think that list is a complete list of what they do.  Katie has put them in time-out a few times, too.  I'm not sure if they squirm or cooperate, though!

Outer space

This week, Katie and I stepped out into the cul-de-sac 1 minute before her bedtime, precisely on time to see the Itnernational Space Station fly overhead.  (It looks like a bright star trekking across the sky in about 2 minutes.) It was earlier that same day that she composed this work of fine art.  

God is Bigger than the Boogie Man

Katie sings the Veggie Tales song at church after the service, inspired to sing at the microphone by Mom who had just sung a solo in the service.

Right after Mom finished singing the solo, Katie ran to meet her halfway and gave her a big hug!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Katie and Mommy's Big Adventure - National Zoo (Day 4)

After our adventure at the National Mall, Katie and I took an even longer metro ride to the National Zoo.  Katie has been really excited about watching Go Diego, Go recently and one of the episodes includes giant pandas.  The National Zoo in Washington, DC has two of the few giant pandas that are not in China so we wanted to go see them while we had the chance.

 This is a very cool place.  I didn't realize that this zoo is entirely free to the public (minus $2 for the map) and I am amazed that such a place exists for free.  The animals there include the usual elephants, monkeys, etc but also include animals that are harder to come by such as sloth bears and the giant panda.  Unfortunately for us, it was such a hot day (100 degrees again) that many of the animals weren't out and about.  For the first 20 minutes of wandering the zoo, this picture of the sloth bear is as close as we got to any animals.

Just when I had started to despair that our whole long walk in the hot weather had been for naught, we came upon the red panda.  Although it is called a panda and comes from the same area of China as the giant panda, it actually looks more like a fox or a raccoon. 

Fortunately, the main attraction of the zoo (at least for us) had a nicely air conditioned home where they could eat and rest in peace during the hot days, and lots of windows that we tourists could gawk through to see them.  Behold, the giant panda:

 This is one of my first attempts at using the manual focus on my new camera and lens.  Still needs a bit of work since this is the only one that allows you to actually see both subjects and still had to be edited some.  Even after editing it isn't really clear, but, I found that taking a picture of a child who was hot and not especially cooperative, the crowds of tourists flocking around in waves, and thick glass with limited lighting in the room I was standing in, was difficult.  I'm kind of pleased I got a picture this nice.  More training is needed on manual focus.  At least the panda didn't move. :)

After the pandas we stopped to eat lunch and some flavored ice and then hunted down the elephants.

I had watched the weather that morning and noticed that it had called for scattered afternoon thunderstorms and, noting that it was afternoon, I decided to call my resourceful husband back home to get an idea of whether there were thunderstorms headed our way or not.  My call was just in time as he told me that there was a cell with a red center headed our way within 15 minutes. We headed back toward the entrance of the zoo, knowing we wouldn't make it before the rain but we wanted to see a few more animals.  On our way to shelter we managed to see zebras and a pacing cheetah.   I was also pleased to see a maned wolf (which I actually recognized by the picture on the map because Katie is not the only one who has been watching Diego save animals...) although he was hot and all we could see of him was the back of his ears.


We managed to take shelter under a canopy where talks are held when the first raindrops hit.  After the first blitz, we continued to head toward the front of the zoo but stopped at the entrance to look at the gift shop again and go to the bathroom.  Jim then called to tell me that the second cell was coming our way so we needed to go quickly to the metro station.  As I looked outside from the gift shop, the downpour had already begun.  I'm glad that we made it to the building because we were there for a good 30 minutes watching the downpour.  Katie amused herself pretending to be an animal and running up and down the stairs and I amused myself spending too much money in the gift shop (have to support such a lovely zoo!).  At long last, the rain cleared and we headed back to the hotel to pick up the car and head to our next destination...Williamsburg!

(Did I mention that, after a long, hot day of walking around the zoo and riding the metro back to the hotel, the hotel shuttle from the metro stop had been in an accident and couldn't take us to the hotel?  We walked a mile to the hotel and we were POOPED.  Katie wanted TV and I wanted her to nap.  We both got what we wanted as she fell asleep in less than two minutes to the opening song of Diego.  Another funny note:  When we were standing in line to eat dinner at Golden Corral that night, Katie commented that something smelled bad as she held her nose in distaste.  After our long hot day of lots of walking, I told her I thought it was us.)