Lowe's Build and Grow: Shrek Onion Carriage

Today we took James to his very first Build and Grow event at Lowes! They offer free workshops where kids can build different things and today's project was a Shrek onion carriage. I always thought that the workshops looked fun, but I assumed James was too young to go. I was shopping in Lowes a few weeks ago and multiple employees saw James and asked if I was going to take him. They said that if they can hold a hammer, they are old enough. James can definitely hold a hammer, it is what happens after that that is the problem :)  I decided to give it a try, why not?

The timing couldn't have been more perfect. Anthony  had to work late Tuesday night and as a result had Saturday off (he usually has to work 8am-5pm on Saturdays), so he got to go with us! When we first got there, they gave us our supplies, including an apron and goggles for James and a little hammer. The googles were so cute on James, but he wouldn't keep them on for a picture!! We even tried telling them they were his "eyes" (his word for glasses)

 Looking at the hammer. He didn't get to play with it very much, he almost hit me or Anthony one too many times :)

 Here we are with the final product. It turned out pretty well! Anthony did most of it, although James loved helping hand us parts and liked inserting the wheels into the right holes. I think we did that at least 4 times per wheel.

 Trying for a goggles picture one last time!

 Look at those cute guys!!! Love them!

Why playing games with Anthony is fun

My family and I love to play Anthony in a board game or video game because we love to win!! :) Seriously, Anthony just isn't that good at those sorts of games. Monopoly, Life, Scene It, you name it, he has lost spectacularly at it. Not that he really minds not being good at it. I think he is of the opinion that us being good at board and card games just makes us more nerdy. Which it kind of does :)

Thinking about this today, it reminded me of a game of 20 questions that Anthony and I tried to play in the car on the way to North Carolina. I went first and thought of something spectacularly off the wall, and after 20 loooong questions I don't think Anthony got it. Or maybe I took pity on him and gave him a push in the right direction...I don't really remember. What I do remember was how it went when it was Anthony's turn:

Anthony: "Just you wait, you are never going to get this!!!!!" *insert big grin*
Me: "Okay...Is it an animal?"
Anthony: "...yeeeah"
Me: "Is it a reptile?"
Anthony: "I don't want to play this game anymore."
Me: "Is it a snake?"
Anthony: *exasperated* "You aren't supposed to know that quick!!"
Me: "Is it a boa constrictor?"
Anthony: "Aww man!!! Yeah....but you don't know what kind of boa constrictor. Ha!!"
Me: "Is it a red-tailed boa?"
Anthony: "I HATE THIS GAME!"

I laughed so hard!!! He really thought I would have no idea what he was thinking about. My poor, sweet husband. He may not be good at games, but we love him anyway!! :)

Key West 2012: All about James!

Oh my word. This kid blew our minds on this vacation. Although he was crankier than usual, he has been an angel since we have been home so I am thinking that it must have been a combination of all the changes and the fact that the kid barely ate anything while we were there. He was probably hungry a lot of the time, but he refused to take the time to eat when there were things to explore and check out!

My mom was trying to entertain him with the camera on her ipad and got this picture of him. My favorite part is the drool :)

The second night we were there, James did animal noises for the first time! My mom has an app on her ipad with a bunch of different animal noises and he would do "mooooo" for the cow and "ssssss" for the snake. It was so cute!!

On the day we spent at the beach house in Marathon, while Anthony was out catching lobster James had a little play date with 3 year old Valentina. She was so sweet with him! She loved showing him her dolls and sharing her princess backpack with him. James couldn't get enough of rolling the backpack around. He would go from one end of the room to the other, back and forth, nonstop for at least 45 minutes.

When he would get to this end of the room, Valentina would try to get James to stop and play with her.  At one point she decided that they were going to play "waiting for the bus" and wanted us all to sit down with her. James started to walk away with the backpack, so she yelled out in a very firm voice, "James! Come back here and sit down!!". James turned right around, walked over, and sat down next to her. It was priceless!!

It was wonderful having a separate room just for James to sleep in. He slept in late almost every morning after the first night. One morning he slept until 10:30 and when we went in to get him because we needed to go somewhere, this is what Anthony found. I think we wore him out!!

After the first couple of days, we were noticing so many new words from James that I decided to keep a list of all the words he came out with, just from the week we were on vacation: cracker, oh cool!, yogurt, key, fishie (sea), teeth, eye (his word for glasses or sunglasses), keh ku (thank you), no (and the correct way to use it), cookie, poop (can you believe this one??oy)



Getting ready to go adventuring:

Laughing at something:

My mom took these pictures of an overheated boy after doing some walking outside:

On Saturday night we were all sitting on the couch and watching some TV while James played around us. Anthony was snacking on some candy and James noticed right away! He went right up to Anthony and started pulling on his legs, pointing at the bag of candy and whining. Anthony tried to distract him with books and by trying to rough house with him, but James was not having it. He could not be deterred!! Finally James got fed up, looked Anthony right in the eye and said, "Bop!!" (he says bop right before he hits something or someone). My mom and I were laughing so hard!! James really meant business!! At least he warned us first before hitting right? He didn't follow through on his threat, thankfully :)

Key West 2012: Geocaching

This year we went to the Keys much more prepared for some geocaching! I preloaded our gps with all of the caches on Key West, then I printed a map with each cache marked on it along with all of the sites we planned to visit. That way, we could just check the map to see if a geocache is close by when we were out and about. I also compiled a document with all of the cache descriptions and hints, just in case Anthony's geocaching app wasn't working on his phone (it can be unreliable).

When we first got to Key West, our friends were still an hour away and since we can't check into our rental place without them we decided to do some geocaching! We found a parking spot near the first one and luckily two more were close by. As we were walking, we passed by the courthouse that had these awesome trees in front:

We tried to get a picture with all of us looking the same direction. Not really successful :)

Heading toward the geocache.



We made it to the geocache coordinates at the end/beginning of US 1, now we just had to find it. The hint told us that it was on a telephone pole, but every single telephone pole on the street turned up nothing. 

I was ready to give up and was starting to think that maybe someone moved it when my mom noticed that there were two US1 mile marker zero signs. We had only checked one side of the street, and there was an interesting looking telephone pole across the street....

We decided to give it a shot. We got to the telephone pole and I still wasn't seeing anything. I didn't want to look too closely because it looked like the other side of the pole was on private property, but my mom is braver than me and went to investigate. Sure enough, there it was!! Here we are signing the log:

The second cache was a few blocks down the road. Anthony got a little nervous when I started following the gps to this large electrical building at the base of a radio tower and he was sure we were in the wrong spot. A few minutes later, Anthony spotted the cache underneath the front steps to the building nestled among a bunch of cables. Now my mom and Anthony had both found one, it was time for me to make a find!

The third one was yet a few more blocks down the road at a historic church. The description and clues were pretty telling, so I knew exactly where it was. I walked up to the sign and looked behind it and sure enough, there was a large wooden box attached. I opened the lid and there was the cache!

The fourth cache we found was at the entrance to the eco discovery center we visited at the end of the week. It was pretty obvious (at least to me) where it was hidden :)

           

Signing the log:

Trying to put it back so that it isn't showing:

Later that day after visiting the Butterfly conservatory, we walked over to a spot that had two virtual geocaches. Virtual geocaches are places that are interesting or informative and don't have physical things to find, you just have to prove you visited either by a photo or by emailing the owner answers to questions. While we were walking, my mom took this photo of a banana tree in someone's yard. I want a banana tree!!

Here we are taking a picture at the Southernmost point in the US. It is 90 miles to Cuba from that marker. When we got there, there was a seriously long line to take a picture by the buoy. It was so hot, we decided we didn't care if other people were in our picture, let's just take it and go! The other virtual geocache at this spot was one about erosion and tides, so I got to use this picture for two different caches. Awesome!

Key West 2012: Sightseeing & Adventures

Our first field trip was to play mini golf with our friends! Of course, it was hot as blazes but we were determined to have a good time. We spent the morning getting tickets for the rest of the trip, coordinating our schedule with our friends (they have older kids and like to do all day adventure trips) and stopped by Dennys for a quick lunch. James was not a happy camper in that restaurant. We ended up having to take turns walking him around outside so that we could eat our food. It really is true what they say, moms never get to eat warm food!

Once we finally got down to putt putting, we a had a great time. James got his own little ball and putter and he loved "helping" us get our ball in the hole (which involved him picking it up and putting it in the hole). Anthony had a very calculated strategy that included evaluating angles and adjusting swings. My strategy was to hit it hard and quickly as possible. Anthony ended up winning by 4 strokes, but I got 2 different hole in ones so there is something to be said for my strategy! :)

Tuesday afternoon we had tickets to go on a glass bottom boat ride to see the coral reef. On our way there we saw this guy hanging out by the side of the road. Too cool! (look to the far left on the wall):

 Here is a picture of the boat we were about to get on:

Waiting for the boat in the shade:

One of the two glass bottom viewing windows:

The boat ride wasn't as comfortable as I was expecting. The seas were pretty choppy so Anthony and I both were feeling kind of sea sick. James didn't like having to sit in our laps or being held, but the boat was way too unstable for him to walk around. Plus, the big viewing windows on the bottom of the boat didn't have that much railing and he could easily fall in. Taking him out on deck wasn't much better, he just wanted to get down and once again it was way too dangerous.

It takes about 45 minutes to get the boat out to the coral reef and then they tour around for about 30 minutes explaining what we are seeing and giving information about the reef. The ride back was better than the ride out. The seas were calmer and James had fun laughing at a little boy that was sitting across from us and taking turns playing with his plastic eel. The grandmother showed us pictures of the Key West Toy Factory where she had just purchased the eel for her grandson and we decided we definitely had to go there sometime during the week!

Here is a picture of us at the Marathon beach house, after a full day of snorkeling, lobstering, and playing:

On Thursday we got brunch at a little french restaurant where our friends promised the best Croque Madame (grilled ham and cheese sandwich with eggs on top) you have ever had. It did not disappoint!! It was so delicious!! I was expecting to not really like it for breakfast, but it was perfect. Definitely filling, but not too much probably because my mom and I split one. Anthony had strawberry crepes, and it was his first time having crepes. He approved! :)

After brunch, we walked over to the Eco Discovery Center, a free marine education center that had aquariums, displays, and best of all: air conditioning!!!

James ready for some eco discovering:

A large reef tank in the middle of the room:

A cool interactive learning lab that looks like a submarine. You can go inside and press different buttons and the screen will show you different movies about marine life and conservation:

After the Eco Discovery Center, we headed to the butterfly conservatory to see all the butterflies! It was just as beautiful as I remembered it being last year, although it was much more crowded. James loved running around and chasing the little birds in the enclosure. He also loved the turtles in the pond and kept trying to figure out how to get off the path and down to the water. Luckily they had it blocked off pretty well :) Since there are so many butterflies, many times while he was running down the path they would fly by his face and he would wave his arms like he was brushing off mosquitoes. I guess butterflies are no contest when it comes to chasing birds and turtles!

Thursday night we met up with our friends downtown to watch the street performers. Every single night of the week there is a sunset celebration downtown with vendors and street performers, all trying to grab your attention, get your donations, and out-do each other. We only stopped to watch one of them, but he was amazing!! He spent almost the entire act balanced on top of this ladder. Then he had a boy from the audience throw him each knife as he was juggling the rest.

Towards the end of his show he moved from the ladder to a tall unicycle he called the "suicycle".

Once he was balanced on top, he started juggling lit torches!

For his last trick, while balancing on the suicycle with no hands, he dropped the hat off of his head and caught it with one foot. Then he used his foot to throw it back into the air and caught it on his head.

It was really fun to watch! After he was finished, we stopped and chatted with our friends. I looked down in the stroller to check on James and this is what I found:

Someone is tired and ready to go home!!
On Friday afternoon we headed over to visit the aquarium. I had to get a picture of their sea turtles. I am still so sad I didn't get to swim with the one every one else did!

Sting rays:

Nurse Sharks:

The aquarium was fun. They had a touch tank and we were there for feeding time for the large Florida fish and the sting rays. James wasn't too interested in everything. We tried to get him to play with the touch tank, but all he wanted to do was push the stroller around. He loves anything with wheels. Maybe next year!
Right next door to the aquarium was the Key West Toy Factory that we had heard about. The decor was so cool!!

They had a million things for kids to play with and James loved this activity wall. For awhile he was playing with a wooden dump truck until we saw the price tag. It was $100!!! We quickly tried to distract him so that he wouldn't get attached to it or break it :)

We bought a few little toys and when you check out you can get a balloon and a free token to ride the carousal downstairs. James really liked it!

Of course, once he saw that there were buttons to push where you insert the coins, that is all he wanted to play with for the rest of the ride :)

After the toy factory, we stopped by a street cart to get some coconut shrimp and fried clams. We had some last year and it was delicious, so we decided to get some again. We had grand ideas that it was fresh caught local seafood, but right after ordered we saw the cook pull some frozen shrimp and clams out of a supermarket box in the freezer. We were so sad!! Not that it tasted any different, but somehow we wished we could still think of it as a special Key West recipe.
While we were waiting for our food, I sat on a bench with this handsome sailor statue :)

Friday night the girls went on a trolley ghost tour that takes you around the entire island, pointing out houses where ghosts are known to haunt and telling some pretty scary stories about things that happened way back when. It even stopped at one of the old fort structures so that we could see Key West's famous haunted doll, Robert. It was pretty creepy. All the guys went on a walking ghost tour of the downtown area of Key West where you actually walk to the houses that are haunted and by local cemeteries. They claim that it wasn't that creepy, but I don't believe them. They are just being guys, I am sure it was plenty scary!



We had tons of fun exploring the keys and we still didn't scratch the surface of all the things to see and do. Good thing there is still next year!