Easter Carnival and Giant Turtle

On Friday our church hosted our Easter Carnival. We usually have the egg hunt on the grounds of a local nursing home so that the residents can enjoy the children. Due to unending rain we had to have the hunt inside at church. The kids still had a great time. After the hunt we had a pizza dinner and then lots of fun. There was a professional clown/facepainter and she was fabulous. As you can see Grace is a real princess with a beautiful magic wand! Isaac was content sucking on a giant lollipop for the duration of the carnival. Even daddy was able to meet us!

This is the one and only egg that Isaac found.

Grace new all of the good hiding places.

Not sure how much longer I can get her to wear these dresses and matching bows.

Isaac could have cared less about the eggs, but was all about carrying some baskets.
The rain halted on Saturday morning so Sid and Isaac got in some Plasma car time. Fun for the whole family!
Here they come down the driveway...I would feel better if Isaac had a helmet on.
And the giant turtle. He weighed in at about 30 pounds and his shell was approx 2 feet long. It was in our neighbor's driveway on Sat morning. They put him in this wheelbarrow and then the entire neighborhood saw him down to the lake and happily returned him.

Grandpa and GiGi visit Raleigh

My dad and grandmother headed down to Raleigh for a long weekend. My grandmother, who lives in Iowa, drove up to my dad's house in Minnesota where they then drove to Wisconsin to catch a plane back to Minnesota and from there headed here to Raleigh. And they think people from the south are strange. They flew in Thursday evening and headed out first thing Sunday morning. It was a short visit but we kept busy and had an absolutely wonderful time. The first thing we did was take them to the Disney Store at the mall where Grace was spoiled rotten with toys, princess dresses, shoes, and hairbands. She was in HEAVEN! Isaac was happy just pulling things off of the shells and ticking off the lady working behind the counter. Grace was thrilled to have some extra attention and TLC and of course Grandpa and Grandma were more than happy to provide the spoilage. Isaac was a little unsure of our visitors and was convinced that I was going to leave him- so it took a while for him to warm up. But he too eventually enjoyed the extra attention- especially when he was dancing. Here is Grace in her new Cinderella dress and shoes. She loves her shoes so much. They really are adorable.

Isaac wanted to get in on the action. Grandma made sure his tiara fit just right. Sid was beside himself.

Grandma and Grace color-it-up in Grace's princess coloring book, no less.

Here Grace is showing Grandpa her scrapbook at the speed of light. Poor Grandpa didn't really see a thing and probably only understood about half of what Grace explained. He hung in there, though. Got to give him credit for that.

On Saturday morning we headed downtown for a belated St Patty's Day parade (was rained out the weekend before). We all had a fabulous time. It was cold that morning- high 40's with some fierce wind- but we all bundled up and best of all- found a seat on the sidewalk right outside of a bakery and coffee shop. Dad and Grandma were relieved to see that. We all hung out for a while before the parade and drank some hot chocolate and chased the kids around. When the parade finally started the kids were thrilled. Truthfully we all had a great time. Grace loved collecting candy and Isaac shook his booty the entire time.

I know this is hard to believe- but my dad has a coffee in his hand.

My Grandma always did such fun things with Ben and me as we were growing up. It was such a privilege to take her to something fun with her great grandbabies.

Grandma and her name sake Grace Kathleen.

Grandpa was so happy when Isaac finally let him hold him!

Good ol' Grandma wearing the big green hat. She is such a trooper.

One of the dancers pulled Grandma into the street and the two of them tore it up! It was hilarious.

Dress-up Princesses?

I will let these photos speak for themselves. I will offer this one explanation- Isaac was adamant that he wear the pink tutu. I did not offer it up.

I think he is stretching- getting ready to dance!

Not sure if they are fighting or playing.

4 Days in Panama...as in the canal

Vaco sent the "contest" winners and their significant others to Veracruz, Panama. Sid and I went a day late as I have separation anxiety and couldn't be away too long from my babies. We had a good time because we spent some fun times with old friends...lots of whom went to Bearden High School and UT. (Go Vols!) However, we do not recommend a vacation to Panama anytime in the near future. They are just not "tourist" ready quite yet. Our resort was nice, however it was on the Pacific side and right on the Panama Bay...which is the entry for the canal. Let me just say the the ships who are waiting for their turn to go through the canal dump their waste and so the bacteria levels in the water are high- we didn't even stick our big toe in that water. Bummer. The food was awful-at the resort and most restaurants. Panama City is not the safest place to be so most of the time we went to dinner and went right back to the resort where most of the staff was unable to utter a single word of English. There wasn't a whole lot of staff and those that did have a job did not work very hard at it. I could go on- but again I will say it was nice to be in warm weather with good friends. I do have lots of wonderful memories of that- and I did get a great mud massage! Our last night in Panama. We went to a seafood restaurant and it was pretty good. I got the lobster! We are with some friends from the Richmond office- where Sid use to work.

Sid and I standing on the edge of one of the resort pools which looks over Panama Bay.

Sid and Will (Richmond Office).

On our second night we were going back to the resort after dinner and noticed some guys pushing a cab off to the side of the bridge. They were our Vaco buddies. So they all piled into our cab- a small minivan. We had 13 people in the van. Then, b/c there was construction on the bridge and our direction was not open, the van we were in broke down too! So this is a photo of some of the guys on the bridge trying to make the best of the situation. About 20 min later a 3rd van came through from Vaco. It was a larger van and had about 14 people on it. So the guys sent all of the wives back to the resort and the guys hung out on the bridge...a huge suspension bridge over the canal- the resort sent a bus to pick up our husbands. In the mean time our first cabbie called a buddy who drove up- stopped- took the battery out of his 1980 Honda Accord and put it in the minivan and just left the Honda on the bridge. Apparently it was hilarious and quite random. Different way of life.

Some of the guys goofing around in the pool.

Our second night we went out for Italian, Panamanian style. Not good- how can you mess up Italian? The restaurant was on the canal and there was a HUGE yacht, the 'Apoise', docked right across the street. Absolutely the most beautiful boat I have ever seen. Rumor had it that it belonged to Mel Gibson. I looked for him the rest of the trip to no avail.

Sid and I did take a cab down to the Panama canal- we had to- we were in Panama. It was pretty neat. The canal is about 50 miles long. Canal captains pilot the ships through the entire canal. From wait time to get into the canal to finishing the canal takes about 24 hours. Going down around the tip of South America takes at least 2 weeks.

Standing on the lookout- to the left (the Pacific side) is the first part of the lock. This is where the ship arrives first.

So, again, to the left is the lower part of the lock- it then floods with water and the ship is raised to the level on the right.

And then the ships move on to the next set of locks. We had just missed these two boats going through the locks.

Sid, Jay (one of the guys who started the company and UT grad), and me at the big Vaco dinner.

Our resort from our balcony.

Ships waiting in the bay to go through the canal.