The Fun Never Ends

Thursday afternoon we spent time as a family at the Southeastern Youth Fair at the Livestock Pavilion so we could see the hogs being exhibited by the youth from BUMC. Wesley was all excited to see the "piggies" until we actually got there and then he refused to get near them or touch them!

This is Otis and Clyde - who belong to Sarah and Dawn respectively. They weighed in at 257 and 264 lbs.

Daddy and Wesley checking out Gator who belongs to Chase. This piggy weighed in at 274lbs.

After the fair, we ran home so that we could catch the Space Shuttle liftoff from the NASA channel on the TV. We would have tried outside but the weather was too cloudy to be able to see it. The boys were very excited to watch Discovery take off and we must have watched for a good ten minutes after liftoff - Parker wanted to wait until all of the external tanks had separated.

From there we headed out to get Mommy some new sneakers from Sports Authority. She's been working out with a trainer at the YMCA and her feet keep cramping up. Finally we figured out that her last pair of sneakers probably cost about $20 and were purchased before Parker was born. So we got her some good cross-trainers.

We finished up with dinner at Steak N Shake. The boys looked so cute in their paper hats playing with their cars.

Wesley and the Videocamera

We discovered this week that Wesley had a little fun with the camera on Sunday night. We didn't think he'd had the camera for that long when we found him, but he took a couple of short videos.

Ministry Fair

Last Sunday after church, Daddy's church Druid Hills had their first Ministry Fair after worship. All kinds of different groups within the church set up booths explaining their ministries and everyone who stayed after worship for the lunch was able to walk around and talk to people and find out information and sign up to help out in different areas. Everything was setup really nicely and seemed to go really well! Mommy and the boys didn't make it back up in time to see everything while it was going on. But we did get our own private tour during the week thanks to Daddy.....

The ABC Song

Tonight Wesley came home from daycare and announced at the dinner table that he had learned his ABC's and was able to say it in class. At the table he sang us the ABC song and did a super great job. He also practiced in the car on the way home from Kid's Club.

When he got into the tub tonight we decided to capture a video of him singing the ABC song so we could share. We did several takes but by this time of the evening he was pretty tired. The video here is the best take we got and gives you a pretty good idea of how he's doing. We're so proud of him for all that he is learning and able to do.

The Big Race

Each year the Marion County Physical Education's Wellness Association sponsors a Fitness Fun Run in Ocala for children and adults. We found out about it through the PE coach at school who sent a flier home. The cost for Run was $10 and that included the t-shirt that you receive for participating. This year the event was held at Jervey Gantt Park. Races are divided up by age levels and then by gender, with different distances and courses. As a six year old boy, Parker raced the 1/4 mile distance. His race was set for 9:15am and they let the six year old girls go first and then the boys. Parker was one of 13 boys in the race.

At the starting line. As you can see in the video below, Parker got off to a pretty good start. The problem was that the course wound around different things in the park and you had no real idea where you were headed. You followed the "rabbit" to guide you along - high school girls from a local cross-country team who wore a big set of bunny ears! Without being able to keep the end in sight, Parker wasn't quite sure about the whole thing while he was running. But he did finish the race and with a little burst of speed towards the end finished up in 10th place.

We stuck around afterwards to watch the boys' friend Lindsi from Druid Hills run in the race for 8 year old girls. They ran 1/2 a mile and Lindsi finished at 5:16. Here's she is coming into the finish area:

All in all, it was a pretty neat experience and Parker has a better idea of what to do for next time. Wesley is also looking forward to getting to race next year in the 4 year old race. The official at our race start also talked about an opportunity for kids to do a race each January inside the O'Connell Center on their indoor track at the University of Florida so we will be checking that out too.

Surprise!!!!!!

Friday night we took the boys on a surprise trip to UF to watch the very first game of the Gator baseball season, which happened to be at home against USF. They were thrilled when we finally told them in the car where we were headed. Remember it's part of Parker's current lifeplan - to play baseball for the Gators before playing for the Rays!

UF has a great setup for parking at these events. We used one of the commuter parking lots (for free) and could have rode a school bus shuttle right up to the baseball stadium. We opted however to walk as it was such a nice evening and we had time; the boys made us promise to ride the bus back.

What impressed Parker the most as we were walking was how many bicycles were on campus in the bike racks! He's been riding his bike to school pretty much every day and there are only ever 5 or 6 bikes in the rack at his school. And he is the only first grader who rides his bike. Here's a shot of one of the bike racks - bless his heart, he tried to count them all as we walked along!

Here we are at the stadium. The teams were warming up on the field as we walked in. They had just finished batting practice and apparently had hit a few balls right by the guys who were taking tickets at the gate. They gifted two of these real NCAA balls with the Gator logo on them to the boys as we walked inside!
Here's the hometeam being announced. They are the defending SEC champions and a couple of their graduated seniors from last year came out to throw the first pitch.

The boys were fascinated by Albert the Gator wandering through the stands and loved it when he raced the Chick-Fil-A Cow down on the field during one of the inning breaks.

There were plenty of snacks to enjoy - here's Wesley enjoying his bag of popcorn without taking his eyes off the field.

We had really good seats near the press box just on the first base line side of home plate. Several stray balls when over the net and behind us over the back of the stadium. One of them even went into the open press box windows.
The game was everything we hoped it would be. It finished up with a 7-2 victory for the Gators (it was 7-0 until the top of the 9th). And of course we rode the bus back to the car as we had promised the boys. They are already asking about going back to see another game! The boys managed to stay awake the whole way home - but they crashed out hard when we got them into bed.

Field Trip to the MRMC

Last Thursday, the first grade classes from South Ocala went on a field trip to Munroe Regional Medical Center and Mommy went along as a chaperone for Parker's class. Rather than in the hospital itself, we met in the conference/educational building and were led in two different seminars by auxiliary volunteers. Parker's class started off with the clowns who did magic tricks, and also talked about bike safety, stranger danger, and fire safety. The kids also got a snack over here - cookies and juice.


This was the "Stop Drop and Roll" song. Notice Parker laying on the floor in front of the "firemen"? That's because his job was to roll on the floor every time the kids sang the word "Roll."

The second seminar we visited was called "Pediatric Orientation." The idea was a pretend trip to the ER for a broken arm and going through the process of being admitted, examined, x-rayed, operated on, staying overnight and being released. They used kids as volunteers for everything and even dressed them up. That way if a kid ends up in the hospital they hopefully will not be as scared or nervous about all of the different things that happen. The kids really seemed to enjoy it!
The kids came home with all kinds of goodies to remember their trip - a mask, a cap, stickers, even a coloring book and crayons.

Parker's class with his teacher Miss Leveritt.

On the bus sitting with his friend Naomi - half the fun of field trips is getting to ride the bus and sit with your friends!