Pumpkin Day - 2012

The annual Pumpkin Day at Amelia and John's elementary school was very fun again this year. Amelia and John thoughtfully planned their pumpkins well in advance (which cut down on my stress about this event a lot!) and they both were prepared for the big day.

Amelia created an artist's palette, using five small pumpkins painted in primary colors. She cut the palette out of cardboard and added a paintbrush as a special effect. I loved the creativity of Amelia's idea in making something that was not obviously comprised of pumpkins. Plus, Amelia loves art so this was a perfect representation of her personality.

John decided to create a snowman, which consisted of three small/medium/large pumpkins stacked on top of each other. At the last minute he decided to make it a Miami Heat snowman. This meant that the snowman wore a Heat jersey and baseball hat, which honestly made the snowman look much cuter than had it been plain without accessories. John was super excited about his pumpkin(s), and similarly to his sister, this was a perfect fit for his personality.

Other cute pumpkins we observed on Pumpkin Day: Cat with fish bowl (yes, there was a live fish inside). The body of the cat is a squash.

Our neighbor Flynn made this Mavericks pumpkin on a skateboard. The clown and mummies in front of the skateboard are cute too.

The Lego pumpkin (the pumpkin/squash is the body of the figure) is neat. Plus you can see many other fun pumpkins in this photo, including a vampire, spider, and crazy guy wearing a wig.

 I thought this Russian doll set was very creative, made by one of Amelia's friends.

 Loved the witch legs hanging out of the top of this pumpkin!

And also this witch riding a broom - so neat! How do people come up with all of these creative ideas?

Texas State Fair

The kids and I enjoyed a super fun Sunday last weekend at the Texas State Fair. Amelia and John had been asking repeatedly if we could go to the fair this year, and finally we had the time and good weather to go last Sunday. Sunday was the last day of the fair so we set off early from the house and rode the DART train (public transportation) down to the fairgrounds.

The huge ferris wheel is always a welcome sight! I liked the outfits worn by the Texas dancers below.

The Friday before we went to the fair, a tragedy occurred in that Big Tex suffered burns and was removed from the fairgrounds. Big Tex was a mascot for the fair, a large figure that had a sound system that boomed a dominating voice over the fair, "Howdy, folks! This is Big Tex, and I welcome you to the Great State Fair of Texas!" There are photos of Big Tex in all my October posts from prior years from our trips to the fair, but not this year. :-(

Amelia and John were aware of what had happened days before to Big Tex, but it was still surprising to me that the kids wanted to visit the place where Big Tex was located as one of the first things we did upon arriving at the fair grounds. It was strange to see the landscaped circle empty without Big Tex's figure present.

Fans had created a memorial to Big Tex complete with flowers and other momentos. One of the items was a bouquet of flowers ringed by a half dozen corn dogs. So fitting for the fair!

We saw several shows, with the first one being the dog stunt show. Several dogs ran after thrown frisbees, through hoops, and performed other stunts to delight the crowd. 

The blurry dog below is jumping over the limbo bar. Amelia and John love animals so they thought the tricks performed by the dogs were fun to watch. 

Next up was the petting zoo. I was surprised that Amelia and John suggested this (I was thinking they would be too old for it) but they both were excited to feed the animals. Amelia is feeding a Texas Longhorn below.

Lunch was our traditional Fletcher's corn dog. I say it every year, but fair day is the one and only occasion all year long that I willingly eat, and enjoy!)  a corn dog. They are so good fresh out of the fryer, eaten while sitting on the sidewalk people-watching all the craziness you see at the fair. Amelia and John were not interested in trying any of the crazy fried foods that the Texas fair is known for - fried Snickers, fried Oreo, fried Dulce de leche, fried butter - which was fine with me.

We rode the skyride over to the opposite end of the midway, a tradition that I particularly enjoy.

A car coming the opposite direction with the downtown skyline in the background.

We enjoyed two new shows at the fair this year. The photos below are from the birds of prey show. The show is held in a large amphitheater with a stage in front and a place to launch and receive animals towards the back of the audience. Huge owls and other wide-winged birds flew repeatedly over the audience, and it was pretty awesome.

The trainers even release birds from the top car in the Texas ferris wheel so that they can swoop downwards over the crowd. I loved the stunts where the birds were released from the top of the massive ferris wheel. It was amazing to think that the birds can find their way back easily, and quickly too.

The last show of the day was the BMX bike stunt show. I'll bet you can guess who wanted to see this show the most!

Last but not least, we spent some time on the midway. Being the practical and somewhat stingy mama that I am (Scott would just call me flat-out cheap), I decided that I would try to see how the kids would do on a budget for rides at the fair this year. I was hoping that the kids would be OK with this given that we had just been on some rides at Oktoberfest a few weeks before. 

And much to my delight, they were absolutely fine with the $ limit I set. They each chose to purchase a few additional tickets with their allowance money, but nothing too excessive. Neither kid begged for more funds for rides and they honestly seemed pretty content with what we did.

John loved this super tall wavy slide.

And then much to my surprise, the kids wanted to play carnival games with their tickets rather than ride more rides. I couldn't believe this! Luckily they both were able to play enough to be successful in earning (cheap) prizes. I got a kick out of how much they wanted to bring a prize home, and how they both stalked the booths looking for the best deal in terms of tickets for a likely prize.

Amelia played a go fishing type of game which had guaranteed prizes, though she had to play four times (successfully) to get the large prize she wanted. Amelia ended up bringing home a large stuffed dog. John played one basketball shot game and lost, and then tried a different basketball hoops game where he won on the last shot! I was so happy for John because prior to the last shot going in he had the most extreme look of disappointment on his face. John won a pretty nice basketball for his efforts and he was just beside himself with pride.

More fall sports photos

Some of the children's seasonal sports activities are winding down this week, which is making me somewhat sentimental about looking back at photos from this fall sports season. 

John's club soccer continues through the spring so that will be ongoing. But we enjoyed the first game in a long time this past weekend so I took photos to enjoy the moment. Several of our games have been rained out over the past month so this was the first time John got the chance to play goalie since late September. The HP Scots won their game against FC Dallas 2-0. John is wearing the yellow jersey (goalie) below.

Amelia's last fall volleyball game takes place this next week. Her team has won all their games but one, placing them in second place in their division. Amelia is not the strongest player on her team though I have to say I am immensely proud of the progress she has made this season. Amelia's serves have gotten more consistent (in getting over the net) and she is one of the best bumpers on the team. Amelia is pictured as #11 in the huddle below.

Amelia is very self-concious when it comes to me taking pictures at her games. She will stop her movements and openly roll her eyes at me if I try to snap a photo, therefore I do not have many good shots to share of her playing during games. I did, however, manage to get this (blurry) photo of Amelia during a break with Troy Aikman sitting behind her in the stands (grey t-shirt). Mr. Aikman, the legendary Cowboys quarterback from years ago, lives in our area and has a daughter the same age as Amelia. Mr. Aikman's daughter attends an elite private school that we have played each season, making Mr. Aikman a regular at our volleyball matches. Amelia's team defeated the private school team handily in two straight sets, though they were not easy victories.

And last but not least, photos from John's flag football season. John's flag football team has been both a very frustrating and very rewarding experience at the same time. It has been rewarding because John just LOVES football. The running and tagging comes very naturally for him and he gets a lot of joy being on the field. John's coach this season was really good and he worked with John's personality quite well. John is towards the right in the photo below, ready to take the ball as the running back.

The frustrating part has been that John was the only boy on the six-member team that seemed to care about the game. Even during our last game we had boys running the wrong way on the field, a "careless" mistake that angered John to no end. Let's just say that many of the boys cared more about kicking the dirt beneath their cleats than pulling flags from their opponents. However, I have to say that John was well-behaved and never lost his temper this season, which was a big deal for a competitive kid like him. He was also the big man on the team and scored pretty much every touchdown so that was fun for him.

Water park at the Reunion Resort

The main reason I booked the Wyndham Reunion resort for our Orlando fun was because of the rave reviews of the property's water park. Dozens of families reviewed the water park favorably on tripadvisor and other websites so I had a good feeling that this would be a good location for us. Amelia and John love swimming, and come October in Texas we don't have many opportunities to enjoy the water.

The property was gorgeous, as the photos here display. The landscaping was beautiful and the facilities were great.

Highlights included a very long lazy river, one large water slide, a medium-depth pool for swimming, and a water play area for children that was complete with an enormous dumping bucket, several water slides, water squirt guns, and much more fun. There were also dozens of lounge chairs nestled amongst the palm trees for adults to enjoy, and the grounds were clean and spacious.

Below is the water slide emptying into one of the pools.

I could not keep track of how many times Amelia and John went around and around on the lazy river. They loved the lazy river! Every once in awhile the adults joined in the fun too - as you can see from grandma and grandpop in the photos below.

Amelia and grandma are in the photo below.

John and grandpop are below. The reason for grandpop's smile? They had just traveled through one of the waterfalls along the lazy river route and were delighted by being soaked by the spray. There was no escaping the waterfalls - they got you wet each and every lap around the lazy river!

The next photos are of the children's play area. This structure was gigantic and easily could have acommodated many more kids. Actually the park was quite empty both days we were there, though we could imagine that in summer and during peak vacation times this place would have been packed with families. 

See that huge dumping bucket on top of the play area? Amelia and John loved watching the bucket so that they could strategize when it would dump all over the splash area. When the bucket was very full it would begin to tilt slightly...

...and then spray EVERYWHERE, all over the play structure. The splash was strong and it got the kids giggling with delight each and every time.

John is below if you can see him through the spray. Amelia is in the photos below that.

The water slides were strategically located on the play structure so that the kids would get splashed while sliding when the bucket dumped. How cool is that?

Visiting this water park was such an awesome ending to a great trip to Florida. Amelia, John and I were glad that we had the opportunity to enjoy this extra time in Florida with grandma and grandpop, and in such beautiful surroundings to boot. The smiles on our faces these two days were priceless!