March and April Adventures

"In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours." -Mark Twain

Mark must have been thinking ahead to spring of 2014 when he wrote this, because for sure this spring has gotten off to a very "up-and-down" start weather-wise.  But we've had lots of fun as always!

In March, David's parents came to visit for a couple of days.  We had so much fun!  We went shopping, had a lunch cookout one day in our backyard, and the whole family got together (me, David, Joseph, my parents, and David's parents) for dinner at Lucky 32 on that Saturday night.  Joseph had a ball playing with his Mimi, Poppy, and Rocky the dog!!!  So glad they came!!!

Daddy gets home from work that Friday and gets to see his parents and his boy!

This was pretty much the expression that Joseph had throughout Mimi and Poppy's visit - he loves his grandparents! (And this was even after we had just watched Carolina lose in the ACC tournament!)

Joseph LOVES dogs.  I have never seen a child so in love with canines.  He had so much fun with Rocky.

And he laughed hysterically playing with Poppy the night before they left!

A week or two later, we had to have a very large tree cut down in our backyard that was leaning towards our house and starting to come out of the ground.  If this tree had fallen during a heavy rain, ice, or wind storm, it would have destroyed a major part of our home and also been very dangerous to the three of us inside.  So we called a local tree service to come take it down.  My very sweet and protective husband won't let Joseph and I be at the house alone when men come to do any sort of work, so my dad will generally come over to sit with us when that happens if David is at work.  Duke Energy had to cut the power to our house while this was being done (because the line ran right under the tree they were removing), so I was worried about keeping a toddler happy while we would be in the dark all day.  But it actually turned out to be a fun little adventure!

For most of the time we sat in the front yard in some chairs facing toward the house, because we could watch them take down the tallest part of the tree from over the house.  So scary to watch the guy waaaaaaaay up in that leaning tree!

This giant and VERY LOUD wood chipper was parked in our driveway right next to our dining room/living room window.  I had to put Joseph down for his nap in the living room because they told us to stay out of the back of the house for safety's sake.  Even with the chipper running full blast and shutting down and starting back up over and over about 10 feet from where Joseph was sleeping (separated only by a wall of course) he slept perfectly.  A nurse in the hospital told us that if you always expose your baby from the start to normal noise then they will sleep through anything.  We did, and I'm starting to think there is some truth to that! lol

 

 

This tree was so tall and this was taken from so far away that it's hard to see the man way up there.  But he's there, trust me!

After Joseph got up from his nap they had the tree down to a non-dangerous height (to where if it fell it wouldn't hit the house), so we migrated around to the back sun porch to watch the rest and even ate our lunch out there!  He enjoyed watching them work!

They even had to take down a small portion of our fence to get the bigger logs to the chipper.  As promised, though, they put it back up perfectly, and you'd never be able to tell they took it down for a little bit! (Picture taken through glass and screen, so I apologize if it looks funny)

That same week, Greensboro celebrated the 206th anniversary of it's founding.  You know me, I look for every possible excuse to a) celebrate something and b) find an educational experience for Joseph, so I thought this fit the bill perfectly!  So, since David would be at work on the day we were going to celebrate, I called my parents to see if they wanted to join the fun.

I made some Greensboro birthday cupcakes, which I took to my parents' house to kick of the celebration (don't worry, I did bring most of them back for David so he could celebrate, too).  I didn't give Joseph a cupcake because I knew we would be getting ice cream later in the day, and I knew that much sugar would be the death of my sanity!  Lol.  We even sang Happy Birthday!

After some cupcake fun, we jumped in the car and headed downtown to the Greensboro Historical Museum.

Joseph - old fashioned phone operator collecting some calls!

A few minutes to walk around outside the museum afterward

After the museum, our next traditional Greensboro stop was the locally famous Yum Yum ice cream and hot dogs.  Joseph shared a little of Nonie's ice cream.

And our last fun stop of the day was at Fisher Park in downtown Greensboro to do some swinging and playing.

Happy Birthday Greensboro!  So thankful to have grown up in this great city and to be raising my little man here!

Very grateful for all of our fun spring adventures!