Plano Balloon Festival

On Saturday, the kids and I met our friends, the Sandkuhlers, at the Plano Balloon Festival. Scott was working :( This seems to have become an annual event for us. We usually go on Friday night, but it was raining. The festival was PACKED. I had never seen it that busy before. 

We parked by Plano Center. There was a long line of cars and I thought I was turning into the Colin College entrance. I was wrong :( So we had about a mile walk to the festival! Payton was positive about it though, 'Walking is good exercise!' - which is true, except that it's harder when you're carrying a backpack with our blankets, and a bag with our food and drinks in it. Aaaah, the life of a pack mule...um, sorry, life of a Mom.

We were lucky to find a spot close to the balloons. The parachutist went right over us! The kids favorite balloon was the pig with glasses :)

Besides the balloons, the second highlight of our festival trip was the bicycle cart ride back towards our car. The kids thought the ride was thrilling and I thought it was wonderful not to have to pack mule it back :)

I love my sunflowers!

It's a little thing really - having a garden plot in my side yard. I love having my own garden.

About the beginning of July, I finally had a chance to breathe for a second after moving, and Disney, and an Arkansas trip. So, I decided to try planting something in my garden. I usually don't plant in the July, but it was cool for the first week, and I didn't get to plant this Spring.

I planted green beans, eggplant, squash, tomatoes, and sunflowers. Immediately, the young green bean plants started getting eaten, so I had to put up a rabbit fence. Everything grew well, but it took a long time till my beans started to produce and even now, they aren't getting very big. I've only made one eggplant, even though the bush is huge! And the squash didn't make anything. My conclusion is that it was just too hot to produce anything. I'm hoping that my fall crop will do better. A week ago, I planted lettuce, spinach, kale, and arugula.

Then there are the sunflowers. The sunflowers turned out amazing. These plants are about 9-10 feet tall. The bees LOVE them. I even saw my first green bee! Never realized they came in that color, but there he was right outside my window.

The grasshoppers seem to like the sunflowers too.

This Doesn't Happen Everyday

Two days ago, I noticed a huge wasp nest in a tree in front of our house. This tree is next to the sidewalk that young children use to walk to school everyday.

 I don't know how I've missed it. It was at least 8 inches across and had over 100 wasps clinging to it!

I was pretty intimidated by it. I've sprayed wasp nests before and haven't had any issues. But with a nest that size, I was afraid of an all-out attack right back at me, if I attempted anything.

So, I called the number of a pest control place that a neighbor of mine uses for regular pest management. For a one time wasp nest removal, this company wanted $175 because I didn't have a contract with them. I thought this number was a little high, so I searched for a company on the internet.

And I found Addison Pest Control :) They scheduled me for 1pm the same day. The person that came out was actually the owner of the company. He took one look at the nest and said, 'Sure, I can take care of that for you.' I asked him how much, and he said he didn't need anything to take care of it for me! I couldn't believe my ears. Nobody does anything gratis anymore. I showed him a couple more nests that were way up under my overhang. He said he would send someone out to knock those down for me...again for free. He wouldn't let me pay him. He gave me a nice little informative talk about wasps. It was quite educational. The guy was just super-nice.

So, if I have any other pest issues, guess who I'm calling....Addison Pest Control. Our house is still under a termite warranty, but when it expires. I'll be calling APC because they seem like an honest company. And, I guess him not charging me for something little will probably pay off for him in the end.

First Day of School

Since we moved at the beginning of the Summer, yesterday was Payton and Ian's first day at a new school -  Ashley Elementary in Frisco. They both, understandably were anxious and excited.

 Ian is in first grade and has Mrs. Shade as a teacher. He said that she is very nice. He got to play with Play-doh twice! I'm a little skeptical about Play-doh in first grade, but it was just the first day, so we'll see..... Ian was most excited that they had HOTDOGS! in the cafeteria for lunch!

Payton has Mr. Thornburg for homeroom, math and science; and Mrs. Cooksey for reading and writing. I think Payton is excited about having a male teacher. She said she had a good first day. The only real work that they did was 'power write' about a topic Mrs. Cooksey gave them.

We are all learning the ropes. It's a new school and they definitely do things differently than where we were before. I haven't decided if it's good, bad, or just different. Time will tell.

I was very excited to see my kids off to school. Don't get me wrong, we have had a great summer and I love hanging out with the kids, but they were starting to get a little tired of hanging out at home with Mom. Thus, I was getting a little tired of hanging out with the kids at home :)

Disney World - Florida

Our big vacation this year was to Disney World. We went less than a week after school was let out for the summer. We had been briefed/warned by other friends what to expect. I had been to Disney World when I was a kid, but Scott hadn't. And this was our kids first times, as well.

Let me start by saying, in the end, we loved it. We all had a great time. It was a great experience.

BUT, it was also one of the most exhausting vacations I've been on. After the first day, I didn't know how I was going to make it the week. Don't go to Disney, if you want to relax....go to a beach or a mountain top.

The first day, we went to Magic Kingdom. It was hot and crowded! For a Wednesday, I thought the crowds would be less, but I was wrong. We went to Space Mountain first. This might have been a little much for everyone, including Scott. We should have warmed up to it, but by the end of the day, the line would have been impossible. We used our FastPasses wisely, so even though there were huge crowds. The longest wait we had was about 25 minutes.

We made from when the park opened till about 2pm. Then we were just hot and tired, so we went back to the hotel to swim.

In the evening, we went back to Magic Kingdom for one of my favorite things, the light parade. The kids thought it was cool, too. But after that, the kids were ready to go back to the hotel, so we didn't stay for fireworks.

Spring Break III - Bloom Festival

My parents came up and we visiting the Dallas Arboretum where the Bloom Festival was in full swing.

Spring Break II - Medieval Times

Groupon brought us our next Staycation Spring Break adventure. We all went to a Medieval Times Dinner. We actually went to a 2:30pm show, so that Ian could go through Knight Training.

Knight Training involved lining a bunch of kids up in the stadium and teaching them to swing a wooden sword. Ian liked it well enough.

The kids thought the castle was pretty cool. 

As part of the show, they had trained horses prance around for us. While Scott and I thought this was very cool, poor Ian was sneezing up a storm. As soon as the horses were done prancing, the sneezing stopped. Thus, we have concluded that Ian is allergic to horses :( Poor guy, it was so bad, he wanted to leave the show. But I got him to hold on until the horses left and he was fine.

The show's choreography was pretty impressive. It was better than I expected and Scott thought it was amazing!

The food was good.....especially for food that you had to eat with your hands.

All in all....a good time.