Friday, June 7, 2019

Huntsville: The Chinese Lantern Festival

We've been talking about going to the Chinese Lantern Festival all spring.  We could not work out a time and finally the last weekend, we made it happen.  My sister, her husband, mom, dad, the kids, and I all loaded up on a Saturday and headed north.  Clay wanted to stop at a brewery in Cullman.  It was a great pit stop.  The grown ups got a beer, Barrett and AveryAnn split a sprite and ate all the free popcorn they could.  Barrett thought he was big stuff drinking his sprite out of the little pilsner glass.  (I'm not sure where this ranks me in the Parent of the Year competition)

I mean how cute are they?!?

Our first stop in Huntsville was this park.  It was a beautiful place to walk around and see the ducks.  


The kids loved looking at the fish.

They did not love having their picture made.



This mama duck and her ducklings was a sweet sight.  There's a little goose family in our neighborhood and we've loved watching them grow so my kids are kind of obsessed with baby birds.

We packed up and headed to get some dinner.  
This is where things started heading south...

The only reason my sister's husband agreed to go on this little adventure was so he could eat at a particular restaurant.  Well we get there and said restaurant is no longer serving the menu he was seeking.  He was not happy.  
The restaurant was in a neat space.  It used to be a school and is now a retail space with a brewery as the anchor.  All the brewery equipment is in the gym and it was so neat.  Of course I didn't take any pictures of that.  We decided to go ahead and eat at the brewery.


AveryAnn loves "reading" the menus.  She picks out letters and its really fun!  Unfortunately, right after this, she turned her chair over and hurt her leg.  At this point in the night we were all wondering what we'd gotten ourselves into.  I took her outside and got her calmed down right before our food arrived.  She went to sleep and we thought we were on the up swing.


We finished up dinner and headed to the Huntsville Botanical Gardens.  When we arrived there were people lined up to get in.  There were two weddings going on plus it was the last weekend for the laterns so it was packed.

We waited in line and then realixed you could also buy tickets at the gift shop so we jumped out of line did that and finally walked into the gardens.  I wish I had mine and my sister's reaction recorded.  We were like little kids in Disney World.  We were giddy.  It was absolutely beautiful!!  

The kids were excited too!  AveryAnn was having none of my picture taking!

Barrett wanted to take Nana and Granddaddy's picture. 


Then we went into the gardens, and it was even more beautiful than I could imagine.

The pictures do not do it justice!






Barrett got to ride a dinosaur.



They had a shadow puppet show that was amazing.  (The story was a little dark for kids but the artistry was beautiful!)

It was absolutely amazing and worth every mishap to get there!  I'm so glad we got to go!

AveryAnn was still fussy when we were getting her in and out of the car.  Mainly when we tried to touch her foot.  I didn't think much of it.  When I moved her from the van to my car at my parents house, she cried and cried.  That worried me some.  When we got home and tried to change her clothes she was pitiful.  She didn't want us to change her clothes or take off her shoes.  She wouldn't go to the potty.  She ended up having an accident on me and our bed.  She was just pitiful.  We finally got her changed and asleep.  She was no better when we got up Sunday morning.  He foot/leg wasn't swollen or bruised or anything so we were torn on what to do.  Finally, after she cried and cried we decided to take her to the ER.  We dropped Barrett off at my parents so he could go to church and we headed to Children's ER. We were going to take her to our new local ER but everyone we talked to said to go ahead take her to Childrens.  
We got there and waited a little while.  They got us back to a room and the girl immediately took us to Xray.  When I tried to verify her identity by her birthday, they had her birthday wrong so they couldn't xray her.  We went back to the room and waited.  While we were waiting the Nurse Practioner came in to examine her.  We thought all along it was her foot.  The NP asked if we were sure it was her foot.  Well no, we weren't sure.  She suggested it might actually be her tibia and ordered that to be xrayed also. (So it worked out that we didn't xrays the first time).  Sure enough she was right.  Fractured tibia.  They put it in a splint and we were told to follow up with ortho.
The first few nights were rough. She wouldn't take anything for the pain.  She's a terrible medicine taker.  She would cry all night and want me to hold her.  I got about 5 hours of sleep in 3 nights.  It was worse than having a newborn.  Finally, we forced her to take the motrin and she started sleeping better at night. 



We went to ortho the next Friday.  He gave us the option of a boot or cast.  We decided on the cast because he said she would be in less pain and we were only going to have to wear it for 3 weeks.  She was so proud of her pink cast.  We've got one week left and we're all counting the days.  Fun Fact:  This is the first broken bone on my side of the family.  None of my siblings have ever had a broken bone, none of their kids.  We have laughed and laughed because we did some crazy stuff as kids and then our first broken bone is from falling out of a chair.  

Kindergarten Graduation

Barrett's first year of big school has been nothing short of amazing!  I can't believe how fast Kindergarten came and went.  Barrett has grown and matured so much this year and I am so proud of him.
I've had the best time getting to be the class room mom.  My last task was taking cap and gown pictures of the kids and delivering Mrs. Ross's end of the year gift.  Full disclosure, I'd bought her a gift card at the beginning of the year but I accidentally gave it to her during Teacher Appreciation week.  So Jessica and I were going to buy her a gift cart to Top Golf out of pocket for her end of the year gift.  (Yes, Top Golf sounds kind of random but she'd mentioned she wanted to go and I thought it would be fun for summer).  I decided last minute to reach out to the other parents just to see if anyone wanted to donate, I was hoping to get $50.  Within an hour I had $200 in my account to be spent on her.  If that doesn't show how much parents love her I don't know what does.  I don't know how she did it but she made every student feel like they were her favorite.  We were able to get her the gift card to Top Golf, a gift certificate to the nail salon and an Amazon gift card to get her summer kicked off right!  I cried giving it to her.  We are going to miss her so much.

Every AveryAnn loved her.  If she doesn't have her we will all be devastated.

They had a sweet little "completion ceremony" at the high school.  I tried to get Barrett to wear his suit but he wouldn't do it.  Don't be surprised if I make him wear a royal blue gingham bow tie for his high school graduation.

We are so proud of him!

These sweet buddies found out this week they have the same first grade teacher too!  They are so excited.  I'm already praying for her.

We survived Kindergarten together!  Thankful we get to be together again next year!
Bring on Summer time!