Civil Disobedience

Though I honestly hesitate to tell you this, as it demonstrates my poor parenting skills and Sadie's disobedience, in the interest of full disclosure (and because I thought it was kinda funny), I will share it with you anyway...

We were up before 6:00 this morning in order to catch a flight. I had hoped Sadie and I would sleep on the plane, but no dice. So, once in Texas and on the road from the airport to my parents' house (a one-hour drive), this is what was said:

Me: Sadie, you need to try to take a nap now, okay?

Sadie: No.

Me: Sadie... Take a nap. Okay?

Sadie: No!

Me: This whole business of you telling me "no" has got to stop. Understand?

Sadie: No, ma'am.

*

She also had her Ken and Barbie dolls in the car with her. Petepa, my dad, was teasing and pestering her as he always does. At one point, I guess she got a little fed up and wanted him to stop because she held up the Ken doll and threatened, "I have a Ken and I'm not afraid to use it!"

N'awlins

Brad and I celebrated our thirteenth wedding anniversary on December 19th! To make up for our shabby tenth anniversary celebration (a hotel stay in Memphis plus a Grizzlies game), we booked an Amtrak train from Memphis to New Orleans and loved the ride!

Here I am wearing, ahem, Sadie's hat that I grabbed on my way out the door. So glad I did! Thank you Gymboree!

A tradition on Amtrak train rides: Playing Bananagrams in the Lounge Car...

We stayed in an awesome, historic hotel - The Whitney Windham on Poydras (near the St. Charles streetcar). It used to be a bank and was built in the 1800s (I might be lying). It was the perfect location for us since the French Quarter was a bit pricier. I have yet to be disappointed with booking hotel rooms on Hotwire. Seems like we always get a really cool hotel! I have a photo from inside our room, but Brad is in his undies, so I will spare you that one.

We had our anniversary meal early, on the Saturday before. We ate at the famous Commander's Palace in the ritzy Garden District. The food was amazingly good and amazingly expensive, but it was truly worth the experience. I even ate turtle (soup)! I don't really recommend it, though...

After classing it up at Commander's Palace, we classed it way down with a stroll down Bourbon Street (because you just have to). We listened to some wonderful jazz music at Fritzel's, a European style club recommended to us by AmyG, and I loved it! I already forgot this band's name, though I swore I wouldn't forget, but the lead singer/trumpeter was awesome. She had the best voice, and dimples, too!

The next morning, we decided to do the touristy thing and head to Cafe du Monde. Along with a million other people. The lines to wait were ridiculous (to sit and to go) so we stood outside the kitchen window for a few minutes and watched them prepare, cut, and throw (NOT "toss") the beignet dough into the massive vats of grease. Once we got our appetite back, we walked to Cafe Beignet and placed our order there instead (they tasted exactly the same, FYI).

We kept up with our tourist theme for the day and boarded the Steamboat Natchez. It really was a lot of fun and we found out that they cancelled the rest of the cruises for the time of our trip, so we kind of lucked out. It was so relaxing. We listened to the jazz band as we ate lunch in the dining room, then sunned out on the deck while we learned about the area.

Of course, we were suckered into buying the souvenir photo they take as you board since we thought it was a good photo and wanted to have it!

Then, of course, someone took a photo of us with our phone while on the cruise and it was just as great, really... Of course this was after we shelled out the big bucks for the souvenir photo...

It was a great two-hour tour that, gratefully, ended well. I couldn't help by notice, though, that the mighty Mississip closely resembled that vat of grease over at Cafe du Monde... (eck!)

When we disembarked, this guy was standing around.

I must say, he was truly talented. By talented, I mean, he stayed in that position for at least 15 minutes without moving a muscle. I barely even saw him blink! He would talk to folks, but he

did it ventriloquist style: without moving his lips. Impressive.

We did a little shopping in the French Quarter, ate a "light" dinner at Camelia's Grill (the French Quarter location and I put light in quotes because, well, if you have eaten there, you know they cook with some major grease!), then headed back over to Bourbon Street to sing some Karaoke at the Cat's Meow nice and early before it got too late and too wild. Brad and I each sang a song then a duet. (Remember, we are self-proclaimed dorks!)

On Monday, we took the Canal Streetcar to the cemeteries and then to City Park. Of course, the NOMA was closed (New Orleans Museum of Art) but the park is just really massive and cool to walk around. We want to return sometime with Sadie so she can experience Storyland. It looked fun.

We, of course, had to take some dorky photos...

Note the lion statue in the bottom right corner because...

I posed with it, of course!

They have some ancient oak trees in the park that are ridiculously enormous. I mean, really.

The sculpture park behind the museum was also pretty cool. (And perhaps Brad and I are the only folks who had the idea to take this kind of photo...). Truly original, I am sure! HA.

Monday the 19th was our actual anniversary, and we randomly picked a restaurant near the end of the St. Charles Streetcar line, on our way to go bowling. It was called Louisiana Pizza Kitchen and Brad said it was the best pizza he had ever eaten (we have recreated it twice since returning home, and though we cannot get it exact, it is still pretty good!). The owner/manager was really cool and talked to us a bit. When he learned it was our anniversary, he gave us a free dessert! Way to do business, my friend.

But, of course, what truly made our night and our anniversary was the fact that Drew Brees (and his entire family) came in to the restaurant and dined mere feet away from us. On his way out, Brad asked if he could get a photo. He also wished us a happy anniversary. He is truly a class act and down-to-Earth kind of guy. I was impressed in the whole minute I spoke to him. HA.

After dinner, we headed to the Rock N Bowl bowling alley that we have heard nothing but awesome things about. We purposely saved it for our last night, we were so excited about it. Of course, we could not find a bus to take us directly there - he said it would be close, but dropped us off several blocks away where we had to walk through "the ghetto" to get there. A little uncomfortable, but we got there, nonetheless.

Only to discover they were closed for private parties.

Of course.

If it weren't for Drew Brees, this would have ruined our night.

But we still got to go inside and take a photo of the stage and dance floor (where live bands usually play and people dance... Wednesday night is swing night!). Oh, we were so disappointed!!!

Cool place. Cool pic.

So we headed back to our hotel on a bus that dropped us off right on the corner.

Any time I talked about riding the streetcar, I had broke out into The Simpsons' musical version of A Streetcar Named Desire, with jazz hands and all, "Streetcar!" So, I had Brad take a photo. Because.I.am.just.that.corny.

Instead of finding something else to do that night, we settled in to our hotel room and watched some awesome episodes of Hoarders and Intervention. It was very relaxing (though a bit disturbing!).

We had half day left to run around town before the train headed for home. Everyone told us we had to eat at Acme Oyster House, so we were able to squeeze in a lunch there on Tuesday before we headed back for the train. I am glad we did because, not only was the food yummy (I had a fried oyster and shrimp po-boy because I was too scared to do oysters on my own without an expert with me) but we also ran into "Mel" (Kristen Schaal) from HBO's Flight of the Conchords! She was very sweet and took a photo with me. I was a bit surprised that her real voice is the same as on the show...

We did a little souvenir shopping (bought a t-shirt for Sadie) then headed back to the hotel to get our bags and hail a cab. I won't get into what happened with the cab ride...

We had a blast and cannot wait until our next "big" anniversary celebration (maybe at 15 years?) when I would love to take the train back then hop on a cruise for a few days and nights! I just have to get Brad on board... Figuratively AND literally. ;)

All Things Christmas

This holiday season has been busy! Here are some of the highlights:

Sadie and I continued our annual tradition and went to see Ballet Arkansas perform The Nutcracker at the Robinson Center.

We met up with Karalyn, Gus, and Bess. We had great seats, thanks to Groupon (our favorite way to save on fun events like this)! We were in the last row of the orchestra section, which was perfect because the kids could stand and dance by/behind their seats without bothering anyone.

The girls were excited for the show to start!

As always, Ballet Arkansas did an amazing job. Sadie was shocked and thrilled to see Mysti on the stage (She is the daughter of Sadie's ballet instructor.) As I suspected, as soon as it was over, she lamented over her decision not to do ballet this year...

*

This was our first year to do Breakfast with Santa at the Children's Hospital. Karalyn and her crew go every year, and since we were going to miss our neighborhood's Breakfast with Santa, we decided to join them. Firemen were there cooking and serving the breakfast (pancakes, eggs, sausage. bacon, etc.). It was pretty cool.

Here is a photo of our Santa photo. I couldn't scan it because you need ink in your printer to do that, and, as always, we are out of ink...

The Hospital always has "the real Santa" (as opposed to our clubhouse who had a twenty-something Santa who sipped on a McDonald's soda cup the entire time...).

Sadie had a ball!

She was able to call the North Pole and chat with one of Santa's elves... (I think she was a bit in disbelief):

And write her letter to Santa (click to make it big if you care to read it)...

And mail it to him! (She got everything on her list, plus a surprise item, and when she saw it, she said, "But, I didn't order this!")

She also made quite a few crafts and got two tattoos (arms) and was proud to show it all off.

After breakfast, we headed back to Motley's Tree Farm. This was our second year to go, and we are excited to make this an official tradition.

Does this photo look familiar? Sadie has grown some, though!

We picked out our tree pretty quickly this year. Not too big; not too small; but just right...

Afterwards, Sadie wanted to ride the train again, but didn't have her cousins around to join her, so I had to oblige. It was a bumpy ride, and I felt a bit silly sitting in the cow car!!! But there were other adults who rode other times. I think. Or so I will keep telling myself anyway...

And the pig race made our Christmas tree farm trip complete!

Since we just put in hardwood floors in our living room/dining room area, the live tree went up in the den. A room that is "owned" by Sadie and all her junk. Hooray.

So we put up our artificial one in the living room.

*

Sadie's school celebrated Christmas with another Mustang Mission (donate toys with the prices on them so less fortunate parents can buy them at huge discounts), Christmas parties, concerts and more.

Here is Sadie's reindeer from art class:

On the last day of school Friday, December 16th, the Kindergarten thru 6th graders performed Christmas songs in Chapel. The day before, the Pre-k classes reenacted the story of Jesus' birth (costumes and all) and I kicked myself for not having my camera. They were precious!!!

Anyway, Sadie's 1st grade class sang Santa had a Christmas Tree (think Old MacDonald had a Farm...)...

And We Wish you a Merry Christmas.

It was very cute, and they all wore the reindeer sweatshirts that they made at school: a footprint for the face, handprints for the antlers, googly eyes, a pom pom nose, a ribbon, and a bell! Too cute.

It has been a great Christmas!

A Picture Says a Thousand Words...

Sadie had a writing assignment: To write a sentence with the sight word "come" and draw a picture of the sentence.

I do not know whether to be proud or embarrassed, but she added the detail on our shirts so it is clear that we were headed to school (and not to church, which, sadly, also could have applied). Feel free to click on the photo so you can see it more clearly...

Nice. Real nice.

Fright Night

Sadie took forever this year deciding what she wanted to be for Halloween. I honestly cannot remember all the different possibilities she came up with. I know Belle was in the running for a long time... But, when we saw a long blond wig with a braid in the store, it was decided: Rapunzel. She already had a dress, so that was fine with me!

As we do each year, we went to our church's Trunk or Treat and fall festival the Wednesday night before Halloween. They start with trick or treating out in the parking lot, but instead of going house-to-house, you go trunk-to-trunk. We were a little late, sadly, and got there as many were packing up, but Sadie still got a decent amount of candy. Here she is, the Tangled version of Rapunzel, frying pan and all!

Inside, they had food, games, crafts, and various activities for all the kiddos. It truly is amazing how much work goes into the event! It is so much fun and our church family tends to grow from this event. Visitors who come this night come back to visit on Sunday and decide to stay, which is always the ultimate goal!

I did not realize that cousin Bess had planned on being Rapunzel as well. Luckily, it did not cause a problem... Can you guess whose long blond hair is real and whose is fake??? Ha! I straightened that wig all night long and it made no difference...

Sadie and Avery could not give us a cutesy pose. So, I guess this is considered scary? Note: The wig disappeared, so we decided she became Rapunzel after Flynn (aka Eugene) cut off her hair...

(I really really wanted Sadie, because of her teeth, to be a vampire or, better yet, Mama Odie, the voodoo woman from The Princess and the Frog, but she refused. I can't blame her, but I still I think she would have made the perfect Mama Odie!!!)

I forced the family to carve a pumpkin this year (no one was interested last year... boo hiss). Sadie drew the face, Brad carved, and I cleaned and roasted the seeds (and ate them all on my own). I think the jack-o-lantern's smile was a self-portrait... It seemed to be missing the same number of teeth as Sadie!

We did not bother to go trick or treating on Halloween night since Sadie got candy from the church event and was going to go trick or treating the next night at, ahem, Disney World's Magic Kingdom, so we opted to stay in. I desperately needed to pack for our trip as well, so we decided to leave candy out on the porch for the neighborhood kids to help themselves. We thought this would also save Sadie a few nightmares. In the past, she would help me hand out candy when the doorbell rang, but would become haunted later that night by some of the scary costumes she saw.

My prayer mom from school (kinda like a secret pal, but not a secret) gave me this cool Hocus Pocus book as a gift - when you open it, it creaks and a witch cackles, so Brad filled it with candy and put a sign beside it, "Please take one if you dare":

I must say, I was highly impressed with the kids in our neighborhood. Brad and Sadie decided to watch from inside our dark house, and Brad said the kids really did only take one piece of candy at a time.

But then he and Sadie came up with a plan: to scare the older kids...

When the older ones would open the book, Sadie would flick the porch lights on and off and Brad would make the alarm go off on his car (parked in the driveway). Oh my... I do not know which was more hilarious: The kids' reactions or Sadie's! Sadie nearly died laughing every time.

But it took them a while to perfect their craft and one boy, holding a basketball (so I guess he was a plain clothed basketball player... some of these kids don't even seem to try with their costumes anymore) got so scared, he ran off without grabbing any candy! After that happened, the new rule was to do the scary stuff after they got their candy and were about to walk away.

However, poor, compassionate Sadie still brings up "The boy with the basketball who didn't get any candy" and adds, "I just can't stop thinking about him!" I have tried to assure her that, no doubt, he got plenty of candy from other houses, but she is still haunted by that image to this day. Back to the drawing board!

Fairly Well

Good ole Brad hooked us up again this year by winning a free pack to the State Fair which included 4 adults + 2 children admission tickets plus a parking pass (a $45 value). He is such the provider (though, I guess I should also thank the local radio stations who offer the prizes!).

We took Sadie's friend, Avery, with us one Sunday afternoon back in October. They had a blast!

At first, they would only stick to the truly "kiddie" rides. Neither of them wanted to ride the roller coasters or rides that went higher in the air...

So, here are pictures...

On the carousel:

On the cars (which actually zip around the corners pretty quickly):

On the Dumbo ride, which Sadie declared was "Just like at Disney!" Neh-eh. Please, Sadie... Do NOT compare the Arkansas State Fair to Disney World. Ever.

I always avoid the games at the fair, though Brad always want to play them. Sadie and Avery took their chances and displayed their strength...

And won!

Finally, finally, after much coaxing from Brad and me, they decided to ride the dragon roller coaster. They were a bit hesitant at first (and ended up in the front seat!)...

But loved it! Okay, well, Sadie looks like she loves it; Avery looks a little pensive still... But they asked to ride it again and again, so it was a hit after all!

There was no stopping them after the roller coaster. They even rode the "free fall" ride over and over and over again! (Which definitely made the splurge for the unlimited ride armbands worth it!)

Sadie and Avery also ran in to Sanlee, a buddy from Otter Creek Elementary. All three were in the same pre-K4 class together, and Sadie and Sanlee were in the same Kindergarten class as well. But now they all go to different schools, so it was a nice mini-reunion! They were inseparable until it was time for us to leave.

They rode several more rides and walked through the petting zoo, feeding the zebras and goats, etc... They ate fair food, but nothing too out of the ordinary. I kept saying I would try something crazy (fried oreos, chocolate covered bacon, fried butter, fried soft pretzels, etc...) but just could not go through with it... I am sure my digestive system is still thanking me for backing out!

I am so glad the girls enjoyed themselves. It also made the fair a lot more fun for Brad and for me: to watch Sadie ride with a friend instead of riding by herself or with a stranger. Hopefully, we can make this an annual tradition as well (as long as Brad will keep winning tickets for us, cheapo that I am!)