Birthday Activities

Julia opted to start her day at IHOP. Yum!!
I'll never complain about not having to make a meal, so off we went.

After IHOP, Julia opened presents. We've gotten into the habit of opening presents early in the day so they have lots of time to play with their new toys.

We've recently realized that most of our Disney movies are on VHS which means that Julia hasn't seen lots of them. So we are starting to buy them on DVD in order to make sure that Julia has a complete Disney education. How does one live without knowing the "Bear Necessities?"

You should see the cute little accessories that came with the sewing/craft table!
Oh so tiny!

In the afternoon, we went roller skating for a loooooong time!
Julia also discovered skee ball. Loves it!

Happy Birthday, Julia!

It's Julia's 9th Birthday!  

I tried to limit myself to one picture per year, but I just couldn't do it, 

there were so many good ones to choose from.  

Happy Birthday, Julia.

We are lucky to have you as part of our lives!

Love you lots and lots!

Monster Weeds!

We had such nice weather yesterday that I thought I'd do some more weeding. This yard is so darn big, that I'll never get all the weeding done, so I just pick a spot and work for a while. Obviously, I hadn't worked on this spot in a while! There were some monster weeds out there! I don't know what this is, but it kind of scared me! :o)

Julia wasn't scared. She got right in there and pulled hard. Amazingly, it gave up rather easily. I'm sure it knew that it was no match for Julia.

Girls night with Brandi Carlile

I took the girls down to Richmond last week for a Brandi Carlile concert in the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens. It was an amazing venue, the place was beautiful and the concert was AWESOME!
I picked Quincy up from school and beat a hasty retreat south on 95 before the rush hour traffic hit. We made it there with 10 mins to spare before the gates opened, so we were pretty thrilled to get a good spot on the lawn not more than 30yds from the stage.

Grant was not interested, so this is how he spent the entire concert.

Before the concert began and after we had been sitting on the lawn for a while, the girls asked if it would be okay for them to sit on the stairs which were just 10 feet in front of the stage.

I stayed with Grant for about half a song after Brandi came out, but I could see the back of the girls and could tell they were having a blast but I wanted to see them, so I joined them up front.

The concert was fantastic. The look on my girls faces was priceless!

We sang along with all of the songs and when people started dancing, we joined in.

We did NOT want the party to end, but I suppose no one can sing forever.

Look how close we were!!