Tyler Says the Darndest Things

Tyler said it was a "little cereal shovel". It's hard to see but it is a piece of cereal that is shaped like a shovel.

Last Day at Grandma's

With another beautiful warm sunny day to enjoy, we decided to go do a geocache just down the street. The three of us walked to it and then walked to Dunkin Donuts to get some beverages. When we arrived back to Grandma's, Mark and Angie were there. We had made plans with Chellee and Peter to meet up later on and so they joined us. We all went to a park, but it was much too crowded for our liking, so we went to a less crowded park down the street. Steve looked to see if there were any caches nearby and low and behold there was. After finding the cache, we went back to the playground area and watched the kids play until it was time for dinner. We said goodbye to Mark, Angie and family because they had to get back on the road to go back home. Then we met Chellee, Peter and family at their place for some pizza and episodes of the show 'Community'. However, we couldn't stay late because we had a long 12 hour drive to do the next day to go back home to Virginia. Overall, we had a pleasant Thanksgiving with our family in Florida. It was wonderful seeing everyone again!

Thanksgiving Dinner

Mark,Angie, Garret and Carissa arrived early so that Mark and Steve could cut down a dead leaning tree bordering Grandma's and her neighbors. We all got together for a lovely Thanksgiving meal prepared by Grandma and Papa. Everything was super delish, but most of all it was so nice seeing everyone again after it being almost a year since the last time we were together. All the children had grown so much since our last trip to Florida and the cousins had a great time playing with each other. Steve and I got to meet Brian's girlfriend, Rachel, for the first time. Uncle Mark bought Tyler and Garret a cowboy play set. The boys enjoyed playing cowboys and soon their cousin, Abby, got into the game. She looked like a real cowgirl. After dinner, Aunt Chellee arranged for the kids to make some Christmas ornaments for Grandma's Christmas tree. The kids had to what they were thankful for and we wrote it on each of the ornaments with their name and age. Tyler was thankful for food, family, and animals. It had been years since our last family photo, so tonight we got together for a few photos. A few with just couples and a few more with the cousins together. It was getting late by this time and unfortunately it was time to say good night to everyone.

Florida Bound

Our Thanksgiving vacation started after Steve got home and we picked Tyler up from school. The school day for kindergartners was only 2 hours instead of 3 and they got out early, so it gave us a chance to get on the road at a good time before the heavy traffic. We drove until we reached Georgia and stayed overnight. The next morning we got back on the road again and made it to Grandma's in a few hours. After quickly saying hello and unpacked the car, we got back in the car; Steve wanted to surprise Tyler by going to Disney. All we told Tyler was that we were going to some place that was magical. He guessed we were going to Toys R Us. LOL To say the least, he was quite excited when we came to the big Disney Magic Kingdom entrance.

On the way down to Florida, Tyler asked Dad if we could go to Disney to go on the "boxcar ride". What he meant by that was the "People Mover". So, after we ate lunch we headed on over and rode on that ride. When we got off that ride and we were looking for another to go on, Tyler said he wanted to go back to Grandma's to see her guinea pigs. LOL We were quite surprised. Of course, we didn't leave because there was a lot more fun to be had and once we went on more rides and saw more things, he stopped asking to leave. LOL At Tyler's request we took the raft to Tom Sawyer Island. He had a blast there! Because it was Thanksgiving day the lines were quite long, so we did a lot of walking around. However, we did go on Dad's favorite ride "Pirates of the Caribbean" and then Tyler wanted to see the Swiss Family Robinson tree house. Then we rode the train and took the monorail over to Epcot where we saw many attractions including "The Land" and "Journey Into Imagination with Figment". After eating dinner at The Land, we went on some more rides and then took the monorail back to the Magic Kingdom to go on a few more before watching the Electric Light Show and the fireworks. By this time, it was 10:30pm and we had a very worn out little boy that was up way past his bedtime. It was time to get him back to Grandma's and into bed. We needed a good rest for another busy and excited day with the rest of the family.

Tyler Gets a Boost

Finally! Tyler gained 40 pounds required for a booster seat. This is a move up from his car seat that he's been in since he was about a year old. Dad came home today with the surprise seat for Tyler. We then went for a little spin in the car today to test it out before the start of our drive to Florida tomorrow afternoon. It was very much "Tyler approved". He loves the fact that he can reach better and is more comfortable. He is growing sooo fast. Here he is when he first moved into the car seat he grew out of.

Fridge Artwork

Here is some of the artwork that Tyler's been busy decorating our fridge with. Thought you all might enjoy it too.

November BBQing

The past couple of months the temperature here has been all over the place; one day it would be in the 50's, then the next day it in the 80's. Today was a beautiful 76 degrees. Tyler asked us if we could take him to the playground in front of our building and while down there, Steve suggested that we should have a BBQ. So we went to Wal-Mart and got our supplies, came back and had a great time BBQing hot dogs for dinner. Tyler says we should have BBQs more often, Steve and I agree.

The Smith Saturday Comics

Tyler drew this for us this morning. It's his first comic strip. In it, one guy is saying, "I see the cat.". The other guy responds by saying, "Wut cat". As you can tell, Tyler has done the spelling himself. LOL He says he will finish it in high school when he knows more words. LOL

He loves chickens.

Cashing in on the Candy

We decided we were pretty much done with our Halloween candy, but we had a lot left over. Tyler's dentist buys back candy every year and then sends it to the troops overseas. She offers $1 per pound, so we got a whooping $3. Tyler was quite excited about receiving the moolah, but we didn't go on a shopping spree. He decided to keep it for a rainy day.

Weekend Road Trip to Maryland

Tyler had Thursday and Friday off from school making it an extra long weekend, so we decided to take advantage of the days off and go away on a little road trip. We haven't been up to Maryland in about a year, so we were due a trip up there to see our friends and check on our own caches we have hidden. Thursday morning we left in the rain to start our little weekend adventure. Later that night after checking in at the hotel, we met Katherine, Rodney, Dan, Barb, and Fran for dinner. As always it was wonderful seeing everyone. Katherine surprised Tyler by giving him a really cool Lego/book set. They had a lot of fun building different structures with it while we ate and chatted. We were there until they closing time.

The next day was Veteran's/Remembrance Day. We had a couple of caching events lined up, but before attending them we had some work to do. Some of our caches had to have a little tender loving care to get them back in working shape. Before long we lost track of time and just barely made it to the first event, which happened to be a flash mob.  We saw a few people we knew, but it was mostly newer cachers that showed up.

After the event, Dan and Barb asked us if we had lunch plans, so we ended up joining them for lunch at a nearby restaurant. Then we got back in the car and decided to go do some caching. Dan recommended we try and find one of his. He said Tyler would really like it. He was right. It was really cute! In fact, we all loved it. Then we headed down to North Beach Chesapeake where we did some more recommended caches hidden by our friends, Sue and Mark. The caches were hidden on a beautiful new the "Rails to Trails". It was chilly, but the views were definitely worth the walk.

It was starting to get dark, so we got back in the car and headed towards the location of the next caching event. The event was a Meet and Greet at the Double T Diner which is famous for their incredible selection of desserts. After locating the diner, we still had an hour or more left so we went to the mall to get Tyler a clean shirt since we only packed two with us and both were quite dirty. At this time, we decided to stay an extra night. After getting what we needed we went back to the diner and had quite the nice surprise! Richey and Jess showed up followed by Glen and his girlfriend, Sherri. We shared a table with them and had a lot of fun catching up. It was just like old times.

There was another caching event but it wasn't until much later and we were already tired. So we went back to the hotel for the remainder of the night. The following day we continued on with our geocaching maintenance of our own caches. It was a lot of fun being in our old neighborhood again; a lot of great memories. Along the way we stopped and found the new caches; it was a very productive day. Later on we met up with Katherine, Rodney, Dan and Barb for dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants called Ledo's for one last time before heading back home the next day. We made plans to see Katherine and Rodney in a few weeks time when they come down our way. Our drive back to Virginia also included a few stops to get some Japanese groceries at some really cool Asian stores. Overall, it was a fantastic weekend. We were very happy to see our good friends again.

Fire! Fire!

This morning Tyler was bored so I gave him a piece of cardboard to draw on. After he was done, he presented me with this really cool burning house that he made with it. Notice the cut out windows and the flames. What a great imagination!

I Tumble For Ya

Tyler's play date with his buddies, Brady and Kyle, this afternoon came to a crashing halt after he took a little tumble at the playground. He was driving around a bulldozer when some technical difficulty occurred causing Tyler to fall to the sidewalk. The fall left some souvenirs, a nasty scrape to the side of his face and a small bump on his forehead. After some first aid was applied, Tyler was as good as new again.

My Little Monkey

Tyler was super excited to make his very own 'ants on a log' this morning.

Lest We Forget

I have even more appreciation for Heinz after seeing these today at the commissary. :)

Tyler Says the Darndest Things

This actually took place close to the beginning of the school year:

As we were walking out of the school one afternoon, the principal came on the loud speaker to make an announcement. Tyler then covered his ears and said, "They are playing that radio again, Mom!". LOL