Founders' Plaza

"Over the years, Founders' Plaza has become a favorite spot for families, aviation enthusiasts and Airport employees. The Observation Area offers magnificent views of many types of aircraft as they take off and land. In addition, the plaza provides convenient parking, picnic tables, telescopes, historic information, a commemorative monument and a radio that broadcasts air traffic control communications from the FAA tower."

With this in mind, we were excited when our friends invited us to the Founders' Plaza Opening Ceremonies yesterday. The ceremonies started at 10 am and kicked off with 2 fire trucks spraying in an arch as three planes did a fly by. This was followed by a wonderful parade that included cowgirls on horses (Little Miss's favourites), a fire truck, police car, drill team, marching band (my favourite), and much more. The parade circled the street while we sat on the curb with front row seats.

There was also live music from Olympic Gold Medalist Carly Patterson and a man making balloon animals for the kids (Little Man loved this). The ceremony ended with free hot dogs and apple pie. It was such a great day!

Our kids were so cute that we even made the local news!

GrapeFest

This past Friday, September 12th our family packed up and headed out to Grapevine's annual Grapefest. "GrapeFest, the largest wine festival in the Southwest, is the perfect blend of great wines, great food and great times." Admission was free from 10-5 p.m. on Friday, so at 4:58 p.m. we walked through the entrance gate :)

We had dinner that consisted of hot dogs, corn dogs, nachos, water, soda, and beer :) Little Miss got two flowers painted on her cheek. Both of the kids took a turn at the Home Depot tent colouring tiles, we checked out the cool hot rods, and danced to one of the many live bands. Little Miss also took her turn at "wine making" by stomping the grapes (Little Man got as far as taking off his shoes before he decided that that wasn't for him). Both of the kids got to ride the ponies, Little Miss was on Comanche and Little Man rode Chester.

On the way out, I picked up some delicious kettle corn (I LOVE kettle corn!!) while Ryan and the kids had some ice cream.

All in all, a great family evening came to an end as we exited the fest, loaded onto the shuttle bus that took us to the car and headed home! By the time we left around 8:30 p.m. the line to enter Grapefest wrapped around the block!

First Day of Preschool 2008

I gotta go back, back, back to school again
You won’t find me, till the clock strikes three
I’m gonna be there till then
I gotta go back, back, back to school again
Whoa, whoa, I gotta go, Back to School …… AGAIN!
~ Grease 2

On Thursday, September 4th the kids started school. Both of the kiddos are in school this year. I do love it that finally they are both in school and I have a couple of days to myself but I will admit that it's weird without one or both of them around! I'm sure I'll get used to it though :).

Little Miss started the 4 year old class with all of her old friends from last year and got right back into the swing of things. Her new teachers are Ms. Barb and Ms. Sophia and she already loves them. She even got to be class leader the first week of school and got to bring home Husky the class bear. She took him everywhere and did everything with him over the weekend and then got to write about their adventures in the class journal. She was so excited to tell all of the things that she and Husky did!

Little Man had a harder time adjusting to preschool. He's a bit of a Mama's boy and is not too keen on going to school. "No school, Mommy!" is what I hear each day as we drive up to the preschool. Each day as I drop him off I have to peel him off my leg and he cries so sadly as the teachers try to engage him in an activity as I leave. I know that 2 minutes after I leave he is playing happily but it still breaks my heart a bit to leave :( He does seem to like school though. He likes the colouring, reading books, and was super excited to tell me how messy he got playing with shaving cream in class last week!

Overall it's great for them to make friends and do all of those messy and fun activities they get to do. I think I'm going to love actually having a bit of kid-free time once we settle in to the new routine. Maybe I'll actually get some house cleaning done this year!!