Merry Christmas 2017!

A wonderful Christmas this year indeed. We continued all of our family Christmas traditions starting with the gingerbread house on Christmas Eve. Then later on after a dinner of spaetzel soup, we attended Christmas Eve mass. When we got home, we put on our jammies and opened some gifts from our family. We wrote our notes for Santa, and put out his cookies (we forgot the milk, oops!) then headed to bed. I had no trouble sleeping knowing that Santa would come although I was upset that I heard him on the roof as we were getting ready for bed. I thought he was there and that he would pass us because I was not yet asleep. There was no issue as we woke up Christmas to presents under the tree. I got everything I asked for, including a few things I didn't even expect like an army truck, the Perfection game, a telescope and some flying airplanes! We enjoyed breakfast after Cora and I, together put the star on top of our Christmas countdown tree! 2017 was a magical Christmas and I am very thankful for all of the toys I got and all the great traditions that we have!

Special Activities

In the days leading up to Chrismas, we had some special family time. On Thursday night when Dad got home from work, we went straight to the bowling alley to try bowling for the first time! I had a blast, dancing bowling, eating pizza...I didn't want to leave. Then, the next day, Mom took me to see a movie called Ferdinand. We read the book before the movie so that I could understand better what was happening in the movie. I loved it! I especially loved my big, reclining comfy seat and personal bag of popcorn!

A Flurry of Excitement

I'm so good now, I can do the YMCA dance!

There has been so much going on recently. Mom keeps Cora and me busy with lots of activities like movies at the Renaissance center, riding scooters on the suspension bridge, reading and roller skating. Not to mention, we had a visit from Grammie and Gramps! While they were visiting, they stayed with us while Mom and Dad went to a hotel. I talked Gramps ear off and enjoyed reading with Grammie. Even better, the weather was cold and sometimes snowy, so we took them to Marbles Museum to show them how much fun it is! We got to open Christmas presents from them too while they were here. I didn't mind at all! We had a fun visit with them.
The day after they left, we went to visit someone very special. SANTA! I wasn't nervous at all this year and I told him everything that was on my list. Plus, he sent a letter back to us so I know that he is on the same page with me. After visiting with him, we went for a sleigh ride through the blowing, flurries in the air! After that excellent evening, all I have to do now is make sure that I behave until the big day!

Preparations

It doesn't take the Young's long to get prepared for Christmas. The day after we got home, we hung our outdoor decorations. The pumpkin from my field trip was still on the porch. Instead of throwing it out, Mom let me paint it like a christmas decoration. Then, a few days later we celebrated Dad's birthday! He turned 37 this year and I feel bad that we were all sick on his birthday, but luckily we were well enough to still see him open presents and enjoy cake together.

The week after we got home from Thanksgiving, we finished our last day of our second quarter at school (it included pajamas and watching the Polar Express) we went to find our Christmas tree. This year it didn't take us long to pick one out at the tree lot, but the shortness of time it spent to find it was no indication of how tall the tree was! It was so tall, Dad hat to trim the top just to stand it up! We enjoyed decorating the tree and putting out all the ornaments (ESPECIALLY dancing Santa).  Because we are now done with school for the year, we can do fun things during the day. Mom took us to the mall and let us look around at toys to prepare our lists for Santa. Now that I knew what was on my list, I could finally write to Santa and put it in the mailbox so his elves would know exactly what I want!
On St Nick's day (Dec. 6) we woke up in the morning to find a gift left by the fireplace. The gift was for Cora and me and inside was a cookie maker! That evening after dinner, we made cookies. The cookie maker makes all sorts of shapes that we can decorate with sprinkles! What a cool gift we got! The decorations are out, cookies are made, Santa letters mailed. Now all we have to do is enjoy the season and have fun! Next up - a visit from Grammie and Gramps!

Turkey Tastic!

I had an excellent visit to Grammie and Gramps' house for Thanksgiving! Even a cold didn't get me down. At their house I had so much fun singing and dancing in the basement, doing puzzles, watching movies, visiting the library, and peeking into the window of Santa's shop on the diamond. The turkey dinner was delicious - I gobbled it right up! It seemed like a short visit, but we will see Grammie and Gramps very soon because they will be coming to our house before Christmas!
Leading up to Thanksgiving, we kicked off the holiday season by watching the Raleigh Christmas parade from Dad's office. I love going there! Then later that same day after eating my first Chinese food for lunch, I went to one of my favorite friend's birthday party. I had a great time with him and a few of my other friends at the yogurt shop. I'm very excited for the next month and all the festivities and activities coming our way!

Happy Halloween 2017!

Boo! A ghost is what I wanted to be for Halloween, so Mom helped make it happen! For the 45 minutes that my costume stayed on for trick-or-treating, people loved it! However, it got to the point where I couldn't see the candy when picking it out of the bowl and my head got sweaty. So the costume came off and we made our way home. It was okay though, Cora said she couldn't carry her bag of candy anymore. So despite costume malfunctions, dogs at front doors and Mr. Greg being super scary it was a great Halloween Night!
The week before Halloween was fun. I had my school field trip to Three Bears Acres where we played all sorts of outdoor activities and learned about weather. I particularly loved a slide that used sleds with wheels on them. It went super fast and luckily Jason, my partner for the day coerced me to try it with him. Then, that weekend I went to my first ever symphony performance. We watched the North Carolina Symphony perform songs with a Halloween theme and a short play about Peter and the Wolf. I wasn't exactly prepared to just watch people play instruments, but the sound was really cool so I enjoyed the experience.

Me and the giant acorn in the City of Raleigh

A Kid at Play

School is back in full swing - I'm still learning my letters, heart words, sounds that rhyme, reading simple books and my numbers up to 20. Life as a kindergartener is hectic, complicated and emotional for a 5 year old these days. For the most part I handle it like a champ. When I'm finally at home though, I need ME time, so I spend a good bit of time humming to myself while sprawled out on the floor playing. I have a few favorite toys that I love to play with, so Mom had me pose for a picture with them. I have my spider googly eyes, Fly-Fly the butterfly in my lap, my snake, and my bus (probably my all time favorite to zoom endlessly around the floor). Included is also my treasure box filled with all sorts of fun toys.

There's a shark eating my eye!

Track Out Fun!

Splash pad fun!

Mimi and Papa came to visit us the second week of track out! We went to the Museum of Life and Sciences on one day. It was so fun! For the first time, I was able to climb all the way up the dinosaur's back on the Dinosaur walk. Then, I enjoyed howling at the red wolves. Speaking of the animals, they were all out and about on this visit. The lemurs were especially fun to watch although the bugs in the insectarium were pretty cool too. As always it was a fun visit with Mimi and Papa. I think Mimi is especially proud of how well I am starting to read!

Mom's new job = fun boxes!

Swinging at Sassafras!

Enjoying the new living room!

We had a few days to relax, enjoying a stop at our favorite park in Raleigh, Sassafras before we were off on the road again.
This time we went to Charleston! Mom took us on a short trip there. We stayed with Jessa, her friend and some other people that had kids. We also met her son Sam - he was only two but weighed more than me! My most favorite part of the trip was the beach. Hands down, THE BEST TIME! I even tried boogie boarding this time in the shallows. During low tide (which was really far out!) I had fun splashing in the tidal pools and digging down into the sand to find shells. When we collected enough shells we would get to put them on the front porch railing. It was crazy staying in a house with so many people, but there was definitely no time to be bored! I will add, this must have been the 'sunrise' track out. I saw and was awake for more sunrises these past few weeks than I have in my entire life. Seeing the sunrise at the beach was especially cool. The sun looked like Jupiter! Charleston was a fun way to end track out - now I'm ready to go back to school!

Mountain Adventure!

Not 24 hours of being done with school had passed before we started another new adventure with a trip to the mountains. On Saturday morning we got up and drove for a couple of hours and before I knew it we were on the Great Smokey Mountains Expressway headed toward our mountain adventure. We stayed in a real cabin up in the mountains (we almost fell into a ditch and had trouble getting up the road to the cabin). Once we got up to it though, there were beautiful views from the cabin. Cora and I got to sleep in the loft, which was really cool and I had fun running from one side of the house to the other soaking up the view from the big windows. I also thought it was fun to go up and down into the loft because the steps were different.

During our trip, we took a day to explore Great Smokey Mountains National Park. We drove around the park stopping at different overlooks, took a hike along a ridge with views of Clingman's Dome though the woods and then stopped at the historic mountain farm to walk around and learn about farm life a long time ago. It wasn't an actual farm and I was somewhat disappointed at the lack of farm animals (all we saw were pigs and chickens). After a while I got bored with it. But while we were there, we spotted elk walking through the stream which was pretty neat! We also saw a historic mill which was run using water diverted from a nearby stream. The water was COLD! Before heading back to the cabin (for what would be a couple of days due to Hurricane Irma) we took a scenic drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway and I loved going through all the tunnels! We were actually driving through the mountain!!!

Luckily we had our binoculars, activity books and games to keep us entertained. We could watch movies until the power went out! It was a crazy experience sleeping in the very dark cabin. Sometimes I got scared, especially by this picture in the bathroom of an old dump truck. Because the weather was bad, and there was a lot of rain, we decided to leave the cabin and head home halfway through the week. Dad let us walk down the very steep gravel driveway and explore the woods near our cabin. The best part of it was, we stopped along the way to see the old dump truck I had seen in the bathroom. Whoa! After a short drive, we made an interesting stop at a very large home!

I had so much fun at the Biltmore Estate! We walked though this huge house and got to look in the rooms - my favorite being spying the bathroom in a mirror showing the tub in one of the 40-some bathrooms! We toured the lush gardens nearby and enjoyed the beautiful weather before we needed to get in the car and drive home. I was glad that we got to eat at a restaurant on the way home - Cracker Barrell, my favorite! It was a great experience being in the mountains and I had lots of fun with the new adventures!