The Excitement

Santa made a surprise visit to our apartment!

I had a strong finish to school before Christmas break. Unfortunately my teacher won't be back at school when we get back because she is having a baby, but I am hopeful that the permanent substitute that will be teaching us will be a good teacher. A few weeks before taking break, I had a project for our unit on weather. For it, we had to make a poster presenting the weekly forecast for a city in another country. I studies maps for quite a while trying to select a city and ultimately chose La Paz, Bolivia. Mom was impressed at how motivated I was to create my poster. If I could have, I would have stayed up late and finished it the first night! There was no grade on my poster, but it turned out great!
To celebrate the last day of school before break, Mom and Dad took us out to dinner and afterwards we went to the Chinese Lantern Festival! All of the lights were so fun to see; my favorite lantern was the whale. It was a huge lantern that was set on water and there was colorful coral all around it. The color changing swings and animatronic dinosaurs were also enjoyable. It was a great way to spend a Friday night!

A Model Thanksgiving

Okay, so it wasn't exactly a "model" Thanksgiving because Dad was sick and missed out on the fun and we left a day early, but I still had a blast at Grammie and Gramps' house. I think I impressed everybody with my modeling capabilities because I decided to make a model copy of a ceramic turkey as a fun activity. I used model magic to put the shape together and after it dried, I painted it! My masterpiece looked so good we used it as a centerpiece for the table for Thanksgiving dinner. I also made place setting name tags for everyone so they knew where to sit! Additionally, I also enjoyed helping the guys in the basement carve the turkey before dinner.

I was one busy guy during our trip although I was also able to relax too though. The night we walked downtown to look at all the lights before celebrating Dad's birthday with a cake! On Thanksgiving we watched the Macy's Parade and hung out. I especially had fun joking with Uncle Matt when he arrived. Thanksgiving dinner was yummy (except for the pickles that everyone wanted me to try!) and I enjoyed playing games before dessert of pumpkin pie!
The next morning I was disappointed to hear that we would have to go home a day early because it seemed like everyone except me was getting sick. Oh well, I made the best of my time at Grammie and Gramps' house and enjoyed the holiday!

Luigi Devil In Texas

To celebrate Halloween a little differently this year, we traveled to Austin to visit with Mimi, Papa and the whole Gavin crew! It was a nice little visit, and always great spending some special time with Mimi and Papa. Plus, we flew out after school on Wednesday so that meant we got to be on a plane when it was dark outside! I was freaked out on our first flight thinking I wouldn't be able to sit next to my family, but it all worked out when the flight attendant saved the very last row for all three of us!
We woke up Halloween morning and there were all sorts of fun activities for us to do! Papa and I spent time building legos (I especially appreciated the Sears tower building set), then later he helped me carve a pumpkin! Well, actually I partially helped clean it out, planned out the skull design and he did it for me. It looked good though! Later in the afternoon, we walked to the park, then picked up Saige at school right before it was time to start getting ready for a fun night of trick or treating!  During the day, Cora and I tried different Halloween costume. I determined that my costume needed a little something so I went as a Luigi Devil. There was a paper mask that Mimi had let us play with; I loved it so much I just added it to my costume. Later that evening, I added a mustache to complete my costume! We went over to Marcus' house for dinner. After dinner, we hung out at Marcus's haunted house for a short bit  and realized that he really gets into Halloween! He wears crazy costumes, and this year he was dressed up as a frog in a cauldron. After that, we headed out with Saige to trick or treat. Mom and Mimi escorted us around the neighborhood as we sprinted from house to house. Before I knew it, the night was already over and we had to get back for bed.

The next day, we packed a picnic lunch to spend a beautiful day at the Wildflower Center exploring Fortlandia with Mimi and Papa! The forts this year were so much fun! I had a blast climbing, swinging and experiencing the different forts. At one point, I was running and fell in the weeds. tIt turns out I got a little burr stuck in my finger. I'd like to think it was my first official splinter! Luckily, Mom was able to take care of it with tweezers when we got home. For dinner that night, Marcus, Tracie, Saige and Tracie's sisters came over for a dinner party. The kids ate dinner at the counter and after we finished we played some board games; the time really flew we were having so much fun!

Our last day in Texas was spent celebrating Saige's birthday. I enjoyed her birthday party where there were arcade games, a balloon guy and a face painter. After her party, we relaxed a bit in the beautiful weather at Marcus' house. He let me wear his Halloween costume! I love acting goofy! After that we headed out to dinner with everyone. Fortunately, the restaurant had a playground outside, so we enjoyed spending time with Saige while we waited for our dinner. It seemed like the weekend just flew by as we flew home to North Carolina.

Still Swimming

I'm really glad that we can go to the pool anytime we want at our apartment, especially since we now have the choice of two pools to visit. My favorite pool is the one at the apartments across the street. The pool is so much fun! Mom and Dad are really impressed with how far my swimming has come just this summer. I can now swim between Mom's legs under the water! I also love jumping off the steps of the pool and into the water - I call that move "the whale".  And yes, it is October and it's 95 degrees. We are definitely still swimming!

Grade 2!!!

Hola, me llamo Adam! Another school year has started! Although school is like one big review right now, I have been really excited about learning Spanish! Aside from a change in schedule and location, that is the biggest difference at my new school. So far school is great (unless you ask me on a day that I tripped and fell into a wall and had a bloody scrape)! Oh and since we have been at school I've lost another tooth! Hopefully I can keep the teeth falling out (this time Dad had to actually pull my tooth out) because I like getting money from the Tooth Fairy!

PA Summer Camp

Mom and Dad promised that we could go visit Grammie and Gramps all by ourselves and we got that opportunity right before we went back to school! On a Saturday we woke up and drove to Virginia where we met Grammie and Gramps. We ate lunch together and when it was time to leave, Mom and Dad went back to NC while Cora and I kept traveling north with Grammie and Gramps to PA. On the way, we stopped at DelGrosso's. We had a blast riding rides; I even joined Grammie and Cora on the Crazy Mouse! I went on the swings and did all big rides - no kiddie rides for me this year. I went on the small caterpillar roller coaster and it was so boring! We had dinner there before heading the rest of the way to St Marys.
This year's theme was Woodstock!! All the activities we did were tie-dye and hippie themed. On Sunday we hung around the house, made tie-dye shirts and relaxed with a movie while a big storm blew through. On Monday morning, we watched Gramps in the garden then in the afternoon,we went to camp. At camp, I got to drive the side-by-side all by myself! Gramps would push the pedals while I steered. We also played games and had a piñata, before we enjoyed dinner and had a campfire. The last thing we did was release lanterns into the night sky. That night we spent the night. The next day we had breakfast and mountain pies before packing up and heading back to town. We had to relax for our next day of fun.

On Wednesday we relaxed with a movie in the morning, then we got all packed up and ready for a trip down to Altoona. In Altoona we went out to eat at Cracker Barrel before taking in a really fun baseball game. The Altoona Curve won the game and as a souvenir I got a baseball and a baseball cap. After the game we got to stay in a hotel with Grammie and Gramps. I slept with Gramps when we had to sleep in a bed together and he didn't snore at all! I don't think he had the same to say about me because I may have kicked him a couple of times. The next morning we woke up and had to drive back south to meet Mom and Dad. The trip seemed to fly by, but it was really fun to travel on our own and make some great memories with Grammie and Gramps!

All Summer LONG!

Boy, it has been what feels like the longest summer ever! It feels like school will never start! Luckily Mom has kept us busy with fun activities to fill out days. Aside from lots of swimming, we go to a different park practically everyday, the Super Special at the library on Wednesdays, and we even managed to fit in a weekend trip to the beach!
At the library, we saw all sorts of interesting things: a reptile man, a magician, a balloon man and watched some short plays. At the park, I've finally managed to make it across the monkey bars without any help or falling. I can almost hang on the high bar and spin myself around, but I fell on my head once and it didn't feel very good.

We went to Wrightsville Beach for a long weekend. All of the dinners we ate when we were there were amazing (all food is right now actually because I think I'm growing)! I especially enjoyed the one evening after dinner, we walked from town back to our hotel along the beach during sunset. Another afternoon, we drove to Wilmington to see a WWII battleship - the USS North Carolina! It was quite interesting exploring all over the ship and almost scary at times. It was definitely HOT though! I really enjoyed being at the beach this time. I could spend hours just standing at the water's edge, jumping each wave as it crashes into the sand. Maybe we can squeeze another day trip in to the beach before the end of the warm weather??