Passing Down the Gift of Blurry Vision

Today, Dalton received his first pair of glasses. Shane and I knew when we got married that when we had kids, we would be able to pass down to our kids this wonderful genetic trait of blurry vision. Shane and I both had absolutely horrible vision before having Lasik surgery. It's just too bad that when you have your eyesight "fixed" that it doesn't "fix" your genetic makeup as well because you're probably still going to pass this wonderful gift down to your kids. We knew this day was coming that Dalton would need glasses, but we just hoped that it would be another few years before his bad eyesight showed up. A couple of weeks ago Dalton's teacher let us know that Dalton was having trouble with some things in the classroom, but when she moved him up to the front he began to do much better. She said that he just couldn't see when he was in the back. I took him to an eye doctor Tuesday. I knew Dalton was in trouble when the nurse had Dalton try to read some letters on the wall and only was able to read a couple of rows. The nurse looked at me and said, "Does he know his letters?" I said, "Yeah, I'm pretty sure he does." The poor little guy knew his letters well, but just couldn't see well enough to read them. Anyway, Dalton has been so excited about getting his new glasses. I know his excitement won't last, but he was enjoying moving them up an down on his face comparing his new world with glasses and the world without glasses. I guess I just keep thinking about all the years he'll have to go through with wearing glasses and contacts. He's starting so young with them too. **Sigh**

More Cherry Blossom Activities

Cherry Blossoms in bloom

The boys with Petals the pink poodle.

The sea lions doing their handstands. I was impressed.

This past Monday after picking up Dalton from school, the boys and I headed out to Central City Park in downtown Macon for some of the Cherry Blossom Festival activities. They really look forward to going all year long. At different times during the year it seems like Dalton asks me when we're going back. They mainly just love going so that they can ride the rides. This year one of the events was the sea lion show. I really enjoyed watching this show this year and the boys did as well. They usually have a tiger show or bear show, but the sea lions were much more entertaining and funny. The weather was great as well. I'm sure Dalton and Colby are already looking forward to going back next year.

Dalton and Colby's favorite part of the day...THE RIDES

Hot Air Balloons and Traffic

Today, after a long day of working in the yard, our family decided to go to one of the Cherry Blossom events in Macon. We thought it would be fun to go to the Tunes and Balloons event featuring a big hot air balloon glow. The boys had never seen a real hot air balloon in person so I thought it would be neat for them. Actually, for the past 3 years I've tried to go to this event with our family but each year we would get there and it would either be too wet to have the balloon glow or too windy and cold for it. This year I knew they'd be able to have the balloon show without a problem because it was such a gorgeous day out there today. Apparently though, all of middle Georgia must've thought the same thing because I've never seen traffic this bad going to any kind of event in Macon. The event was held at the Al Sihah Shrine Temple park in south Macon. Hopefully, the organizers will never have this event out there again, because it was an absolute traffic nightmare. Only one way in and out. Many people waited in traffic for over an hour and a half only to be turned away after the parking was filled to capacity. But anyway, at least we made it in to park. The boys enjoyed watching the hot air balloons fill up with air and then glow when it became darker at night. I think there were 11 or 12 balloons out there. Was it worth all the madness of all the traffic? Probably not. There really wasn't a whole lot to the hot air balloons... just filling them with air every now and then and they'd glow. I think I've had my fill of hot air balloons at the Cherry Blossom Festival for a while. I'm sure Shane wasn't happy about the whole traffic situation, but he was really nice throughout the whole ordeal. After we left the park, we had to make a stop at Krispy Kreme. The Hot Doughnuts Now sign was on and beckoning us to stop. Those hot glazed doughnuts made all our traffic frustrations melt away. Mmmm!!!

Morning Munch With Mom

Today Dalton's Kindergarten class had their annual Morning Munch With Mom. After taking him to school the mom's were treated to a little breakfast that I was able to enjoy with Dalton and was given a special book that Dalton had made for me filled with poems, drawings, and writings that he had done. After the breakfast, we (the moms) made our way to the lobby area where the students performed a little program consisting of songs, poems, and Bible verses. I think it was basically like Donuts For Dad from a few posts back. It was a sweet and special time that Dalton and I had been looking forward to. Dalton did a great job and I'm so proud of him.

This is a page from the book Dalton made. Here is a little of what he thinks about me:

Play Ball!!

Gooooo Braves!!!

Dalton has begun playing baseball for the season. This is his second year playing. He has moved up to a higher division this year so I was a little worried how he'd do with a lot of the kids being bigger and a little more experienced than him, but he is doing fine. He had his first game yesterday and the little guy did pretty well. I think sometimes your kids will just step up and surprise you when you're worried about them. We were worried that he wouldn't be able to hit the ball or would have trouble fielding, but he proved us wrong. This year the kids get 6 pitches from the coach and if they can't hit it, then they have to use the tee. The coach was throwing a little harder than he seemed to be throwing in practice too. Dalton ended up hitting it on about the 3rd pitch. He only was able to bat one time, but he made the most of it. He hit it to the shortstop and made it to first base, then later came around to score. Hooray!!

He swings and hits it!

Receiving instructions from his coach

Running from 3rd to home

Fishing...or trying to anyways

"I caught one!"

Last week (a week ago Saturday), the weather was so gorgeous that we drove down to Lake Blackshear to take the boys fishing on the boat. They'd been fishing before off of a dock, but we hadn't been brave enough to take them on the boat to fish. When we arrived we let the boat down into the water and all got in it, Shane tried to crank the motor and it wouldn't work. It had just had power just a few minutes before because he had to let down the motor into the water. While drifting around in the water, Shane checked everything thinking it must be a bad connection somewhere. He couldn't find anything so we ended up just using the trolling motor to just ride around close to the boat ramp and let the boys attempt to catch a fish. To our surprise Dalton caught a fish on his line. We were surprised because of all the noise and boats that were nearby because we were so close to the boat ramp. Anyway, he was excited to catch a fish. We had to cut the trip short because we weren't sure how long the trolling motor would last. Shane had to literally pull the boat back up onto the boat trailer by a rope. He's seriously the strongest guy I know. Shane began looking at the motor and finally saw that one of the fuses in the motor was blown. He replaced it with a different one, and the motor started back up. At least we found out what was wrong with it. Maybe next time Shane will really be able to show the boys how to fish, but they still seemed to have a good time just being out there.

SNOW!!!!

Hooray for snow!!! I've always wanted my boys to see and experience snow. They've always only seen it on TV or in stories and have thought about how fun and exciting it must be to play in the snow. Living in Perry, Ga, you just don't get snow but about a couple of times a decade. If it ever does snow nearby, it always seems like the cutoff line is around Forsyth or Macon, but rarely does Perry see snow. I think the last time it snowed enough to actually have some on the ground, I was pregnant with Dalton 6 years ago. We finally received a little of the white stuff yesterday. We had two rounds of it really. One in the morning while we were at church and then another later in the day around 3:00. The boys were so disappointed that the snow from the morning wasn't still at our house when we arrived home from church. It was snowing like crazy at church, but the closer we came to our house while driving back, the less snow we saw. When we arrived home, there was absolutely no snow to be found. So later in the day it snowed again and stuck around a little this time. It was about the wettest, coldest snow I've ever seen. When you tried to make a snowball out of it, it was like a big ice ball that could seriously do some damage to someone if strategically thrown. The boys had fun with the snow in spite of our lack of good snow clothing for them. We realized we just didn't have proper snow clothes for them. We had gloves for the boys, but they were the kind that the wetness of the snow would soak right through to their little hands after a while. They toughed it out for the most part though. We didn't quite have enough snow for us to build a snowman, especially since we used up most of the snow that had built up on some of the surfaces as snowballs. We really had a pitiful little dusting of snow at our house, but it was definitely better than nothing. It melted almost as fast as it came.