99 Luftballons

On July 29, Cait celebrated her birthday (as some of you know). For her birthday, Savannah got her a nice ring and I planed out and entire day away from the baby. A couple of things to note. First, I spent a good two weeks planning the whole thing. It's hard and pretty stressful to organize a day of events and a party without Cait finding out. There were so many things that could have gone wrong. Second, for her day away, I put a group of items that represented different activities to do through out the day. With that in mind, let's get this day started! We started the day with some breakfast. That's usually a good thing to start the day with. After breakfast, I went and got the babysitter (which was also important to have). Once I got home and made sure that everything was ready for our departure, I collected the birthday girl and we set off. First stop, the jewelry store to pick up Cait's gift. Can you guess what I got her? Here's a hint: it's in the picture above this writing... on the right...did you figure it out? No...it's not a new ear...but rather the ear rings! Yay for me! It's even better because they have become her go-to ear rings.

After the jewelery, she wanted to go to the beach. You can see how well that worked out... On the recommendation of a friend, we went to Historic America Beach on Amelia Island. What I forget, was that she told us to go to the parking lot down the street. The road itself literally stopped at the beach. And as you can see, the HHR isn't for driving on the sandy beach. After I pushed while Cait backed it out back on to the pavement, we found the parking lot and walkway down to the water.

And this is what we were rewarded with. Sadly, this did not set it self up. That would have been nice. But it was worth it. Unlike Fernandina Beach, America Beach has facilities for changing and showers so that you can rinse off. It was nice being able to rinse off the sandy feet before getting into the car. During the time at the beach, we walked along the surf, sat and soaked up some humidity, and passed around the bottle of sparkling lemonade. All-in-all a good time.

The next stop that Cait selected from the bag of stops was Doing Dishes. It's a paint you own pottery studio. I've been wanting to take Cait to one for some time now and it seemed like this was a good time to do it. Only a couple of problems with this. First, this place is in the ghetto. I mean it. There was a shoot out across the street from them a couple of months ago. So, yeah. Ghetto. The second problem was that there was too much pottery to choose from. I think we spent a good 20 minuted just trying to figure out what we wanted to paint. I settled on a pen/pencil holder and a spoon rest. Cait went with a plate to hang on the wall. Once we decided what to paint, now we had to figure out what paint to use and how to paint our pieces. It was a pretty fun time. I'll post completed pics later. After all was said and done, the day was starting to wind down. Time to catch a movie and relax (as if we weren't relaxed to start with...). We headed over to an AMC theater and saw the Sorcerers Apprentice. It was OK. If you haven't see it, wait until its out on HBO or Redbox. I don't think it was worth the $20 that we spent on it. But once that was done, time to head home. Now, I'm not too good at keeping secrets, so it was almost impossible to keep my mouth shut and my excitement in check as we headed to Cait's surprise party.

I'm still not too sure how I pulled this off. With as many people as I told, Cait didn't even know what was going to happen when we got home. All she wanted to do was relax and play the Sims 3. Not today. There were a few friends waiting for us and a cake large enough to feed 40 people. Needless to say, we had plenty of leftovers. And although I didn't mention anything about gifts (I think I even said to not worry about it), she got a gift certificate to Game Stop, Michaels, and a smell good box from Bath & Body Works. She definitely had a good time. Well, that's it for this post. I leave you with this: Old Spice Guy being remixed!!!!

And After the Show, It's The After Party

With the 4th of July come and gone, its time to recap! Our celebration was really on the 3rd of July with the parade in St. Marys followed up with the night time fireworks display. That was pretty fun. I didn't quite realize that there were going to be booths and vendors. It had a carnival like atmosphere. The parade was sponsored by the Kiwanas and seemed to contain more politicians than any thing. I must give credit to the gentleman in the picture though. I think that was one of the most creative campaigning get-ups that I've seen. Granted, I haven't seen many. Mostly just from the parade... Moving on. It was a pretty good parade. They were tossing out candy and beads and passing out leaflets and there was lots of waving. The parade featured a display of tractors and cars and motorcycles. Of course, interspersed in all of those were the politicians. But enough about politics. The carnivalness featured a lot of vendors selling hand made goodies. Cait wasn't able to find any bows for Savannah with a monogrammed "S" on it :(. I did give blood though. Got a free t-shirt that Cait promptly stole. Oh...and a carnival isn't complete without overpriced funnel cake and even more over priced lemonade. The lemonade wasn't the greatest, although it did make me want some Pronto Pup lemonade....mmmmmmm...Pronto Pup.

For the 4th, we went to the Jacksonville Zoo! That was a good time. We had a coupon for 1 free admission if you're in the military. So, we paid all of $13 for 3 people to get in. I'd call that a good deal. That took a good 5 hours that day. We visited all of the animals, petted the sting rays, rode the train, visited the minuscule 4th of July celebration area, and ate some overpriced food. All-in-all a good day. Savannah really had a good time and was excited to see all of the animals. It makes me want to add to the zoo we have at home. Mostly with the addition of some tropical birds and a leopard or two...

Because the 4th was on a Sunday, the government gave its employees the 5 off as a national holiday. That was a nice relaxing day. Except for the part of me mowing the lawn in the blistering heat. My lawn mower literally exploded the other day, and we were blessed to have meet some friends from church who were looking to get rid of their old mower. For $20 I got a Craftsman mower with a 4.5HP Briggs & Stratton engine. At first I was a little leery of buying a used mower (the exploded one was purchased for $40 at a flea market...) again, but it actually cuts better than the exploded one did. But after the lawn was done, time for a dip in the pool. And it felt wonderful. Savannah joined me pretty much right after I got in. She loves the pool.

The pile of ingredients you see above eventually turned into the picture on your right. Those are red white and blue mini cheesecakes. They were fun to make. The red and blue is velvet cake and the white is cheesecake. I know that Shawn enjoyed them at work the next day. So did some others. I made about 5 dozen cupcakes and took 3 to work. Of course I do love red velvet and cheesecake. And now that they've been combined together...mmmmm...delicious! I've been told that whenever the MOMs Club of Kingsland is doing a bake sale, I need to bake more delicious treats to sell. How many actually make it to the bake sale...we'll see how that work when the time comes. To wrap up, the 4th of July is not only a day to celebrate our freedom as a country but to remember the sacrifices given by those who have helped ensure that we remain free. A final picture:

- Brent