Bowling in Annapolis and First Snow!

OK, these first few crummy cell phone pics probably should have been included in the previous 'settling in' post but I forgot about them so here they are....

We love our new house for so many reason, and one being the fantastic play house and slide in the backyard!  We also love having trees again.  After living in NC for nearly four years it was a bit of a shock when we moved to AZ and Kayla exclaimed 'I miss all the treessssss!!'  Looking out my kitchen window in AZ and just seeing brown, rocks, cinder-block 'fences', and the rooftops of neighbors was a sore sight.  I missed looking out and seeing the wide green lawn bordered by thick mature trees.  Now here we don't have much privacy with our neighbors on either side...but that area straight behind our fence is a common area and come Spring we won't be able to see anything but the grass and beautiful trees.  And that makes me happy :) .

The day we moved in Gavin and Kayla were goofing around...spinning on an office chair..... Gavin took a tumble off and caught his delicate eye area on the corner of the table.  Resulting in his first shiner! {hmmmmm...reminds me of the shiner our little miss received at just about the same age...}

He then took the sticker I gave him and put it on his cheek.  I didn't bother taking it off for a while.....ok, like not until bed time :[....... and it turned out to be the sticker of all stickers, leaving the sticky glue residue behind.  And THAT took several days to get off.  So he was looking pretty awesome there for a while...black eye on one side and dark fuzzy circle on the other!  HA!

The day the mover arrived was a bit crazy.  It was also Kayla's first day at her new school!  The way it works {at least for us} is they come in and spend half the day unloading all the boxes into various rooms and put together any furniture that needs reassembling.  Then we have two choices: 1. take our time unpacking a box at a time and have the movers return at a later date to pick up all the empty boxes and packing paper {which they use an absurd amount of, I'm pretty sure a small forest dies every time we move :( } or 2. unpack...aka...DUMP all boxes as fast as we can so the movers can take everything with them that day.  We've done option one in the past and the sheer amount of left over boxes/paper becomes a total pain in the you know what!  So option two it is: 

Possibly, an equal pain in the you know what...but at least when everything is put away and organized we don't have to bother with boxes and paper ;).

So after days and days of cleaning and organizing we were all ready for a family fun day!  It was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day so Kayla was off from school.  

{And on a complete tangent.....Garrett and I were caught off guard when Kayla started talking about all she was learning about MLK in school.  The racial inequalities, Rosa Parks, his assignation, etc.  I had such mixed feeling about this.  I don't intend to hide from her the ugly truths of this world....but to me she's still my innocent little girl and to purposely open her eyes to certain things.....I wasn't prepared for this just yet.  I was a little disappointed the school didn't send out a 'heads up' note to parents that these topics would be discussed.  Race and color have never really been a topic in our home...people are people to our kiddos, some are from different countries and speak different languages and nothing more.  Kayla was super confused and concerned about what she was 'learning' and a heads up would definitely been appreciated.....}

Anywaysssss....back to our day out!  We planned on heading over to Historic Annapolis {about a 20min drive}.  After researching things to do I quickly realized the town's draw is mostly outdoor activities and the few indoor stuff like the Maritime Museum was closed for the holiday.  Well, it was a whopping 30 degrees so romping around  the Harbor was just not going to happen!  While getting ready in the morning we still had no plan for the day, other than where we'd eat lunch, {'cause that's the important stuff folks ;) !}  And it was starting to stress me out a bit.  Being spontaneous and just driving around looking for something to do is all fine and dandy...but likely to blow up in your face when you've got two little ones in the back itching to get out and have some fun, ya know?!  So at the last minute Garrett thought up the awesome plan of bowling!  We had never gone as a family!  In fact, I can't even remember the last time I was bowling.       

SOOOOO much fun!  We all had a great time.  

And the coolest thing was that the entire bowling ally was packed with families since it was a school holiday!  It was just an overall great atmosphere to be in :)

After a couple of games it was time for that important stuff....lunch!  Being in an historic area, Garrett and I are suckers for eating in places that date back 200+ years!  Growing up on the West Coast, it really is a unique experience to be able to walk into a building that was built over 200 year ago.  If those walls could talk...the history it's seen. It's all very romantic.  So in our internet search we came across this Tavern.    

Now what comes to mind when you think of a tavern, circa 1747?? hmmmm, well let me tell you what doesn't come to mind; a tea room!  LOL.  After sitting down and looking around we realized Garrett and Gavin were the only dudes in the house.  The small room was wall to wall ladies sipping tea and snacking on delicate scones and cucumber sandwiches piled high on three tiered stacking plates!  hahahahhaha I'll never forget the look on Garrett's face when the realization set in :) .  Despite the fact the service was terrible {obviously their priority was the ladies there for tea and not lunch} the food was really good and Kayla can NOT stop talking about going back for tea time!  Something I think us girls will definitely do in the future :)

We finally got out of there and walked around the corner to the not so historic Rams Head Tavern for some much needed dessert in a much more laid back environment!      

A few days later all that cold weather finally paid off and we awoke to our first Maryland snow!

The kiddos were so excited!  Kayla couldn't wait to get home from school and play in it {while Gavin napped}!