We had the boys's 4th birthday party the weekend before their birthday this year and had a "blazing" good time.
We invited some friends to join us at Fire Station #3 to do a tour of the fire station and then for a pizza lunch.
The party started at 10:30 AM so we arrived about 5 or 10 minutes early and were surprised that no one appeared to be there. We rang the bell and knocked at the fire station door - no answer. We opened the door, which was unlocked, and went in. Didn't see a soul. We could hear calls coming in over the intercom but couldn't really make out what they were saying and were confused as to what was going on. I had a confirmed tour scheduled. We realized that there must have been a call that came in and the firemen had to leave to, you know, do their job (or whatever), but I think I was expecting a note on the door! Ha! Maybe something like, "Had to go put out a fire. Be back soon!" :) I mean, I know they have lots of time to write notes to moms of 4 year old birthday boys when there is an emergency going on. Kidding! Needless to say, it had me a little stressed out. I'd heard about fire station birthday parties from friends of mine, but I had never attended one and wasn't prepared for these situations. More guest started arriving and we were just standing around, dumbfounded (and taking pics of all the cute kids and chatting it up with the parents). After about 20 minutes, with no clue of when or if they'd be back, we started to call the pizza place to let them know to put the pizzas in the oven because we were coming early! Just as I was on the phone, the fire truck came cruising back up to the station. Perfect timing! I was able to tell the pizza place to hold off on cooking our pizzas and we go to do our tour.
This is us killing time and waiting for the firemen to come back...
Ready to party at GCFD Station #3
Party boys with Dada and Mama
Two handsome fellas
Caroline with a fire truck
Ava Lane loves her Auntie Katie!!!!
My cutie boy William
The truck pulled back in to the fire station - YAY!!!! The party is saved.
The fire men and EMS woman were so engaging and sweet with the kids. They showed them all the gear that they wear and one of the firemen put it all on, piece by piece, describing each article and it's use, despite VERY hot temperatures. They answered questions, talked about fire safety, posed for pictures and let all the kids sit in the fire truck. They even slid down the pole for the kids' amusement. Before we left, they passed out fire hats, coloring books, stickers and pencils. It was great!
Fireman Justin with his gear
Stokes feeling how heavy the coat is
Kids were enthralled
Answering questions...
In the fireman zone
Cool!
Ryan liked it, too!
Fireman Justin with the birthday boys!
The Atwoods
The Caudills
My pretty friends and their girls, taking a little break
Loving the fire truck! Stokes and Ben
Cutie boys!
So much fun!
He thinks he IS a fireman. Or as he likes to say, "fighter fighter" instead of fire fighter. LOL
Jackson and Amanda
C in the truck
Bo and Bennett playing on the pole
Hanging around the fire station
Hey, RyRy!!!!
Peerys in the truck
All (or most!) of the cute birthday party kiddos & our awesome firemen + EMS!
Video of the firemen sliding down the pole:
We then walked over to Marco's Pizza for lunch. Our pizza came out of the oven within minutes, all the snacks I put out beforehand were big hits and everyone seemed to have a good time. We had "fire" (icing) cupcakes for dessert and the best part is that there was no clean up! We just threw all of our plates and cups away, packed up the stuff that I had brought, put it all in the car and we were done. How easy is that?!?!
The birthday banner! You can see later what happened...I must have brought the wrong kind of tape.
Candy bar and "Adopt a Puppy"
Flames - red, orange and yellow pepper strips in ranch dressing
Fruit and Flames (and Ryan's honey bear cup ha!)
"Fire" cupcakes
Time to EAT!
Singing "Happy Birthday" and bringing cupcakes
Make a wish...
Helping Ryan blow out his candle
dig in! p.s. My poor birthday banner in the background! I fixed it once or twice and then just let it go. :(
Special egg-free cupcake from home that was iced to look like all the others!
Yummy!
Open up!
Ava Lane and Caroline playing with their puppies
Attacking the candy bar
Peery birthday fun
Ryan and Auntie Heather Shout-out to Heather for taking pics at Marco's for me :)
After the party, we needed to kill some time so we took the boys over to MaSha's house so that they could open their presents from her and then went to her pool. It was just perfect to cool down after a fun morning. The party and the swimming wore the kids out and everyone took a nice nap that afternoon.
Birthday presents from MaSha!
Stokes with his new soccer cleats
Ryan with Curious George and William with a new car
Playing with the new cars at the pool
Dada and Stokes
Ryan snoozing at the pool on a comfy float
That evening, the boys wore their fire truck pajamas, wore their new fire hats and had a blast. Stokes and William take turns "driving" Ryan's stander around the downstairs and tell us it's their fire truck. They make siren noises and it's hilarious!
After we went to Lake Keowee earlier this month, I flew directly to Las Vegas on Sunday morning for a conference and spent a few days in the desert. When flying back to the East Coast on Wednesday, I didn't fly in to Greenville. Instead, I went to Charlotte.
Thomas took a half day off of work and drove up there to meet me at the Charlotte airport. This was a planned out and strategic decision all due to the fact that the Texans were in town to play the Panthers that night. While college football (Clemson, specifically) is more my thing, this particular NFL game caught my eye. There were too many Clemson alumni to miss this game! The Texans had 5 Clemson guys and the Panthers had 1. Our main man, Deshaun Watson, got drafted by the Texans in the first round of the draft this year and is a rookie. How perfect is it that preseason games are the opportunities that rookies get to play and the very first Texans preseason game was in Charlotte, NC, which is easy driving distance from where so many of Deshaun's fans live! In advance of the game, I reached out to Corey to see if she was planning to go. She was, and not only that, she had season ticket seats that we could use, too! We coordinated all the plans and she told us to go to Draught, which is a bar right near the stadium. I found out later that it's the official Clemson alumni bar to watch Clemson games. When we got there, we realized that the Charlotte IPTAY club had sponsored their event there that night. The place was overrun with orange. It made me so happy. And actually, before we even got to the bar, the parking attendant where we parked noticed our orange and commented that there were more Clemson people there than Panthers fans! Clemson faithful showed up in droves to support our guy, Deshaun, along with Nuk Hopkins, DJ Reader, Carlos Watkins, and Marcus Gilchrist on the Texans and Ben Boulware with the Panthers. The Panthers's drumline, PurrCussion, came by the bar and played for us for a while and it was awesome. We ran into several friends and acquaintances there and eventually got with Corey and Clark and two of their friends. We had AWESOME seats at the game, thanks for Corey and Clark. You should have heard the crowd go crazy when Deshaun got his chance to play and ran out onto the field. It was definitely a Clemson heavy crowd there in Bank of America stadium. We got to witness Deshaun's first NFL touchdown. What a fun, proud and exciting moment!
Yes, I did wear my DW4 Clemson jersey ;)
Go #4!
Deshaun's TD
Having fun at the game!
Corey and me
DJ Reader, Jadaveon Clowney and Nuk Hopkins all together!
We left about midway through the 3rd quarter to drive back to Greenville. I wanted to stay longer but was really tired from the Vegas trip and traveling cross country that day, and was ready to just be at my own house and sleep in my own bed. I didn't do very well staying awake on the drive home (poor Thomas!) and it was late when we got home. I was excited to see the boys!
Then that weekend, we asked MaSha to keep the boys for us on Saturday so that we could go to Lake Cherokee with Clark and Steph. Lake Cherokee is small but it is really such a beautiful lake!
Thomas took this panorama of Lake Cherokee
It was a great day for us. We swam, rode on the boat, rode on Big Mable (the huge tube) and ate good stuff! It was such a nice and relaxing day. It even rained on us some but we took it in stride and kept swimming and acting like kids during the rain. We were diving and doing cannonballs off the dock and just having a blast. I secretly love swimming in the rain! ;) We definitely missed Heather and Walker, who weren't able to come that day.
Thomas and me on Big Mable
What a goofball
Beautiful clouds
Hahaha
That evening we ate at the Walhalla Steakhouse before coming back to Greenville. It's a fan fave. They have the best fried chicken. We used to always go there on the way back from our annual camping trip. That was back when we used to go camping...before we all had kids!
MaSha was a doll for helping while I was in Vegas, keeping the boys during the Texans/Panthers game in Charlotte and then babysitting again that Saturday for our grown-up lake day. We're so grateful to her.
Being gone from my kids so much caught up with me after all those fun activities. I was ready to get home and stay home with them for a while!
Pics from Vegas:
With a group of co-workers at the Chandelier Bar in the Cosmopolitan
I snuck into their rooms while they were sleeping to take these pictures of them as three year olds for the last time. They're all growing and getting so funny and so smart. Each birthday is fun and exciting, but each one tugs at my heartstrings just a little. Time seems to be going by so quickly. Seeing all the back to school pictures lately has been a constant reminder that it will be us dropping them off at kindergarten in no time!
Anyway, I cherish these precious moments while they're still little!
This is a little bit bittersweet for me, but I now have a handicapped placard for my van. I know it's going to make life easier when I need to go somewhere with Ryan. His wheelchair is heavy so if it's not a far distance in and out of wherever we're going, it's easier (especially on my back) to just carry him instead of get the wheelchair in and out of my car. BUT, it still is kind of sad to know that we're a family that needs a handicapped placard. I hope that doesn't sound insensitive, but it goes back to my Holland post - I never pictured our life turning out this way, as beautiful as it is.
I think it may take some getting used to for me to realize that I can actually park in a handicapped spot. I'm so used to just driving by and getting the next closest one. I think I will be very thankful for this placard, especially as time goes on and Ryan continues growing and getting bigger and heavier.
Side notes: this was not a very easy process. I am grateful to some of the other parents at Ryan's special needs school that responded to a post I did on their Facebook PTA page asking for help.
Their guidance and assistance provided me with the info I needed to get this done. And yes, it should be a much easier process, but you know how these things are... (eye roll)
In case you haven't heard, and if you live in Greenville, that would be a massive rock under which you're living, Greenville is in the path of totality to get a total solar eclipse. We're one of 10 (I think...) cities across the US. This is unprecedented. The city is going bananas. There's been a run on eclipse glasses for about a week and all hotel rooms within 2 hours of here are completely sold out. Traffic is expected to be insane. This is the only total solar eclipse that we'll see in Greenville in our lifetime.
I saw this infographic on the GVLToday enewsletter, and copied and pasted it. This, to me, sums it up pretty well without making it way too scientific (read: over my head).
I witnessed this event today and am pretty much speechless. It was honestly one of the coolest experiences of my entire life. It was spectacular, eerie, bizarre, amazing and wonderful. I almost cried a little and did get some chill bumps.
Thomas's company had a party and invited friends and family to join the employees. They had Moon Pies, waters, eclipse glasses, a DJ, a drone and lots of photographers. First we gathered inside the office and a professor from Furman University came and spoke to us. Then it was time to go outside and get ready for the big event. They were trying to set a Guinness World Record for the "most people taking a selfie during a total solar eclipse, while eating a MoonPie". Too funny! I don't know how that is verified, but as an attendee, I would guess that they got the record.
We were hanging out, chatting, looking up at the sun and the eclipse (with special glasses on, of course) and the more time that went by, the darker it got. It was the craziest feeling to be outside in the middle of the day with darkness falling. It was like dusk, but not. We got to see the diamond ring, when is when the last little part of the sun is out and it looks like a diamond with the corona as the ring. It just kept getting darker and darker and eventually it was Totality time. We all got to take off our glasses and just look up. I cannot even describe it. It was unreal. My phone camera did not even come close to doing it justice. It just looked like a regular sun in the picture. Lame. I'm sure plenty of real photographers with appropriate lenses got some amazing shots. When totality happened, everyone at this party starting cheering and yelling. The DJ started playing....wait for it..."Total Eclipse of the Heart"...surprise! We were all taking pictures and just looking up towards the sky in awe. You could see the corona of the sun but the entire middle was blacked out. We were in a parking lot with music playing, so I didn't hear any of the animals or unusual nature sounds, but my neighbor told me that all the cicadas started piping up and birds were making noises as well. Incredible. When the moon moved and the sun starting coming out again, glasses had to go back on and the DJ played "Here Comes the Sun". Very clever. That was followed by "Walking on Sunshine".
You may be wondering if the boys got to experience this awesome total eclipse. Well the answer to that is NO. I was curious about what their school was planning to do and was a little disappointed initially when they let us know that they weren't participating and in fact, were going to cover the windows and doors so that no part got into the building. I realized what a liability it would be if they were in charge of keeping all those kids with their glasses on, and what would happen if a large portion of the students ended up with eye damage. Ultimately, they made the 100% correct decision. I was thinking about maybe picking my boys up and taking them to Thomas's office to join the party, but my practical side caught up with me. I was way too nervous about damaging their eyes to risk it. They're still too young to understand anything about it and I knew they wouldn't keep their glasses on. I don't have 3 hands to force it and just didn't feel like it was worth the risk. I did, however, DVR the local news coverage and we will watch it as a family this evening and talk about it.
Here are my pics!
The girls from our old team! Steph, me, Wendy and Donna
Thomas and me participating in the World Record!
Wendy and me (remind me to never hold the phone for selfies!)
My little man Bennett!!!!
Brooke with Bo and Bennett
Brooke and me
More Selfies!
Wendy and me
Total Solar Eclipse Lame camera did not work
During Totality It was so dark out! It was around 2:40 PM
Here's a picture from WYFF 4's website:
I know this looks cool, but seriously does not even come close to doing it justice for what it looked like in person.
The next total eclipse is expected to happen in 7 years, but Greenville won't be on the Path of Totality that time. This is most likely our one and only total eclipse experience. I'm here to say, all the hype was totally (or totality) worth it!!!!!
Prayers for all those fighting traffic to get home.
Side note: In the last 24 hours, I've seen the following out-of-state license plates. CT, NJ, WV, NC, FL, WI, NY, VA, OH, PA, TX
