A Hodge Podge of Febrauary Fun

Chef's Challenge at Distinctive Kitchens downtown in Pensacola. It's a yearly fundraiser for our school and it's kinda like Iron Chef with a mystery ingredient( this year was mushrooms). There is wine, wonderful food and silent auctions. This was us being silly in the wine room. Emma's teacher was there drinking beer too, hey I thought she lived at school and never left her classroom? Isn't that what all kids imagine? Starting from the lft. Kate , me, Kathy, Becky, Angela, Lisa and Stefanie.

Cool shot of Emma dangling from a parallel bar.

This is Adeline's favorite thing to do, carry around Moxie even if she doesn't want to

A night time walk on a cool evening

T.T. Wentworth Museum Adeline and Abigail come across a rabid museum rat

Emma's first time attending a slumber party. It was a dress up party. Whoa who did their makeup, Ru Paul?

Get ready for Fat Tuesday

Mardi Gras is celebrated the week before Lent and from Pensacola west to New Orleans, there are parades the couple of weeks prior. The BIG Pensacola Mardi Gras Parade is always on a Saturday afternoon and draws huge crowds. I took the kids last minute and found a semi decent spot off Palafox Street. Aside from the huge quantities of cheap beads that come flying off the floats, come Moon Pies in different flavors( the one in Adeline's hand is Banana, YUCK), stuffed animals, gold coins, swords, hats, soccer balls, fanny packs(YIPPEE) and tons of other China made crap. But, the way people dive for that junk would make you think they were throwing T-bone steaks off the floats. The trumpeter man in the video below, snagged a duffel bag out from under Reece's feet that Reece was too scared to pick up. People are brutal.

The big orange pair was Emma's pride and joy of beads. They came flying right at her and hit her in the lip. After that pain, she wasn't giving those beads up to anyone.

Adeline held onto that moon pie for about an hour and never took a single bite.

This guy drove his ATV up right behind us and played the entire parade.

Worth skipping school

This year will mark the 450th year since Spain discovered Florida and with that Pensacola. So, for 7 years our little beachy city, has been trying to get the King of Spain, Juan Carlos I, to come to commemorate the occasion. After Hurricane Ivan though, they thought better of the idea, but after rebuilding parts of the city, they tried to again go about the right channels to get the royal visit. Thursday February 19th was proclaimed by our governor to be Juan Carlos day here in Pensacola, sorry Dominique, from now on your birthday will always fall on another country's monarch's made up day. We pulled Emma out of school for a few hours to attend the kingly viewing downtown in Jackson Square. There were probably about 1,000 others there, mostly bus loads of bored school kids. From our location which was about 30 yards away, we couldn't tell that the King's tie matched Queen Sofia's dress. It's nice that they an coordinate clothing. When your royal you can do that. Matching Hawaiian shirts and crocs, doesn't count. He gave a 10 minute speech in English about how compatible our 2 countries are and then yelled "Viva Pensacola" and was gone...... Now both and Emma and Rick were disappointed with the lack of crowns, purple capes, lots of jewels and a horse drawn carriage to pull them up to the museum. Rick was expecting to see "The BURGER KING" and was hoping he would throw whopper coupons down from the balcony to rain down on us lowly peasants. They left the city less than 24 hours after they flew in and I hope that isn't my last chance while I'm alive to see a King and Queen.

Don't take any pictures of me!!

Those were Reece's words to me that he yelled so I would stop making it a big deal.
The neighbor noticed the other day that while we were watching the kids ride bikes, that Reece was really not using his training wheels anymore. So, I asked him if I could take them off. He wasn't as thrilled about riding without them as Emma was, but it's been about a week now and he's doing great. I have to stop him everytime, unless he remembers to go into the grass to jump off. But, Rick noticed that he's quite the daredevil, making sharp turns and actually standing up to gain speed. So, we are very conscience of his helmet, which YES I know, he's not wearing it in this video.

Father-Daughter Dance 2009

The Girl Scouts sponsor this dance every year and Rick had
never been around earlier to take Emma, but this year was different
Because I bought Emma a corsage, she felt like she needed to pose in
every picture and couldn't smile because super models don't smile
Haley and Emma- again not smiling b/c they are too cool
the cause of the no smiling pictures

Lunch at the Beach

It's nice to be able to pack a lunch and within 10 minutes be out at one of the prettiest beaches around. We took the kids to Quietwater Cove for a hot dog lunch and the seagulls joined us. We saw 2 jellyfish washed ashore that rivaled the size of my minivan tire, a few catamarans getting ready for a regatta and one completely soaked dog named Jagger that was covered in sand that stuck all over his wet fur. And Yes, Adeline is too cool for us and must be incognito while stuffing cheese puffs into her face.

Good Eats

The Parrish's squirrels are now some of the best fed in the lower 48. There is a family of young brothers and sisters in our backyard with one albino squirrel and about 5 in the front yard. The kids have given them various names like "Dumptruck" "American Squirrel" and "Buzz Lightyear." Whenever I'm chopping up veggies for dinner, they always get the remnants and as you can see, the stale bagels too. Sure they may be annoying and dig up people's gardens, but I still think they are cute.