Touch a Truck!

We have been living here for four years now and every year we miss "Touch a Truck", where they have a bunch of trucks:  a semi-truck, a fire-truck, a bus, a cement truck, etc. and the kids can get inside them and honk the horn, etc.  Lucas was finally able to go to "Touch a Truck" this year, and it was a tons of fun.  I hope we're around to go next year!  After signing a waiver,  Lucas was able to sit in every one of the trucks!  They had treats which totally won Lucas over, (this more or less became the priority and seeing the trucks was just an afterthought) as well as Craig (who took advantage of the treats himself on more than one occasion).

Dead fish swimming

Over the past several months we have been 'fish-sitting' more often than not as we've had various friends traveling for extended periods of time.  This has worked out really well for us because Lucas likes having a fish around, but we don't actually have to buy a fish.  However, we always have a shadow looming over us, haunting us with the question of "what if we kill the fish?".  Truth be told, the families to whom the fish belong probably wouldn't care since a replacement can be purchased for 25 cents, but we would feel terrible that we weren't able to keep the fish alive.  On top of that, we'd have to explain to Lucas why we were flushing Nemo down the toilet.

With that in mind, think how we must have felt when we came downstairs the other day to see this (warning, the following pictures may be too graphic for those with weak stomachs):

After a little grumbling and complaining, I go grab a plastic cup to scoop out the fish preparing myself for the inevitable questions when Lucas comes downstairs wanting to feed the fish.  When I return, the fish is right-side-up and swimming around like he doesn't have a care in the world.  This same scene repeated itself multiple times throughout the day.  At first Katie didn't believe me, until I heard her say "Oh, look Craig, the fish died" later that evening.  I just gave her a knowing glance, wandered over to the tank and quickly swiped my hand over the top.  Sure enough the fish turned right over and went on his merry way.

Now that I'm more conscientiousness about paying attention to the fish, I've noticed that he actually spends more time upside-down than right-side-up.  Weird fish.  He must have a couple synapses miss firing.

Memorial Day

I really need to get better about posting these like the day after the event, but whatever....better late than never.

As I've mentioned several times before, you town has a big Memorial Day celebration with all sorts of activities including war re-enactments, booths, music, a car show, and about 20,000 additional residents for the day.

One of the local churches hosted a kids carnival, which Lucas participated in and thought was fun.

Lucas wasn't a big fan of the war re-enactment, however.  I wanted to try and get an action shot, so we stayed for the first few minutes when they were firing the canon, but hightailed it out of there as soon as I got my picture (Lucas was very appreciative).

Overall, we had a fun day.  Lucas just enjoyed the fact that he got to spend the entire morning outside, running around and playing.  That was good enough for him.

Memorial Day Parade

The Boalsburg Memorial Day Parade (which actual takes place 2 day before Memorial Day) was last night, and as per our annual tradition, we were in attendance.  You must understand that our town is only 6.5 square miles in size and has a population of less than 4,000 people, so you can't really go with high expectations for the parade.  In fact we can't even afford full size horses for our parade:

Actually, the selling point for the parade and the reason why so many people attend is because ~90% of the parade entrants throw candy.  In terms of amount of candy received, this 30 minute parade ranks somewhere just below Halloween, but above Easter, and he doesn't have to move more than ~5 feet because people literally throw candy directly at him.  All he has to do is wait, bucket in hand:

Since it is a small parade, there isn't really much in the way of floats.....actually there are no floats at all. More like lots of fire trucks....

...and MORE fire trucks....

Other than the token politicians riding in the back of various models of sports care, the only other main contributor to the parade (other than the fire departments of the 25 nearest towns) are the local girls twirling classes, of which I didn't take any pictures, but there were at least 5 different twirler groups in the parade (3 of which were playing the same song while twirling.  Can't we at least have some originality?).  One of our friends made the comment after the parade, that "if an alien race were to come to earth and observe only this parade, the only logical conclusion that they would be able to come to is that small twirling girls must be the number one cause of fires on Earth".  I just hope that there isn't a fire anywhere in the surrounding 25 miles because for those 30 minutes on a Saturday evening in May, every available truck is cruising our little Main St. throwing handfuls of candy to waiting kids and would be hard pressed to get anywhere in a hurry.

Birthday Time!

Lucas turned three just over a week ago!  Since Lucas is obsessed with animals (side note: for those that have received cards from use recently, have you noticed they have animals on them?  Lucas has been picking out the cards!), particularly crocodiles, we decided to go with an animals theme for his birthday, go figure.  The night before, despite Craig's lack of enthusiasm, we decorated the kitchen area, with balloons, crate paper hanging from the ceiling and I have to admit a pretty cool animal themed Happy Birthday sign.  The next morning was french toast, with whipped cream (can't forget the cream), and strawberries.  Lucas almost didn't notice the decorations (too groggy), but once he spotted it he was thrilled,  he liked the toy animals (table decoration)!  Lunch was suppose to be outside since Lucas loves to be outside, but the weather didn't cooperate, so we headed to Chick-fil-A.  He loved playing in their play place (it is the nicest one in town)!  He was also allowed to get an ice cream cone, which he is usually pretty good about eating it, but it was hot and melted too quickly, so we are walking through Walmart (to quickly grab these cute animal plates that I had to have) with a dripping, falling apart ice-cream cone, Lucas holding onto a balloon, and me needing to make a run to the little girls room.  I couldn't help but laugh, I am sure it was an amusing sight to see!  That night we had Lucas' favorite food:  Pasta with broccoli!  Since I wasn't quite ready for a just friends party (maybe next year, when he is a little older), we had a bunch of his friends and their families over for cake and ice cream, Lucas picked rainbow chip cake and caramel ice-cream.  He had a crocodile cake and some animal themed cupcakes!  Lucas seemed to have a great time.

Just some notes, for posterity, about 3 year old Lucas:  He loves being outside, especially if his friends are there, and he loves grapes along with strawberries and blackberries.  He is a thinker and it gets him into mischief on a regular basis.  He is a good, but very active kid!!!  He is into animals, swords (don't ask me where this came from, but lately everything is a sword), and his most recent favorite color is pink (ugh!).

Boalsburg Celebration of Military Service

In anticipation of Memorial Day, the Pennsylvania Military Museum, which is located in our small town, hold an annual Celebration of Service.  There is a lot of pomp and circumstance, including military parades and various speakers, but the big draw for the kids is the military vehicles, including 5 helicopters, that are on display.  We have the privilege of nearly having our windows shatter when the helicopters fly directly over our townhouse at an altitude of no more than a couple hundred feet as they approach the museum lawn for landing.  Absolute worst is when the 2 Chinooks fly overhead.

Lucas had a great time (and I admit that I did, too) climbing in and out of the helicopters and armored vehicles.  Katie spent the time talking with friends (boring!) instead of examining the Apache Attack Helicopter machine gun (like me), or jumping up and hanging from the tail fins (like Lucas).  Thankfully nobody saw Lucas performing his acrobatics, or the fact that the piece he was hanging was clearly label "Not A Step:  Do Not Apply Force".

Dipping Chocolate Strawberries

This past Saturday Lucas and I dipped chocolate strawberries while we listened to Adele.  Though Lucas' idea of contribution is standing right next to me licking a spoon dipped in chocolate, then stealing another spoon covered in chocolate, and trying to continually dip the spoon in the chocolate.  Got to love it when the three year old wants to help!  However, he did look pretty stinking cute in his apron and hat, with his two spoons and mouth covered in chocolate.  It was necessary to document the moment.