Augusta Canal and Locks

We also went on a boat ride with Rebecca on the Augusta Canal and then went and walked around the locks where the Canal breaks off from the Savannah River. The Boat's captain must have recognized that Sam is a natural captain because he let Sam commandeer the boat for quite a while. Sam, as you can imagine, was in seventh heaven. I think he's going to ask for a boat next year for Christmas! I sure hope Santa Claus is richer next December than he was this year. Hee Hee! It seems like each Christmas, the toy requests keep getting more expensive. Hmmmm....While we were boating down the canal, All of a sudden 5 great blue herons flew out from a tree and we got to see them flying around and above us for a while. That was pretty cool. The tour guide said that almost never happens because herons aren't flocking birds so we just lucked out. It was a really fun boat ride but it was so cold! I thought I was going to lose some fingers to frost bite. Then we drove over to the locks and took some pictures there too. That was a fun day!

Phinizee Swamp

While Rebecca was here visiting we did some fun things together. First we went to Phinizee Swamp to try and see some wild life. We soon discovered that our dogs were probably the wildest animals in the vicinity. We saw a great blue heron and some other really white birds but didn't see any snakes this time. Once while we were there, we saw a 5 foot long water mocassin snake and that was pretty creep-tacular. Sam got fishing gear from Santa Claus this year and is dying to go back and fish there sometime. I hope we don't catch anything with fangs!

My Drama Prince

We were informed that Sam had a part in the PTA 2nd grade play a couple of months ago so we went to the meeting and recorded the play on our camera. We soon noticed that he had a line for each line that all of the other students had. After the play was over we asked him how come he had so many speaking lines in the play and he said, "It's because my teacher says that I read with feeling. " Does that mean that I've got a future drama king in the making?

Happy Halloween & Happy Halloween

Sam got to go trick or treating twice this year. We went to Savannah to have Halloween with his grandparents and cousins and the county where they live declared that all trick or treating was to be done on Saturday night. It just so happened that Augusta, where we live didn't do this so he got to get twice the halloween booty that he normally would because his mom has a soft spot for trick or treating (as long as she gets a few almond joys tossed into the bargain)and was willing to take him out both nights. His costume was a big hit and we had at least a hundred people shout out "It's Mario Time" and "Hi, Mario". I think kids must play too many video games because I had no idea who Mario was until Sam got a Nintendo DS. Carl wore his Grim Reaper costume and he and his dad sat out on the front porch, alternating on passing out candy to the little kids and scaring the teenager trick or treaters. He would sit still on the porch swing until they were facing away from them and then he'd sneak up from behind and give them a fright. I think he may be a little sadisitic by the amount of pleasure this gave him. :) It was a good time had by all and since he got so much candy, we're going to go give half of it to the Ronald McDonald house for Family Home Evening. Plus, I threw in a couple of new Hot Wheel cars to sweeten the deal to help him to be willing to give up so much caloric goodness. It's better for everyone involved if we don't have candy laying around the house for weeks and weeks.

Our "Were"-Crow

We volunteered to do Sam's class scarecrow for the scarecrow contest this year. Sam's teacher had the clever idea of making the scarecrow into a crow so we went with that idea. Carl's engineering kung fu paid off big time when he was ble to construct a serious pvc pipe skeleton for the crow and I filled in the rest with a home-made crow head and various goodwill clothes. We like the end result but can't decide what to title it...

Here are a few of our ideas

1. Were-Crow
2. Crow-Man the Librarian
3. Crow-Magnun

Let us know if you can think of any other clever ideas. :)

Sam's missing facial hair!

I picked Sam up from school and hadn't really paid attention to his face until we pulled up into our driveway and he got out of his seatbelt and came and sat by me in the passenter seat. All of a sudden I noticed he had some rather large bald spots in his eyebrows. I thought, "hmmmmm..." I then asked Sam, "did you guys do some cutting with scissors in class today?" He then answered yes, they did use scissors in class. I then asked him, "Did you cut your eyebrows with your scissors?" He looked like he wanted to say no but thought better of it and said, "yes, I did cut my eyebrows with my scissors a little bit." Then I said, look at yourself in the mirror and so he opened up the mirror in the visor and after looking at himself he yelled, "ahhhhh!" I then asked him if he was going to cut his eyebrows again and he immediately answered that he would not do it again. Here are some pictures for your viewing entertainment and so I can torture him with them someday when he starts dating.

Sharp dressed man!

I got Sam a suit from a church consignment sale last weekend that was a size 8 thinking it would be perfect for when he got baptized next year but when I got it home and had him try it on, it fit him perfectly right now so he's looking pretty sharp these days at church! I thought this deserved a post so you can all get some eye-candy. :)