Sweet and Sour 16

Emcee Andrew's tribute to Lea who sat on the floor and took it all.
Including her mom's Sweet or Sour? Video compilation. 

Dan gave both Lea and mom a charm bracelet that had 16 charms — one for each of Lea's birthday party themes.

We survived camping in the swamp!

Cabin 9 at Caddo Lake State Park (though on the bayou, not actually on the lake). We saw one snake, 3 turtles, one heron, one egret and half an alligator (Dan saw something move but could not confirm nor deny that it was a two foot long alligator so Lea started calling it a half-igator instead of an all-igator) It was very beautiful. Unfortunately, swimming was not encouraged, though there were lots of people doing it. We got wet to cool off but after seeing a gar swim under us I was not eager to take a dip. We paddled both full days we were at camp. The first day we headed toward Hell's Half Acre but thought it was too far... on the way back we realized we had missed the turn. The second day we headed toward Jefferson (under Thor's Thunder Bridge) and found two nice inlets to explor that were very swampy with huge cypress trees and several turns, but nothing challenging. We had a nice cabin but it was far from the water so we had to haul stuff to the water’s edge to read by the bayou. Lea read 3 books in one day and I sketched. We stayed pretty exhausted so it's hard to call it relaxing, but we had no wifi and very little cell service and no TV so that was great. Totally unplugged! I thought we’ read books and play games, but by the time we made it back to the cabin we were wiped out so early to bed and paddling the next morning. Lea and I managed to go antiquing while Dan fished one day. The closest town was called Uncertain and they had a big sign for “The Church of Uncertain” we all thought that was funny. There was the Uncertain Flea market … Lea said “I guess they are uncertain if its a flea market!” We had a ranger tell us there was infighting among the vendors so now it was just one guy so we started calling it “Earl’s pile of junk” I bought two thermos containers for Lea’s lunch and Dan found an air hose adapter he was looking for. Lea was thrilled because when we walked in she recognized a song and behind the money taker’s table on tv was GLEE. Lea has watched 3 seasons of Glee in two weeks and is obsessed with the show, so to hear a Glee song in the Uncertain Flea Market was pretty crazy! Since there was no swimming I decided the last day of vacation would be spent with a hotel pool so we booked a cheap (but very nice) room at Samstown casino in Shreveport Louisiana (about 20 miles, but 50 minutes from our camp site). That was Sunday so we went to a nice church with a very energetic priest… He talked about converting to Catholicism in 2000 and said he must have been raised Southern Baptist because he said “JESUS!” like a tv preacher. We had a nice dinner, Dan got to play poker, Lea took a bath in our huge bath tub and we swam in the morning. Then we finally came home. Very exhausted from our vacation!

10 days of Lea

When turning from single digit age to double digit age [10] we thought we should do something big for Lea's birthday. There were no big presents she wanted, especially after earning enough money and family good will be achieving some goals to buy herself an ipad mini. So experiences and adventures seemed like the way to go. I started by asking her for a top ten list months before, but we never got more than three things before she got distracted. Or they were a jumble of things like roller skating, tacos, swimming and friends. All good answers, but not quiet enough to create an itinerary on. So I took it upon myself to make an itinerary that she then approved excitedly.The biggest plus was getting to see friends through out the week and a half. We had a great mix of friends join us on many of our adventures, but I have to give kudos to our summer buddy Molly Mae. Her mom was up for almost all of our crazy antics. It really made for a special week and a half.

Day 1 : Water-balloon War

@ Lea’s House

Day 2: Pedicure

6pm

Nail Star in Casa Linda

Day 3: 

Bahama Beach 

Water Park

2 pm

Day 4: Lego Land

Grapevine, TX

1pm

Day 5: Ice Skating 

at the Galleria

2pm

Day 6: Putt Putt Golf

Lunar Golf
Town East Mall, Mesquite TX

5pm

Day 7: 

Playing School

@ Lea’s House 3pm to 6pm

Day 8: Roller Skating

White Rock Skate

 1:30pm

Day 9: Perot Museum

 2pm

Day 10: Happy Birthday Lea!

Party

@ Lea’s House

 3pm Sat. - 11am Sun.

Photos:

Merry Christmas