Wildlife!

Today I took Bella to the Wildlife Center at Georgia Southern, formerly the Raptor Center.  They were having some cool programs and I thought she would enjoy it.

We started off a little different than usual, we went to Habitat for Humanity first and looked around.  Seemed to be obsessed with baskets for some reason.  Every basket we passed, she said 'this will be my Easter basket!'.
Then we went to Lowes, Kathryn and James were with us, but we broke off by ourselves to get her some garden gloves.  Kathryn has been trying her hand at a raised garden recently and Bella wanted her own gloves to help out with.  We found some Tinkerbell ones.

On to the Wildlife Center!
As usual, Bella wanted me to take a pic of her while she poses. She is a bacon wrapped Ham!  But she is cute.

There are so many things to see at this place, they have quite a few animals.  Her favorite one is the Tortoise setup.  She kept trying to catch this little one and hold it, I had to reach under a log to get it, but she loved it.

We went outside, I thought she would be more fascinated by the birds than she was.  She wasn't terribly impressed. She did however like the Barred Owl house. 

We sat down and watched the ducks for a bit.

This past few years the center has put in a very impressive setup, even including a playground, and camping area!  We will have to take advantage of the camping someday.

We saw the reptile show that they put on, this is a Burmese Python, that is 14' long, it's the same type that is over running Florida right now. 

I took her to the gift shop and told her she can get something, she looked at a few things, then settled on a magnifying glass.

Bella's sandals met their ultimate demise this warm March day.  So I took her to buy some sandals, let her pick them out, another quick decision.

A Pretty Good Day!

 

 

Barber Shop Duet

I read this awesome article on the Art Of Manliness called Rediscovering the Barber Shop.  In this article is a detailed description of my frustration with most hair cutting places.  I'm not going to go into too many specifics, because the article says it better than I can.  But it is well worth the read, whether you are a man or a woman. 

So I told James what seemed to be bad news by his initial reaction, was that we were getting our hair cut at a barber shop.  Then I saw his disappointment, and further explained that this was a very manly thing to do.  So I looked for a place but couldn't find too many, especially in Statesboro.  I found a few African American ones, which I had no problem going to.  But I kept looking, and I called one called Cone's Barber Shop, I asked how much they charged, he said, '$8, and $9 for flat tops', with that response I knew I found the right place.  Only a manly place would have two prices, one including flat tops.  So off we went, I also wanted to add at least one more thing to the schedule, so I told James we would go look at knives at B&B Knife World, here in Statesboro.  But when we got there, it was closed.

So we got a quick sad face pic, and then we went to Southeastern Gun, they had lots of knives.

James really liked looking at them, they actually had some flint and chert knapped knives.  They were cool.

On to the Barber Shop, I drove by it twice before I noticed it.

I was loving the atmosphere, it was surprising, it was like walking into someones garage or shop.  It was obviously kept up by a man, and no pretty stuff anywhere.  There were pictures on the wall of muscle cars, jet airplanes.  There were vintage electronics, TV's and even a welder in box on the floor.  The barber was someone I recognized right away, I had seen him around town for years, and you can't forget him once you see him.  It was all due to his amazing mustache, it was a mans man mustache, long, hanging down to his chin, on the sides and over his bottom lip in the middle.   I started chatting with him about what we were doing today and why, and that I was writing a blog about my times with my kids.  His name is John Cone, he has been here for 31 years, his dad Henry was the barber here before him for 58 years.  Quite a legacy, and he has to be quite a pillar in this community, someone that been doing this sort of thing for this long, has to.  We knew a lot of the same people and he is an awesome person.  While he was cutting another guys hair, I realized we were going to be here a while, which wasn't a bad thing.  He was taking serious care to every tiny detail of the mans hair he was cutting.  Even to the eye brows and ear hair.   James was nervous, he wasn't sure what to expect or what to do, but John was cool and helped him feel comfortable.  Afterward he reached into a bucket and gave James some bubble gum.

He showed me a book, I can't remember the exact name, but it was a book that someone went all over the country visiting old fashioned barber shops and writing about them in this book.  It was a mass published book, I snapped a picture of Johns page,

While I was getting mine done, James made himself comfortable.

John did an excellent job, and James said his favorite part was the fact that this was a man place.  He had fun, later he said, 'he was really good and did a great job'. I finally had a great hair cut and never felt like what the Art of Manliness article described from those salons that weren't designed for men.  Which is what I always experienced. And a plus, I spent as much on James and I as I did just on just me in the 'salons' that always disappoint me.  Again, you need to red this article, it is very well written.

A Pretty Good Day!

Cupcakes!

Today I was trying to think of what I could do with Bella, it's fun trying to come up with things.  I saw somewhere about baking with your daughter, and since Kathryn was already baking cupcakes to fill an order, I thought POW! There it is, I will bake cupcakes with Bella, and Kathryn added a cool twist to it, that you will see in a moment.
This activity was going to have to wait until the late afternoon, but that didn't mean I couldn't do stuff with her in the AM.  I had to start getting stuff out of our storage unit (cause we are still in the moving process), and I took her along with me.  And we stopped by Dollar Tree of course.

First we had to dress for the occasion, she loved the apron, but not so much with the hat.  She kept taking the hat off and saying she hates hats.

 We used some left over Strawberry batter and icing to do this, she kept looking at the batter and saying...oooooo, yummy.

 

Into the Oven!

 
 Now the twist as mentioned earlier, is that Kathryn thought she would get a kick out of taking everyone's 'orders' and serving them.
I put a different apron on her so she felt like she was a waitress now instead of a baker.
So she got a pen and paper, and took Kathryn and James order, she told them, 'you can have anything you want, but we only have strawberry'.

 

She was loving this, laughing and really getting into it.  She Also got a pizza pan and practiced walking around with it to serve with.

                                                                 A Pretty Good Day!

Whittlin'

James has been told that if he responsible enough he will get a pocket knife on his 10th birthday.  So since time she-is-a-flyin, and James is 8 now, I figured I'd better start really teaching him about knife safety.

Knife safety is something that on the surface might be no brainer stuff, but it's more about creating good habits.  To this day I still use knife handling habits that my dad taught me. 

At the Dollar Tree he decided to get a Charleston Chew, he read on the side that you can put it in the freezer to make it hard candy, and we did that, it was cool, it actually shattered in our mouths.  He also split it into 4 equal pieces so the whole family could have some.  James is always doing that, always looking for ways to share.  Especially with his sister, he loves her so much.

So in the effort to teach him I will teach him how to make a simple (VERY SIMPLE) spear.
the first lesson I taught him was how to handle a knife.  One of the first things I told him was how to hand or be handed and knife to someone.  The general rule of thumb is, that when a person hands you a knife, the hand-er is not to let go of the knife until the hand-ee says 'thank you' indicating that he has the knife firmly.  We practiced this a few times, and he got the concept well.  In fact we started letting James cut his own meat recently at the dinner table and I tested him a few times with this and he passed with flying colors.

I wanted to show him how to make a good basic spear, which involves burning the tip so it doesn't split.  He enjoyed making a small fire and watching the tip get black.  He did a very good job, he was extremely careful and safe.  He was thinking about every cut, and having a ball.

 He decided to pick up another stick and start sharpening the tip on that.  He was loving this.

I was very proud of you James, you did awesome and you made me feel confident that you will be ready at the age of 10.
                                                                   A pretty good day

DUCKS!

At this age, ANY time with daddy is good time.  And I suppose that will be mostly the case when she gets older.  So that makes it easy to plan things with her.  It takes the pressure off to know that I don't have to come up with a huge elaborate event every time, just some times.  This was one of those times, simple, fun, and memorable.

Before I begin, here is a website devoted to Dads of Daughters, it gives a list of 50 rules every Dad should take seriously.   http://lifetoheryears.com/50rules
Also in this site, are MANY MANY other ideas and awesome tips for Dads of Girls.

The day started off with her wanting to brush my hair, it felt nice, and she enjoyed it....I think.

When I asked her what she wanted to do today, she said she wanted to ride her scooter in the park and see the Tootles.  (Or Turtles).  So easy enough, I loaded her and her scooter up in the van and grabbed a handful of bread and off we went.
On the way a song called Hey The Delilah was playing and I started singing it to her, saying "Hey There Bella'  I was more than overwhelmed by the look on her face.  She LOVED it, she was lighting up and grinning, just listening.  So I took out my phone and turned it to pandora, and luckily many songs played that I knew the words to that I could sing to her, like You & Me by Lifehouse.  She couldn't get enough, despite my actual singing. lol.
We went to Dollar Tree and just like James, she got Mike & Ike's. 
We went to Mill Creek and took out her scooter.  She immediately picked some flowers that she wanted to give to mommy.  Come to think of it, mommy never did receive that gift....sorry mommy :-).

 Then we went on to riding the scooter, and looking for turtles.  The turtles weren't going for the bread, so I told her we would go to GSU and find some ducks.

 Ok, I HAVE to show you this picture, ever the aspiring model, I told Bella to pose next to her scooter, and this pic was snapped catching her in mid-wheredoIputmyarm-pose.  She made this hilarious slow motion gesture with her shoulder and arm while she tried to find a place to put her right hand........loved it.

So we went to GSU, outside of the library is a pond where there are always ducks.

This duck was pitiful funny, it must have something wrong with the oils in its feathers, it has a small afro.  I have noticed this duck before, but I never could get close enough.

 

This pic was weird, and because of this, I had to post it too.  She passed the sign for the Blood Drive and said, 'Daddy, you have to get a picture of me standing next to this'

So I did.

 After that she wanted to play follow the leader on the mini walls.  She said, 'every time we get to the end of the wall, we have to tell a joke, I'll go first.....daddy loves you.....hehe just kidding'.  That was her joke, 'daddy loves you', I love her brain.  The rest of the jokes she said were similar.

Then we went to Dairy Queen and had some ice cream.  She loved that too, of course.  And so did I really, I haven't had a chocolate sundae in a long time.

 

 

 

A Pretty Good Day.