Beauty and the Beast- Vive Les Arts

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

 
 

Tonight Ian and I went to see Vive Les Arts production of Beauty and the Beast. It was fantastic! The sets were awesome, the cast was awesome, and the show as a whole was awesome. They even had it rigged for characters to fly around the stage! Pretty awesome! LOL. Ian really enjoyed the show this time, but was especially attentive because he had a red rose that lit up and the audience was told to wave the rose to help revive Beast and change him back into the Prince at the proper time. There was a lot of rose waving, some smoke, some flying and a Prince emerged! Have I said Awesome??? hee hee. Ian was one of a very few boys that I noticed walking through the character line afterwards. He was noticed by several characters who took the time to say hello to him and offered to let us take a photo with them. Ian LOVED that! Even Belle stopped Beast to have him be in the photo with her and Ian. How sweet! Knitter's theatrical daughters were in the show, too! They were townspeople and then reappeared in the dinner line as the Salt Shaker and a Fork and I think a tablecloth though I stand to be corrected. They were all sorts of wonderful to Ian after the show as always. When I asked Ian about his favorite part of the evening, he said it was meeting the kids after the show! That's a huge compliment considering how much he liked that silly red rose!! So if you live in the Killeen area and you get a chance, go see Beauty and the Beast at Vive Les Arts! You won't be disappointed!

Mr Wooly

When you are driving long distances with small children you are always happy to see one of these:

 

with one of these:
 

What you don't expect to find is one of these:
 
 


Ian spotted Mr Wooly down by the play structure and immediately proclaimed it Mr Wooly, just like Papaw has on his face! My dad always teases Ian about having a wooly worm on his face since he has a white, wooly mustache. Ian gets so tickled so when we spotted Mr Wooly we had to take a closer look.

Mr Wooly hung out on our straw for a few minutes and was safely deposited back in the bushes. No bugs and or children were harmed in the making of this blog post. :)

The Alamo

 
 
 
 
Today we woke up and went to breakfast before heading down to the Alamo. You can't go to San Antonio for the first time and not see the Alamo so since it was the first time for me and the boys we did just that. I knew it wasn't a huge place, but it was even smaller than I realized and the story behind it just makes it all that more remarkable. 200 against 2000 just makes those men that much more brave to me. So we enjoyed our little tour and movie and now will "Remember the Alamo!"

 
 
 
 

Bugs and Blooms and Cup O' Worms!

 
 
 
 
Today we hosted a playdate at the park. The kids all came and potted a flower for their mommy and then took a bug catcher and went on a bug hunt. My friend Crystal generously brought our snack and helped the kids make a dirt pudding with worms! The kids had a ball. They especially loved the plastic bugs that we had to put in their bug catchers! I think the moms liked the flowers the most. :)

Great Wolf Lodge

 
 
 
 

I'll admit that I have really wanted to go to the Great Wolf Lodge ever since I found out that it was within driving distance. I just knew that my boys would really enjoy it and I sure wasn't wrong about that. We drove up yesterday and got to Grapevine around 2:20pm and were able to check straight into our room and then go straight to the water park. The boys had a ball. They loved letting the huge bucket of water fall on them. Aaron's favorite was the little water slide. He would go around and around just to go again and again. I'm not sure that Ian came up with a favorite. That kid was everywhere!

We were there and 2 families that we knew were there, too. It was nice to see friendly faces. Bill was nice and let me go on the slides a few times. Not that he didn't go a few times, too!

We really enjoyed our time there and the kids are wiped out! Oh who's kidding? I'm wiped out, too!

 
 
 
 

He's HOME!

Bill is HOME!! I can't tell you how happy that makes us!

Yesterday was filled with lots of time changes and lots of little frustrations. The time kept getting earlier and earlier. This is good in a way since that meant we were going to get Bill home sooner, but it also meant waking the boys up at 2 am and going to Ft Hood in the middle of the night. It also meant no special outfits and really more of a just get there and get it over with. The rear detachment wanted the families in the gym at 2:30am. This ended up being way too early. Nothing like the Army way of "hurry up and wait." Any military family can appreciate what that really means! We were there for 1.5 hours before we saw our soldiers. I did get a text from Bill at 2:26am that they were successfully on the ground at Gray Army Airfield. But just because they were on the ground did not mean that they were on their way. They had to turn in weapons and load bags, etc. So they had us at the gym which was mildly warmer than is comfortable. They gave us lousy snacks and had a DJ. The floor was filthy. The kids were so good for the first hour of our wait. But that was their threshold. Who can blame them? I was getting impatient, too. But finally the buses arrived to cheers. Bill's unit was to be the last ones in the gym and we saw him walk in. And then Ian took off after him so I had to chase him. Poor kid. I wanted to run after Bill, too, but you know the Army. They make everything have some sort of formality. So I did manage to catch him and heard the chuckles from the wives behind me knowing that if their kids were any younger that they would have been doing just what I had done. LOL.

The short address of the soldiers was nothing short of lame. The speaker didn't even say my husband's unit correctly. I mean if that doesn't put a bad taste in your mouth then I don't know. So he finally said "Released!" Ian ran. He ran right to Bill and jumped. It was sweet and then Bill came toward Aaron and I and grabbed Aaron, too. It was so great to see him. So we relished the moment for a few and then started our way out of the gym. We put the kids in the car and Bill went to retrieve his duffle bag. Then it was homeward bound!!

It almost doesn't seem real. Aaron has warmed up pretty well. He didn't cry, but was a little hesitant. He seems to be much better today, but still prefers me. Even Ian, who is overtired, is still preferring me. (Much to Mommy's relief!) We have had a fairly laid back day. Lunch at a local eaterie and then a trip to the commissary on a payday during a case lot sale. (We were definitely NOT thinking on that one!) Then home for naps!

Wordless Wednesday