Happy Birthday to Lily!

Last week Lily turned 5 years old. She's grown much and is a joy to our family. She loves ponies and princesses and playing. She loves to be silly and laugh and dance. She loves playing with her sister and brother and spending time with mom and dad.

Lily was excited for her birthday. She had picked out a stuffed pony (complete with carrying case and a carrot and a comb) a month ago and I hid it away until her special day. 

She also spent the day building and rebuilding her new lego duplo cinderella set. This is a picture she took. She loves to use the camera and take multiple photos of things, as well as videos.

I had been planning to make her a pony cake (using a cake pan borrowed from a neighbor) but I was kind of nervous about how it would turn out, since I am definitely a novice when it comes to cake decorating. Wednesday afternoon I was in the parking lot at Costco when a man called out to me and said he had something to give me. I kept my distance until he showed my his Costco employee ID, and then he pulled out a large Costco cake. They had had an employee mtg and had an entire, unopened cake leftover. I was happy to take it off his hands! It looked delicious, the kids were thrilled, and Lily didn't mind that her birthday cake said Costco on it in large red letters. 

Due to the size of the cake we knew we had to share our bounty with more friends, so we invited Ryan and Marcelaine and kids, the Wrights, the Barrots, and our neighbors the Tarrants. It was a regular low-key party and fun to visit with everyone. 

North Carolina State Fair 2012

Since our time in North Carolina will likely be short, we are doing our best to take in all that we can while we are here. One of the things on our to-do list was a trip to the North Carolina State Fair. We headed over to Raleigh and had a fun day.

Our first stop was at the North Carolina Forest Service exhibit, where we got up close with a helicopter and a giant Smokey the Bear.

 

 The flower gardens were beautiful, and Zach's favorite part of the whole day was the model train.

We didn't take any pictures, but we enjoyed seeing the animals, especially the rabbits, chicks, piglets, and calves.

We purchased our fair tickets in advance and had enough for everyone to ride one ride. Jared took the girls on the Ferris wheel and I took Zach on the carousel; everyone was thrilled.

Lily's Laugh

Here's a video of Lily doing her "evil laugh" (she's done better ones off camera). She's a silly (almost) 5 year old. We enjoy her sense of humor. Also in the video are Zach and Anwyn (off-screen playing the piano). Lily and I were doing some math problems and I thought I should record her laugh for posterity.

American Tobacco Campus in Downtown Durham

A few Saturdays ago we headed to downtown Durham to explore the American Tobacco Campus. Tobacco is a central part of Durham's history, since that is how Washington Duke (founder of Duke university) made his fortune.

The landscaping was neat to see, especially the man made Old Bull River and the old train cars.

  

Durham Bulls Baseball Stadium 

 

Notice the gator in the forefront??!! That was a fun surprise for our Florida family.

Another reason for the excursion was to find the cows. Durham is part of the "word's largest public art exhibit"-81 8ft. fiberglass cows that have been painted and placed at popular locations around the Triangle area. The kids loved finding the cows, so I am sure we will head out another day soon and find some more.