How Obama ruined our Anniversary Date and other random thoughts

Yes, Obama himself ruined our anniversary date this past Saturday! No kidding! Here's the story. We had decided that instead of spending lots of money on a nice dinner, we'd like to enjoy having a "tea" like the British do. (Sometimes it's called a "high tea.") So, we found this very reasonably priced tea room and K called and made a reservation for us for 1pm on Saturday. They had to squeeze us in, as there was a huge bridal shower there at 3 and usually a nice "tea" takes almost 2 hours, if you do it right and sit and enjoy. There's the background....

So, we asked K's parents if they could keep Stone for our date and they could. Due to a small miscommunication between us and the parents, after dropping Stone off, we were going to be a little late to the tea so we called to see if that would still be okay. The lady said yes, if we could be there no later than 1:30. We were pretty sure that wouldn't be a problem. Until, we went the wrong way for a while (yes, we had directions, but still got a little lost!) which put us behind even more. THEN, we finally get to downtown G'boro, where the tea room is located, and we are greeted by tons of pedestrians. At first, we couldn't figure out where they were coming from or why there were so many of them. Then, the road we needed to continue on was completely blocked off and traffic rerouted. So, I call the tea room again. I tell them that we're not that far, but wondered if they could help us go down another road to get to the tea room (since we didn't have a map with us and still aren't that familiar with the downtown yet). They gave us directions, but still, between all the pedestrians going to get into their cars and traffic cops directing traffic in certain directions, we still couldn't go the way we needed to in order to get to the tea room. By this time, it was almost 2pm, so we called and cancelled our reservation, since if and when we'd get to the tea room, we wouldn't have enough time to actually enjoy it. And since having tea is super cheap, we didn't want to waste the money. SO, why all the people, roads shut down, traffic being directed?? For the Obama/Biden rally that had just let out!! Obviously, we had no idea it had been going on, or we would have planned for that but it still frustrated us that our plans had been ruined.

However, our story does end well as K remembered that there was a hotel East of G'boro that actually held "teas" in their lobby. We took a chance and went there without a reservation to see if we could get in and thankfully, we were able to enjoy our tea after all. Afterwards, we went a little shopping, picked up Stone and then had dinner with him before returning home. Oh, and my hubby brought me beautiful Fall flowers.. my favorites!!

On other random news, I saw Santa Claus today at the gas station while filling up with gas. Seriously, while the gas is pumping, I look over and see this guy get out of his car. Not only does he have the snow white hair and snow white FULL beard (and I do mean Santa Claus-like beard) AND a red shirt on, black pants with suspenders, but he is also "robust" just like Santa Clause. I think he was even wearing glasses! Ha ha ha! I thought it was a little early for Christmas, but I guess you can't start too early these days???

One of my kids from my preschool class cracks me up all the time with things that he comes up with to tell me. The other day, they were coloring some pictures to make a little reminder of words that start with "G." Cole was coloring the neck of the girl with a red crayon and says to me, "Mrs. Shelby, look.. redneck." Just as straight-faced as ever. I burst out laughing! This same kid also said to me, "Come on Ms. Shelby, I don't have all day," after having to wait a few minutes for me to finish getting down all the craft supplies. I mean, really, what else does he have to do? He's in preschool!!! And I told him as such! He's really a sweetie though and the most patient kid on the planet, I'm convinced! (Besides that one time mentioned above.)

Stone... I mentioned before how much he makes me smile. Last Thursday, when I took him to the doctor, we get to the room and there's a sea theme on the wall (wall paper with dolphins, fish, etc.) On the wall over the patient table there's a picture of a whale. Stone sees it and says "fish." And I tell him, "No, it's not a fish, but something that's sort of like a fish. It's a whale." At this point, without missing a beat, he starts making whale sounds (this is hard to explain in written form so you gotta think "Finding Nemo" when Dorrie the fish speaks "whale" to the whales to communicate and you'll get the picture in your head.) I about fell off my chair. Kevin had been speaking "whale" to him in the bathtub at night cause he has this little foamie bathtub puzzle of Noah's Ark and one of the animals is, of course, 2 whales. Ha ha ha! I believe he will say and do anything Kevin teaches him! And that is our life as we know it. :)