Rockport Christmas Parade 2015

Good times with family and friends at the annual Rockport Christmas Parade!  A celebration to begin the birthday festivities!  Beautiful sunny and blue skies, warm weather, and lots of candy!

Fun @ the West Side Nut Club Fall Fest!

The West Side Nut Club Fall Festival.  It's the second biggest street festival next to Mardi Gras.  There is over 130 food booths set up along 4 blocks of Franklin Street.  Franklin Street is packed with people, food, rides and games.  It's also a nightmare at times!

Friday Shawn and his work crew at WOW volunteer at the Wish Upon A Star food booth slinging BBQ pork chop sandwiches.  He loves it!  When I get off work on those Friday's, I try to bum a ride with Tiffany, and Ede this year, for a drop off at his booth since they live on the west side and go that way, that way I don't have to find a spot to park and then have walk to my car in the dark, cause usually its blocks away from everything.  Thanks girls!  

We ate way too much food last night!  We shared most everything though, so I guess that's good!?!?  We had a giant tenderloin sandwich, a stromboli, a deep friend jalapeno turkey sausage wrapped in bacon, corn on the cob, pig snorts, deep friend Reese peanut butter cups, lemonade/orange shake up, apple cider, cherry cider, a deep fried twinkie, a catfish sandwich, and I think that's all.  Isn't that enough you would say! LOL!  It's only one time a year, and I didn't go last year so I thought I had to make up for it!

The pig snorts were yummy!  

Tiffany's niece Zoe was performing with a dance team so we stopped to watch!  She did a great job...and she was one Bad Little Girl!

We played a few games, but no rides for us, the lines are entirely too long!

Saturday night we were back down there again!  The big parade was last night and that usually ends the weeks festivities!  The parade is big, and long, and they don't throw any candy :(  Shawn always likes going to this parade; me I'm a hit and miss with it.  Luckily this year, we found a seat on one of the picnic tables along Franklin Street so I wouldn't have to stand the whole time.  I've got a pinched nerve, or muscle situation going on with my right hip/bootie area and it has been giving me fits when standing or walking for periods of time :(  

Anyways, I'm glad the fall fest is only one time of the year. There is way too much yummy food down there!  Last night we had a bbq pork baked potato, pronto pup, apple cider, orange shakeup, tenderloin sandwich, chicken fried rice and an eggroll, chicken pot pie, and some more pig snorts.  Oh and Shawn had a funnel cake with peanut butter and hot fudge.  He said that was his favorite thing down there!

One thing we both noticed that both Friday night and Saturday night, even though there was alot of people down there, there nights weren't real crowded.  It was nice!  And the weather this week was amazing for the fall fest!  It didn't rain one time and the temps were in the 70's all week!  What a blessed week for all of those organizations involved!  I hope everyone raised lots of money for their individual organizations!

See you next year West Side Nut Club Fall Festival!  Only 51 weeks to go!

Action Packed Weekend

Whew!  What a busy weekend last weekend was!  We had so much stuff going on...Saturday afternoon was the Rockport Christmas Parade, my birthday dinner and cake and ice cream at my mom's in Rockport, then back home to Newburgh to let Hershey Bell out, then back off to Chandler for the hot chocolate/cookies and Santa night at the HoHoHome in Chandler, off to get supper, then back home to decorate Gavin's little tree before heading to bed.  Then Sunday it was church at 11 in Evansville, grab lunch to go and then head to the Boonville Parade to ride in the WOW float, then immediately off to downtown Evansville to an Iceman Hockey game at the Ford Center, then we had to go to Rockport to take Gavin back home, and then it was back to Newburgh for us to go home.  We were busy, busy, busy and had lots of travel time in between too!

Like I mentioned above, we started the day off at the Rockport Christmas Parade.  We can view that blog entry here.  After the parade, we went to my mom's for my homemade chicken and dumplings  birthday dinner, and then cake and ice cream that Beth got me for my birthday :).  I didn't take many pictures at moms, there was too much going on.  I did manage to take a picture of my yummy cake and then a picture of Gavin in a Santa hat and of course he wanted to take one of me in the Santa hat too.

We went to the HoHoHome in Chandler for their hot chocolate/cookies night.  You could also visit with Santa and Mrs. Claus, but the line was very long and I knew once we got up there, chances are Gavin wouldn't of wanted anything to do with them so we skipped that part.  We did meet up with some neighbors, who are also old friends from church, there.  I had told their oldest son Josh about it a few days prior, so it was nice to know someone there.  I also ran into one of my co-workers there.  Gavin didn't want to have his picture taken at all that night, but Josh and Jayden sure did!

If you notice the crookedness of this picture, I'm sure you'll be able to tell who took it ;)

 



 

I had already told Gavin Saturday night when we got home we would decorate the little tree I put in his room.  He was all too excited to get home and get it up. He didn't even want to change into his jammies or eat supper before we got started.  I have this one little ornament that is a cat and a dog clinging to each other and both have an umbrella, one says "it's raining cats" and the other says "it's raining dogs".  Gavin found it the other day and loved it and loved playing with it.  He's concentrating so hard at getting those umbrellas in the cat and dog's paws so he can hang that ornament up.

 

 

 

This tree originally was on a plant stand and I thought by sitting it on the ground the ornaments might make it all over the tree instead of just at the bottom where he would of been able to reach.  I was wrong, all the ornaments only made it to the top of the tree.  LOL!!  Aunt Stace had to fix it some once we were done.

Sunday morning it was off to church and on our way I look in my rear view mirror to check on Gavin and here is what I see!  LOL!  That kid is not right!

Apparently Gavin wasn't the only one in disguise today at church!

After church, it was off to the Boonville Christmas Parade to ride in the WOW float!  We've done this for a few years and always enjoy seeing all the people, passing out candy, and waving and telling everyone Merry Christmas or "Merry Histmas" as Gavin calls it!  I think my little monkey looks so cute in my reindeer hat that this year Santa is gonna bring him his own hat ;)

 

A girl from work saw us in the parade and took this photo of us.  She said her phone is messed up hence the blue photo.  Hee!  Thanks Cara!

 

After the parade it was straight off to the Iceman Hockey Game.  Shawn and I had been once before and thought it was fun.  We learned that Sunday was family night and that Shawn's brother and some friends were going so Shawn wanted to go.  We didn't get to sit with them because of our tickets, but we saw them when we were coming in and then we saw them in their seats.  Our seats at this game were the 3rd row so we were practically sitting out in the ice.  While the seats were nice, you couldn't see alot of the game, so I definitely enjoy sitting up higher for the hockey games.  And poor Gavin, even though I thought he could see, when I looked at some of the pictures he had taken with the little camera, all he could see was the back of people's heads :(  We all had a good time, despite the 25 trips to the bathroom for the little guy.  I even had one maneuver that involved the going up to the bathroom with Gavin and coming back down to our seats with Gavin, a large coke, a container of nachos and 3 hot dogs with ketchup!  I'm a rock star according to Shawn, cause it was tough on him just taking Gavin to the bathroom and coming back down with just Gavin.  LOL!!

 

Here is Shawn's brother Steve and wife Christa with her parents, Mike and Betty, and then some of their friends from church, Paula and Wes.  Paula and Wes made it up on the Kiss Cam, but didn't realize what it was.  It was funny to see their faces once they realized they were up there.

O'Neill....you suck!  I know we heard that every two minutes of the game.  Funny thing is next month we are going to a hockey game again and they are playing the same team.  We will be ready to chant it with them this time!

 



 

And on Shawn's trip to the bathroom with Gavin, on their way back down, one of the announcers was in our section giving stuff away and I look up on the screen and see Shawn and Gavin trying to maneuver back down to our seats. 

 

On the way home.  Gavin was zonked out about 20 minutes after we got in the car.  We must of really tuckered him out!  I know he had a good weekend and we always have a good time when we have him. This little boy truly has Aunt Stacey's heart!