The circus has come to town!  They had the "elephant walk" tonight, which is something I had never heard of before until this morning, but Casey said he had heard of it before, so I guess it's a thing.  Anyway, the elephants and horses walk from the train tracks through downtown Charlotte to the arena where they will have the circus.  (Thankfully, they didn't let the tigers join the parade through the city streets.)  So we took the new light rail into the city to watch the spectacle (ok, the video isn't actually all that exciting).  It took all of five minutes, but we had fun welcoming the circus to Charlotte and we're looking forward to going to the big show.  Well, we won't be going to see that particular show in Charlotte.  We're going to Greensboro the following week to see a different Ringling Brothers show.  Apparently they have different shows that travel around, and we saw the Charlotte show in Greensboro last year, so we're going to Greensboro again this year so we can see a different show.  That, and the tickets are way cheaper.  And I grab any excuse to go visit my parents after their 3 month absence from my life.  (Yes, Mom and Dad -- It's nice to have you home again!  By the way, we need a babysitter next week....)

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Just random quotes I've collected at different times throughout the month...

On feelings:  Motions are what you feel in your heart.  Mad motions, happy motions, sad.  Motions, motions.  All the motions.  You show them on your face.  The look on your face. 

What's your feeling in your heart, Daddy?

I love you more than Charlie loves me.  I love you so much!  I love you like twenty much!

I love Charlie so much, like 25.  And Charlie loves me so much.  He loves me like twenty two.  Or like zero-forty.

Charlie, listen to me.  Listen to me, Charlie.  I love you so much, I love you like fifteen years.  Mommy, I'll love Charlie for like FIF-teen and sixty years!

Is a kiss invisible?  A hug?

On cranberry juice:  I like the beginning, but not the ending.  It's kinda red.

On day and night:  Mommy, I need to tell you something.  Morning and nighttime are like pieces of a puzzle. [so I ask, "Because they fit together?"]  Yes. When morning comes, night attaches to the top.  Now let me tell you something else about morning and night.  When night comes, morning attaches above it.

On the American Dream and his determination to pursue it:  When I grow up, I want to be an astronaut so that when you get stuck in space, I can come and rescue you.

When I grow up I'm keeping that idea: that I'm gonna go up in space.  And if you try to stop me, I'll kill you!

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For all my fellow Jane Austen fans - this Sunday is the beginning of the Jane Austen series on Masterpiece Theater.  In my area, it is on at 9:00 on Sunday nights, but you can check here to find out when it will be on your local station, just click on TV Schedules at the top.  I'm very excited about the series, I first heard about it 6 months ago and I've been waiting eagerly.  The series will show movies of all 6 of her books and then include a drama based on her life.  Maybe I'll try to re-read the books again and work towards my New Years goal.  The only one I haven't read yet is Northanger Abbey.  I think that Persuasion will be the first movie shown.  If anyone is planning to read the books also, let me know.

Do you think Casey will watch it with me?

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Last Friday we bundled up the kids and went off in search of pirates' treasure.  It was an all day adventure as we had to first find the treasure map and collect all 8 of the clues to finish the map. Geocaching is fun because it takes you to places you might not ever know about otherwise.  The first half of our treasure hunt took us to the Gold Hill Mine Historical Park, where I learned that North Carolina was the main gold mining state until the California gold rush.  After lunch we found the rest of the clues at a Boys and Girls Club campground.  Once we had all the clues, we used the map and the clues to decipher the coordinates for the last cache - the treasure!  Coulson got a little toy police car and Charlie took a bouncy ball (of course).  And we left some of our own little toys for someone else to enjoy.

Going after some pirates' treasure!

We learned a lot about geocaching that day, especially that when the GPSr shows that the cache is still several hundred feet away, it helps to stick to the trail even when the arrow is pointing directly to your left or right.  Many times we headed directly into the woods with some difficult terrain, especially when hiking with kids, only to find that the original trail winded back around to a spot closer to the cache.  (And silly us, we're still learning this lesson, as we did a lot of extra hiking when we were out caching yesterday as well!) 

Then on Saturday, we visited my brother and his family.  We took them geocaching, too.  It was fun to share our new hobby with them and I think the kids had a lot of fun looking for the hidden box and then choosing a toy to keep.  Thankfully we found a cache that was full of toys (or McToys, as they're called, since the "treasures" are often a Happy Meal toy or something of similar value).  Some caches just have small grown-up stuff (keychains, etc.) so finding one full of toys added to the fun for the kids.  And of course I forgot to take pictures of the kids finding the box!  Maybe I'll remember next time. 

And then, as I said, we went caching again on Sunday.  The weather was just too beautiful and, as I noted in a previous post, Coulson's not crazy about playgrounds.  So geocaching is the perfect way to get outside.  We're hoping that this helps Coulson get more excited about being outdoors.  We haven't been able to go camping as much as we would have liked - Casey's residency schedule didn't give us much time for weekend getaways - so Coulson's not as accustomed to "roughing it" as we would like.  But we're hoping to do more camping in the future and it would be a big bummer if the boys didn't like it.

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I just wanted to put a little plug-in for Skype.  It's a web-based phone program that allows users to see and talk to other users over the computer - no matter where they are!  There are some features that are available for a fee, but the basic computer-to-computer video chat is free.  We signed up so our boys can see their grandparents when they talk to them on the phone, but it's also fun to talk to other friends and family.

Anyway, I wanted to celebrate Skype today because I'm grateful for how I've been able to keep in touch with my parents while they've been in Kenya.  And especially during the post-election crisis, it's been reassuring to see them and hear them and know that they are safe, and also to get an insider's perspective on the situtation.  So - Thanks Skype!

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