Tulips, Tulips, and More Tulips

TULIP FESTIVAL
Planning for months to attend the tulip festival this year, we finally made it happen. We took a trip to tulip town with our friends the Highfields. Julie picked the perfect day. No rain and the tempature was about seventy degrees. It was a litle bit over cast, but toward the end of the day the sun even started to show it's face. The tulips were beautiful... I don't think I have ever seen anything quite like it. Although not all of the tulips were bloomed yet, there were still enough to make the trip worth while. This best family picture we could get on this particular day. Nicholas was being a silly boy as usual and wouldn't smile because the sun was in his eyes, but he had the energy to make funny faces... Anything but a smile. Julie coming to the rescue gave him her glasses for a few pictures. At least we were able to get a smile or two out of him. It was challenging to get Nicholas to stand still long enough to even get pictures. With so much space to run and jump what boy would stand still? I watched some of the other parents trying to get pictures of their children and they all pretty much had the same attitude. I'm just glad we weren't the only ones with a photo challenged children. We did manage to get a few good shots though. William on the other hand was a little more photogenic.
I did say a little... He would look at the camera, but no matter what I did to try to make him smile, he just wouldn't. The only time he smiled was when I put him in a little basket hanging on a fence. Because it was across the mud, and I was the only one there, I wasn't able to catch him smiling with the camera, but I tried. One hand holding him so he didn't fall out and another hand trying to aim the camera just didn't work too well. I guess I can't expect much from boys, now can I? I mean how exciting can a field of flowers be to them. While William did explore the flowers a little bit, he was happier playing with the wood chips that were layed out on the edge of the flowers. Greg wasn't too with it either as he was still up from the night before. He got home at 8:30a.m. and we left at 10:00a.m. He had a short nap on the way, but not enough for him to really enjoy himself with out being like a zombie. Just kidding about the zombie part, but he was really tierd and I couldn't blame him. I was pretty tiered myself and I had plenty of sleep. It was fun to get out of the house and visit a place we had never been. The fields were amazing... Even so, Nicholas had more fun running across the dirt/mud road and jumping over all of the muddy dips on the tulip rows, and watching the tractor pull slosh through the mud. Boys will be boys... Nicholas wanted to have a snack and told me that he would smile for the camera if he could have some pop corn. That's a bribe if I ever heard one... It made me realize that maybe I use bribes a little too often and should try to find a different approach. I know I'm not the perfect parent, but who wants their children bribing them? As children don't come with an instruction manual what can we do but learn from eachother and decide what we are and aren't going to do. Obviously not everything works for all people as each child is a unique individual and reacts to things differently. I love my boys and am very thankful that they have such strong personalities, but sometimes it scares me. I want them to stay small forever... I know that won't happen, so we just have to do our best and hope that they turn out great. I'm sure they will, because I have some of the best kids in the world. Don't worry, those of you who have your own children know that we all think our children are the best... No competition right? Just kidding. Those of you who live close enough to go to the tulip festival who haven't already went, should go if you have a free day or two. It's always great to get out and explore and see new things. They are just flowers, but they are beautiful. Because we didn't want to only look at flowers, we planned to do a few other activities as well. We went to the outlet facories in Burlingon and headed for LeConner...