Callaway gardens

Callaway Gardens has an event every year called "fantasy in lights". It is about an hour long drive through light show choreographed with music and narration. There are several themes including toys, the twelve days of Christmas, winter wonderland, Santa's workshop, and Tinkerbell vs. jack frost. The animation through the lights in spectacular. You go through the light show by car, trolley, or foot--W, L, Tracy, Lindsay, Jillian and I went by trolley. This is the group of children when we arrived--they were ready to get out of the car

W and Lindsay took L to look out the window of the discovery center

These pictures are from a small garden outside the discovery center. L was a little bit of a hooligan. She kept pulling the garden flower labels and information signs out of the ground. W had fun leaping from the walls.

L liked watching the ducks and fish and W liked feeding the ducks and fish. They really enjoyed running across the bridge. I enjoyed the magnificent scenery--it really is beautiful.

Can you find W among all the nutcrackers?

Finally on the trolley. L loved the lights for about the first 30 minutes, after that she had other things on her mind. She pointed at all the lights and tapped her hands to the beat of the music. She also kept trying to lean her head out the side of the trolley. William was glued to the other side of the trolley, seldom looking away from the lights. He really liked then end of the light show when the elves were "throwing" snowballs at us.

L's many expressions

This little girl is not a big talker, she has plenty of words for now but is more of an observer. But, what she lacks in conversation she more than makes up for with facial expressions. These few expressions hardly cover her complete repertoire of expressions.

W playing soccer

William finished his first team experience and got his first trophy. He was so proud--as was I; I even got a little teary over the whole deal. He played Smart Start Soccer with the Youth Center on base. They don't ever play any real games but, start learning technique--things like power kicks, side kicks, dribbling, throw ins, hitting the ball with their head, passing, and stopping. Occasionally, they played little games against each other. This was particularly amusing because they were so use to doing drills one at a time that when one of them started a "game" by dribbling the ball towards the goal, they all just stood and watched. Finally, they got the hang of running and kicking the ball all together but, never really understood in which goal to put the ball.

In this series of videos, you see W doing a power kick then working to get the ball in the goal. It is pretty standard W. He runs, he falls, he runs, he falls--typically he wanted to just roll around in the grass but, was easily coaxed to get back in the game.

This video is W doing a throw in. Coach Scott encouraged the kids to use his bald head as their target. Needless to say, they were all more than happy to throw the ball directly at his head. He was really great--his son is on the team so he knows a thing or two about the 3 year old mind.

This video is a small clip of some real "game" action.