Boosterthon - PTA Fundraiser

The girls are participating in a fun run at school on Thursday, February 2nd.  They will run 25-35 laps.  On the off chance anyone is interested in sponsoring us - shoot me an email.  Per lap or flat donations are accepted.  Then I'll need to receive checks by Feb. 8.  I thought they had online entry, but it's me that has to enter everything online.

Madeleine won the Y after-school care running competition in the fall, so that girl can run when motivated!

Teaching

Madeleine loves Wednesdays when she can play "teacher" to Grandma and Grandpa Bench.

First Night 2011

Since we had such a good time last year and the weather was cooperative, I thought we'd try First Night Raleigh again this year.  We headed to downtown Raleigh about 2 and parked about halfway down Fayetteville Street across from City Market.  It was pretty empty then.

This year's main attraction was the ferris wheel at Fayetteville and Hargett Streets.  It opened at two, so we got in line right away figuring it wouldn't be getting any shorter throughout the day.  It took almost an hour to get on.

As you can see, Lily was not a fan at first.  But she warms up by the second trip around.

Madeleine has no such aversion.

Then we headed up to the Bicentennial Mall for crafts.  Here Lily's leaving her grafitti for visitors.

The girls display their Eiffel Tower markers.

And here are our impressionist paintings.  They also made sponge boats.

We participated in the People's Procession and made our way to Fayetteville St. with the rest of the crowd.  We got there around 6:30 pm and grabbed a spot for the 7pm countdown to "New Years" and the acorn drop.

My favorite part of the evening was following a taxi out of downtown.  Madeleine was very concerned about it and thought we needed to remember the number just in case.  This morning she when she got up she was able to recall it from memory and hand it to me on a post it just in case I needed a taxi sometime.