This time Tara was with us and we watched it all happen. Starting with sleet after sunrise, we first got fat flakes and then a steady shower of snow for a few hours. I made this snowkitty with a carrot nose courtesy of my Mimae. It was a great snowday at home.
It started snowing today about 5:00 pm and hasn't really slowed down yet. I'd guess we have about an inch accumulated. Enough for Julianne to make her first ever snowball and throw it at her mom! It's the first significant snow we've had in Georgia during her lifetime. Everybody (including us) seemed to be at Kroger buying up bread and milk. It's a time honored local tradition around here to freak out as if a few flakes might become a blizzard. I hope it is a total snowday tomorrow; cross your fingers for us!
At The Drop Of A Hat,
Out Of The Clear Blue Sky
Walking along the Oconaluftee River between the hotel & casino
Friday afternoon, 2:30. I was working and wondering what mundane items would fill our weekend, when Tim called and said "How would you like to spend the weekend at Harrah's casino with Kathi & Eddie?" Well - I jumped with joy.
It was a good three hour trip to Harrah's on the Cherokee NC reservation, at the end of which Julianne added "valet parking" to her vocabulary. I explained that they'd "take our car and park it and we'd get it back later..." and then jokingly added, "hopefully." Note: avoid subtle humor with preschoolers. Julianne spent the rest of the weekend concerned that "we need to get our family car back... they'd better give it back!"
All of the artsy-bling you'd expect in a casino hotel was delicious to her innocent eyes. We wandered around the lobby examining the waterfall and supposing how much frogs would love to live there. We sat near the fire in the great room, and laid back on a soft sofa and contemplated the softly glowing chandelier descending from a skylight ceiling. We rode the escalator...and when she dropped her white kitten all the way down, as we were going up, a kind passerby put it on the escalator and we waited at the top for it.
Both mornings, we three hit the kid's casino and had almost two hours of fun on $20. She had a thousand tickets which was enough to buy a stuffed frog and some candy and rubber balls. We beat Daddy at air-hockey. Julianne's motor development was impressive at the basketball games. She inserted the coins herself, climbed up onto the table and got in a bunch of shots by herself! Sadly there was no Pac-Man, so I played skee-ball.
Saturday afternoon, Kid visited the babysitting center for a few hours while Mom visited the casino. It was the neatest building, round with windows all around, and had arcade games in it too! I went through $50 on quarter slots in a couple hours and was not real thrilled. Tim did a little bit more gambling (and losing). Kathi's a Diamond Player there and so we enjoyed a yummy complimentary buffet in the Seven Sisters Lounge. (The room was also a comp.) The weird thing was the hostesses circulating were offering only sodas and juice, because this casino was in a DRY COUNTY. Southerners and our coocoo banana blue laws.
Meanwhile she was having so much fun doing art projects at KidZone, Julianne didn't want to leave her newfound friends when we returned. She brought back a shamrock goodluck charm to give to Tara.
Back in the room, we played a lot of Magna-tiles. (Note to parents: this is the coolest toy ever. You build with it like Legos but they're clear and also they're flat and don't hurt like a Lego when you step on it!) Saturday night we had a lovely steak dinner at the Sycamore hotel restaurant. It was the perfect getaway weekend.
It might be the last of its kind for quite a while, now that I will be parting company from Georgia Retina in a few weeks (Feb 1st) and have not yet determined what course I'll be going from here. It's a giddy feeling having the future laying out all unknown. Spending the weekend gambling was somehow apropos.
Mimae & Papa found this little doll cradle at a flea market, and it was cute because it appeared carefully homemade from scraps of trim, but its white paint was in rough shape. One Saturday morning in the fall we painted it her new favorite color.
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