Parties, Museums, Concerts, & NO

Sorry I have been so lax with updates.

On Saturday we had Louie's birtday party (his birthday was Feb. 27th). It was a lot of fun. Some of his friends from school came over. They chased (and caught) ducks, fed treats to the horses, looked at the chickens, and tried the mentos in coke trick. Then the magician arrived. He was great with the kids. he really had them involved and they loved it. He didn't have that many tricks, but it was pretty good. What was really impressive about him was the balloons. He made some incredible things out of balloons. And he made something for each kid (which took a while). He did some really cool looking aliens, a beautiful heart with teddy bears on it, a soccer ball, a toilet crown (complete with flushing handle and plunger scepter), and a rain stick type thing (it had marbles/super balls in it!). It was fun to watch. After the magician left, the kids put on trash bags and had a whipped cream fight. Then their parents picked them up and we started cleaning up. Justin (working on some social worker degree - I think his masters) came over to observe Louie. It's one of the requirements of his class. He has to come see what life is like with Louie and he has to visit three times. This was his second visit. He got to watch Louie open presents. Louie and I also went with him to feed carrots to the horses. He started to feed the first carrot to Chance (the boy horse - whose full name is Chance of a Lifetime) but as soon as Chance reached for it, Justin pulled his hand back (I guess he was afraid of being bitten) so the carrot fell on the ground. I picked it up and fed it to Chance. Justin gave a carrot to Louie to feed the horse, but Louie was interested in eating it himself. Justin did feed Chance the last carrot, but he was still pretty nervous. He kept saying how big Chance was. Classy (the girl horse - she's a border) didn't get any carrots because she wouldn't come over to say hi. But that's usually how it is. Chance is the boss and he really likes treats, so he gets most of them.

Yesterday, TJ, Louie, Fran, and I went to the Cheekwood art gallery which is in an old house. They had faberge eggs, vases, pottery & china, silver, a few paintings. There was one floor they were in the process of changing out the exhibit, but there were still lots of cool things to see. There are also gardens (that I think have statues and such in them) but we didn't go look at those because 1.) Louie was insistant that he was tired of being there and 2.) nothing is in bloom yet (but it's getting close to spring!). After that we dropped Louie off at the house with Carmen and the rest of us went to Lena and Rosie's choir concert. The concert was of three schools and incorporated the orchestra and jazz band of the boy's school. The national/Nashville (I can't remember which) symphony also played with them. It was very good. They did a couple pieces from a mass, parts of Mozart's Seraglio, and a Motown medly, so there was a good mix of music.

Fran and I both fly out on the 11th. I will be going to New Orleans for 3 weeks. PDA asked me to come back down for a little while to help with the transitioning of people. They have some people leaving at the end of this week, but the new people won't get in for a couple weeks, so they need someone to keep the village running (since they will have volunteers) and then train the new people when they do get there. So I'll be doing the same stuff I was at Orange Grove, I'll just be at Olive Tree instead.

In my abscence, TJ is going to see if she can line up some volunteer stuff where I'd get to work more than 3 hours a week. (Who knew it could be so hard to volunteer?)