It's been a great year so far!

Hi Everyone!

Well we made it through a winter where we received the most snow in the history of Maryland! Snowmageddon hit us February 6th and February 10th with back to back blizzards. Five feet of snow! Spring has turned out to be very nice so far and Olivia is enjoying our adventure Sundays that we've been having. I like to take her to different parks and we go hiking and sight seeing. Olivia loves being close to nature. Please see my albums on Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/thomas.allen You'll have to "friend" me.

The Cherry Blossom Festival at the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC was alot of fun! The Easter Bunny stopped by our house and left Olivia a pretty full Easter Basket and a front yard full of eggs to find. Mother's Day was a great celebration for Karen and Olivia's Grandmothers. The Main Street Festival in Laurel was very exciting and had a great parade. There's been so much going on it's hard to convey eveything in a single post. :-)

Olivia continues to do very well at her school and she is looking forward to attending First Grade in the Fall. But before that she is very excited to go on our annual beach trips to Myrtle Beach, SC and Ocean City, MD. Olivia so loves the beach! (So do I).

Keep up to date by following our adventures on Facebook and Twitter.

Big Daddy

Merry Christmas! Santa was very good to Olivia!

Santa brought Olivia so much stuff that he probably had to make a special trip! :-)

Her most prised present is The Cupcake Maker!
She also received a new VTech Kids Camera so look for more random shots from the O!
She also received a toy cash register with a CREDIT CARD! (play) :-) A great Playdoh Playset, a Barbie and Ken doll with clothes, an iCarly remote and microphone, two stacking dolls sets (she dearly loves these, especially when she get down to the little bitty one), a jewelry music box with a pink ballerina in it, a Magic Eight Ball, and a number of books, games, puzzles and stickers. Her stocking was also loaded with little goodies! She also received a number of nice things from her relatives as well and she's sure to get plenty more as we are going to see both Grandmas today.
She's a very happy little girl. She is playing "store keeper" right now with her new cash register! LOL
She's been a great kid all year it seems! ;-)

Tom

Snow Storm December 19th, 2009

We have a Blizzard on our hands today! We have close to two feet of snow that has fallen here in Laurel, Maryland today. My CORT store was closed due to the snow so I was able to stay home with Olivia. Karen had to go in to Macy's at 4:00 am this morning and just got home at 3:00pm. The roads are awful out. Olivia and I spent the morning playing board games and after lunch we went outside to shovel snow. We spent about an hour out in the pouring snow and I was fighting a losing battle shoveling. We tried to sled a little but the snow was too deep and Olivia was very cold so we came in. At this time it is still snowing very hard out at the rate of over an inch per hour. I'll be going back out to finish shoveling and hopefully it will stop soon. We've gotten our fair share of snow today! LOL This is the largest amount of snow that Olivia has ever seen and she is amazed at the depth of the snow. She was big help to Daddy shoveling the walk. More later! :-)

Tom

Man! I'm behind!

I've been a little busy and haven't kept up with this. :-( I will be posting some stuff shortly regarding Halloween and Thanksgiving! :-) We've had a great Fall and Olivia is really excited about Christmas coming up!

Tom

A day of baseball at Nationals Park

Olivia got to see her first baseball game today. We went to Nationals Park in Washington, DC to see the Nationals play the Atlanta Braves. She loved the stadium and since she was one of the first 5000 kids to enter the stadium, the Nationals gave her a free "screech" mascot. She thought that was great! The weather, for the most part, today was fantastic! We took the Metrorail Green Line (Olivia loves riding the Metro) from the Greenbelt Station down to the park and got off at the Navy Yard Station and walked a short distance down Half Street to the stadium. We sat in section 228, row H, seats 2,3 and 4. The view was spectacular! She thought the race of the Presidents was great fun! Abe Lincoln won this time! Olivia also enjoyed playing in the maze/jungle gym play area that is there at the park. The fun was cut a little short by a rain storm that came through at the top of the ninth so we left early. Olivia got to see three home runs hit by the Nationals today! :-) Unfortunately, after leading most of the game, the Nationals lost to the Braves 6 to 3 in the 10th inning. Still it was a great day, a great game and a great time together as a family! :-)

Tom Allen

Where's my kid?!

Olivia had a half day at school on Thursday (yesterday) so since I was off I got the chance to do the "on time" pick up. I knew when I pulled up to the school and saw all the the parents in their cars in certain areas that this was not going to be easy. We have Olivia set to go right into the "aftercare" program as we both work and cannot pick her up on time. We just have to pick her up before 6:00pm and all we do is park, walk in the door, sign in and then go to her classroom and get her.
Well, the "on time" pick up is a huge process. As I said before, I pulled up to the school to see that the primary parking lot was completely full of cars of waiting parents and the secondary lot was completely full of cars with waiting parents. So I had to park down the street and walk up to the school. Olivia school is heavily secured with all of the doors locked from the outside and parents have to be buzzed in at the front and sign in. So I decided to wait out in the front of the school for my kid to come out. At 12:30pm the first bell rings and a whole slew of kids come out and are moved by the staff to the cars in the primary lot until 12:40pm. At that time the cars are allowed to start and the parking lot clears. At 12:45pm the second bell rings and a whole second slew of kids come out and are held at the cones by the staff and the Kindergarteners were brought out and held in a separate area. After the primary parking lot cleared of cars the staff waved in the cars from the secondary lot to the primary lot and it filled and the cars were turned off. As soon as the staff verified that all cars were turned off the second group of kids were released to the parents and the lot cleared. A third bell rang at 1:00pm and another group of kids came out and walked off the campus.
The whole time this is going on I'm thinking that this is "nuts" and I'm trying to figure out where my kid is. She didn't come out in the first group. OK. She didn't come out in the second group. OK. And she didn't come out in the third group. HMMM! I have to ask someone. I spied one of Olivia's teachers who was working the process of getting all of the kids to their parents cars so I went up to her and asked where Olivia was. "Hi! I'm Tom Allen. I'm Olivia's father. Is my kid still inside?" At this question she replied, "Olivia's is in aftercare right?" I said "Yes." She replied "Did you send in a note notifying us that you were picking her up on time today?" I said "No, I did not and that's probably why she didn't come out of the school." And I laughed. Her teacher told me that she would go in and bring her out to me. She brought her out and I picked her up and threw her up in the air a little and caught her and then we walked down the street to my car.
Daddy did it wrong!
Since Olivia is in "aftercare" it was not explained to us what the "on time" pick up process involves. There are three groups of kids: Car Pool 1, Cap Pool 2 and The Walkers.
I was supposed to send in a note explaining that I would be picking up Olivia and at that point she would have been flagged for Car Pool 2. All Kindergarteners are in Car Pool 2 or The Walkers (with parent). And I should have known to park in the secondary lot and wait to be waved in.
If this sounds very complicated then you really should have seen the process. Amazing! I'll know better next time when I have to do an "on time" pick up! LOL
On a small note, Olivia had a great second week of soccer practice which we went to at 4:30pm and they learned how to pass the ball to one another. She did very well. It's so cute seeing these small kids learn organized sports! :-)

Tom Allen

Beautiful Sunday!

Today was a fantastic day! The weather here in Central Maryland was outstanding! Beautiful blue sky and temps in the seventies! Olivia and I spent most of the morning walking around the neighborhood, going to the park and playing on the play ground equipment. We went shopping today at Target in Maryland City after I got my haircut this afternoon. I wanted to start checking out the Halloween decorations that are out this year. (I will start working on decorating the house for Halloween at the end of September. I go all out!) To top it all off the Redskins won today! They beat the Rams 9 to 7! Olivia starts her fourth week of Kindergarten. It's amazing how fast time flies.

Tom Allen