The Birthday Boy and Autumn Too

The little monkey turned 3 on Nov. 1. Thanks to all who called to wish him a Happy Birthday (Mom and Dad). We were so inspired by CherWade's decision to eliminate parties for Rex's bday, that we limited Will's celebrations to blowing out some candles with Mom, Dad, and Chub. As you can see here, he wasn't too sure about having fire that close to his face. He did manage to blow out all three of them though. He didn't seem to mind much about not having a party, and he still turned 3, so it worked out well for all of us.

Without any prior coordination, his birthday had a Cars (Disney movie) theme. Most of his gifts were in some way linked to the movie. Okay, so he didn't get that much...we didn't even give him a gift from us...but the gifts he got from his friends and from G&Gs followed the theme.

Our gift to him was still car centered I guess--a trip to Florida with Dad to pick up "his new van." We flew down early Thursday morning--left here at 5 bells. We arrived in Ft. Lauderdale at 11, worked the transaction for the van, and were on the road driving back by 12:30. We drove till about 8 that night, stopping in Brunswick, GA. We got all our wiggles out by jumping on the bed and playing cars and watching football till about 11pm. Here's a shot of us chowing some pizza while we watched. We crashed hard, but were up by 6:30 and back on the road by 8. We drove from 8 to 5:30 with only a one-hour stop for some ice cream at DQ (we ate cold pizza for lunch) and Will was a happy guy the whole time. He's an amazing traveler (the DVD player in the van helped a little too). We had a good time together and it was a fabulously beautiful drive on Friday, with blue skies and autumn leaves.

As far as I can tell, Joni loves her new van (I told her that sleeping in it the first night was just silly, but that the second night was pure craziness...hopefully we can start eating dinner in the house again too). It really is a dream come true to be able to fit more in the car than us and the stroller. I'll post some pics in a couple of days...when we get our camera up and running again. In the meantime, check out these pics of the birthday boy.

Also, when we got back, it was about as autumn as it can get and we found our way over to this breath-takingly beautiful park here in Williamsburg and snapped some photos. It makes me sick how much I love this time of year...so check out these shots of Waller Mill Park too.