Play dates & Chocolate tours

Majority of Delainey's friends are a year older and are starting VPK this year. That is the pre-kindergarten class that is paid for by the state, but requires a certain number of hours each week... so all of our friends are going to be in school 5 days a week. It really puts a damper on our play days on Mondays and Fridays, but hopefully we will still get together on weekends or afternoons during the week. So this week we have been doing some last minute fun things with our friends before school starts next week.

Yesterday, we went to my friend Julie's house from Mom to Mom. She is the most creative, fun mom ever. She invited us over for some crafts and had it all themed to the Very Hungry Caterpillar. She read the story to the kids, had them practice their caterpillar crawls around the house and had 3 different crafts for them. Of course most the kids ran around and played in the playroom or outside, but it still was a lot of fun. Mom to Mom starts up again the Wednesday after labor day so it was nice to catch up with the girls since I haven't seen a lot of them all summer.

Today, we went to the Whetstone Chocolates factory in St. Augustine to take a tour and have lunch with Collins, Sadie & Alicia. It was hosted by the Jacksonville Moms Blog so there was quite a bit of kids. The poor tour guide tried to talk over the children, but for the most part we couldn't hear what he was saying. The kids were just more interested in the free samples. After the tour, we had lunch at Mellow Mushroom and then hit up the outlet malls on the way home.

Tomorrow, we will probably do some shopping for Grammy & Lala's birthdays which are next week. Even though I am not sure what we are getting them. I make such a nice detailed list with links and pictures to what I want, but they are not giving me such a lovely little shopping list. Hopefully something will jump out at me.

Thursday we have our orientation for Delainey's preschool. We are switching preschools this year, so I am hoping it is a great experience. Our new school seems much more family oriented, has more fun activities, and is not so intense for 2 & 3 year olds. I already looked through the calendar of events that they sent out and it looks like much more fun activities that family can join in on and some are even at night so maybe Dad will be able to join. We did ballet this summer with several girls in the 3 year old classes so hopefully one of them will be in D's class.

We are sticking with the Tuesdays & Thursdays from 9-1. The #1 thing I am most excited about this new school is that there is a drop off/pick up line! Hallelujah I don't have to get Blakely out of the car and make it a 15 minute ordeal to drop off and pick up. I really think we are going to be happy with our choice this year. Besides the preschool 2 days a week, we are going to continue with Mom to Mom and tutoring on Wednesdays so we are pretty booked up tues, weds, thurs. Mondays we have My gym and Saturdays this fall we have soccer. I am going to leave Friday free to do whatever we want! Which may just be sitting at home enjoying each other. I am excited for all the fun to start! It is going to be busy!

We also have some AMAZING vacations planned for this fall/winter, football season is about to start, colder weather, the holidays, I mean what more could you wish for! Like I say each year September-December is my favorite time of the year! I'll be back with a post on how orientation goes!!