Finally, a Birthday Party!

Hurricane Irene ruined my little buddy's party last weekend. We decided to still have the party, but a weekend later. Grandma scrambled to change her plans and so did John's aunt and uncle. A lot of our greatest friends came but we did have a lot of families that happened to all be going to Annapolis for a football game (three families!) so lots of little people weren't there. 

BUT, we had a fan-freaking-tastic time!

Grandma (Aunt Cathie is behind the brick wall) helping out with decorations.

The Castle.

(Minus the plastic wrap I've had since we lived in Monterey) This is where the
knights and princesses decorated swords, shields, princess crowns and wands. 

The food, all covered because a swarm of flies descended on the back deck.

Of course, Turner loved all of his decor. 

Kids had fun in the dirt pit! 

Even dads enjoyed shield decorating.  

Getting ready to hunt for the black dragon that had stolen the King's gold! 

Our friend, Josh spotted a clue! 

The kids had to find four clues that finally led to...

THE BLACK DRAGON!!! 

The dragon had to be slayed!  

Grabbing candy from the pinata. 

Blurry, but we're (almost) all looking! 

The castle cake that was only supposed to be the size of a smallish square plate...
I can never leave well enough alone! 

Turner checking out the scene. There was the cake, cake push pops from Twisted
Sisters Cupcakes, M&Ms, dipped pretzel sticks, Twizzlers and cookies from Sweet
Bella Bakery.

Happy Birthday my little man! 

Enjoying his push pop. 

Eli throughly enjoyed himself! So did Deacon! 

We had such a blast because family and friends (that are like family!) changed their plans to come and celebrate Turner's birthday with us! I was so worried there would be just the five of us that I was sad for Turner (and his first real party!). Everyone proved me wrong and it was a party for the books! 

A Lesson on Internet Purchases

When we knew we were moving to Virginia, I had to have a big backyard. The "shared" backyard in Jacksonville was fine for the time we had it but I needed room for the kids to run -fenced in. Luckily, I found it! 

Next on the list was to hunt around for a play set to give the kids some fun. Since October, I've been trolling craigslist for something affordable, something not too old (since we would have to move it) and something fun enough for the kids to use for about three years.

Finally, after a few months of searching, I found a deal! There was a listing on craigslist for a direct buy from ebay through a company. I contacted them, a few days went by and I received an email with a link. Sheepishly, I followed it. Right in to a trap! A fake ebay site listed a play set for $700. For the first time EVER John and I saved and planned to purchase something like this. The money was there; all I had to do was spend it. I wanted to make sure I got the biggest bang for my buck so I thought this deal was IT!

After we paid via a PayPal Green Dot Money Pack (something like that), we waited for a confirmation email...and never got it. All at once, the red flags finally hit me. The direct buy, the weird link that no longer worked and then, a conversation with my Dad (about how my Aunt was conned out of $3,000 for a car).

I wasted an entire day (this is about a month ago) calling ebay, paypal, our bank, filing with the police and something called IC3.gov. 

Basically, we had to eat it. Our bank is fantastic and was able to give us some money back for it, through our insurance. Thank God for tax money.

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Nothing like this will EVER happen to this family again. I can promise myself that. 

Oddly enough, the amount of people that have had run-ins and either got conned or saw the red flags are much more than I thought. Almost everyone I've talked to said "Oh my gosh, you'd never guess what happened..." Or, " I know so-and-so and they followed a link, too!" 

Any way, we finally purchased another play set. John told me to go back to searching on craigslist! Not a chance! This time, I wanted to see the transaction and load the play set in the truck. I found just what I was looking for at Sam's Club and John and our friend, Dan, spent the better part of three days lovingly constructing it slat by slat.

Even Deacon helped!

Poor 3rd kid: eating out of a pouch! Unheard of!