Weekend with the Koehlers

Last weekend, the girls (Jennifer and Courtney) had a D-Now weekend at church, so they were gone the whole weekend. We decided to take the boys and go camping. However, I was concerned about the cold. So, Dale's solution was that we head South for warmer temperatures. So, south we went..all the way to Jackson, GA. It wasn't really that far from here, but we ended up sharing a cabin anyway so it didn't really matter. We had a blast just enjoying each other and God's beautiful countryside. We stayed at Indian Springs State Park. The cabin was fine (2 bedrooms with 2 double beds each) and on the lake. It had a screened in porch, so the first night the boys slept out there in the tent. They were very excited. It rained some that first night, but Brandon slept right through it. I'm not sure if Justin ever fell asleep in the tent as he was awake at 5 am reading his book and playing gameboy.
We had dinner at Mellow Mushroom on the way down as we hit some traffic. After we arrived, we got settled in and played some "Chicken foot"(the boys played some other games) and made some cookies that disappeared rather quickly. On Saturday, we awoke to Tina making homemade biscuits and sausage gravy. That is one of Dale's favorites that his Grandma Mayfield used to make all the time. It was yummy!! Then we had to go hiking to hike off some of that breakfast. We went down to the main area to find the hiking trail and talk to the ranger. He told us about a really cool place nearby where we could take the kids since it seemed most of the things there were closed( the museum, the boats, the beach, etc). The leaves were still gorgeous and we found lots of neat places. We hiked through the woods and found a place where a natural spring came out. There were some beautiful structures and a big stream that was flowing quickly. We got some good pictures of the boys and each other-it turned into a photo session. Then we drove over to High Falls State Park about 10 minutes away and enjoyed some waterfalls (not so much vertical, but horizontal). Another beautiful place!! Then the highlight was Dauset Trails. It was about 5 minutes away and was ABSOLUTELY FREE. They had a ton of animals, kinda like a zoo, where you just walk through and look in the cages and see all kinds of animals. Here is a link if anyone is interested: www.dausettrails.com
The animals were just as interested in you as you were them. There was hardly anyone else there and the animals were very interactive. The cougar was actually playing with Tina and the boys. The bear stood up for us and the otters were playing some. It was so cool!! We couldn't believe there was no charge for this. We had a great time here. Then we headed back to the cabin for lunch. A friend of mine, Angela, brought her kids down to play for a few hours. She lives down that way, so we don't get to see them too much. The boys were out fishing so we went to the playground. Unfortunately, the boys didn't even get a bite. We then went to play putt-putt, but got there as they were closing down. The boys were so disappointed, so we ended up going and inspecting the course then going for ice cream. Ice cream always makes things better, right?
The boys really wanted to make a bon fire that evening, so we tried. But in reality, we didn't have much luck with the fire outside or inside in the fireplace. We had brought wood, but it was having trouble burning and the wood outside was too wet from the rain. We got a fire for a little bit, which the boys enjoyed.
We played games after dinner that evening and started packing up as we had to leave early in the morning to make it back to church for the worship service as Chris was getting baptized. We were there in plenty of time though.
We had a wonderful weekend with our good friends, the Koehlers, as usual. Thanks to them for more happy memories. We can't wait to go back down with the girls and get to do some other things that we didn't have time for.

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Back in time-Summer 2008 vacation

Since this blog is mostly for our own family records, I will occasionally be going back in time to post about something from the past. Since it appears that I will NEVER get caught up with my scrapbooking, at least there will be a record of it somewhere.

This week, I downloaded a program called Picassa to my computer to help me organize all my photos. I am very excited about this and hope to be able to play with it a little more next week or maybe the week of Thanksgiving. It scanned my computer for all the pictures and put them in one place. It was so fun going back through the years (that tells you how old my computer is,huh?) and looking at the pictures.

Another favorite program is OneTrue media where I can make videos out of our pictures. As you will quickly find out (if you haven't already) is that I love to take pictures.

This week's flashback is from our beach vacation this year. My Mom & Bill are SOO gracious that they normally let us use one of their timeshares, so each year we get to go to new places(for the most part!) This year we ended up in Daytona Beach Shores,Fl. We spent a week at the beach doing mostly nothing except enjoying the beach and each other (Except for one very busy day). I LOVE the beach and could spend all day at there with no worries (As long as I had something to eat, drink, and read). The kids love playing in the sand and digging for critters. And they usually find some things. This year, in particular, they found some very unusual creatures. They would ask me what they were. Ha!Like I know. I told them to ask the lifeguard. I figure he sees this stuff all the time. He didn't know. Then they asked people walking down the beach who stopped to check it out. They didn't know either. Then some long time Fl residents came up-they didn't know either. In the end, no one could tell us anything but we had a lot of different guesses. So, we usually keep them for a day or so in our buckets and then release them back to their home the next day. It was really weird looking. And the one thing (I think it was a clam) was very interesting as it would open up and you could see it breathe in and then poop constantly. Seriously, about every 3-5 minutes, it would poop.
One evening after dinner, we went to play putt-putt. We had a coupon but this was still more than we wanted to spend, but everyone had a great time. And everyone scored very well too. The kids had a blast. They also had some alligators that you could feed. You hang the food off of the fishing pole and then they suddenly grab it. I was worried that the kids would drop their fishing poles when they quickly snapped at the food, but they didn't. Then they held the alligator.
They actually decided to use their own money for this. It wasn't too bad when they split the charge. I was proud of them for working together and will admit Justin wanted to do it much more than Jennifer, but she knew how much it meant to him.
This place also had panning for gold or minerals. So, the kids spent a little more and Justin bought a bag that had a bunch of fossils in it. Jennifer bought a bag of minerals. If you watch the video, you can see they REALLY enjoyed this part. It was very exciting to see what treasures they would find in those bags. It also came with a description brochure so that you could figure out what you found. One of Justin's fossils was dinosaur poop-yeah!! But they both loved this activity. We ended up spending all evening there.
Then one day in the middle of the week, we went over to Disney World. We were a little over an hours drive away and had some passes left over from previous trips. This is the first year we really couldn't decide which park to do. You see the kids are both big enough to ride all the rides now and each park had something special we wanted to do. So, we did them all that day!! Well, except for the Magic Kingdom. We all had a park hopper pass that we could use. Can you believe we are that crazy? We got up early that morning (around 6:30 or so) and headed out the door around 7. We got to Epcot as they were opening and went straight to Soarin'. The kids had ridden it before but it had been so long they had forgotten about it. They loved it, naturally. It is one of my favorite rides too. Then we went to grab a fast pass for Mission Space while we stood in the longest line of our lives(Test Track). I think we waited over 2 hours in this line with Justin NOT wanting to do the ride or stand in line. We eventually got to ride and it was fun, but not worth 2 hours wait. Then we went right on Mission Space. Again, they had ridden it before but Justin was excited this time because he could reach the buttons to perform his "job". We sprinted out of Epcot and drove to Animal Kingdom. There we played in the boneyard, rode Mt Everest (the coolest new ride!), saw a parade and, ate Micky icecream bars, and did the safari. Of course, it was the best safari ride ever! We saw so many animals fairly close up, but the reason is because I didn't have my camera. Normally, when we "do" Disney, I have a backpack stocked with everything we might need. I have a plan, and we know where we are going and if anything comes up, Mom has something in her backpack to help. And of course, normally my camera is in there. However, we really were just going in each park for a short jaunt, so I took NOTHING in with me. Lunch was in the car in between parks. Waters and Gatorades and juice boxes were enjoyed in the car between parks. So, I have NO pictures of this quick trip through Disney World this year, but we have our memories. Anyway, we left the Animal Kindgom and headed to MGM studios. We rode the Tower of Terror, where Justin was terrified but loved it in the end and wanted to do it again in the dark. We rode AeroSmith's Rockin Roller Coaster, which was another favorite. This is the one ride where I wished I had taken something in-some money to buy the picture at the end. I never buy those pictures, but this one was priceless. We laughed so hard and seriously considered going to the car to get some money, but decided not to. I wished I could share it on here though. It was a picture of all 4 of us with completely different expressions. I was smiling, Dale was screaming (mouth wide open-in fun), Jennifer had her eyes totally closed, and Justin had a look of horror on his face. We all thought it was hilarious!! We had dinner at the Sci-Fi Dine in theater for the first time. It was pretty cool. You "sit" in old cars while you watch old black and white movies as if you were at a drive-in. Then we went to the Chronicles of Narnia, which is not really a ride but a walk through show. The kids played on the Movie set adventure, which is like "Honey I shrunk the kids" where blades of grass are HUGE! They really wanted to go back to this as last time it was closing right after we got there. We ended the evening by going to the Fantasmic show-one of the best Disney shows! The kids ended up falling asleep before we got home (to be expected) around midnight. But they were such troopers all day long. I am so blessed to have 2 great kids who can keep up with their crazy Mom' s ideas. Needless to say, the next day was a veg-out day ( on the beach for me, of course!) It took a day to recover from our Disney Day, but that was okay. It was so much fun for all of us and the kids rode all the "big" rides. They were so brave!!
The last night of our trip we met some old friends and some new friends for dinner at Aunt Catfish's restaurant. Then we went to the boardwalk and walked around. Jennifer and Justin met their kids on the trip down as we caravanned down together. Dale & Carey have been friends for YEARS when they worked together at Winn Dixie as teenagers when they were young single men. Now they both have families and we have maintained the friendship through the years, even though we don't get to see them very often.
Well, Carey and Dale had this brilliant idea to travel together on the way down to Florida(they were going to Boca Raton for the first half of the week) and see what differences there would be in the gas mileage if they drafted each other. Carey had the whole thing planned down to each leg of the trip. First Carey would travel closely behind us for the first 200 miles, then we would gas up, and switch positions for the next 200 miles, and then the standard would be when we dropped off and Carey and them went the remainder and then compare all the gas mileages. They are some funny!! Kim and I just rolled our eyes at the plan.
As always, we had a wonderful family vacation!! Thanks Mom & Bill for so many wonderful memories!!!

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Fall Festival...finally!

I promised that I would eventually get to posting about the Fall Festival, so here it is..10 days late. We had a great time as usual at our Church's Fall Festival. This year we had a trunk-or-treat. The kids had a lot of fun hanging with their friends as we were working most of the time. Dale helped with hot dogs and we had a jungle theme with a bean bag toss for the little ones and a modified apple bobbin for the bigger kids and adults. Everyone seemed to have a great time.

Soccer ends followup

I forgot to add this to my last page-Sorry!!

Soccer ends & KSU ball girl

Jennifer's favorite sport ended this week-soccer!! She played on a different team this year as she wasn't old enough to move up yet with her old coach and team. But she(and I) made many new friends this season and we had a great season under the coaching of Coach Hector. The win-loss ratio wasn't too great, but they learned a lot and worked together so much better toward the end of the season. A couple of times the girls played the parents and siblings and that was always a lot of fun.Then last night, Jennifer got the honor of being the ball girl at the women's soccer tournament at Kennesaw State University. It was the final game between Belmont College and Mercer. Jennifer met one of the KSU coaches who gave her instructions -she was to give the ball in her hand to the girl when it was kicked out and then go retrieve the other ball. It was a lot of fun for her and an interesting game to watch. One of the Mercer girls actually did a flip with the ball to throw it in each time. I have never seen that before!!Below is a youtube video of what I am talking about if you are interested.

It was really cool to watch "The big girls" play. They play very hard. The game was SOO close. At the end of an hour and a half game, it was tied 0-0. They played 10 minutes overtime, still 0-0. Then 10 more minutes, still 0-0. Then they went to a shoot out where each time got to try to kick the ball in the other goal as many times as they could in 6 shots. It came down to the last ball kicked, and Belmont won 2-1. Mercer actually dominated the game, but in the end it was Belmont's win. We all enjoyed it!
During the breaks, we would throw the ball to Jennifer to see if she could block it. It was a nice way to finish up the soccer season.

Band Practice

Jennifer has started playing the clarinet this year at school and is really enjoying it. She practices without even being reminded and has moved quickly up to second chair. I am not familiar with band "stuff" at all, so this is something her and Daddy can share and do together. She has been bugging Dale to get his trumpet out and play with her, so he finally did it. Justin, not to be left out, went and got his guitar. And I told them we could all move to the basement so I could play the piano, but it didn't happen. But the sounds were sweet coming out of the living room that evening as they were playing their instruments.

Day at Heritage Park

The kids were out of school for election day this past Tuesday and we decided to have some fun. I worked really hard prior to that day, so that I could be "off" that day and spend time with my precious children who are growing so fast. We slept in on Tuesday and then went to a sweet friend's house so that she could help me with my blog. She was so nice to share her tips with me. And the kids enjoyed playing together with her son. Then we left there and picked up some food for a picnic. We had packed our bikes, soccer ball, scooters, a frisbee, football, and a picnic blanket. And we headed over to Heritage Park. It was an absolutely gorgeous day again (Thank you God!) and we love Heritage Park. It is not that close to our house, so we don't get to go very often. We have always enjoyed parks and playgrounds since the kids were born-they love to play and I love to see them happy and playing together and we all enjoy being outside. One day, we even went on a park marathon where we went to about 6-7 different parks in the metro Atlanta area.
So, we headed to Heritage Park which is a really big field with bike paths and wide open fields for sports. But one side has some hills that the kids have a blast on. We staked out a hill and put our blanket on the top and had our picnic. The kids then had a blast sliding down the hills on cardboard (And sometimes without any!). They could have done this for hours. I spent my time laying on the blanket with shoes off looking up into the sky and listening to my kids play nicely together. There was never one single cross word-I LOVE IT when that happens. Then after a while, we got the bikes out and played "follow the leader" going up and over hills, across grassy areas and even on the trails. When our bottoms got tired, we put the bikes up (Sorry, no pictures as I didn't want the camera on me while we rode bikes) and Justin got his scooter out. Jennifer played with her soccer ball for a while. We stayed at the park about 4 hours and none of us wanted to leave, but knew it was time to go. We left and grabbed a Frosty on the way home. Then we cleaned the car (inside and outside), had dinner, and made shoeboxes for the kids in Haiti. We had more stuff than what could possibly fit in the shoeboxes. We made 4 this year, but had enough stuff for several more, thanks to my Mom and her donations.
Today was election day, but we had a day of peace as we never had the radio or television on all day. Now we did start checking the internet for news that evening, but enjoyed our day together immensely.

A day of Baptisms and hiking in God's country

Last Sunday was such a beautiful day!! We started the day at church with a bunch of family members and got to witness my nephew(and 2 others) get baptized. He has been through some tough times but has come to the point in his life where he wanted to follow through with believer's baptism.


Way to go Bradley! We are proud of your decision and pray that you will always remember this day. You had a lot of family there to support you too!!

After church, we rushed out and a large group of us headed to the house to change clothes and head to Trey Mtn in North Georgia for some hiking. I must tell you that the Fall leaves were at there absolute prettiest. It amazes me how many different colors that the leaves can be. And oh so beautiful to look at!! We saw God's handiwork at some of its best today. Trey Mtn is right above Helen but you have to go on a dirt mountain road for about 30 minutes to get to the mountain. Tony was following us and fell in a ditch at one point, but we made it up safely. Then the group started hiking up the mountain. The kids did really well with climbing this 4430 ft mountain to the top.

Pictures do not begin to do justice to the Beautiful views we had that day. Included in our hiking group were Bradley, Justin, Jason,Matthew,Nick, David, Jennifer, Dale, Tony and myself. The pictures you see in front of a hut structure is called a lean-to. About 25 years ago, Dale, his brother Tony, and their Uncle David hiked the Appalachian Trail for 3 days. They remember sleeping in this particular lean-to one evening and hiking Trey Mtn the next morning. It is always a treat for Dale to be in the mountains hiking, but he especially loves the Appalachian Trail. So, we had to find this place for the kids to see and the big kids to remember. Personally, the ground seemed like it would be softer to sleep on than the wood, but I am sure the shelter is nice. The picture of the 3 of them in front of the lean-to 25 years later is pretty neat. They are going to try to plan a long weekend to go hiking again next year sometime.
At one point when we are at the lean-to, some went down to the water which was a short hike. Jason decided to show off his monkey skills and climbed a big tree. We came up with a plan to act like we couldn't find him. So, when the others came back, we asked where he was and they assumed he went back down the mountain. Then we "found" his stick laying at the bottom of the tree and thought that would worry everyone, but they assumed he walked off and left it. They never had a clue that he was right over everyone's heads and our kids were dying trying to hold in their laughter. It was funny. Finally, Jason had to shake a branch to get them to look up.
We finished the day by going to Ryan's which is the kid's favorite restaurant but we don't have any more near us, so it is a special treat for them to go there. Overall, it was a beautiful day. We could not have asked for better weather or better views or a better way to spend a Sunday.