Fishin' with PawPaw--August 2014

The first weekend of August we made a trip to Jasper and rented a boat on Nickajack Lake to go fishing with Jim's dad.  We didn't catch anything, but we had a good time, and the kids enjoyed getting a chance to spend some time with their PawPaw.

BB Guns and Tornadoes--July 2014

I'm a year behind on the blog again, (not that you would expect anything else!) and have had a lot of trouble with Live Writer, my long-time trusty blogging program, and have finally given up on trying to get it to work.  So I am back to creating my posts actually in the Blogger program.  I don't like it as much, but that is where I am.  So let's get this party started!

Last July, Jim finally got a chance to give the kids (well, the boys...Reagan wasn't interested) some shooting lessons with their BB gun.  It was a fun time, one that should be repeated more often than it is!

We also had a tornado warning which sent us to our safe place.  It's a rather small space, so we were quite cozy, especially after adding pillows and blankets.  I can't remember if the electricity had also gone out or we had just turned the light off to keep down the heat, but we took a few pictures and we are clearly lit up by a lantern and not the ceiling light.

Don't worry, Thomas was not as scared as he appears in the picture!  Don't we look prepared?  Even Jim has a helmet to protect his head from falling debris!  If only we had thought to make Thomas put on a shirt!

The last pictures from last July will give you a shot of our summer garden harvest, and Zachary in his second favorite socks.  Second favorite?  Yes.  He has identical yellow ones and THOSE are his favorite!  He picked them out on a birthday shopping trip in Memphis with Bud and KayKay.  Never have you seen kids so excited about new socks!

Can You Believe I’m Still Not Done with June!

I think this will wrap it up though!  This will probably also wrap up my posts for this summer.  July may just have to wait.

First, we discovered the awesome-ness that is Safety City!  We went twice this summer to play there, once for a birthday party and once just to meet friends and play.  Safety City was only open on Mondays and Thursdays, but it was totally free! (See the genius of having a birthday party there!)  Of course, it’s also all outside, so you have to time your visits with nice weather!

If you’ve never been, you should pack up the bikes and scooters and take the kids!  (Well, take them next summer.  I think they’re closed for the summer now.  Sorry.)  Basically it’s a miniature town where kids can ride around to their hearts' content.  Just make sure you follow the traffic rules, or the police may give you a ticket!

Never fear! Thomas had a helmet, but he took it off to rest and I made him pose for a picture before he put it back on.  Helmets are required at Safety City!

 

Here is Reagan riding a horse at Food City’s Kids Day.  None of the boys would ride one!



Cokesbury United Methodist hosted a stunt riders night, and Jes and Lily invited us to go, so we went to watch bike riders, skateboarders, and skaters do there tricks.  It was a lot of fun, and Reagan and Lily got to be part of the show!

 

One afternoon I played Children’s Bible Trivia with the kids.  Reagan and Jonathan beat me.  I couldn't believe it.

 

 

Another day, we saw this incredible rainbow!

 

We were all just sitting at the dinner table eating when Zachary looked out the window and drew our attention to the rainbow.  It was huge, and the colors were so vibrant!


And on a final sad note, we said good-bye to our sweet neighbors, Zoe and Sloan.  They moved to another city and will be missed, especially by Reagan who gets pretty girl-time-deprived!

Alright!  That’s it for June!  And that’s it for me and posting today!  Go ahead and place your bets on whether or not I post again before next June!

Camping with the Most Amazing Fireflies EVER!

Well, I caught up to the summer!  I can’t believe I did it!

June was crazy busy for us, so there will be several posts for June.  I go back to work Monday, so we’ll see how much I can get done in these few days!

The first thing we did in June was go camping in Elkmont, in the Great Smoky Mountains.  We went with the cub scouts for a one-night camping trip.  This one was lots of fun, but a lot more work than the other scout camping trip, since we were in charge of all our own food too.  It’s a lot of work for just one night!

Now, if you’re not familiar with Elkmont, it is an area that is famous for its fireflies, and they really are the most amazing fireflies ever!  Except for the ones in Malaysia.  Because those are the only two places—Elkmont and Malaysia—where the fireflies are SYNCHRONISED!!

I’m not kidding!

It was fascinating to watch!  Everyone should go and see them!  They would all kind of twinkle on, and then you would see pockets of them sync up and all blink in unison, and then ALL of the fireflies would go out at once, and it would be totally dark.  Then they would start up again.  It’s hard to put it into words just how amazing it was!

At one point, Jim and I and the kids were all on a little path, and they were all around us, like we were inside a Christmas tree—all silence and synchronous sparkles. 

The rest of the trip was fun too, even if it was a short one!

John Pierce, Zachary, Thomas, Jake, Jonathan, Reagan, Avery
 

Hannah, Avery, and Reagan
 

Camping and Cars—More Cub Scout Moments, April 2014

In addition to Easter, we also went camping in April, this time with the cub scouts at an official boy scout campground—Camp Pellissippi.  It was an overnight trip, made much easier by the fact that all the food was prepared for us by the camp workers.  Nice!

There were different activities through out the day. Above, the boys (and Reagan) got their own little cast iron skillet in which they made their own little biscuits in the fire below.

They also learned how to make an oven out of a cardboard box and went on a hike.  Not to mention they got to hang out with their scout friends and do a lot of running around and playing.

The view from our campsite

April was also the month of the district Pinewood Derby competition.  For background on this event see this previous post. We lucked out in that the boy who came in 1st overall couldn’t go to the district competition, so that scooted all the boys up a place, qualifying Jonathan to go.  So Jim took all the boys to the competition and raced their cars against those of all the other district winners. 

None of them won, but Jonathan came in 7th in the district, well ahead of his brothers, confirming our belief that he had the best car.  That made us all a little happier!

But here’s the funny part…

Here is Reagan with HER car and HER 1st place trophy!

What?

The district competition has a special division called the outlaw division.  ANYBODY can race a car in the outlaw division.  They do this so that siblings can participate (and daddies can go crazy tricking out cars), and Jim told the kids about it with the original thought that Jonathan could at least race his car in the outlaw division.  But of course, when Reagan heard about it, she wanted to make a car too!  So Jim helped her make a car, all red sparkles and pony stickers.

And he entered it in the outlaw division.  But it turned out that her car was the ONLY car entered in the outlaw division, so she won!  (They did race it against some randomly chosen cars, and it did beat them!)

So in the end, Reagan came away with the biggest trophy!

The Snow that Never Ends and Some Random February Moments--2014

Did I mention it snowed a lot this winter?

In all my years in Knoxville, I don’t think we’ve ever gotten this much snow at one time!

But it sure was fun!  And not just because we got to miss more school!

Cheers!  Mugs of hot chocolate to end the fun!  Well, not for Jonathan.  He still doesn’t like chocolate.  He just had a mug of milk with some marshmallows thrown in.

Other February moments:

Sweethearts Dinner with our “small” group from church

Valentine’s Day gifts for the kids

And my new favorite thing!  Jim added this mudroom area to our laundry room!  Isn’t it beautiful!  We love it!  Each child has a place to put his or her shoes, jackets, backpack, etc!  It’s wonderful!