An Afternoon at the Fernbank

Today, the kids and I went to the Fernbank and spent some time looking through all the exhibits. I am very pleased with this museum because they do have a great rotating display...it's been a different hands on exhibit each time we've gone. This membership was well worth our money. Here are a few pictures of our time there.
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Lake Winnepesaukah on Saturday

On Saturday, we loaded into the car and drove up to Chattanooga to go to Lake Winnepesaukah...Lake Winnie for short. It's a great little amusement park that reminds me of the old Lakeside. It is very much geared to kids so Trent and Ella had a wonderful time. Here are some of the pictures from our day! We had so many pictures that I loaded them into a slide show. Press the start button and it will automatically slide through all 31 pictures.

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Abby Gets a New Car!

Abby bought a brand new '09 Camry on Wednesday night! We finally got to see it in the daylight yesterday. Happy Birthday to Abby!

After dinner at the Outback last night we came home and ate CAKE!

And Abby opened her present from us...a new sunshade for the new car and an I-Tunes gift card so she can update her Ipod(she can plug her Ipod into her new car).

I forgot to post this earlier this week. Here's a quick video of Trent diving for pennies. It's his new trick!

We Went To A Braves Game! AND MY 100th POST!!

Wow...my 100th post! It has taken me a little over year to get to my 100th (I began the blog on June 10, 2007).

We've been taking it easy in Atlanta this week spending most of our time at the pool.
On Sunday, we went to church with Pops, Purson, and Abby. Then we came home, ate leftovers, and went to the pool so Purson could have a quiet house. She had to complete a pretty big homework assignment and having everyone around making noise doesn't make it very easy to concentrate.
Monday morning the kids and I packed a picnic and took off for the pool. We spent about 3 hours there. Ella is getting brave about being in the water. We have progressed from just sitting on the side of the pool to getting on the float and riding around. Trent is still a fish...he stays in the pool from the time we arrive until the time we leave. Monday's trip to the pool was exciting for Trent because the guy with the kayak came back and brought his 11-year old son. Trent is learning how to throw pennies in the pool and then go look for them on the bottom. He was quite impressed with the other boy because he could dive to get the pennies in the 8 foot end.

Yesterday was Tuesday and we had originally decided to go to the Fernbank Museum. However, plans changed when we decided to go to the Braves game last night. A day at the Fernbank and a baseball game would've been a little much so we will go to the Fernbank another day. So here's a little rundown of the game...

We arrived a little later than usual - the game was already at the bottom of the 1st and the Braves were already behind 2-0. But we got some great seats in the shade on the third base side, field level. Here's a picture to show you how close we were:



Trent was happy with the seats because he had a great view of third base and his favorite player...Chipper Jones. However, I forgot to tell him before we got to the field that Chipper had been on the DL and more than likely would not be playing tonight, so he was a little bummed when he didn't see his favorite player covering 3rd. Since we were late we weren't able to eat dinner beforehand so we all got pizza at the field.

I had a teachable moment with Trent when Yunel Escobar was called out, threw his helmet, and was then ejected from the game. The Braves trailed the entire game but started a rally in the ninth and were only down 4-3. Things got really exciting but they still couldn't pull out the win.

Oh, yeah...as for Chipper...well watch the video...

Although he only came in to hit once Trent did get to see him. And Chipper did get a base hit (that's why we are chopping).

Ella is slowly figuring out the Tomahawk Chop. It looks better than last year!
And I took this video just for John. This is the Chick-fil-A cow that does the "chop" I was telling you about.

Until next time!

Summer 2008 in Atlanta

I apologize for not updating the blog since we arrived on Wednesday. We really haven't done anything exciting to blog about.Wednesday we went to IHOP for dinner and then spent the rest of the evening just chilling out at Pops and Purson's house. Thursday it was kind of cool so I decided to take the kids to the park rather than the pool.

Yesterday, the kids and I went to the pool and stayed for about 2 hours. Trent and Ella had a great time and it was capped off when one of the neighbors brought their kayak over and started doing tricks in the deep end of the pool. Trent and Ella were eating lunch while they watched him and thought it was the neatest thing they had ever seen. We came back to the house, cleaned up, and took long naps after our afternoon at the pool. When Pops got home from work we loaded into the van and picked up Purson on our way to Joe's Crab shack. I had never eaten at a Joe's but it turned out to be quite fun...it's one of those places that every 15 minutes or so the waitresses start dancing. I took a short video of Ella doing the "Chicken Dance."

The fun part of our evening didn't come until after dinner when Pops went to start the van. Uh, oh! The van wouldn't start! To make a long story short we ended up not being able to jump it in the parking lot so we had to call our friend Darryl to come and get us. We all piled into his Escape (Abby and I sat in the back, criss-cross applesauce) and went to pick up Purson's car (we left it at the beauty parlor on the way to dinner) and then came home. By the time we arrived home it was time to go to bed.

Today Purson, Abby, Ella, and I went downtown to walk around IKEA...and we just happened to bring home 2 pans of their DELICIOUS cinnamon rolls. We also rolled by the mall to do some of Abby's exchanging that she needed to do. Pops and Trent stayed close to the house. They began with a quick trip to Wal-Mart to pick up some oil, ate lunch at a Chinese restaurant, came home and changed the oil in Abby's car, and then began watching the first episode of Star Wars. We ate spaghetti for dinner and Trent and Pops went back to watching Star Wars.

Pops has suggested that maybe we need to make a Bruster's run later on this evening. We will have to see about that. :-)

So that's what has been happening so far. As I said in the beginning...nothing really interesting to blog about. Maybe we'll have something more exciting to write about in the next week.

Trent Receives His Class' Citizenship Award

We are so very proud of Trent! For the third year in row he was voted by his classmates to receive the boy's citizenship award. He was recognized this morning during the awards assembly.



Here is a picture of him getting his award from our assistant principal.



I forgot to include these pictures earlier. Tuesday night was Trent's final Cub Scout meeting for the year. He was given his Wolf patch and 3 more beads for his uniform. It was also wonderful to get to walk him across the stage as he became a Bear, the next step in Cub Scouts. We are looking forward to another wonderful year of scouting starting in September!

Trent receives his awards from Paul and Keith, the Wolf leaders.

The newest Bear Cubs...David, Garrison, Trent, and Curtis.

Field Day 2008

Here are a couple of pictures of Trent and me at field day on Tuesday. It was sooooooooooo hot but everyone had a great time.

Trent is getting ready to run through the obstacle course.

Trent and Mrs. Overstreet come down the slide together.

A Quick View of My Plants for Mom

I know my mom gets a little antsy not being able to look in on my flower beds since she moved to Atlanta so I thought I would give a little photo update to show her that everything is just growing wonderfully. I also noticed on Saturday how beautiful my gardenia looked outside of Ella's window so I wanted to show it off.

Look at the new growth on my holly! Wow, I have to say I think I'm doing a great job...actually, my highly acidic soil helps a lot. :-)


This is my favorite plant in my yard because it has a story (I LOVE things that have a story!). Until my wedding day I had no idea what a gardenia was. I had 2 gigantic gardenias in my bridal bouquet and I've fallen in love with their wonderful scent. My mom gave this to me for my birthday (upon my asking for it...I do ask for weird things for my birthdays) the year Ella was born and I had her plant it right outside of Ella's window so I could rock my baby girl and look at my beautiful plant. However, as of Saturday, the story no longer stops there.
Four year-olds are truly at a wonderful age. Developmentally they are starting to understand so many more complex ideas, two of them being how plants grow and life cycles. On Saturday, the gardenia caught Ella's attention for the very first time. She has noticed the green plant several times when we've been outside working in the beds, but on Saturday she saw the flowers and was so excited. "Mommy, look! That plant can make flowers!" She also noticed that some of the flowers were "dirty" so we had to talk about how the flowers die. She made the comment "Of course Mommy! They have to die so more flowers can grow!" Well, duh mom.
We then got to talk about how that plant got there (so I could rock Baby Ella and admire it) and she proceeded to tell me that "Her Flowers" were now 4 years old, too. I continue to love my-oops, I mean Ella's-gardenia and will now have to figure out a way to transplant it whenever we decide to finally move. Who knows, maybe someday I will be able to give it to my Baby Ella so she can sit and rock her baby and look at "Her Flowers."

PURSON...what a great gift! And you thought it was a weird gift for me to pick out.

So enough of the mushy sentimental stuff. Here are a few more pictures for Mom to check.

Day Lilies...gorgeous! How I ended up with one set of yellow and the rest maroon???

Mom, what's this? I'm pretty sure that it's not a weed.

Another beautiful holly...look at that new growth!


So that's a quick view of my flower beds for my mother. Everything's going well.