Mountain Maze

One of the things we love about Lookout Mountain (there's TON of things to love...) is the Mountain Maze. It's an amazing park surrounded by woodsy mountains. Very beautiful. Very fun.

On Thanksgiving we took the big boys there during Crew's nap. I imagined they'd climb, play, explore, and go crazy about the playground...especially since it had been 2 years since we were there last. 

This is one of the elements at the playground that I thought they'd spend the bulk of their time:

They lasted roughly 2.5 minutes, and spent the rest of the time in the woods.

Thanksgiving Eve

This morning we headed out to the Creative Discovery Museum downtown. Our membership to the Fort Worth Science Museum is part of the reciprocal agreement, so we got in for free! Yay for free. Crew LOVED the water part. I think he would have stayed there all day, and in fact, he tried to climb in. I think he thought it was a swimming pool.

 I smoked Hudson had table hockey (top left) and floor hockey (bottom right). The kids had so much fun. 

Then we took full advantage of the amazing weather and headed over to Coolidge park. The kids ran wild, and we had to fight them from playing in the spraying water...

We ate a yummy lunch at River Street Deli, and then hit up my favorite spot: Clumpies ice cream. William and Hudson were very excited about getting Firecracker ice cream (tutti fruiti ice cream with POP ROCKS). It was a riot...and super delicious.

 While we ate our ice cream, we headed out to the walking bridge. Every city should have one of these! It was so fun to walk across the bridge with no worry of cars, and getting to enjoy watching the river/seeing the city.

It was another great day in Chattanooga.

Rock City Enchanted Garden of Lights

Well, we made it to the mountain yesterday! As soon as we got to town we hit Sticky Fingers for lunch with Dave's mom. It's his favorite BBQ spot, so his mom wanted to take us there. Then we headed up the mountain. The big boys went with Dave up to Covenant to play at the gym while Crew and I took a little nap. Last night, Pat stayed home to play with Crew and put him to bed while Dave, Bill, and I took William and Hudson to Rock City. We have never taken them there before because there are so many cliffs and drop offs, we've been afraid they'd take a flying leap. This proved to be a great age...they LOVED it. Thankfully, I managed to get ahold of 2 BOGO's while we were waiting in line, so that helped a lot. That place ain't cheap!

The bad news for this trip that I just discovered while we were at Rock City: my camera battery is dead, and I didn't bring my charger. Major bummer. Thankfully, we bought my MIL a half-way decent point and shoot for Christmas last year, so I will have to use that while we're here. But, for our Rock City adventure, the ole iPhone photos will have to do. Oh well. It's the experience that counts, right?

Pre-Thanksgiving Festivities

We haven't travelled to Georgia for a holiday in 2 years, so we've been excited for Thanksgiving this year. We started our journey on Friday afternoon, and drove until 3:30am (eastern time). It was a rough trip, but the kids did great. Saturday morning I got up with the kids, got them fed/dressed/situated while Dave slept a little. By 9:30, I got him up and Molly and I headed out for a day of shopping. We got a sitter for the kids that night, and we had a nice kid-free dinner at an Italian restaurant. Unfortunately, no pics were taken. :-( But plenty of memories were made...

On Sunday morning we headed up to Braselton and spent 2 days with the Batusics and their clan. It's been awhile since the kids spent time together, and they had a blast! Their backyard is every kid's dream.

Dinner with 6 kids, 6 and under gets pretty crazy.

I absolutely love this lady!!!!

How do you get 4 of the 6 to sit still for a minute so the adults can eat their dinner? Turn on the TV. Works every time!

Of course, the little people need assistance with their dessert...

THIS is why she's one of my best friends

before we gave them their dessert, I made them do the "chocolate cake dance." Jake's was the best....

Crew was a BIG fan of the digger

these 4 boys spent HOURS building a fort/house (with William's supervision, of course)

William was very excited to take Reggie and Macy for a walk

Paci/Straw buddies

Allie LOVED having her back scratched!

We had the best time with the Batusic clan. Now, maybe they can come visit us in Texas?

On to our next adventure...Lookout Mountain, Georgia!

Feast

Last Friday, William had a big Thanksgiving Feast at school. One of the things we love about William's school is that they really integrate all the grades at the school. He has 2 Seniors that have adopted his class-- a boy and a girl. They occasionally come play with them at recess. And each first grader has a 6th grade reading buddy. I'm not exactly sure how it works, as William isn't the greatest at relaying that sort of information!!  But, the Thanksgiving feast was for the 1st and 6th graders, and they each got to eat lunch with their reading buddy. It was very fun, and William thought it was pretty awesome to eat with his buddy, Tristan.

Family Day

A few weeks ago Bell had an event for the whole family. The kids were super excited to get to go where daddy works...see the helicopter Daddy has been working so hard on, watch a helicopter demonstration, eat yummy food, and of course, play on the bounce houses!  It did not disappoint. 

 We got to see the mockup of the big helicopter (Relentless) Dave has been working on, and we even got to get inside of it, which the kids thought was a blast.

It was a fun day!!

What a privilege!!!

One of the most important duties I have as an American citizen is to vote, and I LOVE it. I love being part of the process. I love sharing with the boys how important it is. Granted, in Texas, it really doesn't matter when it comes to Presidential elections, as Texas always has and always will, go to the Republican. But, when the votes are in, and I see the little "ticker" at the bottom of the screen with the number of popular votes, I like to see that my vote it in there. 

The elections don't always go "my" way, but my Hope is not in the governing authorities of our country!

I was very excited to take William with me to vote. He really enjoyed seeing how it works, and I even let him color in one of the boxes!

Hudson watching the returns...

Lizzie and Kelly-- and sweet baby Leif

This was a "re-enacted" pic from 4 years ago.

here's the pose from the 2008 election. Pretty close, don't you think?

I got to feed sweet baby Leif his very first bottle! And he took it like a champ. Love that baby!

There are SO many things wrong with this pic. We were attempting a "re-enactment" of a similar pic from 4 years ago, but wow.
1. PHOTO BOMB by our friend Philip
2. Is Cindy chocking?
3. Does my mom's head look like it's been pasted on? Freaky.
4. We all just generally have disturbing looks on our faces.

Maybe a little bit better:

This is the pic from 2008:

Philip was still feeling a bit optimistic:

Regardless of the results, we had a good time with friends and family watching the returns come in. The thing that freaked us all out is that the next Presidential election William will be 10, Hudson will be 8, and Crew will be 5. YIKES!