Spring Break in Stone Mountain, Georgia

We left for a short trip to Stone Mountain, Georgia, on Friday morning. We stopped at Shoney's for a great breakfast on our way through Tupelo.

Alec was so excited to start on our journey.

He sat in front for part of the trip and helped navigate. He really enjoys reading the Garmin.

Kirsten is chilled out and relaxing at the start of our trip.

The view from our hotel room. The hotel sits in the shadow of Stone Mountain, it was so close we could almost touch the mountain. On the other side was a gorgeous lake that was so beautiful at sunset and also at sunrise.

We went out to eat at Outback Steakhouse for our anniversary/Alec's birthday supper. He was born on our 7th anniversary and we usually celebrate it together.

We made time to get a run in on Saturday morning. The kids thought it great fun to run "all alone", my back was not doing great so I had to walk while they ran. They left me a whole lot longer than I was comfortable with, and I was so glad to see them running back towards me. I spent a lot of that time praying for their safety.

Kirsten looking cute in her Spartan running hoodie.

Getting ready to start our fun day with the Sky Hike -- a series of challenging rope and board elevated obstacle course. The first course was 12 feet off the ground, the second was 24 feet off the ground, the third course was 36 feet of the ground (it was closed).

Alec showed absolutely no fear as he raced through all the courses. Many were very difficult and he just sped right through them.

Kirsten, on the other hand, was very cautious, and at times wanted to quit. But she perservered and made it throught the entire course.

The both made it to the top of this climbing wall. This was Kirsten's third time to the top of a climbing wall, but Alec had not made it before this trip.

Posing for pictures.

Alec wanted to keep going, but I made him stop for a picture anyway.

Kirsten snapped this picture as we were climbing to the top of the mountain. It is a 1.3 mile hike that is very steep at the end.

Waiting for their parents about half way up. I was having to go slow to not futher injure my back.

A view of Atlanta from about 3/4 of the way up.

We thought this was the last of the hike, but we were mistaken. We rounded the corner and had another steep section to go. The view was so worth it and I thoroughly enjoyed the climb.

On top of the world.

Zooming in to the view below. The people and cars were so small.

We got to see a glass blower make a vase and it was truly fascinating.

One of Alec's favorite pasttimes is putt-putt.

Our whole family played this time, as it was included in the price of admission. Mitch and I usually do not pay extra to play golf.

Heading back to the hotel to go swimming.

Alec had a whole lot of fun.

Time to relax in the beautiful pool room. The hotel was gorgeous and we loved every minute of our trip. Two buffet breakfasts were included for all of us in our hotel package, and it was truly amazing. Everything was handmade and delicious.

Outside the hotel on the patio, the kids played chess with this huge chess set.

Alec loves ice cream and this was his birthday dessert. It was so good! We ate at Applebee's for supper on Saturday night.

Sunday morning was rainy and cool and the mountain was just as pretty with the low hanging clouds surrounding it.

The kids were the first two on the Sky Hike on Sunday morning and Alec went just as fast on the three times that he did the whole thing. Kirsten only did it twice but she was not as scared or cautious this time.

Getting ready to ride the train around the mountain.

Alec is using his birthday camera to take pictures.

One of the beautiful buildings we saw on our trip on the train.

This train is an old train that was set up in an old-timey section around the mountain.

These store fronts were fun for the kids to see.

Stone Mountain gave us an amazing family time of fun and fellowship. We truly enjoyed all the sights and just being together away from work and school.

Back to Cross Country -- Finally!

On Thursday, we had a very busy day. We left for Tupelo/Saltillo area at 11:15 to get the girls to art with Ms. Vicky by 12:30. These are two of the things that Kirsten did in the 2 hour lesson...

A pencil drawing of a cat face...

...and a painted tile. I think that they are both fantastic! After art was over it was time to head over to the cross country trail in Tupelo to meet up with the fellow Spartans. We had a great turnout and had some new faces. This season promises to be exciting and full of new things to learn. After the practice was over we had an impromptu gathering to celebrated Catherine's birthday. We did not arrive home until almost 7:00 and we were tired, but it was a very fun day. Friday evening, Kirsten and several of her friends had a sleep-over at Danielle's house to celebrate her 14th birthday. I don't think much sleeping happened, but a whole lot of visiting, laughing, and knitting happened. We picked them up this morning and then did a little shopping in Tupelo. We are a little tired but planned on biking this afternoon, but it just will not stop raining long enough. Maybe tomorrow...

Busy Day Yesterday

We have been so busy this week that I will try to catch you up on our family. Wednesday took us to Tupelo to eat a breakfast brunch with dear friends at Cracker Barrel. It was a lot of fun to see some of our running buddies and to eat with them. After breakfast, the kids and I did a little shopping and then met up with some more friends to visit a while and then bring two of their boys home with us to spend the night. Brooks and Chandler were a delight to have in our home and Alec had a good time being host to some friends. It isn't all that often that he has spend the night company and he usually just has to put up with his sister and her friends' loud visiting. Thursday morning we got up and got a picnic lunch together to take to Tippah Lake. It was a beautiful day (at home) but at the lake it was pretty chilly. That did not stop the boys from having fun though. They just zipped up their jackets and kept on playing.

Brandon and Alec were racing their cars on the road by blowing on them to see who would win.

Brooks and Brandon spent a lot of time on the scooters.

Brandon, Brooks, and Alec raced to see who would win.

Alec and Brooks are waiting on their turn to go. Chandler was there too but I guess I didn't get him in any of my pictures. The kids were all over the place and I couldn't keep up with them. It was a great day to be at the Lake because there was almost no one else there and the kids could run and we didn't have to worry whether they were disturbing anyone else.

After we got home from the lake it was off to Tupelo to go skating with the homeschoolers. The kids always have a great time; it just made for a very busy day.

TEAM USA ROCKS!

If you missed last night's Olympic coverage you missed a whole lot. It was totally awesome! We won 6 medals: 3 gold, 1 silver, and 2 bronze.

Shaun White owns the sport of snowboarding. He was in first place going into the second run and he won without his second run. However, he decided to do the run anyway and just have fun. He had perfected a totally new trick and it nailed it last night. His teammate won bronze.

Lindsey Vonn is one of those feel-good, redemption stories. Last winter Olympics, she was the heavy favorite and had a slip up and finished with the silver. This time going into the games, she suffered a shin injury and was unsure about how she would compete. Her teammate Julia Mancuso was holding the lead going into the final skiiers. Several women had violent crashes going down this hill and Lindsey had to ski it with an injury. She rocked the hill and won the gold. She was so emotional and humbled by the win. Shani Davis won the gold in speed skating and his teammate won the bronze. These are some fast skaters. These athletes and more are totally inspiring. One of the cross country female skiiers from another country fell off the course yesterday into a ravine, landed on a rock on her back, went for x-rays, and managed to compete in the final. Unfortunately she did not win the gold, but she competed through the pain.

What Can Be Better Than Snow Cream?

Yesterday morning, we woke up to a beautiful surprise -- soft, fluffy SNOW! When we went to bed, the weather forecast was just rain. The winter storm watch had been cancelled. I guess God had plans for snow that He did not share with the weatherman. Before I left for work, the kids ran outside and gathered up two huge bowls of snow so that they could make snow cream.

Kirsten enjoys a big bowl of vanilla snow cream.

Alec chose to eat chocolate ice cream. This is a true treat that we do not get to partake of very often. In other news, I learned something new about the printer at work. This printer is prone to paper jams. I am used to being able to un-jam said printer. However, yesterday, the paper jam was in a very unreachable location. I pulled and prodded and pushed and tugged and thought that I had removed all of the paper. The printer had other ideas and it was still beeping that there was a paper jam. I reached in the printer from another location and discovered that the drum inside was super HOT! (Did you know that there are thermal printers and that they reach 500 degrees?) I had no idea that this printer held that kind of temperature. The tips of two of my fingers are burned pretty deep and I was an unhappy camper for a few hours. I did treat them with some burn cream immediately and they are feeling much better. I have very little feeling in the tips of these two fingers and I am trying to be careful to not knock off the blisters on the tips. They blistered up almost immediately and I thought that they were burned worse than they are, so I am grateful that they are better.

TEAM USA

At our house, we love to watch the Olympic games and shout USA! USA! USA!

It doesn't matter the sport or matter if it is summer or winter games we watch as much of the competition as we can. For the winter Olympics, we especially enjoy the skiing and the ski jumping, the short track and regular speed skating, and the figure skating. The children even enjoy the curling events. We, however, do not enjoy the competitons that are judged by partial judges. Even tonight, two teams who had falls during their event scored higher than the American team who did not fall. That is hard to explain to your children when you do not understand it yourself. This does not hamper our viewing of the games. For the next two weeks we will be in front of the TV watching the games. It brings out the best in us and our patriotism as well. I just do not understand the people who do not watch the games at all.

A Surprise Snow!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We woke up this morning to see some falling white stuff. The weather man did not predict this storm at all and it was a total surprise to see the snow falling. At first is was falling just a little, then it fell so hard that things in the distance were not visible at all. Unfortunately, we did not receive as much as some did to the north of us. We only got 1/2 - 3/4 of an inch. My sister in Falkner (10 miles away) got almost 5 inches and they made a snowman taller than a man.

These horses were not enjoying the snow at all.

This picture shows how hard the snow was falling in Ripley.

Sledding down the hill -- we just had to be creative with what we have.

We collected 9 other children while we were walking through town in the snow. My niece and most of my nephews as well as some friends walked home with us to play.

The kids used big trash bags to sled on. It worked fairly well, but I was wishing for more snow.

Most of the snow has disappeared by this point.

Kirsten's Birthday Party

For Kirsten's 12th birthday, we invited a bunch of girls over to a spend the night party at my boss's pool house. We had an awesome time, but didn't get much sleep.

My friend Sherrie, from West Memphis, enjoys making cakes for my kids and always does a "fantabulous" job. Her cakes are awesome, amazing, creative, gorgeous, awe-inspiring, cool, and many other adjectives. We cannot thank her enough for sharing her time and talent with us.

Kirsten received many handmade gifts and she loves them all. These girls are beyond amazing in their creativity.

She loved each and every gift, but I couldn't get close enough to see the gifts or photograph them.

She didn't really want to put candles on her cake or to cut the cake, because she didn't want to mess it up. But we did it anyway and she blew out all 12 candles and then everyone enjoyed the delicious cake. (Unfortunately, I still have some cake and am still eating it and gaining back all the weight that I might have lost. Birthday cake is the number one thing that I cannot say no to. It is my absolute favorite thing in the world to eat.)

The girls had so much fun swimming. We had to make them get out of the pool after three hours just to rest and eat.

They were knitting and crocheting while playing Apples to Apples and talking. The only time they were quiet was after 4 am when they were all sleeping.

We had so much fun hosting these creative girls and enjoyed seeing them interact with each other.

The talking continues...

A group picture of all the girls.

You Gotta Love It!!

I LOVE TENNIS! I LOVE THE GRAND SLAM TOURNAMENTS! I LOVE IT WHEN ANDY RODDICK WINS! If you don't watch tennis, you miss a whole lot!

This phenomenal tennis player excels at serving. He has one of the fastest serving speeds reaching 150 miles per hour!

He sometimes struggles during the game, but he never gives up!

We had a spend the night party for Kirsten on Friday night (I will post about it later) and we didn't go to sleep until after 3:30. I woke up at 7:20 and went strong all day except for yawning every 10 minutes or so. The Andy Roddick match was supposed to start at 2:00 am and I wanted to wake up and watch it, but simply could not make it. However, I woke up at 5:30 this morning and to my surprise, the match was just getting underway. The match before this one lasted for 4 hours and 38 minutes and his match was late getting started. So I was excited that I got to watch almost the whole match. It was a great one! Andy Roddick wins and continues to the next round.

JUST WONDERING???

Can I still say that I am on a diet or at least cutting back if I admit that I just scarfed down not 1, not 2, but THREE fresh, hot, hamburger buns that my mother made. It is better than 4 or 5, but seriously THREE!! Yikes!! At least the scale registered a 1.1 pounds lost this morning. But, I don't think the idea is to pack it all back on at one meal. Oh well, back to the old drawing board. On a side note, I am planning on cleaning my entire house today, so I guess that I need my energy.

SO SO SORE!

After working out at the gym on Tuesday and Wednesday, I decided to go for broke and go again today. I really like the aerobics classes and the instructor keeps mixing up the exercises so I am finding new muscles that hurt along with the ones that are already sore. Right now, my ab muscles (yeah, I wasn't sure that I even had any before) are so sore that it hurts to sneeze, to cough, to stand up, or basically breathe. I am hopeful that the soreness will wear off by tomorrow. I won't be doing any more classes until at least Tuesday, so I figure that I will be fine by then. Love the new looseness in my clothes!! WOO HOO! I really can't wait to weigh on Tuesday, but am trying to be disciplined about it anyway. I hope that it will register another loss, but I realize that if my clothes are looser, that what the scale says is secondary. I am also going to start back running again on the days that I don't go to the gym and see where I go from there. I have taken off running since the half marathon to make sure that my foot is completely healed from whatever happened that made it hurt. It has become a convenient excuse to not run, but I really am ready to start again.

A Little Success

Yesterday morning I got on the Wii Fit to see if I had lost anything this week. I had made myself not weigh at all after gaining for two days at the beginning of last week. I was glad to see a 4.2 pound loss. YEAH!! That definitely has spurred me on for this coming week. I guess that I will weigh in on Tuesday (same as Biggest Loser) and not weigh in on any other day. Last night, I went to the gym and did spin class for an hour and then did an aerobics class called Muscle Fusion for an hour. I was pretty tired but felt good that I had accomplished so much. This morning I got up invigorated and went back to the gym (the only classes offered on Wednesday are in the morning) and did a circuit class and then a 30 minute spin class. Yes, the classes are tough but it is easier to push yourself to finish while other people in class are watching. The last circuit in the class was walk most of a lap and sprint the last section -- we did that a total of six laps -- and it really felt good to sprint. I am also considering going to the gym tomorrow for another aerobics class. We will see what tomorrow brings. I know that these classes are definitely working out my cardio and hopefully making the number on the scale go down.

New Year's Resolutions?

Well, it is that time of year and we all make them. I hope that your's are going better than mine. I have started to use my Wii Fit Board again in addition to all my other exercising. Unfortunately, part of that is getting weighed daily. You would think that with cutting back -- to no soft drinks and almost no sweets (I mean nada, zilch) -- and with exercising 4 times a week at the gym and staying active at home, that I would see a little movement on the scale. Oh, by the way, there is movement it is just in the wrong direction, :( I am not giving up however, and I realize that it may start happening one day soon.

It is hard to juggle working two days a week, school five days a week, and exercising at least 4 days a week and hopefully 6-7 when the weather cooperates. Three years ago, it was no big deal to get up at 5:30 every morning and walking anywhere from 5-6 miles and then walking in the afternoon also. That was three years ago and I am not quite there yet. It is so hard to get in a routine of getting up that early to exercise when you bed is so comfortable. I love the winter months and I love being outside in the cold. But, I do not like being out in the dark and the cold. It is hard to get in any kind of routine right now, but hopefully soon I will get up everyday to walk/run. I know that it only takes three days for something to become a habit and I hope that when the temperature goes up later this week, that I will start that habit. Right now, I will content myself with going to the gym on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

SNOW DAY!!

This is the view that we woke up to this morning...

Kirsten has to make a snow angel every time it snows. Unfortunately, we did not get as much snow as we wanted, but we made the best of it.

Alec has to make a snow angel also.

Look at my two snow creatures.

Alec pretends to throw a snowball at me while I am holding the camera. Thankfully, I have trained him better than that and he only pretended to throw it.

A real snowball fight. So much fun.

Mitch bought an inner tube for the kids to slide with. It worked a little; with more snow it would have worked great.

Playing bowling with cousins for the pins. The kids loved being knocked down by the person riding the inner tube. We southern folk know how to have fun in the snow. We usually don't get much snow, but we play in what we get.

Happy 2010 to Everyone!

Yes, I do realize that it is 3 days past the new year, but I have been a little busy. I worked New Year's Eve until 5:00 and then rode with a friend to Memphis to take her daughters to a church gathering. After that, we drove to another friend's house to ring in the New Year. We had a lot of fun visiting and playing games and praying that the children did not get hurt playing with fireworks. Yes, there were "adults" out there. I say it like that because they were old enough to be called adults and they had children of their own, but most of them just acted like kids anyway. Everyone is safe and unharmed, I am glad to say. The closer it got to the New Year, everyone came in the house and visited. Several of us moms played Apples to Apples. I have never played this before but it is so much fun. Unfortunately, you need several people to play to make it a lot of fun and everyone needs to be at least 12 to really understand the game. But, if you are having a big gathering and people are from all age groups, it can be a blast to play.

We left our friends house around 12:45 to drive home and sleep.

The next day, Kirsten, Alec, and I drove to my in-laws to help take down their Christmas decorations. I thought that we would not be able to get everything taken down, boxed back up, and taken to the attic which is two flights up. But my kids were real troopers. They got in there and worked very hard. They were taking down decorations and helping to box them up. Alec was really helpful and carried up many, many boxes. My mother-in-law has a very large collection of Christmas Village pieces and this collection alone takes many boxes. With my kids help, we were able to get everything done by 2:45 and headed home to eat HOMEMADE tacos at my mother's house. This is something that we all look forward to. Everyone in our extended family loves taco night. My mother mixes us the batter and I cook them on a griddle over our gas stove (they cook more evenly on gas) and then we all get around the table and enjoy. This night we had a few extras and served 20 people -- great food, great company. After supper was over and the kitchen was cleaned, we started a game of Trivial Pursuit. However, my family playing Trivia can be a little much for "outsiders" to handle, so I made a quick trip to Wal-Mart to purchase our own edition of Apples to Apples and we played that instead. It was so much fun and in this game you can be goofy and silly and that adds to the fun.

The next morning (Saturday) I got up early and went in to work to prepare for the first of the year rush and we had a big rush of people. We close and 2:00 and we were so ready for that. When I got home, Mom had already made a bunch of food for our pastor's family (his wife fell and broke her arm very badly while ice skating) and they were coming home and we thought that we could fix some food that could be easily gotten out of the freezer and heated up. She cooked pizzas (homemade, of course), garlic bread, cookies, some of Ms. Heather's famous chili, and I cooked a bunch of waffles (homemade, again) that can be frozen and heated quickly and one-handed, we hope.

Today, it is to church and then to the gym and hopefully to bed early, as I have to work again tomorrow and then we start back to school on Tuesday. We also have to start running again 3-4 days a week. The kids were already supposed to be running again, but they have had runny noses and coughs so I have not pushed them. But we are starting this week.

Hope you all had a great start to this New Year that is full of hope and possibilities.