Springtime Random Things

 2nd new post of the day-Ryan and Max in the backyard-Max likes to eat frisbees!

 Wait, Ashley isn't this my house?????

 This is at a boy scout meeting when Scott was promoted to the rank of Tenderfoot

 Why is he in there now???

 what happened???  It got dark all of a sudden!

 Greg has taught Scott how to mow the lawn!

 enjoying a sunny day!

 Ryan was also chosen by his classmates as a terrific kid! 

 Super excited for him!

 Max is wearing Scott's sunglasses and holding his stuffed elephant-which has gotten chewed through by now-he is getting to be a big doggie

 We celebrated Max turning 6 months old-on April 22nd.  We had party hats and gave Max a spoonful of peanut butter and Ashley and Ryan wrapped some individual pieces of dog food for him but then they had to open the packages up or he would have eaten it paper and all!

 He did not love wearing his party hat!

 but was quite excited to smell and see his presents from Ryan and Ashley

Spring Break Road Trip

The kids and I went on a road trip so that we could all add to the list of states we have visited.  Ashley thought it was "unfair" that the boys had visited more states than she had and didn't understand how rare it was that at the age of 6 she had visited more foreign countries than states!

We covered South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas between Sunday afternoon and Wednesday night.  We drove to Atlanta on Sunday afternoon so we could be ready on Monday morning to drive to Birmingham for a tour of the Golden Flake potato chip factory-we were a whole hour early because I had forgotten to take into account that Alabama is in the Central Time Zone-an hour earlier!

 We saw the Vulcan statue

 and downtown B'ham

 The grass at the Vulcan statue and a place to run were very exciting for the boys!

 Then we saw the Statue of Liberty replica also in Birmingham

 We have a dear family friend whose husband is at a Steel City Pops in Texas and we had been wanting to try them out.  They were amazing!

 On to Mississippi

 We all had fun seeing and petting the animals!

 Ryan wanted to take this little goat home!

 They had a fun playground and zipline-small in comparison to ones Scott had been on before

 Ryan had done this before too

 but a great size for Ashley's first one

 We spent the night outside Memphis and drove in the next morning

 We went to the Hard Rock Cafe store to get Greg a shirt for his collection

 then to the Peabody Hotel to see the ducks that get to play in their lobby fountain every day!

 Their special home on the roof

 Memphis skyline and Mississippi river in the back

 This house is where the ducks live!

 In the above pictures you can see elevator doors in the background and a carpet was rolled from the elevator to the fountain.  The children lined the path on either side and the ducks walked right past them!  It was really fun!

 It doesn't matter how many pictures I take, there is always someone NOT looking!

 Here are the kids standing with the "Duck Master"  He even let Ashley hold his cane!

 below is the duck master bringing the ducks a snack of corn!

 I was driving and Scott trying to take pictures here.  We saw a neat riverboat and drove over the river on a bridge to get to Arkansas-the sign below is for 40 West to Little Rock.  All we did in Arkansas was have lunch at a Cracker Barrel because we needed to get back on the road home!

 We drove back to Tennessee on a different bridge

 Proof we did leave Tennessee-the sign welcoming us back!  We didn't make any stops on the way back except to spend another night at Bev's before the last 3 hours home because the traffic had been bad and the kids were really wanting out of the car.  Scott, Ryan, and I saw 2 new states:  Mississippi and Arkansas, while Ashley saw Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas for the first time.