Schools Back

This summer flew by and here we come 2nd and 3rd grade!

                                                     Goofballs

         My Caleb and Norah both absolutely love school and are doing so good!

Key Largo/West

Mom called me one morning and said "MA wants to go to the beach and wants to go somewhere she hasn't been…. So do you want to go with us to Key West?"  Twist my arm…. I love them so much.  We took a long weekend and flew in to Miami then drove to Key Largo.  We had so much fun being together but the Keys were NOTHING like what we thought.  Pretty much no natural beaches and you have to pay to go to them and they all smelled like swamp.  Our hotel had a man made beach and mom and I kayaked with manatees (mom and I kayaking was hilarious, neither of us knew what we were doing and she would say "do I paddle on the left or right" and I would yell right with all confidence but had no idea which side we needed to paddle on:).  We laid outside and ate seafood and went to bed by 7:) So absolutely no complaints but just not what we had imagined.  We did realize we are Gulf of Mexico type girls

This was the drive to Largo from Miami, it was the Florida swamp on one side and the ocean on the other

       

 A few weeks before we left mom called and said "ASHLEY I booked us to swim with dolphins!!!  You know this is on my bucket list"  and I said "yay" but was absolutely terrified.  Don't get me wrong I LOVE dolphins… but swimming with them,  especially after watching Black Fish this year… NO.  But I love my mom more than fear so I was going to do it.  I waited and told her right before we left that I was really scared…  But we did it and I survived.  We were in the bay so the water was really dark and I couldn't' see the dolphins until they popped up right in front of me or behind me or pushing
my feet or in my face… One of our dolphins was Bob who was the alpha male and he was not listening to his trainers so instantly my brain started playing Jaws theme music and I knew he was going to pull me under.  This is what my face looks like in most all the pictures

And here is mom seeing Glory and that is 100% a fake smile from me

Mom loved it, I will never do it again but have absolutely no regrets getting to do this with mom:)

Digging for Diamonds

There is a state park in Arkansas where you can hunt for diamonds.  Mom, M.A., me and the kiddos all loaded up and took a road trip to find us some diamonds ;)  We stayed in a hotel Friday night and swam and swam and swam.  

Savvy and I were showing off our gymnastic skills in the SHALLOW end to each other.  I did a perfect handstand with toes pointed then finished with a grand finale of a forward role when full fledged vertigo over took my body.  I'm still underwater and I can't figure out which way is up and I'm flapping around like a fish out of water then panic thinking I'm going to drown in the shallow end of a pool from vertigo.  Somehow my feet find the bottom of the 3ft pool and I survive.   VERTIGO is real people ;)

This was the best picture we could get of all of us together. 

 The next morning we drove to the mines and on the way there Norah throws up…. 15 minutes later Savvy throws up…. we are 10 minutes away and I can tell I'm getting car sick, I made it and the girls were fine once we got there.  We all loved the park.  No one found a diamond but we found tons of other stones and were able to keep everything.

We made it home event free minus Caleb peeing out of the car on the side of the road.  We've heard rumors that there is a ruby mine in North Carolina and we might try it next year

Hatchie and Ducks

We took a Saturday and drove to the Hatchie to play and have lunch.  It was a beautiful day and such a neat place, we will defiently come back.

 The Stutts came to visit us!  We went and saw the Peabody ducks march in then had lunch at Bass Pro that literally took 4 hours.  The kids were great and being hungry and stuck in the same building for hours is still fun when your with friends