Hayride

And now onto part 2 of our Saturday!

We went to the RBC Annual hayride and Bonfire. Jason was speaking, so the Alligoods were there as well. We all had a great time!


Shooting the water balloons was a big hit. Of course, Julie needed Daddy's help.
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Ali's turn! (Emma got a turn as well, but I missed it!)
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Uncle Joel was in town for the weekend and Meg especially loved that! "Yeah . . . someone else to push me on the swing!"
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Little Monkey Julie
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Face painting was another big favorite with all of the girls. I think that by the end of the night, each of them had something painted on their face, plus on each hand. I was shocked at how still Julie was during her painting.
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Meg getting her kitty "whispers"
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"Meow!" Julie really developed her feline persona. We listened to kitty noises from her all evening (and even the next morning)
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Cute!
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All the girls . . . kitty whiskers on everyone, except for Ali, who chose a mouse.
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Ali was excited about her mouse (That's what she wants to be for Halloween!)
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Meg's turn to show off for the camera
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. . . and Emma
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Uncle Joel with the Littles. Aren't they cute!? At least one of the kids is looking at the camera.
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Ali wants so badly to be flipped and spun like the other kids . . . She's just getting kind of big for it. Joel gave it his best . . . and got quite a workout in the process!
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Oh Emma . . . What can I say? The relationship b/w Emma and Uncle Joel is rather complicated. Joel loves to pick on her, chase her, flip her around, etc . . . Emma protests and complains and acts like she doesn't like it. Yet she would be crushed if he stopped trying. I'm hoping that one of these days she'll just loosen up and enjoy herself! : )
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While Emma was getting "picked on" the other kids were looking on with envy . . . they all wanted a part of the action . . . and they got it. It was funny to listen to them all, Pattons an Alligoods alike (with the exception of Emma, of course), yelling "Uncle Joel! Uncle Joel!"
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Jonah enjoying his turn!
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Aubrey was looking on longingly, but was afraid to ask for a turn. She got it!
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Meg was the one who just couldn't get enough! It's a miracle that she didn't barf up her hot dog!
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I love this one!

Spelunking Adventure . . .

Okay . . . I don't know if you can really call it spelunking when you are walking on a path for a guided tour of a cave, but you get the idea.

This past week in science we studied caves. We had talked about going to Meremac Caverns for a family field trip, then we discovered that is would cost $51 for our family to get in! Yikes! So I decided to research other caves in the area and I found the Fisher Cave in Meremac State Park. It has no claim to Jesse James, but it is definitely less touristy and cost us only $20. (It's actually only 4 miles past Meremac Caverns) Sounds like a plan to me!
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We originally planned to do some hiking first, then tour the cave, but we didn't get there early enough. Our cave tour lasted 1 1/2 hours and was very cool. Afterwards we had to head back home for some rest before the bonfire and hayride at RBC tonight.
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The cave was totally awesome! I couldn't help but to stand in awe of my Creator. There were times when we felt like we were walking through a forest of stalactites, stalagmites and columns. There were times when we had to walk, bent in half, for a long enough distance that I was feeling it in my legs. At the midpoint in the tour they turned off all of the lanterns so we could experience total darkness. It's amazing how that messes with your eyes. They kept trying to find something to focus on, without any luck. But how often do you really experience total darkness? The kids thought it was really cool. I wondered if Meg and Julie would have a hard time with it, but we prepared them and they did fine. Julie kept whispering in my ear, telling me it was dark. Then she started singing "Jesus loves me." I don't know if she was trying to comfort herself, or if it was just random, but it was darn cute!
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As you can imagine, I took tons of pictures. Here are a few . . .

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Here the water has flowed over this stone and created little pools of water - some the size of a bathtub.
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I love this picture!
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Here you can see where the water eroded the stone.
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A massive column in a room that had to be 3 stories high. The picture just doesn't do it justice!
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Flowstone. The white is fresh calcite.
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Okay . . . so, taking pictures of people is difficult to do in a dark cave. In most of my pictures, my flash illuminated my family, but it just looked like they were standing alone in the dark. I had to think strategically to get a picture where I could see the people and the cave formations. Of course, I couldn't see much in my viewfinder, so I had no idea that Meg's back was to me.
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And finally, everyone is looking, etc . . . But this one was actually taken outside of the cave : )
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Overall it was an experience that I would definitely recommend!

Strange Little Girl

Yes, this is my 2 yr old "reading" the dictionary. What can I say? She's a genius!


. . . and darn cute!

I Couldn't Resist

Right now Ali is making sandwiches for lunch. Emma is setting the table. I am down at the computer, and I was greated by this pathetic face and a seriously over-dramatic cry. "Emma won't give me the pinkish-purplish plate!" Oh Meg!

So, what did I do? I grabbed my camera (that happened to be sitting right next to me), snapped a picture and told her to deal with it! : )

Apples!

Apple picking is one of my favorite outings of the year. It's a Patton-Alligood tradition, and makes for tons of great pictures! We had excellent weather this year. What a treat!

Someone was kind enough to offer to take a group picture for us! The last time we had one of these taken was literally years ago . . . we each had only 2 children!
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Family picture! It has also been ages since we've had one of these taken!
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Our four girlies. I took about 30 pics of the four of them and didn't get a single one where they are all looking! Go figure!
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Alligood fam . . . Aren't they cute! (What an awesome photographer they have!)
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Our 4 big kids. This a photo that we have taken every year since we started apple picking together. It's so fun to look back at the old ones!
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What a crew! This is the first apple picking picture that we have with all 7 of them. Last year there was no apple picking (due to a late frost) The year before that Julie was a brand new baby and spent the entire trip in her car seat!
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Jonah and Ali. This is another one that we've been taking for ages! Aren't they sweet!? We'll have to display this one at their wedding (Shhh . . . they don't know that we're planning it already!)
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This is one of my favorites of the whole trip. Karis is seriously photogenic, but Emma . . . not so much. So a rare shot of both of them relaxed and smiling . . . it's quite a treat!
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The littles in their first group shot! The other kids have always been paired up, but these girls are a threesome . . . and an adorable one at that!
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Ali reaching for an apple.
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Emma getting an apple (there weren't a whole lot of these shots b/c the lower branched were pretty picked over. Basically, the daddies picked the apples while the mommies took the pictures, but the kids did manage to get a few.)
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Meg managing to get an apple, with Daddy's help. (She was afraid to let go of Aaron's head to reach for that apple!)
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And finally, Julie got an apple too!

A Haircut for Josefina

When we bought Ali & Emma's first American Girl dolls, I really wasn't thinking. We bought two of the longest haired dolls that they sell (they are also 2 of the prettiest!) I tried to help them with their hair, but let's face it . . . I have better things to do. So, Felicity and Elizabeth are looking a little ratty these days. That's okay, once they are a little older, we can have their heads replaced, and they've still enjoyed lots of playtime with them.

When it was time to go to Chicago and get doll #2, I told them they had to get short haired dolls. I learned my lesson. But then, not long before we left, they started doing much better with their dolls. I changed my mind. I let them choose whatever dolls they wanted. I don't know what kind of drugs I was on. Stupid!

Ali did choose a short haired doll, but not Emma. She wanted Josefina who is a Mexican-American. Long, long, long, black hair. Within a week, we had a mess on our hands. She tried to do her hair nicely, she just couldn't handle it. She would hardly play with Josefina b/c her hair was such a mess. She came to me yesterday asking for help and I wanted to scream! This brand new doll with a rat's nest on her head. Then I made an executive decision: Josefina was getting a haircut!

I expected Emma to be upset by that, but when I told her she smiled and said, "I was hoping we could do that!" Thankfully my friend, Jessica (who is our family hair-lady) was coming over last night anyway, and she agreed to cut Josefina's hair. The jokes between us during her cut were pretty endless (i.e. Josefina, if you'd just hold still!) so we had fun and I'm glad we did it!

Jess - what a sport!


Much better!

Is There Anything Cuter?

Okay, so there are plenty of things that are cuter that our kitties . . . but I just couldn't resist this pic! I love seeing them when they sleep in the Yin and Yang position. There was a time when I thought they'd never be able to stand each other. Thankfully that didn't last and they are fast friends!

Go Fish

One of my kids' favorite pastimes at my parents' house is playing go fish. Usually Julie isn't interested. Ali and Emma play by themselves, while Meg sits on Grandma's lap and "plays" with her. This weekend Julie wanted very badly to join in. Emma was very sweet and invited her to share her chair. Unfortunately, Julie is no idiot. She wanted to play cards, and just sitting at the table wasn't enough. She was quickly pacified when Emma let her hold one of her matches!

I love how she is watching my mom as if waiting to be asked for a card.
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Julie, very proud of her cards!

Thank You Ike!

Here is what we woke up to in our backyard, courtesy of Ike.

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Here is my pathetic map to explain what happened and what should have happened:

The blue is the creek in its normal route. Our neighbors basically have a moat around them. The green line shows the drain pipe that goes under their driveway. The red line shows the drain pipe that USED to go under our road. Our builder had to hire an engineer to draw up plans for pushing our road through (it used to be a dead end) and for rerouting the creek (which used to run right through our property). When that happened, the county made Ray (our builder) remove the pipe from under the road. (Idiots!) The black arrows show the path that the creek ended up taking with the downpour that we had last night. The black "X" shows where the creek was kind of blocked - it was flowing a bit, but not like it should have. Where the creek turns to go under our neighbor's driveway (green line) is where the problem was. The one drainage pipe wasn't nearly enough, so the water just washed out the road.

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This creek is actually lined with large white rocks, none of which are visible due to the high water.

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This one is from our front porch. You can see that the water has risen to the neighbor's driveway. It did get into their garage a bit. Thankfully, nothing got into their basement. At one point their driveway was covered, and they were completely surrounded by water.

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Here's where the "traffic jam" took place, and then washed out the road.

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Our builder was here almost immediately when called. Thankfully, he is building another house on our street and all of his equipment is on site. He scooped out the back corner so it would flow better (black "X") then dug a 2 foot deep trench across our road (hmm . . . didn't we have drainage there before?) That took care of the problem very quickly. I was shocked at how fast the water went down.

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As you can imagine, Ray will have a few choice word for our county officials, as well as the engineer (who was paid $4000 for his wonderful plans!) As of now, we still have that trench, and Ray's scoop is still sitting there!

I'm on a Roll!

More home improving has been happening today. I love it!

It didn't take long after we moved in for us to realize that builder grade flat paint doesn't do so well in a bathroom! Within a few days we had drip marks down the walls from the humidity, and there's no washing those (or anything else) off! So when we got our $50 gift card to Home Depot (Thank you Boeing!) we decided it was time.

I only changed the color slightly. It was a khaki color, and I changed it to off-white. (Really, you can hardly notice the color difference in the pictures) Most importantly, I changed it to a nice, washable flat-enamel paint! Yeah!!

So, here's some more pictures! Enjoy!

Last But Not Least

Finally some pics of Meg & Julie's Room:

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