Christmas in Bama

There's no place like home! There's just something about being in the house where you grew up. It's so nice and familiar and cozy. I love bringing my family there! We left the day after Christmas as soon as church was over to head up to Alabama to spend a week with my family. The girls were thrilled that we had snow flurries for nearly the entire ride - yes, even in Lake City! It had flurried all morning as we got ready to go to church. I kept trying to get a picture of it to prove that we really saw snow in Florida. This picture of a single snow flake on our black mailbox is the best I got, lol.


On that Sunday, we drove as far as Montgomery to Ma-don's house and met my parents there. We exchanged gifts with Ma-don and enjoyed a delicious meal with her.




The girls even had time to watch a Shirley Temple movie with Ma-don!


The next day, we drove to Mama and Daddy's house and got settled in there. We rested up for a day trip to Lindsey's and Chris's house the next day. They still had snow on the ground in a small spot behind their house and the girls had a blast playing in in for a bit. It was Elianna's first time to see snow.


We exchanged gifts with Mama, Daddy, Lindsey, Chris, Max and Trista. It was a great day and the girls got some wonderful things!


One of the gifts was Just Dance Kids for the Wii. We had a big laugh watching each other play that!


Max and Trista with their gifts from us.


Mama and Daddy with their gifts from us.


Lindsey and Chris with their gifts from us - have I mentioned here that Linny is pregant? Their baby is due June 6th and we are SO excited about it! We gave them Auburn and Alabama baby caps for the baby to wear next football season.


Wednesday, we got our nails done with some gift certificates from Granda. The girls LOVED that!



That night, Uncle Doug and Aunt Becky came over with Morgan and Nathan. They brought Johnny (Doug and Daddy's stepdad) with them and Elianna found a new friend.




Thursday was a fun day. We baked cookies with colorful cookie dough, made bead necklaces, and went to the movies to see Yogi Bear (another gift card gift!)



Thursday night, we went to Max and Trista's house to see the work Max has done on his basement. It looks GREAT! I can't believe he has been able to do it himself.


Friday was the day that the big girls had been looking forward to for a long time! Me, Mama and Lindsey went shopping all day! We had a great time! I didn't take my camera to get pictures of that, but I'm sure you see plenty of pictures of things we bought in the months to come!
Friday night, we celebrated New Year's Eve. We celebrated abound 7ish and it was a little rainy. But we didn't let that stop us. We had a great time bringing in the new year!


Saturday was spent at Mama and Daddy's house and we enjoyed a delicious meal.


Trista and her Mama got to come over too.


Sunday was travel day, unfortunately. It was time to get back to reality. But first we got to worship in church with our whole family. It was very special.

We hated to leave everyone, but are already looking forward to seeing them all again - hopefully soon!

Into The Woods

We went camping in Georgia over Veteran's Day weekend with Marmie and Granda. We stayed in FDR State Park and saw his house in nearby Warm Springs. We loved hiking, geocaching, playing on the camp playground and hanging around the campfire. But I think the high light was the Wld Animal Safari in Pine Mountain. I highly recommend that if you ever get the chance! SO MUCH FUN!!!

These are the pictures from the Wild Animal Safari. The animals stuck their heads right into the car trying to get food. You got to see so many wild animals up close. It was amazing. The girls weren't too sure about it. Kaylin stayed nestled between the driver and passenger seat the whole time. Annlee and Maryella stayed in the trunk part of the van most of the ride. But they still all thought it was pretty cool. There was also a walk about area with a few more animals to see.

The rest of the pictures are from all the other fun we had while we were there.

Stone Mountain, Georgia

We went to Stone Mountain for the first part of our Spring Break. Marmie and Granda came with us and Aunt Linny and Aunt Trista met us up there. We camped at the state park and had a ball going to all the fun attractions Stone Mountain has to offer. It sure has changed since I went as a kid!
We arrived on Monday afternoon and weren't impressed with the campsite they gave us. We requested a new site and while it still wasn't perfect, it was better than the first. So we got all settled and set off to watch the laser show at Stone Mountain. The girls enjoyed it, but Kaylin didn't like all the fireworks. Elianna LOVED it and was completely mezmerized!
The next morning, after a chilly night, we ate breakfast and got ready to go in to Stone Mountain for the day!


We rode the Sky Ride to the top of the mountain and saw a beautiful view! Here, the girls posed in front of a sky ride poster.

Enjoying the ride to the top!
A few pictures from on top of the mountain

We rode the Ride the Ducks truck. What a fun ride! If you ever have the chance to go to Stone Mountain, this is a must do! It was so much fun! The truck drives from the mountain over to the lake and goes from the road into the water. Our driver had been featured on the Undercover Boss show, too. So it was even more of a treat. Oh, and he let the kids take turns at driving the truck, only Annlee and Maryella would do it from our crew, but it was fun to watch.

Playing at the Make and Believe Theater. This area was lots of fun for the girls. They were pretty tired and this gave them a chance to just relax and play for awhile and let Marmie, Granda, Lindsey and Trista go see a 4D movie, Journey to the Center of the Earth. They said it was really good!

We took another relaxing break with a 20 minute train ride around the base of the mountain. It's 5 miles to around the whole thing.

And to finish up our day in the park, we played in the Great Barn until it closed. That was a fun place! There were these slides that went from the third floor down to the bottom floor and they were GREAT! Try out the purple one if you get a chance!!!! It's as good as a roller coaster!

When we got back, it was time for a campfire and smores. Maryella loved this part and has taken to calling a campfire a campout. We went camping again at the end of the week and Maryella kept asking when we were going to make a camp out. While we were getting all the food ready for supper, the girls wrote in their camping journals. Marmie gave them these notebooks that she found for a quarter each and it was the best thing ever! The girls are still writing and drawing in their notebooks. Kaylin even took hers to school to share with her class.

The plan for the trip had been for everyone else to leave on Wednesday, but we were going to stay until Thursday and leave then. But on Wednesday morning, we found out that it was supposed to start storming on Thursday early in the day and since the thought of packing up in the rain didn't sound too appealing, we decided to leave on Wednesday as well. So we packed up our hobo lunch and took it to the park and cooked out.

All week long I had been seeing these cherry trees all over the place and they were gorgeous!!! I just had to have some pictures in front of one! So my wonderful family humored me (thank you!!) and we got some pretty pictures!