Turtle, Turtle, Turtle

I LOVE turtles. I don't know why, but I do. Mind you I have never had a pet turtle, but decorative turtles over floweth in my home.

So Neal found a turtle in the garage this week. He opened it up, then came back inside for a minute, then went back out and there he was...

Our nice neighbor helped Neal get him out of the garage. He got stuck underneath Neal's muffler pipe. (Oh and by help I mean he pretty much got it out...Neal was dressed for work and didn't really want to get him out, so thankfully Brian was on vacation and could help.)

He took the turtle to the pond in our neighborhood. I guess he was attracted to our green house, but no pets allowed here!

Happy Birthday Eli & Morgan!

Birthdays, birthdays, and more birthdays! From my birthday on July 17th until my dad's and aunt's birthday on August 4th there are 10 birthdays. It's Christmas in July/August y'all!

We went to Ollie Koala's for Eli's birthday. He turned 7 - yikes I can't believe how fast time flies!

He opened his presents in the morning.

At Ollie Koala's. Pizza, games, and jungle gyms for everyone!

Eli enjoyed yummy shaved ice for his birthday celebration!







We had dinner and cake for Morgan's birthday. She turned 2 - yikes the terrible two's (which started the day before her birthday).
Opening presents. She loves babies and kitty's right now.

"Happy Birthday to you!"

She blew each candle out separately.

Vacations are fun!

We love vacations. It's a great time to relax, enjoy time together, and make memories. This year we went to Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge Tennessee. We spent several days at Dollywood & Splash Country. They are nice parks, kid friendly, and a good price.

We visited several other attractions like a wall maze, the Ripley's Aquarium, and Wonderworks.

We had my birthday dinner at Dixie Stampede. It was fun! They feed us yummy food with no utensils while you watch a show with horses and other animals. Worth the money.


We are never accident free! Morgan got hooked when we went fishing - thankfully it wasn't serious. Then when we went mini-golfing she walked into Dylan "Tiger Woods" back swing and got a serious bruise on her eye.



The boys really enjoyed the mini golf.

Eli was big enough to ride all of the rides at Dollywood. His favorite was the flying disc - which is similar to a rocking ship, but with a new twist. He did not, however, try the upside down roller coaster. Dylan was sad several times because he was just 1/2 inch too small for most of the big rides. He did get to ride the big water raft ride and he loved seeing who would get the most wet. Morgan's favorite ride was the carousal. She squealed with delight when it started. She also really liked the lemon cups aka tea cups. She liked to spin around and dad would get it going fast!

I love family vacations!

(Now I need to get the scrapbook done)

Ouch!

We had out first emergency room visit. Dylan had to get stitches. He pulled a giant pirate ship off the table onto his face. 6 1/2 hours later he has 5 stitches. The longest part of the wait was my fault. While we were waiting in the lobby we had some Doritos and Mountain Dew. Because the cut was so close to his eye, they needed to sedate him....so we had to wait 3 hours for the food to settle. A little bit much for 6 Doritos and a sip of Mountain Dew, but I can't tell the doctors how to do their job.

He was very brave! When he saw the stitches he said, "cool!"

I handled it pretty well. Neal's out of town. Shelly came to watch the kids. Renea came up to the hospital after we had been there a little while. Neal, Grandma, Grandpa, Amy, and Erin called to check in on us. I did cry when they started the medicine and stitches. The medicine they used put him in more of a twilight state then knock out asleep state. So his eyes were open, but he didn't know what was going on and he doesn't remember anything. It was emotional watching all of it.

Tornado

Right around 5:00 p.m. on Friday we had a sever weather alert break through the PBS cartoon. I changed the channel to get a better idea of what was going on. On the screen was a water spout. The boys FREAKED OUT! I explained that it wasn't near us, but it was near dad's work. We called Neal and told him - he didn't even know about it. He went to look out his window and saw the water spout in the river pretty close to his office. The water spout was upgraded to a low grade tornado, but didn't do any damage.

So every since then I've had to hear everything tornado - bad dreams, Batman and Spider man getting destroyed by a tornado, is there going to be a tornado today mom....it seems to have scared them just a bit.


Pretty amazing pictures taken by someone Lisa knows at her office.

Neal's Garden

Neal wanted to try a garden this year. He built several planter boxes and tons of seeds. Thus far we've had tomatoes, lettuce, potatoes, squash, blueberries, strawberries, and a bell pepper. We have carrots, cucumbers, watermelon, pumpkin, red peppers, onions, and probably some more that I can't remember.

He really enjoys it! And it's been an interesting experiment to see if we have a green thumb (we, meaning Neal, cause I know I don't.)

Rainy Day Play

It's been raining a lot lately. I know...it's Florida and it rains everyday in the summer...but it seems to be early this year and it happens everyday. Last week it was for 8 days straight with no stopping.
So the boys played in the rain while Morgan napped. Splishing and splashing was the name of the game. They let their sand buckets fill with water to see how much it rained while they played (which I thought looked like a lot, but I didn't measure it.) They also let their crocks float down the gutters.

They had a great time (and we had to come in and out depending on thunder and lightning.)