Disney World!

The big news over the last month or so is that we sold our house! Well, it's under contract so it isn't official yet but everything looks good and we're on track to close on November 3! That will make it 24 months and 2 days from putting it on the market to closing. I probably just jinxed the whole thing by talking about it.

The last month we've been keeping busy with soccer. It hasn't been the most successful of seasons for any of the 3 teams but the boys are still having fun and that's what really counts. After coming so close several times, Cade finally scored his first goal earlier this season then he turned around and scored another one in the same game. He was so cute because he was so proud of himself but he tried to play it off like no big deal at first. He finally gave in and gave a round of high-fives to everyone.

We don't really have any good action pictures of soccer so I'll post this recent picture of the 3 boys instead.

It's been awhile since I've taken one of these.

By some huge stroke of luck, none of the three teams had any games scheduled during the week of Fall Break. I say stroke of luck, because that's when we scheduled our vacation to Disney World and no one missed a game or had to reschedule.

We pulled the kids out of school for 3 days (Fall Break is 2 days), loaded up the Expedition, pointed it south and put the pedal to the metal. Dana, who worked all night before we left, slept most of the day while I drove then had the nerve to comment to me how the 10 hour trip down there seemed to go by pretty quickly.

I'm too lazy to put all the pictures in order since they didn't load that way. Like you'll know the difference anyway.

Cade was lucky enough to celebrate his 5th birthday at Disney World! How cool is that? Dana made a special birthday shirt for him and he was given a button to wear telling everyone about his birthday. Every where we went all day, people wished him a happy birthday. I think he liked all the attention.

We had lunch that day with the Disney characters. He really liked that and was so excited when Pooh, Tigger, Eyore and Piglet came around to visit with him.

Birthday boy and his brothers with Pooh.


Cade and Tigger


Opening presents back at the hotel room. His eyes sure lit up when he saw this Lightning McQueen car.



Dana and the boys on Expedition Everest.

Cade was a roller coaster riding machine! I think he rode all the roller coasters at Disney World. Even though he looks scared in the picture, it didn't stop him from riding it again. I think Kevin's favorite ride was the Tower of Terror. He rode it 8 times! Cameron's was Rock 'n Roller Coaster. He "only" rode it 5 times. All the boys definitely got the carnival ride gene from Dana.

Waiting for Blizzard Beach to open on our second visit.


Cade loves to play with dominoes so I took a picture of him hugging this giant one.


Cade and me on some random ride that I can't remember the name of.

Cade picked this Yeti from the Expedition Everest roller coaster as one of his souvenirs. At first, his name was Whitey (because Cade is so original). Then it was Whitey Bluey because "he has cute, little, pointy blue feet."

We spent part of one day at Animal Kingdom where we all rode a ride on the rapid river. The boat we were in held 12 or 14 people. Of the 10 of us that were in it (another family was with us), I was the ONLY one that didn't get wet. And I mean WET. I did, however, have the perfect view as we splashed into the waves and they crashed over the top of the boat and drenched everyone and everything in sight - except me. Our camera was put away for obvious reasons, so with the help of Google search, I made an attempt at illustrating the ride from my point of view. Because, you know, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Here's what I saw. I forgot to draw a text box of everyone screaming.

This is what everyone else saw.


How I felt.

Apparently, everyone else had a different opinion. Here's Dana wringing out her shirt.

These are all the pictures I have for now. Needless to say, we had a fantastic time at Disney World. Cade summed it all up when he said, "Mom, I love Disney World so much I think my head is going to blow up!"

August and Labor Day

Summer vacation is but a distant memory. We ended our fun in the sun with our annual trip to the water park with our church. We all had a great time. I even managed to talk Cade into going down one of the big water slides with me on a 2-person inner tube. It was a little scary even for me but he enjoyed it.


Dana getting all kissy-face in front of the camera.


The next day, the kids started school (Aug 9!). Kevin into 7th grade, Cameron in 4th and Cade started pre-school.


Technically, this is the 3rd day for Kevin and Cameron but it is Cade's first day. He didn't actually start until Wednesday. And Dana forgot to get Kevin's and Cameron's picture on Day 1. Shame on that girl.

Monthly random picture of Cade being cute.

Now that Dana works on Friday and Saturday nights, I have to keep the kids quiet during the day so I'm always looking for new or fun things to do to get everyone out of the house. The Space and Rocket Center had a traveling Star Wars exhibit. It was quite pricey, but boy, was it cool! At least I thought so. The boys liked it too but not as much as I did. It was full of props from all 6 movies.


While we were waiting for our exhibit time to start, we killed time in the rest of the museum. Cameron and Cade even took a trip to explore Mars.


The famous Star Destroyer that filled the screen at the beginning of Star Wars. It's probably between 5 and 6 feet long and super detailed. Cool stuff! The funny thing is that the ship it "captures" in that first scene is actually bigger than this one.



Kevin Solo and Cadebacca (or is it ChewCader?)

Those humongous AT-AT walkers are the size of a small/medium dog. I guess that means Luke was only and inch or so tall.

Darth Vader! And he's not short.

We celebrated Labor Day weekend by revisiting Tim's Ford State Park in TN. We rode our bikes around the park again and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

Cade always impresses me with how well he kept up with the rest of us on the hills even though he was on that little bike.


And finally, it dawned on me that we hadn't treated ourselves to any Drumsticks (ice cream) in a long time. What better way to wrap up summer than sitting on the back porch, eating ice cream with the family and enjoying a beautiful evening together?

Cade prefers to wear half of his ice cream. Reminds me of some pictures we have of Cameron when he was younger.

Soccer season is also upon us. Kevin hasn't had any games yet but the other two have. We haven't taken any pictures yet but we'll post some soon.

Heat Wave and a Birthday

What's a kid to do when it gets hot outside? Play in the water, of course! Cade would spend all day, every day outside if we'd let him (unfortunate that the kid that likes outdoors the most is the whitest and most prone to sunburns of the three) but the heat just gives him another excuse to go outside - to play in the water!

Cade and Cameron like to fill this bucket with water and stick their heads in it. Can't say I ever thought of doing that as a kid but it must be fun.

Cameron's unavailability (or refusal to go outside) doesn't stop Cade. He calls this his shower.

No idea what he's doing here but he looks cute and he has his swimsuit on so it fits the theme.

It's hard to believe but Kevin recently turned 12! This is the same little guy that only wanted to turn 4 so he could ride a dirt bike and then he only wanted to turn 5 so he could go to school. Despite our best efforts and bribes, he just keeps getting older.

We celebrated his birthday this year by taking a couple of his friends to the local water park and having them stay the night. We spent over 6 hours at the park so we all got a little too much sun even though we kept reapplying sunscreen every couple of hours.

Here's the birthday boy with his brothers and best friends Hunter, on the left, and Nic on the right. 12! Geez.

A couple of weekends ago, while Dana was sleeping during the day (she worked the night before), I took the boys to a roller derby. I had no idea what to expect but I sure didn't expect women with mullets and gnarly tattoos on their biceps. It was sort of fun to watch but we really didn't have any idea what was going on. We all rooted for one girl in particular because her appearance was so striking. Her picture is below. It's one of those things where I'm glad I went but don't think I'll go back.

I told you the women were gnarly!

We're down to less than 2 weeks until school starts and the boys are not exactly thrilled about it. It's hard to believe the summer is almost over already. I have a lot of things to I wanted to do with the boys this year that I'll have to cram into the next 2 weeks.

Summer's Cross Flags

I don't know about other forms of racing but in motocross the cross flags signal the midpoint of the race. Such as it is with the boys' summer vacation. They're just a shade past halfway through their carefree summer days and staying-up-late-at-night-to-play-video-games nights. It's a cruel reality that time flies when you're having fun but drags when you're not. Should the kids intentionally stay bored and do as little as possible to drag out their summer vacation or should they go full throttle and cram as much as they can into their 9 or so weeks of freedom to make good memories?

I prefer memories.

We had a pretty good scare with my job situation a couple of weeks ago when several hundred of my coworkers were laid off thanks to the White House's misguided and poorly planned space policy (but that's for another blog). Technically, I did lose my job but my bosses (bless them!) got me transferred to another department. So I'm doing the same type of job I was doing before but instead of working on the Ares rocket I'm now working on a lunar lander. Still pretty cool!

Right before all the lay-offs, MSFC had a family day. Car show, bingo (with REALLY nice prizes - flat screen TVs, blueray DVD players, bicycles, etc.), inflatables, games, etc. We spent a few hours there, almost exclusively watching the boys on the inflatables, and had a great time.



Cameron about to rocket down the big slide.


Kevin just couldn't slide straight like a normal person.



They even had joust!


Cade was sporting this NASA tattoo all day.


The following weekend, our Sunday School class got together at someone's lake house to play in the sun and water all day.



Cade loved the slide!



The little stinker also liked doing the dead man's float. Every time I turned around he looked like this and every time I had a little heart attack.

Kevin and Cameron both took their first rides on a tube behind the boat and spent most of the day swimming and jumping in the water.



By the end of the day, the boys were tuckered out. I think Cade fell asleep before the Expedition's starter quit turning. Kevin is actually faking it in this picture but Cade isn't.


And then it was 4th of July weekend and my mom and dad came to visit for a few days! We ran them ragged by taking them to all our favorite spots.

De Soto State Park is always a nice place to go. Unfortunately, there wasn't much water this year.

At the water falls.

Madison (city) had a nice 4th of July celebration so we took the boys there for a couple of hours.

As usual, the boys had a blast on the inflatables.

Cade found an obstacle course he really liked. He would enter one end, climb through to the other side and literally run back to the start and do it again. I don't know how many consecutive times he did this but it was enough for me to notice and get a few pictures as he ran by.

Gotta get a patriotic picture of the boys on the 4th of July!

Cade was on the run as usual. If his mouth isn't running, his body is.



I like this picture of Cameron playing with the flag.

Playing with sparklers as it gets dark.

Now that Dana is working weekend nights, the boys and I have to stay deathly quiet during the day (which is basically impossible with these 3) so I just try to get out of the house so she can sleep.

Yesterday, I took them to a car show in Decatur. Lots of really nice cars but I especially liked this Corvette ZR1. The sticker price on this beauty was just under $122k!

And finally, a couple of bonus pictures of Cade:

This picture reminds me of one I took a few years ago when he was tippy toeing to look in the middle drawer. He's a little taller now.

Cade LOVES his tiger. He sleeps with it and carries it around all the time. But it isn't all that white anymore. Here he and the tiger are playing a video game.

Spring Sprang But Summer's Funner

It's officially summer! And apparently we're in for a doozy of a summer this year. I guess Alabama broke us in nice and easy last year and is going to make up for it with a vengeance this year. But so far we still prefer the lower (less than 100 deg) temperature with higher humidity over the skin boiling sun Las Cruces has.

As most of you probably know, we're on pins and needles around here as we wait for news on the status of my job. I do know my position has been eliminated but my bosses (NASA and contractor) are trying hard to get me transferred to another branch so I don't get laid off. I won't even be working for them but they're trying to help nonetheless. We'll know if they're successful by Tuesday. I can't tell you how much I've appreciated all the help people have given me over the last couple of weeks.

Back in happier and less stressful times, we were having fun and keeping busy. Jacobs had an employee appreciation day at a state park in early June.



We liked the view and fog driving up the mountain.



After our free breakfast, we toured the grounds. They have a lot of old buildings and demonstrations of how things were done in the late 1800's. Here, the boys just finished helping churn a bucket of ice cream and are enjoying the fruits, er, milk and ice of their labor.





The museum had a lot of interesting things to see and read about. These two clocks are over 350 years old. That's not a typo. 350. And they still work. To be fair, they were upgraded somewhere along the line to display minutes since they originally only told time in 15 minute intervals (at least that's what I remember). Neat stuff!



We took a walk down a walking trail and had to take a break because the boys were getting hot. Good opportunity to take a picture.

They also had a lot of old farm equipment. Here's an old John Deere something-or-other.

I never realized how big the blooms are on magnolia trees.

After we got home, Kevin and Cade went with me to a car show in downtown Athens. They had about 150 cars that ranged from rat rods to $100k+ cars.


Kevin and Cade posing in front of a car that's just like Pa's! Mostly.

This Viper was one of their favorites.

They were terrified when they realized they were standing next to a Decepticon! (Bad guys from the Transformers movie. This guy had several Decepticon logos on his car and embroidered into the headrests.)