Whew!

Alright, there are about four new post today, thanks for visiting and we hope you enjoy seeing and reading about our fun times over the past weeks.

A Visit With Aunt Kendra

The girls had their Spring Program at school this week and we had a special treat - Aunt Kendra was able to come and spend the day with us!

The other week-end, Aunt Kendra was up again and she and I went to paint pottery at Flying Saucers. We had so much fun and we get to do it again - her plate won "Piece of the Week" and received on free hour of studio time. I can't wait...

The Rest of the Week-end

On Friday night in Pigeon Forge, we treated the whole family to a nice supper at the Apple Barn.

After supper we spent some time shopping and then back to the room for a early night to bed after a long day.

On Saturday, we met up with Popeye, Mammy, Nanny Ray and Cookie for a picnic lunch at Patriot Park. We all enjoyed the visit and the kids loved playing outside, blowing bubbles, taking a walk and flying kites.

This if Faith flying her kite. She is standing in the left corner and her kite is in the right corner just above the cloud.

Here are more pictures of our fun afternoon at the park.

First Trip to Dollywood of the Season

Last Friday and Saturday were spent in Dollywood. We love to go to Dollywood, because there is a great variety of rides for all of us. The tulips and trees were beautiful through-out the park.

A newer ride that all of us could ride together is called River Battle. Now, I don't like to get wet but I was talked into riding this because all of this could ride together. I didn't get too wet, but there was a man standing on the side with a water gun pointed directly at me. The kids loved it! It was nice to all ride together...

Here is Faith, after the ride, aiming a water gun at another family.

The other rides that we could ride together were, Blazing Fury, which Faith did not like. The whole time she was crying and saying - "I want to get off, I want to get off" Hannah Grace jumped off the ride saying - "That was awesome, can we do that again?"

The other ride was, Mountain Slidewinder. After the longgggg walk to the top they made the five of us step on a scale to make sure we didn't go over the weight limit for one boat. Thankfully we didn't got over the limit and it was a fun ride for all of us.

One of Samuel's favorite rides is Tennessee Tornado. You can't see Samuel, but Travis is waving as they take off.

Here they are going up-side-down.

And, here they are coming around one of the loops. You can see they close the front of the picture, Travis has on a orange Clemson shirt one.

Another one of Samuel's favorite rides is Thumderhead. I road it first with Samuel and then on Saturday morning, Travis road it with him. It is a great roller coaster!

While Samuel was riding rides, the girls were able to play at Lil' Loggers' Landing.

Our last ride for our trip to Dollywood was Faith's pick, the Village Carousel.

Thanks again to Grammy and Big Daddy for our Christmas gift and we look forward to using it again soon.

I will do another post with pictures from the rest of the week-end.

Holiday Tour

Last week-end, the five of us spent the week-end in Pigeon Forge and we had a great time together. On Friday, we went to Dollywood and then on Saturday we met up with Popeye and Mammy and Nannie Ray for a picnic lunch. But before I get into that, since I didn't get a Friday Family Funny posted yesterday, I will start with that.

We left for Pigeon Forge after Samuel got out of school and headed up I- 40. We got to about the TN line and traffic STOPPED. We found out that there was construction up the road, but we did not know how far up. If you have ever traveled that way, you know that on that stretch of road there are no exits. About 10 minutes into the traffic, Faith starting saying she need to go to the bathroom and then about every ten minutes she was reminding us that she needed to use the bathroom. After about 40 minutes she was crying that she need to go the bathroom. There was a Holiday Tour bus that was traveling along the road with us. Faith was now crying hard...

So, I called the number on the back of the bus and asked the sweet little teenage girl who answered the phone the situation and asked if we went up to the bus, was the driver allowed to open to door for me and a four year old that was about the pee all over herself. There was a long silence on the other end of the phone and then she said...please hold. As someone came back to the line, I could hear tons of laughing on the other end. I again explained to the situation to the lady on the other end and she told me that Mr. Blanton was driving the bus headed to Gatlinburg and he would be happy to open the door for a little girl. She did tell me this was the first time she had ever had this question, but was happy to be able to help us.

In the end, we did not have to ask Mr. Blanton to open the door traffic starting moving and we stopped at the first exit we found, which did not have anywhere to use the bathroom - but we made it work.

Pictures from the week-end coming...

Happy Resurrection Day 2008

We hope that everyone has had a wonderful Easter. We had a great family week-end this past week-end in Pigeon Forge and then a great service at church this morning and a wonderful lunch with family this afternoon - and even great naps for everyone after hunting eggs.

Faith said it all this morning as we were opening our last Resurrection Egg - She asked "Is it Easter" and we said yes and she begin jumping up and down and yelling "He Arose! He Arose! He Arose!"

Happy Resurrection Day!

Another Win For #12

Samuel , or as he is known at church Sam, would like to thank his sponsor and crewchief, Granddaddy and the entire team at Penske Engines for helping him with such a great car that took him to first place in speed and second place in design at the 3rd Annual Awana Derby on Saturday.

Sam attributes his win to Jesus, who he learns about each week in Awana, a great looking car, his fans and the hours that the car spent on the treadmill on Friday night.

Sam with the winning car and trophies

Sam and his crewchief and sponser, Granddaddy after the race

In other Awana Derby racing, ribbons of participation in the "Hot Wheels" race were given to Hannah Grace and Faith .

At one point during the day, it was sister against sister with the younger taking the win. But, in the end each sister could not pull out a final win.

Fun was had by all who attended the race. Samuel , Hannah Grace, and Faith all loving wished their Daddy could have been there in the pits and missed him, but their thoughts were with him.

Friday Family Funnies - My Silly Kids

I took the kids to take a few pictures yesterday in their Easter Outfits. As I was leaving and all three kids were crying, I figured out it wasn't the greatest idea after a long day at school for each of them, but I did get some great pictures and I will share those later, but today I wan't to share some silly pictures.

Hannah Grace kept scrunching her nose because of the sun in her eyes, so they all decided to scrunch their noses.

The kids were feeding the ducks and Faith got a little hungry and had a little for herself!

Have a great week-end!

Travis was gone to his first training session with Upward this past week-end. The kids and I made the best of him being gone.

I headed back to my "sewing corner" and made these for the girls:

On Saturday we were treated to a morning at Gattiland; we all had a great time!

I didn't feel too sorry for Travis while he was gone, here he is visiting The Alamo:

Thanks to those who prayed for us, by God's grace we made it and had as much fun as we could without Daddy!