10 Feet of Trouble

On sunday, we decided to spend our last afternoon with the Hurts at our favorite little neighborhood park in Montreat. My three oldest had not been here either. We usually spend our summer at Lake Tomahawk, but we may be changing locations. The Dynamic Duo. Always competing. I love this picture.  My two inseparable boys. Brotherly love. Somebody is getting a crusty. Savannah has no fear and so much more strength  than I had at that age. Rather than slide down the fireman's pole, Savannah climbed down it hand over hand and then climbed up it. How did she do that? If she didn't have shoes on, I would have said the Roberts' monkey toes. Ruby could have hung on these rings all day if her worried parents would have let her. She is such a Daddy's little girl. Savannah is great at regular monkey bars. She saw this new one as a challenge and was able to cross after a few attempts. Nothing like the big monkey teaching the little monkeys to cross. I married such a big kid. I Love...

Happy 5th Birthday Ethan Andrew. We celebrated his birthday what seemed the entire weekend and finished off the celebration today. But Ethan's true birthday is May 25. He was born in a small hospital in Whitesburg, KY.  I remember his birth like it was yesterday. With Ethan, I walked around dilated between a 3 and a 4 for a week. Nothing uncommon for me. On May 24, 2004, I went in to the doctors office dilated at a 5 -6 with absolutely no contractions.  And this was 2 weeks before his due date. Xander was the same way.  Boys. Anyways, as my midwife was (don't read if you get queesy with too much graphic information) scraping my cervix, she felt Ethan's umbilical cord. I should have known something was serious when she called Dr. Baker in to check.  He explained to me that ordinarily they would rush me to the hospital for an emergency c-section but because I was not in labor and Ethan was not engaged, I had no worries. My mother in law and youngest sister in law were in town...

Today we tried something different, we went gold panning. Jason and Larry Denzil rented a sleucer and bought a load of dirt while Sheba and I panned for gold. It was both fun and interesting. Here is our little set up. Here is our mound of dirt that was guaranteed to contain both gold nuggets and flakes. I don't think we found any nuggets, but we found quite a few specks and flakes. The kids loved playing with the water falling off the sleucer.   Ruby in happier times.  Trust me her and Savannah both had lots of mood swings. The teen age years are going to be fun in our house. The kids really enjoyed the water.  Not sure if this was allowed, but no one said anything.  We just let the kids swim and play around.  It was quite deep too. This is a picture of Xander standing. Here are all the kids staring at a crocodile on the bank. We tried to scare them, but they did not take the bait. Savannah and Larry panning for gold.  They both  found at least 5 flakes or specks each.  Ethan was ...