A trip to Mamaw and Papaws

Since we took a big vacation last spring, we didn't have the funds to take another vacation this summer.  We have kept the kids very busy with lots of summer activities here in town.  One of their favorite things so far has been going to a few youth camps.  Our kids are still too small to be campers, but we did attend a few services and they loved it.  Youth camp was a big part of my life growing up and I hope it will be a big part of my kid's lives too.  I loved watching Amelia and how she sat in her chair and then took her hair and put it behind her hanging down over her chair.  She was acting just like the "youth camp girls" as she calls them.  Anyhow, saying all that to say this, we decided to go stay with my Mom and Dad a few days and to attend a few services at Etown Camp.  That is where Maynard and I met and not only that, but where he got saved too.  So Etown camp is a very special camp to us.  We hadn't been in several years so we were excited about visiting.

We got to Mamaw and Papaw's house and Mamaw had a yummy supper layed out for us.  The kids played with a few cousins while we enjoyed the front swing and counted all the loud vehicles that drive past their intersection.  We decided that it must be a requirement to have a loud vehicle in that neighborhood.

My Dad had a dr's appointment in Louisville the next morning and instead of him going by himself, I decided to go with him.  I was up and at 'em at 5:30 a.m. I drove him to Louisville on a few conditions that he wasn't allowed to scream, holler, or grab his chest while I drove.  Poor Dad.  He's the one who taught me how to drive and I'm not quite sure he has completely recovered.

We went to the VA hospital and we kept getting wrong information where we were supposed to go.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't down this hall, but we had to stop and take a picture anyway.

After we left the hospital Dad said he always goes to Frisches to eat so was that ok with me.  Well, techinally it had been 10 days (who's counting) since I had eaten out so Frisches sounded great to me.  We ate and then headed back for home.

The kids were having a blast swimming, playing, and visiting all of Papaw's critters.

They loved feeding Honey Girl carrots and even got rides around the yard on her.

That night we all got dressed and headed to Youth Camp.  It was awesome seeing so many of my good friends I hadn't seen in years.  My kids got meet my friend's kids and I just loved everything about it.  We went to Burger King to eat with my brother and his family and we got home about midnight.

Once again I had to get up at 5:30 a.m., but this time it was to take my Mom to the hospital for surgery on her foot.

We shared a lot of laughs while we waited for them to come get her.  I wish their was an occupation to where I could actually get paid for sitting in patient's rooms and just watch them while they are under anethstesia.  You seriously never know what they are gonna say.  Now after her surgery the laughing stopped because she was hurting.  I got her home and she went straight to bed and that's where she stayed for a few days.  Me and my sister Melissa did a little competing on who could take the best care of her.  We were a bit extreme at times, but it was fun.  Not sure Mom remembers most of it anyway though.  We had one little problem.  Josiah and Cameron kept cutting in and sneaking to check on her without us knowing about it.  Ha

I fixed Mom's breakfast and set it up real pretty for her.  Josiah was bound and determined to help so I let him pour the milk for her.

That evening we went back to youth camp and this time stayed until late visiting and talking with lots of friends. 

We got back to Mom's late and Nurse Melissa was there taking good care of Mom.  She may have had a few complaints at to how well I was taking care of her, but all she had to do was lay in bed next to her and feed her pain pills.  I did all the cooking and cleaning.  I'm sure Mom was always dissapointed when it was time for Melissa to take over and me to leave.  Ha Ha

Saturday we just stayed in.  I think at one point all of my brothers and sisters, (except Jacob, he was in Haiti) came over.  I fixed a big dinner for everybody.  Well for Mom and Dad, but everybody ended up eating and that was fine.  My kids were overyjoyed to be able to play with all their cousins and were having the best time ever.

Saturday night Me and Amelia went to stay all night at Melissa's apartment.  My nephew was getting baptized the next morning and I wanted to make sure she got up and out the door so we could attend.

Amelia was tired and sleepy by the time we got to Melissa's.  I figured she would be happy to be there, but she continued to cry that she wanted to go back to Mamaw's and Papaw's.  Until.......Melissa mentioned that she had popcorn.  Not only did she have popcorn, but she let Amelia sit on her couch and drink pop and popcorn.  How cool is that?  Amelia was happy as she could be until it was time to go to sleep and then she wanted Mamaw, Papaw, and Tanner (mom's dog) again.  She finally drifted to sleep.

The next morning by the grace of God we finally were on the road to church and was only 10 mins late.  Melissa gets up does a few things and then lays back down.  She had me a nervous wreck.  I think she was somewhat taunting me though.

My nephew got baptized and it was wonderful.  He lifted his hands up and the Power of God fell in that place.  I'm so thankful that God still saves!

Sunday night Maynard got to preach for my family's church and we had a great service there.

Monday morning we left early and headed to the creation muesum.  I will wait to do a post on that next time.

Why let rain ruin a fun filled day?

Can ya'll believe all the rain we have had?  I mean we can handle rain, but the thunder and lightening kind of puts a damper on things ya know?

Fourth of July fell on a Thursday this year.  We have church services on Thursday normally.  We asked nicely and got permission from our pastor to let us have a youth night instead of a regular service.  We haven't gotten to do much with our youth at church because when we plan stuff we normally get rained out or something comes up unexpectedly and we have to cancel.  They have been dissappointed over and over again.  So on Thursday morning the rain began to fall.  It rained and rained and rained.  I asked Maynard if we were going to have to cancel our plans for the night.  I dreaded it.  I did not want our youth being dissappointed again.  His reply was, "We are gonna have a waterslide anyway so it's not like they aren't going to want to get wet.  So who cares if it rains, we are still going on as planned."

I made us a big breakfast for the Fourth.  We rarely eat breakfast like this so my family was excited!

After breakfast we got busy planning for our youth festivities.  I was in charge of getting the ice at sonic.



For the life of me this pic will not rotate properly.

 If you can possibly tell what happened here, I was given 2 bags of crushed ice through my van window.  One bag just happened to not be securely fastened and I was given an ice bath.  This is an after picture of me already stepping out of the vehicle.  I was covered in ice.  It was literally everywhere.  Too bad it was such a cool Fourth of July or that may have actually felt good.  And a big "YOU'RE WELCOME" to all the people in their vehicles surrounding me who really needed a good laugh that day.

Finally!  Let's go play in the rain!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did you know that heavy rain falling on a makeshift waterslide makes it even better than just a water hose or sprinkler?

We could not keep the boys off.  We tried to split the boys and girls up, but they kept reappearing.  For some reason I mainly only have videos of the girls coming down.  I love how we just put 2 tarps down and a waterhose and rain, and the kids seriously played on it for hours.

They took a small break to have a water balloon fight.  I spent FOREVER filling water balloons up and they were all gone in less than 3 minutes.  I didn't get very good pictures of that because it was all a blur.

We had built a fire to roast marshmellows and hot dogs, but that wasn't going so well in the pouring rain so we had to fix them inside our sunday school building.

Look at my perdy patriotic strawberries.

After everyone ate, a monsoon of rain became more like tornados touching around us.  Our phones were going off like crazy and things started getting greenish, dark looking.  We hollered for everyone to get in the church quick.  So here we all stood, most the kids soaking wet, in the foyer of the church.  We got most of them changed and into dry clothes while we were waiting for the storm to pass.

Then we went back to our Sunday School building and played games with them.  I don't know what you call them, but like prank games I guess.  We had a blast.

This was our game of our Elephant prank.  A big thank you goes out to Bro. and Sis. Allen.  They made a great elephant. Ha Ha

We played several and finally it was after 10 and the parents were wanting to get the kiddos home and into bed so we had to call it quits for the night.  Of course, there were no fireworks because it was raining too hard.

I'm just glad we went ahead and didn't cancel their fun night.  They all had a blast and was sore from the slip and slide the next day too.

Here's pics of my kid's with sparklers the next night at their Mamaw's house.

Hope everyone had a good Fourth in spite of all the rain.