Caboose Park

Hannah, Sarah, Lydia and Mary on the back of the caboose that sits in the middle of the park.  Not sure why they put it there, but it was a fun picture.

This past Thursday was such a beautiful day, and we decided to go to the caboose park to enjoy the weather since the girls were feeling better.  I took my camera hoping to get some great photos of the girls.  Unfortunately my battery did not charge like I thought.  So I didn't get any pictures of Alpheus playing soccer and frisbee with the big girls. Or any of Lydia showing her new friend all the things she could do on the parallel bars.  :(  But we still had fun!

This was the first place Lydia raced to climb and then pose. :)

This girl is happy when climbing.

Sarah offered to ride the tetter-totter with Lydia.

This is when my camera died.  

As we were leaving, Alpheus announced that we were going out to dinner to Macados!  

Me: "Who is the best dad in the whole world?"  

Big girls: "Our Dad!"

Lydia (who had not responded yet):  "God!"

Me:  "Great answer Lydia!  You are right."

Alpheus: "But you have to admit that only an omnipotent being beat me!"

Me (after I stopped laughing):  "You know this is going on Facebook."

Vacation Day 7

Friday morning dawned brightly and I slept right through it!  Ah, the joys of vacation.  However, once I was up, I found out that Lydia was sick.  She complained that "her head was wobbly."  I moved her to my bed to keep resting and set about checking on the others. Uncle Bob and Aunt Debbie headed out to get some medicine while Rose fed everyone else breakfast.  What a great help they all were! The big girls were all fine and excited about going swimming on our last and warmest day at Nags Head.  

And it was warm inside and out.  I was a bit disappointed to discover that once we needed the air conditioning, it wouldn't work.  So while Alpheus and Rose took the girls out to the water, I called the company to report the AC problems.  They said someone would be right over.  I explained that it was only 10AM and already it was 78 degrees on the third floor.  Thankfully, the second floor had a separate unit and it was working fine.  I continued to keep an eye on Lydia and started some preliminary packing.  

Finally around noon a man came out and said, "Yep, you're right.  It isn't working.  I will call someone to fix it."  Oh boy, I knew we were probably in for a warm final evening.  Thankfully, there was always an ocean breeze and lots of windows to open if you could get the rusty things to work.  I suppose ocean air is pretty hard on those parts of a window. Overall we enjoyed the house, but the dishwasher wouldn't wash properly and the dryer took three 80 minute rounds to dry one load! 

After breakfast Hannah said the pelicans, ducks and dolphins were in the water again.  She asked if she could take some pictures so I let her use my camera under sworn oath of following all specified rules and full knowledge of the death punishment if camera was at all damaged. :)

At first I thought the larger figure was a dolphin jumping near the birds, but after enlarging the original picture I am certain it is a pelican.  You will have to take my word for it.

Here you can see two dolphins swimming between the birds.  Or should I say porpoises?  What ever they were, it was neat to see them.  

Just to give you perspective, they were not far from the shore.

After Lydia slept nearly all morning and afternoon, she finally felt well enough to get up.  We had planned to have dinner out again on our last night.  Bob and Debbie had heard several compliments about a restaurant called Fisherman's Wharf.  We decided to head down there for our last night. 

Sarah asked if she could take a picture.   In this picture you can see the large windows on the other side of the room from our table.  These surrounded the outside of the dining area and they allowed you to see boats coming ashore from fishing.  When they would be pulled in you could feel the whole floor of the restaurant shake.  That wasn't very pleasant, but seeing what they caught was very interesting.

This was a dolphinfish also called Mahi-Mahi.  It is not related to the dolphins of the porpoise family.  No one had mahi-mahi that night but I did try it at Captain George's and it was delicious, with no fishy flavor at all.

Sarah took this nice picture of Aunt Debbie!

I am not sure Uncle Bob knew his picture was being taken. :)  After dinner, we headed to our last item on the vacation check list:  putt-putt and go-carts!

Alpheus passing Sarah early on. 

Sarah having a great time!

Hannah was really enjoying it.

Probably no one was having more fun than Daddy though. :)

Then it was time for the junior carts.  This was Lydia's first time driving a cart.  She barely made it to the line.  I think her poofy hair helped her get in! LOL  She was so excited to drive instead of just ride.  She was going to ride with Uncle Bob if she couldn't drive herself.  I am not sure if Bob was relieved or disappointed. LOL

Mary caught on pretty quickly after a lap or so.  This was her first time driving too.  Two years ago, she chose to ride with Daddy.

Lydia was slow and looked like she was really having to concentrate, but you should have seen the smiles after she got out of the car.  She absolutely loved it.  I was relieved because she didn't appear to be having fun during the race.

There was one other driver with them.  You could tell that this boy knew what he was doing.   Mary kept trying to go around him and he kept cutting her off to the outside and inside.  Now I would have been willing to just let it all ride, but the boy's family was laughing and cheering him on, so like all normal parents Alpheus and I began to shout tips and encouragement to Mary.

Well, all is well that ends well.  As you can see, Mary was finally able to cut in on the inside and get ahead of the boy.  Oh my was he upset.  I am not sure if Lydia then passed him too, or if Mary passed her also.  I just know that Mary was thrilled to have won.  It is a good thing the girls had already spent all their trip money or I think we would have spent all that evening here. :)  Instead it was on to Putt-Putt!

Isn't the view behind this hole pretty?  So is Rose, who was also having a great time!

Hannah getting some advice from Daddy!

 Here is Mary preparing to hit her first shot!

Cheyenne hitting it across one of the traps while her dad, Uncle Larry cheers her on!

Can you guess who hit a hole in one?  She was pretty tickled with herself and so were Mommy and Daddy!

There is my golfing man at the head of the line! :)

Here is Aunt Debbie on her hole in one shot!

Can you guess why Sarah is jumping off the ground on this last hole?  Yup, another hole in one!

Such a fun group and fun times!

Thanks to Uncle Bob for taking photos with his camera and mine so I could play without trying to do both. I am so thankful that Lydia was able to go.  It wasn't long though before she was back in bed having taken more medicine.

This last picture is actually from Saturday as we traveled back home.  We started the trip with a meal at McDonald's and we ended it that way too.  Memaw Rose bought the girls happy meals as a special treat and Daddy let them take the soda in the van (a really special treat). 

What a wonderful trip!
Looking forward to where ever we may go in 2015!

With All My Heart~

Btw, all four girls were sick by Monday.  Prayers are appreciated for those who are still suffering.

Early Christmas gifts

Our family is so blessed by the love and generosity of so many. Having a pastor as a husband many times means that more is expected of your family.  You are supposed to be models of parenting, your children are to be models of behavior, and you sacrifice family time for the demands of the church.  Though sometimes these expectations seem more than we can handle, God is so faithful to strengthen us through the love of our church family!  

We have always been blessed by loving congregations who show their appreciation and support in many ways!  One of the ways that Alleghany Baptist blesses us is a yearly "pounding."  Members of the church bring in different items to stock our pantry, fridge and other necessary items (aka toilet paper)!  It is always so much more than we deserve!  I don't  have a picture, but really I could list at least 40 different grocery items they brought.  They even try to bring us our favorite brands and preferences.

Also many from our church buy gifts for our girls.  This year Uncle Bob and Aunt Debbie came over to bless the girls with some toys and dresses.  I didn't get a picture of the dresses because a couple had to be returned due to size, but I will try to add a picture soon since replacement dresses were found already.  

Here is Sarah with her new Lego set.  The girls have never had a mini set and she was so thrilled!  They enjoyed putting it together almost right away.

Hannah loves her new game they bought.  She is just the right age to appreciate the humor of this game and learn a few things too!  Uncle Bob and Daddy even played with all the girls that night!

This was the first Mary or Lydia heard of a Lalaloopsie doll.  They were so excited and have been checking it all out on the internet!

We just love the hair on this one!  Lydia has had a good time styling it.

The next day the girls were in for another surprise.  Most of the time we open all our presents on Christmas day.  If we open any on Christmas eve, it is usually pajamas for them to sleep in.  This year we decided to give them their "big" present early.  We were supposed to go out of town the day after Christmas and we wanted them to have time to enjoy it.

 Here they are getting ready to open the gift.  :)

They have now realized that they have a new Wii!  Much squealing and jumping around ensued. 

Time to give it a go after Mom spent an hour setting it up. LOL 

I asked the girls if it was a let down to open the best present first.  They all assured me that it was not a let down.  Instead they were excited about playing with it as well as opening the other gifts.  :)
It has been fun that we have all enjoyed together.

With All My Heart~

The Nutcraker - a birthday outing

We love to go looking for lights at Christmas time.  It was funny because it finally dawned on one of the girls that we make this a family outing but we don't put up our own lights.  When they asked why we don't, I told them that we just weren't interested in putting them up ourselves.  So kudos and thanks to all of you who do put them up! :)

We loved the VT on the roof! :)  Go Hokies!

This was one of the best houses we saw.  

Here was another really fun one!  

That night we were on our way to see the Nutcracker at Radford University.  This brought back some memories.  This was my third time seeing this in this building, but the first with my husband and daughters.  I guess probably my last with my husband. ;)

As usual we are super early.  It nearly filled up by the opening curtain.  The girls were all reading the description of the ballet acts.  Good thing, because there was no dialogue to explain anything.

All dressed up and enjoying the experience already!

There is Hannah!  This was the day before her birthday and 6 days before Sarah's.  It was an early birthday present which they both really enjoyed!

We were there really, really early so Daddy finally passed down his smart phone for some game time fun. 

The girls just loved these dresses! 

I want one!  I want one!

Pretty!  But ouch! :)

Another cute one of the boys dancing with the girls.

Now the adults have their turn.

Uncle Drosselmeyer with the special gift.

The wind up doll!  The girls really loved her.

All finished.

This was the first time I saw the wind up soldier as a girl.  Different.  

These were the guest Russian professional dancers.  They were very talented!

This was beautifully arranged.  The falling snow effect was a neat touch which marveled Lydia! :)

Very pretty scene of Clara leaving the pine forest after the Snow Queen and Snow flakes have danced.

All the RU dancers did very well!

Hannah thought this was a good photo but the red light was playing havoc with my camera.

These were Memaw's favorite pair.  They did a very good job.  

The Arabians dancers were very good too!

Unfortunately, this is when my camera battery died.  I guess it wasn't fully charged like I thought.  I really wish I had gotten pictures of the Mother ginger and the children!  They were so adorable with the clowns.

Overall, we all had a good time and ended the night eating at one of our family's favorite places, Macado's!  Happy early birthday to Hannah and Sarah!  We love you!

With All My Heart~