What we've been up to

We nursed Steven back to health, so much so, that he embarked on a guys' trip this past weekend. My mom and sister had another couple of days off for Veteran's Day. They missed us so much, they made the 6 hour drive back for another three day weekend. We discussed renting an RV and trying it out for a short trip:

Me: "So are you planning to drive this thing?"
Mom: "Well, yeah, I thought I would, but I figured you would drive some too."
Mom: "Did you watch the video online?"
Me: "No, not yet."
Mom: "It seems pretty easy except I didn't quite understand the propane tank thing."

I had a vision of me driving the RV in to something and a huge explosion following. We decided on other activities, but I do see an RV trip in our future. We'd like to take mom on an RV trip out west for her 60th in a couple summers, so I think it'd be wise for us to take a small practice run soon.... to make sure we know how to work the propane tank.

Instead, we went to breakfast at IHOP on Friday and on to the McWane Center for a morning of fun. The rest of the weekend was filled with lots of playing outside, a couple of trips down to our railroad tracks for photo shoots, and several Harry Potter movies.

Let me just stop and say I know now why photographers charge so much for "sitting fees". We had been down there for about 3 minutes and I was ready to collect my $100. I had to laugh or I would have gone bananas. I did have a couple hard working assistants that eased some of the madness. And a brief pause for an actual train to pass was exciting and a bit scary for the kids who I'd just had on the tracks:). It did seem to improve their focus. We got some great shots, but I'm hoping to turn them in to Christmas gifts so I'll only share a few here so the suspense will be great for the grandparents!

My lovely first assistant

One thing I have not been doing a lot of is house cleaning. Who needs lined paper for handwriting practice when you have layers of dust? Some might call it "dirty". I prefer "economical". Especially in these tough times.

We finally made it to Bud's Best Cookies for a tour of the factory today and it was AWESOME! Dare I say that Elle said as we were leaving, "Mom, this was better than Disney World!". Now, I'm certain she did not mean that, but it was really fun and interesting. And we got about 5 bags of cookies, three coloring books, a bunch of stickers, and some hair nets all for free! You should really check this out if you are in the Birmingham area.

Grady was much more excited than this. But I'm not sure he thought it was better than Disney World.