Dad's Day

Doc here with another post: A Happy Father's Day to all the Dads out there.

Lucy and I are blessed to have two great men in our lives that serve as support, role models and friends to both of us.

My dad and I have shared so many diverse experiences together - things that are emblazoned on my memory.  I remember when I was young learning to love and respect nature - whether it was fishing, camping or walking through a landscape job site.  I also learned about sacrifice and love of our wonderful country - raising the flag at our house, singing the national anthem (loud) at ballgames, and watching the tears in my dad's eyes as we visited "The Wall" on the lawn of the National Mall in DC.  I learned the value of hard work and the need to balance all aspects of my life.  He also taught me not to take things for granted, to respect people and to be thankful for all that we have been blessed with in our lives.  He has been and continues to be a great father to me!

Lucy's Dad is pretty cool too!  He and I have fostered a great relationship over the past several years.  I greatly appreciate his patience with my golf game, I enjoy our time together working on "Lucy's" projects in the shop, and I value his advice and perspective on work, family, and life.  Getting to know him, I can see how much of himself he has put into his children, and his relationship with his 3 kids is something I truly admire.  He has many talents, one of which is highlighted in this picture.

Both of these men have taught me lessons about how to be a good father - something that I continue to work towards.  I am not sure that I will ever be as good as they are to Lucy and me, but with them in my life I think I will be ok.

Rock Climbing

Last Sunday was eventful. There were so many good picture opportunities, but unfortunately I didn't think to charge my camera battery. So, all I have are pictures of little Parker climbing the rock wall all by himself!

The first step and looking up to see how high it is.

"This will probably be easier without shoes."

Checking to make sure I'm still back there and that its ok to go.

And the little monkey is off and climbing!

Almost there...

And his proud momma was glad to greet him at the top!

And what do you do once you've made it to the top of the fort? Well, you slide right back down, of course!

The end.

35 Years

Thirty-five years ago today, my parents were married in a small church in Selmer, TN. Quite a good-looking couple, eh?

Mom wore a dress that was handmade by Mrs. Winnie, her step-grandmother.

Now, 13 months ago, I was searching frantically for the perfect dress to wear to our rehearsal dinner. My mom never thought to mention that her handmade wedding gown was upstairs in the attic. What?? How could I have not known this?? I would've loved to have it altered into something I could've worn that night.

She didn't tell me about the dress until about a month ago when we were in the attic looking for something. Of course I had to try it on.

So it's safe to say the dress looked muuuuch better on her than on me, but still. It's handmade! And it was in our attic!

Look at the detail on the cuffs of the sleeves.

I can't believe I didn't know about this last year.

Anyway, back to the point of this post. My parents - 35 years! That's a really long time. They are quite the inspiration for Doc and me.

Here's to laughing together for 35 more years!

Happy anniversary, Mom and Dad. We love you!

P.S. Mom - in the dining room, look in the piece of furniture that used to be Memaw's bedside table. I left a gift for y'all in the top drawer.

Fun in the Sun

We are officially on vacation!! I told myself I'd write a post at the end of each day so that I wouldn't have a million pictures to sort through when we got home. But being on a relaxing vacation makes it awfully hard to get on the computer at night...especially when you fall asleep around 9! So here I am, the morning of day 3, ready to talk about days 1 and 2.

Although for day 1, there's nothing to report except that we were excited to be here!

Yes, that would be 5 of the 6 of us all on one couch.  We did walk to the beach as soon as we unloaded the car and the kids ran right into the water, completely unaware that they weren't wearing swimsuits.

Day 2 was awesome. I really don't think I have ever seen a prettier day at the beach. The weather was perfect - only 90 degrees instead of a miserable 100+ and a very good breeze off the ocean. The water was so clear you could see right to the bottom - no seaweed or anything.

Green means go!

Only one of us took the time to completely set up camp before heading out into the ocean. Can you guess who?

Here's a better hint...

My toes were so happy to be in the sand again.

Daddy and his kiddos.

"Come on! It's not cold at all!" Except you can tell he's sucking in from the cold since his ribs are poking out...

Anna got buried.

At least she had a good view!

Out in the water together.

We did lots of wave-riding on the boogie boards, and I have a nice strawberry on my hip to prove it. Apparently big kids crash into the sand a lot harder than the little kids do.

Anna and I built a nice sandcastle complete with manicured lawn, gate, and front drive.

Wyatt built...this.

We came in at the end of the day exhausted and hungry! Poppa and Doc made a delicious dinner of skamp, rice, salad, and fruit. It hit the spot!

Anna helped me make dessert. Can you tell from her face what we made?

Brownies. Mmmmm...and they were so good fresh out of the oven!

Lala continued to work on the puzzle...

...and these guys gave her no help at all.

We did finally finish the 500 piece puzzle. Hooray! It was a tough one - those flowers at the bottom were not easy to figure out at all. Next up, 1000 piece picture of hot air balloons.

Everyone is finishing up with breakfast now so it looks like Day 3 is about to get going. Beach, here we come!

Sunday Play Day

After church on Sunday, we decided to have a picnic at my parents' house so our kids could finally see the new playset. This little monkey climbed all over it before the boys arrived with our food.

We took a quick break when the guys arrived with food from Sonic and enjoyed lunch on the picnic tables. After scarfing it down and taking time to pose for one picture, the kids were off!

Even the big kids couldn't wait to play.

About ten minutes into our playtime, we were up in our fort planning our attack against the pirates [read: the dogs] when guess what we saw heading our way...

...the Jett Monster!!!

As the Commander of our fort, I quickly left base to capture him and put him in jail [read: the mini picnic table], and that's when he was told by his captors that he had to eat lunch before he could escape from jail.

Soon after he was released he was named Navigator of the fort and took orders from Wyatt the Captain.

I wish I could tell you what all happened on the fort that day, but it was hard for me to keep up. I know at one point we were sailing to the Galapagos Islands and we could only eat turtles. And then there was something about Madagascar and at one point we were among the Dutch, which sounds a lot like "pretend to be ducks" but somehow I was the only one that heard it that way.

Anna spent the afternoon becoming best friends with her only girl cousin.

It was such a fun afternoon, but being a kid again is exhausting! And a lot different, too. I already knew I could no longer do the monkeybars, but this time I also found out that it hurts my feet when I jump out of the swing and I probably shouldn't do round-offs anymore. My mom tried to be encouraging by telling me that it "probably wouldn't have hurt if I was wearing tennis shoes instead of flip-flops." I don't think tennis shoes would have kept my leg from coming out of its socket.

I have a friend who blogs about gardening and sometimes about how her dogs like to "help" her in the yard. Do you think this qualifies as Taylor "helping" my mom with her flower beds?

"Who, me?"

And just for fun, I'll leave you with some more pics from the day...