Tennessee State Museum & Parthenon

While we were at Heather's on Monday, I walked up on a conversation between Suzette and Cathy. Suzette was talking about this museum in Nashville that they had visited and absolutely loved. She was telling us about some of the exhibits and it really sounded awesome. Cathy was excited about it too and was ready to go the next day. But she was nice enough to wait for Bobby to work off so we could go together.

We picked Cathy and Kaitlin up on Wednesday morning and hit the road. We made a pit stop at a McDonald's and while we were there, Cathy offered to buy everyone a fruit smoothie. Cody drank mine and got a brain freeze.

We opted for the full day parking pass which is $18. We didn't think we could get out of there in two hours and we were right!

The Tennessee State Museum
FREE!

The museum is huge! There's absolutely no way we could read/see everything in one day. Their permanent exhibits include The First Tennesseans, The Frontier, The Age of Jackson, Antebellum, The Civil War and Reconstruction and The New South.

Also now through September 4th, they have an Ancient Egypt exhibit, which we all found fascinating. Cody especially enjoyed this exhibit and viewing the replicas. He fell in love with King Tut this past year while we were learning about Ancient Egypt.

Britney said she doesn't have a favorite thing. She said "It was all awesome!"

We still can't believe there is no admission fee!

Cody thought all of the uniforms looked like headless horsemen. That's my boy:)

Britney and Kaitlin came up with this photo idea. I'm afraid it didn't turn out very well. I'm still learning how to use my new camera.

After we were finished at the museum, we decided to grab some lunch. Suzette had told us about an outdoor food court area that is close by. We asked the lady in the gift shop and she gave us directions. It's about a half a block away, and even though we checked it out, we had passed a Subway and it was voted the place to eat.

Eat Fresh!


We've been wanting to go to the Parthenon for years. The museum and the Parthenon are 2.5 miles from each other. Talk about being geeked! We were so excited to finally go:)

$6 ~ Adults
$4 ~ 4 - 17
Free ~ Under 4
$4 ~ 62+

Cathy with all of her Wisdom.

Me with all of my Integrity.

Bobby and his Hammer of Justice.

Our Courageous kids.

It was 4:30 when we started to head home. Rush hour in Nashville...eh...not cool. It was bumper to bumper. Then it rained like crazy, which made everyone sleepy. Cody took about a 20 minute nap. When he fell asleep it was dark and when he woke up, it had stopped raining and was light out. He thought he had slept all night and we were still driving. :)

We made it back to Cathy's house around 6:30 and just in time to meet up with the ice cream man.

The kids ended up spending the night at Cathy's. The next day, Bobby and I picked everyone up and we spent a couple hours at Point Mallard along with Karen and Keilee.

Awesome memories!

Heather's

River Rats

Drive In

Cathy's in this picture...I promise.

Recap

At this point, I'm so far behind on the blog that I have no idea where to start! We've been so busy doing fun and exciting things...some of which I have no pictures for. Not having a camera for a couple weeks was definitely depressing, which I'm sure is partly why I wasn't posting. I'm attached to my camera emotionally. I can't explain it. It's just part of me. At any rate, I now have a camera in hand and I'm completely geeked about it!

So...onto the recap.

• We went to NACHO's field day and had a blast! I don't have pictures, but there are a couple with Brit on Karen's blog. Brit played soccer and got a medal for the mile run. Cody participated in shot put and played constantly. It was a really great day with old and new friends.

• A group of us went to Sugar Creek in Minor Hill, TN. This place is awesome...cold water, rope swings, a bridge, tons of geodes, fish and crawdads. We ate lunch and made smore's, chatted and laughed and made plans. We had a blast! Here's Esther's post about our trip.
  

• Gretta posted that their church was selling Sanctify t-shirts, other shirts, hoodies, etc. with all the proceeds helping to fund their mission trip to Peru. With all shirts priced at $1, we really couldn't pass up the opportunity. Especially since we would get to visit with Gretta and that doesn't happen near enough. We made plans to go, only to find out Karen and Keilee were going too so we rode down together. We had so much fun looking through the clothes and scored BIG time! After shopping, we went to Gretta's house. We had such a good time visiting with them. While we were talking about homeschooling, she grabbed curriculum that they won't be using and just gave it to us. I mean...WOW! Thank you G! Karen wrote about our trip HERE. Plus she has pictures of Sugar Creek, too:)

• We've been going to church again. We've been going to Epic for about a month and a half and we all absolutely love it. I have issues with churches and religions and so on, but this definitely seems to be the right fit for us. Bobby, Britney and I also signed up for different Life Groups. Thank you, Karen for not giving up on me!

• We've been swimming a lot at David's and have gone to Point Mallard a couple times. We were able to buy season passes when they went on sale. The kids have really enjoyed it. They are so happy when they're in the water. They get that from their Daddy. I'm sure of it.

• We've been much more active lately. I work out in the mornings and then we bike in the evenings. It's 4.1 miles from our house to and around the track and back home. Plus we've been eating much healthier. I'm down 1o pounds! Well...I was until this past week. All the girls out there know why. grrr Anyway, I did my exercise video this morning and have biking plans for this evening when it cools down a bit.
  

• Cathy and Kaitlin went to the Drive In with us. We had so much fun and really enjoyed the movies. We watched X-Men First Class and Pirates of the Caribbean 4. The new X Men movie is awesome. I wouldn't mind seeing it again. Right now! I fell asleep during Pirates... The absolute worst thing about the movies were the mosquitoes. I don't know why it didn't occur to me that those little bastards would be out in full force. We were/are covered in bites. I can't talk about this any farther. It has been a traumatic experience.
  

• We took Logan and Cassie to the river to cool off. They LOVED it! Well, so did Brit and Cody. A couple days later, the kids and I took Logan to PetSmart to pick up some Nylabones. He was absolutely hilarious! They have a low, clear shelf full of guinea pigs that he was convinced he should be able to squeak. We started talking to a couple who have two shepherds. I really enjoyed our chat and left with that feeling of we know them from somewhere. We walked into church on Sunday and immediately saw them. Such a nice couple:) I look forward to getting to know them better. Maybe even getting our dogs together to play.

• Yesterday, Brit and Cody had dentist appointments in Birmingham. I really enjoy just driving down the road with those two. I love the conversations we have and the songs we sing far louder than we would in front of anyone else. I love those two so much! Anyway...dentist. They both had great check ups. No cavities! Brit needs to go back in July so they can put sealant on her molars and then they both go back in December for another cleaning.

• Heather invited everyone over for an evening swim, which worked out great for us since that's when we got back into town. It was so nice to get together with our besties!

Okay, I think I've pretty much gotten you caught up on the happening of The Wacky Lackeys:) I'm sure I've forgotten something important or funny..like the fact that I thought this past Sunday was Father's Day and us laughing our heads off trying to watch Flash Gordon and Cody impersonating Richard Simmons. I love this life!

Life

Still here...just been busy.

We went on our first group camping trip of the year, which was a lot of fun to say the least. I'll get pictures up soon. Speaking of pictures, my camera was damaged during our trip. It got tossed into the sand.

sigh


Lots of other things going on...coupons, shopping, field day, swimming, more storms...

Park Day, Swim, LBP & Cake

Yesterday, we spent nearly the whole day with our friends. I love doing that. We always have so much fun together. We went to Sparkman Park. I've been there several times, but have never gone to the back side of the park before. There are pavilions, a creek and a nice playground. Definitely the better side of the park:)

Cody and some other boys down by the creek.

I don't know why Brit's dead in this photo. Emily seemed concerned.

WHEE!

One of the boys was catching crawdads out of the creek. I love catching crawdads.

After the park, we headed to Heather's.
Our first group swim of the year!

The water isn't quite warm enough for Cody to get into, so he stayed inside and played Little Big Planet. He loves LBP!

Brit went home with the Crawfords. I'm pretty sure she pulled an all nighter as we were just watching Full Metal Alchemist and she dozed off, her leg fell off the coffee table and she jerked herself awake. She's gone to bed now.

After Heather's, Cody and I came home long enough to hug Bobby's neck before he went to work. Then we went to mom and David's to pick up half of a strawberry cake she made. Holy cow, that thing is good. I'm jealous of that other half. We ended up eating dinner with them and chatting for a while.

It was just a great day.

Checking In

We're safe and sound. We know people who lost their loved ones, their homes, had major property damage. Towns less than 15 miles from us are just gone...completely wiped off the map. There's so much devastation.

We lost power on the 27th along with most of north Alabama. We were able to use the refrigerator in the camper which kept Cody's medicine cold along with some food. We were also able to heat water and cook. I have a new fondness for propane. Our electricity was restored yesterday at 1:00. The internet, phone and cable were returned today although they are going in and out.

I have days of stuff to share...things that happened during this difficult time, but everything we experienced was simply inconvenience.

We are so lucky and fortunate and are beyond thankful.