A sad boogbye!

One last pic of this short but memorable trip. We had a blast and we all had to fight back the tears as we drove back to spring hill, Tn.
The only 2 missing were Mia and Lisa and it would have just like old times. We miss you Mia! xoxoxo

Final hour of our blessed time together.

I took the girls to do one last butterfly catching walk. We went to the other side of the lake and soon the boys followed.

These were the dominant butterflies on the beach part of the lake. There were some pretty yellow and small blue ones as well. They seemed to like the sand area for some reason as evidenced by the numbers of them flying around all over the place.
Isaac's last ditch effort to catch a fish. The night Collin and i caught fish, Isaac was in the boat with us and had no luck. We got back at 9pm that night.

A sad day!

Here Joshua is holding the bass Collin and I caught.
The kids got a kick out of me and Mel cleaning our fish. I taught them all the internal body parts and emptied out the stomach and we found out that this fish ate a crawdad. The claws were undigested!

The park ranger came by with a king snake and all of the kids got to hold it.

Firing range cont.....

This is the first of 3 pics that show Trevor shooting a milk jug filled with water.
2nd pic
3rd pic
Thea get ready with the help of grandpa Mel.

Firing range cont.....

Collin w/my gun
Mel w/a colt. We met this old timer from Tennessee who let us shoot all his guns and teach us a few things about shooting and competitions. We shot his colt, 45., and his shot gun.

On the 2nd day of shooting the girls thought they'd give it a try, since they were a little scared the 1st day.

Camping/ firing range

Cation was the order of the day as we let everyone have a go at shooting my 357. magnum. The kids did great and had lots of fun shooting and finding lots of shell casings everywhere.
Trevor shoots his new gun.
Mad Dog w/my gun.

I don't know what Joshua had more fun doing; Shooting my gun or finding empty shell casings. Either way it was a blast.

Camping trip with the Downs

Fishing was the first order of the day. Grandpa Mel and I took Thea and Olivia out first. We found a boat and paddled out in the lake on this hot humid day. As you can imagine our trip was short lived as the girls complained it was too hot, so we paddled back and went swimming instead.
Hanging out at the camp site, I took one of Olivia's b-day presents out, paddle ball and hung out.
While Joshua practiced his Sharp shooting skills. This would come in hand, because we went to the firing range later that day.
Collin, Isaac and Joshua.
Thea, me, Olivia, Isaac and Collin spent hours in the lake cooling off.

Visit cont...

That night we went swiming in the pool, just like old times.
Even the baby got in on the fun!
Time to go camping........

Special Visit

1st stop, gun shop. We met up with Trevor and his crew in a parking lot and went to the local gun shop. The kids got to pick a machine gun for this pic, 1 each out of 10,000 they had available.
From there we had some good ole southern food a Monel's, a banquet of all kinds of food.
Lisa took the girls by Hanna Montana's house, where they posed for this photo and proceeded to call her on her squawk box outside the gate.

Olivia's 8Th was shared by all her close friends. It was a special occasion as she got to share it with her close friend Thea who visited us at the time.

Baby and sibs

Here the kids are on The 4th of July.

Two of a kind! I have a feeling little Trevor is going to be like Joshua in many ways. He is already very expressive and smiles and laughs a lot.

Joshua's baseball pics

Josh had a great year playing baseball, he is a natural. He was the best player on his team.Here he is running after one of his many hits during the year.

He played shortstop most of the year, here he is at shortstop making the play on a ground ball.

His team didn't do much in the playoffs and they got the concession trophy.