Girl Scouts

I've had requests to recount the recent Girl Scouts camping trip. Ugh. The trip was the weekend of 10/14 at Oak Mtn State Park. Of course no other parents showed up but myself and the 2 troop leaders. Should have been an omen. I detest the great outdoors for extended periods of time and having no electricity or nice restroom facilities. I was so not prepared for this. This being said, Madeline had the time of her life and would have GLADLY stayed out there in the woods for another week.


Group shot of the 8 girls on the trip. That would be Madeline on the far right in 'the pose'.

Each night one girl was responsible for making the meal, either breakfast, lunch or dinner. Madeline was in charge of the hotdogs on the Coleman grill for the first dinner.

Let's also point out that Madeline got lost that night and the park ranger had to bring her back to camp with a flashlight. My nerves were shot on the first night.

The massive hike we had to do through the woods. I don't normally exert myself this much.

Silly girls. This was taken at the bird preserve and lucky us, we got there just in time to watch them feed the predator birds. And guess what was in the bucket? Dead rats! I. Am. Terrified. Of. Them. The feeder guy thought he was being cute by shaking the rat bodies at the girls to freak them out and there I was bent over the deck rail inches from barfing at the sight of them. Not cool Mr. Feeder Guy. Not cool.

Next up- canoeing. Have I ever been in a canoe before? Why no, I had not. Did I want to be in a canoe out in the middle of a LAKE with 2 eight year old girls who couldn't canoe? NO. If we had tumped over I don't know what I would have done because I am terrified of swimming in lakes. We all know there are dead bodies down there just waiting to pull you under! =)

She was loving every second of it.

Then to the petting zoo. Poop. Every. Where. And pigs that bit and goats that jumped on people.

Pumpkin decorating. Now this is more my speed. This was a lot of fun. And the talent show they put on that night was fun too.

Look who wins Mother Of The Year award subcategory: the things we do for our children.

And that was my first and last camping trip.

Did I mention that I had to sleep on the ground in a tent with the other 2 troop leaders who I had never met? That's right. Laugh it up.

Arizona

The last week of October I flew out to AZ for a long weekend to visit one of my very best friends from high school. As most of you know, airplanes and I do not get along so it was not fun getting there.
We ate dinner in Phoenix at a western themed town and it was done overboard for Halloween. This covered wagon/cactus was out front.

Me and Jenny at dinner. She ordered the Hoss burger which as I'm sure you would know was massive but very fun to watch her eat! There was much giggling over the weekend and we were so happy to have time to catch up and hang out.

After dinner I got to ride the mechanical bull. This has been on my bucket list to do so I was thrilled to get a chance. And to top it off, the toothless, gun toting Mexican man who operated it was named Chico and he said he liked me and that I was 'fun'. Guess I left an impression.

Before anyone gets impressed with Jenny, she didn't really ride the bull, Chico just let her get on for photo ops. Her husband Mark was able to stay on it for an impessive amount of time.

The next day we drove to Sedona for some hiking and sight seeing. This is Bell Rock, it was so pretty up against the blue sky. The picture doesn't do it justice.

The cow pie hiking trail was fabulous! We almost bottomed out the car getting to it (off road vehicles are recommended rather than 4 door sedans) but it was well worth it.

We were able to climb right up into all the red Sedona rocks, it was amazing and sooo quiet. I was unaware that Sedona was a 'vortex of positive energy' so we spent some time trying to locate vortexes for laughs. Didn't find any.......... I don't think.

From the top of the mountain.

On the way back home we stopped at Montezuma Castle. This was a great tourist stop. A castle built into the side of a mountain in 1100 and still mostly in tact.

I must say that I finally got to eat at an In-N-Out Burger! I've always seen where the celebrities eat at these in Hollywood so I've always wanted to try it. It was GREAT! Of course there isn't one any where close to AL.

Disney Vacation!

This picture cracks me up! We are approximately 22 days from our next Disney vacation. There is nothing like Disney World at Christmas!
Main Street USA here I come! Errr...... here WE come..... =)

Halloween

This Halloween we had a hula girl and a skeleton. Now, Madeline chose hula girl months ago, although she kept saying 'hooligan' at first which caused some confusion on my part as to how to make a hooligan costume...... the only restriction she had was that it HAD to be a coconut bra hula girl and not a swimsuit top hula girl. And yes, I did find a coconut bra version. And yes there was much pleading from her to wear it without a leotard but as you can see I won that battle.
Matthew on the other hand had multiple costumes as he kept changing his mind as to what he was going to be. He couldn't decide between a green dinosaur, a spider, a ghost, Tigger or the skeleton. Skeleton won out.

We trick or treated again with our friends the Webbs. Madeline and Halli are BFF and Matthew and Jack are in the same class. It drove me bananas that Matthew would not keep his mask on but I just had to let that one go.

They made quite a haul on candy, we're still eating on it!

Highling of the evening was Matthew out in the front yard screaming to the hordes of people 'HAPPY HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY!!"

He was the Tiny Tim of Halloween!

Pumpkins

Wow, I'm waaaaaay behind in my blog updates. And believe me, I've heard about it from more than 1 person! =)
So, October has gone by in a blur and now November is almost done. Below are some highlights from the Clanton pumpkin patch as well as the traditional Painting Of The Pumpkins:

Airplane!

Now, everyone take a really good, long look at this because Matthew did the BEST in his whole class as Jeff was informed by the teacher. The instruction was for them to trace the outline of the airplane as well as the letter 'A's across the bottom but they were NOT to color the picture. He was the only one in the class who followed the directions and he did it perfectly. Note the grand prize sticker at the top of the page! Yea Matthew! =)

Sweetly

Not all evenings around here are spent quite this sweetly, but this particular time they were playing very well together. I believe this is Candyland boardgame, but they have been playing 'teacher' some as well and that has been going smoothly so far! ha ha

Zoo!

We love love the Montgomery Zoo. It is soooo much more enjoyable than the Birmingham Zoo. We renewed our membership when we went this past weekend.

Jeff made a new friend with an Emperor monkey. They looked like little old Chinese men.

Mommy with her Sweet Man.

And Sweet Girl!

Matthew enjoyed the reptile house!

Madeline re-enacting the ant incident of 2005 that happened at this exact spot. She's always had horrible reactions to bug bites and that time ants got into her Crocs at this spot and bit her feet all over.

The anteater was Hi-Larious! Right in front of us he walked over to the water and farted on the surface, you can see the ripples in this picture. We laughed and laughed at that!

The leopards were very pretty!

Jeff with the lions. Don't get me started. Anyone who has not heard the now infamous lion story from when we were dating, please ask Jeff about it. So funny!

Matthew liked the rhino because he looked like a dinosaur.

I take their pic by this height chart every time so we can look back on it. I fully expect for it to be gone one time and I will be very unhappy!

Matthew is still talking about seeing the elephants.

Madeline liked the tigers.

We like the warthogs too. We always talk about how when Madeline was little she accidentally dropped her sunglasses over into the warthog pen and Jeff had to use a tree branch to fish them out. Then when I took her to the bathroom to clean them my own sunglasses fell into the toilet! ha ha

Matthew was worn out. He had already barfed once on the way down from car sickness and we had to pull over about 5 times. On the way home he fell asleep after drinking some red gatorade and it looked like a vampire so I had to take his pic! =)