Field Trip! Anniston

Wow, I really did a great job planning this trip!  hahahaha.

We wanted to renew our membership, so I sent out word we were going.  3 other families joined us, so it was a fun day for hanging out.  AFTER we actually arrived, that is.  I got up, loaded us all up in the van and headed for South Cumberland.  I was on the other side of Guntersville before I realized what I was doing. Gah.

ALLLL the way back down to Gadsden, I pulled in at Taco Bell.  We'd had breakfast, but Ben in particular was showing signs of low blood sugar.  I pried him off of Elan, who had (horrors) misused a word, and poked a quesarito down his gullet.

We arrived in time to glom some grapes off the early birds who had opted to picnic ahead of the museum tour.  So it all worked out.

We bought our membership (still only $42!) and went through the museum, walked around the grounds, got yelled at (very rudely) for having a soccer ball out.  Next to our own cars-the only cars in the lot!  Grrrr

We opted to head out to Noccalula Falls since it was on everyone's route back home and they have a nice big playground.  We played a while, looked at the falls and then got a popsicle and Elan headed home with his own family.  We'd had him for 6 nights!  :)

Unrelated to the museum, it's Cap, Libra and Willow, Chandler's gerbils!

This used to scare Jake silly.  We had to hide his head until we were past it.

Ben thinks gar look like they told a bad joke.

Real!

Awkward taxidermy.

Smug baby!

Perpetual stalker

Warthogs are just...bizarre.

"When I was a young wart hog!
When he was a young wart hoooooooog!"

Look at those stabby trotters!

This was the favorite display for years.  Tiny antelope.  Then one day, Chan or Ben discovered the middle dik dik has NO NOSE and they zoomed past it ever since.

Found out what Murphy Jones is!

Ben, I am this close to shoving you in the pond to feed the koi!

A+ PHOTO!

Horned owls have the best WTF faces

Team slapping/coordination games.  What could possibly go wrong?

We LOVE witch hats!

The statue of Noccalula is very tall.  As a child, this, combined with the Apache Chief on cartoons led me to believe Native people were abnormally tall, some on command.

Ben lost his sunglasses.  He figured out a way to deal with the horror of being outside in the daylight.

Guntersville Museum and the Week

Started watching The Bridge in the original Swedish and Danish.  SO different from the Americanized version, but check out that last name up there.  Saga Nor&#233.  I can't even begin to pronounce that!

We have had some lovely sunsets of late.  This is out my bedroom window.

We have been home for a few days.  Saturday Matt dropped a tree on his hand and though it ended up being a fairly minor injury, the initial panic left him exhausted.  It took all 4 of us to get the tree off his hand, one finger was caught fast. He was in major pain and it took a few minutes to get the tree shifted.  I have rarely been so scared, I was certain he'd crushed it to the point of amputation.  He kept screaming and screaming.  When he got free, I thought he was having seizure from the shock making him shake so hard.

After we looked at it, which took a while to work up the nerve, it looked skinned a little and that was it.  I am not saying it did not hurt, but I am pretty sure the 'worst' of the experience was being trapped and that amplified everything else that happened.  I know he had some flashbacks or some 'what if' moments that night, poor guy.  We actually hand cut more wood Sunday and burned all the debris from the area we have been cutting trees down near the barn, hauling up smaller branches to the burn pile in the yard.  That took the whole day and netted just a little wood, the bigger tree Matt dropped is still laying there...

Monday the kids and I knocked out some personal projects and house stuff.
Tuesday bright and early, the guys were here to put in the central unit.  They were done well before lunch, it's amazing how quickly and painlessly that all went.

The kids and I spent the day on the Wii!  About 2 years ago, Matt redid some wiring and blew out everything that was plugged in to that relay-TV, dvd player, Wii, the stove.  I forget what all, but Jake had unplugged the Wii from the cords and it was fine, but the cords were fried.  We finally go around to spending the $17 for new cords (I know, crazy) and set that up.  FUN!  I kicked butt bowling and amazed them all by falling off places in Mario Kart that they did not know were ledges.  I am SO very bad at racing games!

I spent 2 hours in Animal Crossing for the first time in 2 years.  That was just as pleasant as always, I love a relaxing stroll around the town!

By Wednesday we were ready for some fun time, so we headed out to Guntersville Museum to check out the shadowbox display.  I sent out a head's up and Amanda and Sunni opted to join us.

This is the view from the restroom.  I squealed when I went in, it was SO lovely and bright!

The museum is free, it's at the old armory building at 1215 Rayburn Ave
They have Guntersville history via Native American artifacts found in Marshall County and they have info about the dam and the lake as well as a display about the Wyeth family, who have roots in the town.

The temporary exhibit is shadowboxes, which is what I mostly wanted to see.

I really wanted this one!  It was $169 though.
And to be honest, his face does not line up.  That would drive me nuts.

Afterward we went to lunch and then walked on the greenway along the lake to the playground.

They leaned in to make it spin faster, but I liked the way they looked crafty...

It's supposed to say 'Project Knowledge' but Chan blocked that bit.  Still, Chan and the trees, both established in 1998!  Baby Girl will be 17 in just over 2 weeks, it just blows my mind that they are perched on the brink, I want to yank them back so badly.

In other news, Matt's buddy from work, Bill, had a major heart...thing over the weekend.  Not an attack, there's no blockage, but the muscle is very weak.  They thought pneumonia, but that has been ruled out though there is fluid in his lungs and he was on oxygen a while, but just a CPAP type thing now.  His kidneys quit working and they did dialysis Monday and then again tonight.  He's not responding much.  Matt is stressed about that just in general and then because it's so well known they are close friends, he get asked all KINDS of stuff and when he does not know, they want him to call Bill's wife.  He won't do it.  I don't blame him. Betty from accounting really has no business needing his white blood cell count.  He's getting flack for that-he's exhausted.  He came in from work all week ready to go to bed by 8. It's still iffy if he will even live and Monday, Bill was supposed to move to a new project that was going to allow Matt to be moved up with a promotion AND a raise and now that's all back burner again while Matt does both of their jobs.  I feel badly complaining when it's someone's actual life on the line, but that promotion has been dangled like a carrot for 3 years now and it was just about to happen.  Now that they have Matt doing both jobs for what he's already being paid, no one will push to change things.  I think he just got screwed over at work.  Again.

His plan for if I go in the hospital is to tell everyone I died right off the bat.  So, fair warning.

This weekend is shaping up well, next week we have several things planned-I am determined to take advantage of this warmer weather!  I know it won't last.

April Rocks!

Okay, so BARELY into the month, but so far it's been behaving VERY kindly and I am appreciating every moment of it!

We started the month off on an overnight camping trip that whet everyone's appetite for more ASAP.

Late night gaming!

AMAZING moths!!

Swimming with da fishes.  And otters!

Hanging out

With friends!!

We took one extra kid with us and came home with a different extra kid, spent Thursday in a lazy fashion before heading to dance.

Friday, Chan and Brit got to spend the day taking art classes and checking out the new art institute over in Decatur.  Since it was a long drive, Matt and I opted to kill time in town until she was done.  We bought herbs and veggies and picked up a couple magnolia trees and had lunch at Bob Gibson's BBQ.  So yummy.

On the way to pick up Chan, we popped in at a music store and they had not only the tiny gig bag for her uke, which we snatched up, but also a Fisher mandolin on sale with ALL the stuff-book, tuner, strings, gig bag, strap and picks for less than I had just priced JUST the mandolin. To make it an even better deal, he assembled the bridge and tuned it and tightened the...I call it an arm rest, but it's a metal thing that keeps you from resting ON the wood of the instrument.  Maybe arm rest is close enough.

I was SO excited! We met her at the art thing and Matt ran around and burst after 12 seconds and ran to the car to show her.  I had told her I was getting her a gig bag, so she was not amazed.  Then she showed us her painting and while I was oooing, Matt hauled out the new mandolin.  She looked at it and then looked back at me and said, "I don't feel you have admired this enough." about her bird painting.  So I had to oooo some more!

Now you, too can ooo.  Brit's on the left, Chan's on the right.

She decided at that point to stay with Brit-we could have been back home by 10 and saved a few hundred bucks to boot!  We took the girls to get some pictures, but the place I wanted to go was full of prom girls, so we went to the art museum instead and then dropped them and the mandolin off.

Matt's photo, I was driving.

Today I got up and did nothing for a while, we got an advance copy of the new Hobbit movie last night and had been up late.  That was a LONG movie and then it just stopped.  BAM.

We watched Odd Thomas today, which was good.  Though I love Anton Yelchin, I have since House of D, so I may be biased.  We also saw 47 Ronin, which I really liked!  I don't know why so many people were griping about it.

When it finally warmed up, I put plants in pots and trees in holes and I planted my new jessamine vine.  I thought I killed the old one trying to move it, but 2 vines lived that we discovered, so I should have an impressive showing in another couple years.  I want it to cover the front fence from end to end.  It won't take long, that stuff is CRAZY.

Yarden, phase 2.

Look at that light, amazing!!

Something is a little off in this one.  Not quite as sparkly as I recall...

That's better!

I thought the hyacinths had come and gone, it's late.  But looking over the small patch, not only are they not gone, they have spread!  I planted 5 bulbs when we first moved in here. 

These did not like the cold or the van ride or the wait to get planted, they are kind of droopy now.
I hope I did not mow through part of my gardening budget only to learn I jumped the gun!

I wandered around and picked a few things to go in our nachos last night.
I have had a hankering for nachos, certain nachos with certain things in them.
We have had nachos three times in the past couple of weeks trying to get what I want, last night was SO close.  Black beans, Spanish rice, tofu, turkey bacon, yard, queso and salty chips.

Finally, this rare event.
All three of my kids and only my 3 kids!
They quickly dispersed and regrouped, but it happened for a moment.
Okay, I had to call Jake over, but there they are!

Off now to smell my amazing hair (Suave is making this stuff called...Natural...well, it's macadamia nut oil and white orchid.  It smells SO GOOD).  Anyway, to smell my hair, drink some Angry Orchard hard apple cider and read more of Switch Bitch.  It's a series of naughty adult stories (nothing explicit, more of 'then it happened' if sex ever actually comes up) by Roald Dahl.  You know, Fantastic Mr. Fox and James and the Giant Peach, The Phantom Tollbooth.  Cracked me up when I found it in the adult section and even more so when I saw they had all been published in Playboy first.