James got a pool for his birthday. He's been asking for one for a while now. I told him one day back in January, "When it's hot outside we'll get a pool." Just so I could get a bit of peace. Sometime in March it started warming up and I forgot about my promise. On one especially hot day James said, "It sure is hot outside. Isn't it, Mom?" I replied, "It is hot." He looked at me and said, "Well, it's time to get a pool then." Oops, I had forgotten. Anyway, I got him to hold off long enough for his birthday.

The Sunday after Matt's wedding, my parents took my family, Lindsey's family and Julianne to Chattanooga. We had so much fun. We always do, no matter what we do. We took the Incline Railway up to Lookout Mountain. The views were gorgeous. The people that live up there are so lucky, especially the ones that have views of just the mountains, trees and river. The homes were also amazing. We went to Point Park, which is a park built to commemorate a battle fought on Lookout Mt. during the Civil War. I think it was called, "Battle Above the Clouds." A fog sets in the valley below and the mountain appears to reach out above the clouds. Anyway, the park was so pretty and had old canons at different lookout points and a huge memorial built in the center of the park.

We have about 10 different shots of this exact pose. Delaney has a different expression in every single one of them.

Lindsey and her cute fam.

Matthew was pretty sure that big black lump (garbage bag) was a soldier's armor from the olden days. He was so excited about his discovery and asked me to take a picture of it.

On the way back down.

This is in front of the Tennessee Aquarium. If you live or ever visit anywhere near it, it is a must. Such a great aquarium. They have it separated into two different buildings; one is sea and the other river. River was my favorite. It had sea horses and sea dragons (my favorite animal). Out front though it's like a big plaza with artwork, water features the kids can play in and bridges.

This is in the sea part. Everyone got to pet the sting rays. Matthew even did, which surprised me. I love Holly in this picture.

Tim got to feed the stingrays shrimp. They have the weirdest looking mouths.

I turned around and found Matthew waiting to have his picture taken. He NEVER poses, so I had to hurry and take advantage of this rare moment.

The S.C. aquarium had this same feature that you could climb into the middle of the tank. The kids wanted to go in this time.

Matthew just realized there was a giant crab in the tank. I love his smile. Sorry about my chubby finger being in the shot.

Just like the S.C. trip, we had to get in on the action. I got super panicked in the tight space, but appear to have held it together nicely. I think Lindsey and Julianne were laughing at me. Lindsey is never prettier than when she is laughing! She looks so pretty, even with gum in her mouth. And of course, Julianne does too.

Jacob loved being so close to the fish. He thought it was great.

Worn out!

This is one of the places the kids could play in the water. It was James' favorite part of the whole trip.

Holly is really good at ignoring you when she wants. Here she was ignoring all of us. Stone cold.

Ta-daa! That's the end of our super fun trip. Thanks Mom and Dad! We had a blast!!

Last week we went to the zoo and sweated our pants off. And we got there at 8:30 am. We finished our zoo trip up with a romp in the water caves.

Matthew and James like to bust out their moves every now and then. Awesome.

We grabbed lunch at Ted's Famous Hot Dogs.

Jacob loves to play in the pantry and reorganize the items on the floor and now that he can pull himself up, the bottom shelf.

Surprise!!

On Saturday,Kristen and I surprised Tim and Donavon with a 30th birthday party. They were really surprised. Tim's b-day is July 9 and Donavon's is June 25. So we did it a little bit early, but K &D are moving in a week :( and we had to do it before then.

So here are some pictures of our fun. They're not great photos, but you get the idea. Kristen will probably have some way better ones.

We put up some pictures of the boys from childhood up to now. It was fun to see how far they've come.

This turned out so dark, I forgot to turn my flash on and wasn't paying attention to the pictures I was taking until it was too late. But we served burgers, hot dogs, and brats. Super delish!

These juices were a hit. The kids couldn't stay out of them. I loved these things when I was a kid. We also made felt mustaches for people to wear. Mustaches were kind of our theme for the evening, since the boys are now officially old men. Well, in the next month or so anyway.

We wrote in chalk on the pots. On one table it said "Happy 30th B-day!" and on the other it said "Donavon and Tim, Hooray!" I loved how the flower pots turned out.

I made the boys shirts to go with our mustache theme.

I love Jacob in the background. This kid was so chill all day long. I couldn't have asked him to be better.

We decided to celebrate youth by having a relay race that started off with a 3-legged race.

And ended with a massive water balloon fight. I love Tim's intensity in this photo. Water balloons are serious business.

James got soaked.

We made delicious chocolate mustaches.

We did cupcakes in a jar with a sprinkling of rock candy on top. They were a big hit and, oh-so-yummy!

Thanks to everyone that made this night a success! And thanks to the two birthday boys. We really couldn't have done it without you!