Vacation Pictures

I have been going through all our vacation pictures and here are a few of our first couple of days. Our first full day we went to Perdido Beach. The water was pretty blue and the sand is white.

                                  Rachel spent a lot of time on her boogie board.

The next day we drove to Moible and toured the USS Alabama. The ship is so big and we managed to get lost inside a few times. I didn't realize there is an entire city inside of the ship, pretty amazing.

                                    The girls loved climbing on the sleeping bunks.

A few other pictures ........

Our first night and we went out for pizza. Rachel got a call from her BFF, so she was busy talking. A glimpse of her teenage years.

                         The neighborhood and house where we stayed for the week.

                                                                   Good to know!
These signs were scattered throughout the area. We were on a walk one night and some guys told us that they had just seen a six foot gator walking around.

  We drove past this water tower each day. Most towns in the South have a big water tower announcing their town's name.

Sweet Home Alabama

We have spent the past week at the beach! We drove down to Gulf Shores, Alabama for our summer vacation and it was so much fun. We had a great time and the girls loved it. I have hundreds of pictures to go through, but here are a few from the past few days.

Oh, look- the deep, wide sea, brimming with fish past counting and ships plow those waters....

The glory of God-let it last forever. Let God enjoy His creation!

Psalm 104:25-29, The Message

Alphabet Summer- Letter F

Summer is winding down here- only three weeks of summer left! Rachel has been asking to go to the mall and play in the fountains, so that is what we did this morning.

      There weren't too many other kids there which was nice. Sometimes it gets a little crazy.

Fun morning at the fountains with the girls. We are having a busy week and getting ready to head to the beach soon!

Winshape Camp

All last week Rachel went to a camp called Winshape Camp at a nearby church. The camp was sponsered by Chick-fil-A and Rachel has so much fun! On Friday it was Chick-fil-A Friday Family Fun Day and I got to go to camp with Rachel and see what she has been up to all week.

The kids were separated into three groups and Rachel was a swordfish in the Ocean group. She got to do three different activities each day- cheerleading, gymnastics and arts and crafts

                                                     Gymnastics time!

                 The theme of the week "With God we are not just ordinary, but Extraordinary!"

We ended the day with lunch by Chick-fil-A and saying good bye to new friends made during  the week. I hope Rachel gets a chance to go back again next year.

Won't You be my Neighbor?

After six years of living in our house we finally have neighbors! When we moved to Georgia, they were still building houses in our subdivision. And then the economy went bad and all the construction stopped.

This shows a little of what was next to us- tress and weeds :) And snakes,spiders,bees,and garbage. It was lovely. A couple of feet from our driveway there was a good ten foot drop- Rachel took a nasty fall down there when she was learning to ride her bike.

Around Thanksgiving, bulldozers showed up and started moving trees and dirt on several empty lots on our street. We were so excited to see them finally building again!

It was kind of cool to watch them build the house. Also,very annoying at times with all the trucks and equipment making noise and crowding up our cul-de-sac.

The house sold in the spring and we have been wondering who our new neighbors would be? Rachel was hoping for a family with kids. Raphael and I just wanted nice and normal people. This past week, a moving truck showed up and the new neighbors started moving in!

Raphael met the neighbors this past weekend. We plan to take over some cookies and introduce ourselves this weekend. So happy to finally have neighbors!

Alphabet Summer -Letter H

On Sunday we skipped church and drove up to a little town called Helen. The entire town looks like a German village.

Helen is a tourist type of town and has lots of little shops and restaurants. There are several national parks with waterfalls and hiking and the Chattahoochee River.  During the summer it is popular to float in an inner tube down the river, so that is how we started our day.

I wanted to try floating the river last summer, but we ran out of time. So I was excited for us to give it a try this summer. We went with the Cool River Tubing Company.

    They had hundreds of inner tubes! Lots and lots of people float the river each summer. We grabbed a tube and headed to the bus that takes everyone to the river.

We had three tubes- Rachel and I had our own and we were tied together. Raphael and Rebecca were together on a tube. The water was cold, but felt really good because it was a hot day.

The girls loved it. Rachel and I did manage to float into just about every big rock there was. And twice we flipped out of our tubes. Rebecca did jump out a few times- thank goodness for life jackets!

                          We stopped and let the girls play in the water for awhile.

                                                              We made it!
                      We took the "short trip" which was about an hour and half.

After floating we went for lunch and then walked around town. We had ice cream in a cute little shop and the tables had little kids shoes on the bottoms of the chairs.

                                             A few other pictures of the town.

We had a great day in Helen.

Hope we can go floating again next summer.

Our alphabet summer so far:

I-M-T-C-W-Y-Z-S-G