Alabama: Day 4 - Monday, 4/26/10

• High: Visiting with our favorite cousins.
• High: Checking out the cows and farms.

• High: Crossing the log “bridge” and not falling in the creek. (Thanks Bobby!)

• High: Sharing tidbits about our family history to John and Renee. 

 

• High: Moonpies and Cokes at Taylor’s house.H
• High: Family reunion dinner – yummy food and great company.
• High: Hearing about Nana’s best friends Francis’s bus adventure to California to visit her not long after she married Papa.
• High: Driving around until we found Uncle Roy’s first hotel site, the El Rose.

Alabama: Day 3 - Sunday, 4/25/10

• High: Sleeping in!
• High: Driving to downtown Huntsville and checking out all of the old buildings and historical landmarks.
• Low: Everything being closed because it was Sunday.

 Harrison Bothers hardware store

First bank. Also, robbed by Jesse James (according to Iva Jean).

• High: Getting to see the "big Spring" where John Hunt founded Huntsville around 1805.  I've heard about it many times, but had never seen it.
• Low: Super windy!!

Overlooking the Big Spring

This canal ended up being a bit of a failure.  It was finally completed just about the same time at the railroad came through.

Husband in action!

• High: Walking around an art fair --> Taylor trying to see out from under her sun shade and also somehow finding a little stick and grasping onto it for dear life.
• High: Checking out the Tennessee River and having lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings.
• Low: Taylor's first taste of gum.  (Don't ask. Really. You don't want to know.)
• High: Checking out the new Gardenwalk and having dinner with Iva Jean.

Alabama: Day 2 - Saturday, 4/24/10

• High: Marshall Space Flight Center - So much fun to walk around and see all of the exhibits.  Especially the Quick monoplane.  (Built by one of the family uncles.  Nana remembered climbing on it like playground equipment in a barn.)

 

 

 The Quick Monoplane

Rocket. Cool!

Push Dad! Push!

"Just give me a minute here and I'll have this figured out."

Check it out!!  Moog parts!  Good job Space and Defense group.

 Front view of the Moog parts, with 2 Moogers in the background.

    

• High: Taylor's rain "bubble" for her stroller.  So cute.
• High: Relaxation time in the afternoon.
• Low: Dire tornado warnings on the tv.  Several emergency broadcasts for heavy rain, hail, flash floods, and a tornado.
• High: Huge rainbow after a period of heavy rain.  (The rain started and stopped so quickly!  The clouds were moving fast.)

• High: Dinner at Scott and Mary Carol's house.  We always have a great time with them and the food was so good!
• High: Getting through the day with no tornados!!

Alabama: Day 1 - Friday, 4/23/10

• High: Vacation!
• Low: Waking up at 4:15 am for our early flight.
• Low: Paying $25 per bag for our checked luggage. Dang airlines and their nickel-and-diming!! Just factor the darn fees into the ticket prices already!!
• High: Using my Dad's American Airlines gold member status to skip the long security line.
• Low: Security checking all of Taylor's formula for bombs.
• High: Taylor busy on the plane but pretty content overall.

 "Yeah, this is kinda boring Uncle John."

• Low: Taylor refusing to drink her bottle on descent and crying because her ears hurt.
• High: Chicken McNuggets for lunch.  Mmmmmm!!
• Low: Short flight delay in Dallas for plane repair.

 

 "What do you mean there's a delay!?"

"It's ok, I'll keep playing."

"Papa's fun to play with!"

• High: Making it to Alabama with everyone's luggage!!  Woohoo!
• High: Hilton Garden Inn turned out to be very nice.  (The fresh cookies at check-in didn't hurt!)
• High: Having barbecue at Iva Jean's for dinner. So good!!
• High: Checking out Iva Jean's fancy new bathrooms.

Guest bathroom

Guest bathroom

Master bathroom

Master bathroom

• Low: Weather forecasts for tornados the next day.  Eek!

Family Vacation

During the last week in April, our whole family flew to Alabama and Ohio to visit my Dad's side of the family.  We really wanted Renee and John to meet all of the people who they had heard about in my Nana's stories.  Plus, we were all due for a visit.  I plan to do a little high/low recap of each day with some pictures.  There are MANY MANY more pictures so let me know if you're interested in seeing more of something.  My overall high/lows for the trip:

• High: Getting to see and visit with the family, and therefor feel closer to Nana.
• High: Spending time with my immediate family. (We're all too busy!)
• High: Getting to know our niece, Taylor.
• Low: Missing my puppy!
• Low: Too short of a vacation. I would have loved a couple more vacation days at home before having to return to work.

Nala's pillow

Why is it that Nala likes to sleep with her head on the floor?? It isn't like her bed is too small. Weird dog.

Catching up

Sadly, our blog has been very neglected lately.  I've been taking pictures of things but not making time to blog about what's going on.  Here's a marathon of posts to get caught up!

April 9, 2010 - Bored Dog II/Travel

Hmmmmm ... bored dog again?? If so, I bet this scared the heck out of her. She's terrified of new or loud noises.

John has had to do a lot of traveling lately for work. He usually takes a trip every now and then, but there's been a run lately where he's been gone just about every week. I'd rather he just stay home so I don't have to cook and take care of the dog. Oh, and I miss him too. :0) Really, the only advantage to him being gone is that I don't have to wear earplugs to sleep at night. I really really really hate those dang earplugs, but I'd still rather he didn't leave.

In April, John had to go to India to help set up the quality system at a new facility Moog. The facility is in Bangalore (Bengaluru) and has basically been an engineering site but is growing and needs to expand its capabilities.

John was asked to be part of a team put together by the Aircraft Group Director of Quality so it was a pretty big deal. His trip was scheduled for a week, but the dang volcano in Iceland extended it a little bit. He ended up literally flying around the world getting there and back. I stunk a couple of cards/notes in John's luggage before he left so he'd find them on his trip. I love doing that kind of stuff! To my very pleasant surprise, John also decided to leave me little notes to find. I came home from work the day he left and found about 25 pink sticky notes all over the house. Nala and I had a great time running around finding them. We were also surprised by a few incognito notes as time went by. I loved it!! Here are some pics:


Yeah right!  Like I'm the partier!

I'm ALWAYS cold.

 He knows me well ...

 What!!?

This is one of the ones I found after our first "sweep" of the house.  The toilet seat cover was down so I didn't see it.  I'm not really sure why, but I scared me to death when I pulled the cover up.  Haha!  (I can't get this dang picture to rotate correctly.  It only turns when I upload it!)

April 3, 2010 - Going Away/Birthday Party

One of John's cousins and his wife recently moved to the Philippines to start a business and gain some first-hand knowledge of how it all works.  Depending on how things go, they hope to move back to the US in a few years and start something here.  John's uncle lives there and runs a clothing business so it's really a great opportunity for them.  We decided to throw a little going-away gathering for them so some of the cousins could get together and say goodbye.  It just so happened that one of John's other cousins was celebrating a birthday so we combined the two and had a great time!  We wish EJ and Lupe all the luck in the world and can't wait to hear about their adventures.  And once again, Happy Birthday Jared!!

EJ and Jared

 Lupe and her Mom

Ryan and Lauren

Kristie and Kirah

Birthday cake!

Riley playing with Nala

Jam session in the garage

April 2 through 21 - Sick!

John and I both got sick in the beginning of April.  It didn't hit John too hard and he was better within a week.  Mostly sinus congestion.  Unfortunately, I developed a sinus infection that didn't lose it's grip for 3 weeks.  Lemme tell ya something ... I was miserable!!  After 2 trips to the doctor and a couple of rounds of antibiotics I finally got better, but I was soooooo tired of not feeling well.  The doctor said that he had seen many patients who weren't getting better after the usual treatment.  This Spring has been tough for us allergy sufferers.  All of the rain this past Winter was great for the environment, but it has made the Spring pollens especially miserable.  Let's hope we don't get sick again for awhile.