More Lake House Remodel

The lake house is and will be for a while, a work in progress.  It is wonderful and is going to be so much fun this summer, but there is still a lot of work to be done.  This weekend at the lake, I got a picture of the hall bathroom that Heather and Shaw did a complete makeover on.  The bathtub that was in there felt like it was going to go right through the floor when you stepped into it.  So, they just ripped the whole thing out, expanded the area a bit and tiled a new shower.  It is awesome!  For the kids bedroom we bought bunkbeds.  The room is just big enough to hold 3 sets of bunkbeds, which gives all the kids a bed, plus one extra.  They have been working on putting the beds together, and this particular one was giving Dad fits.  He had to call in support.  I thought it was funny that it was taking 5 people to put one bed together, so I had to snap a picture.  I have been working on powerwashing the crud that has built up on the sidewalk and seawall for the last decade or so.  I don’t think that the people who owned this place before us did any yard work or any work on the dock and seawall.  I love to powerwash, it is so satisfying to spray the gray away, or in this case, the black gunk!  Here is the seawall, and you can see the line where I stopped powerwashing, it will be way underwater in the summer, so you won’t be able to see it then.

Last picture is one of a tree trunk that Chace and Dylan drug in from the lake.   It was just floating along, and they wanted it to compete with the one that Mallory towed in a few weeks ago. 

Brownie’s Cookie Sale

We had our first Cookie Sale at WalMart this morning. The girls all had fun, I think. We didn’t sell as many as we did last year at our Booth Sale. But, last year I think a lot of it had to do with out date. We were there at about 10:00 on Valentines Day. So, we hit all those last minute guy shoppers who were buying flowers for their wives. What goes better with flowers for your wife on Valentine’s Day than Girl Scout cookies? So, anyway this year – we didn’t do all that great. But, we did sell some, which was the whole point, right? I just won’t look into my dining room where all of those extra cases of cookies sit that did not get sold. We still have one more Booth Sale to go. We will be at the Tots 2 Teens consignment sale next Saturday, hopefully there will be a lot of hungry people going in and out there! 

Cathedral Caverns

We have been wanting to visit Cathedral Caverns for a while now.  It is only about 45 minutes away from our house.  This Saturday, I had a few inspections to do around Scottsboro, which is close to the caverns.  So, we decided to make it fun-filled day.  We started out at IHOP, so that we would all have plenty of food in our bellies and nobody would have reason to complain for a least 2 hours or so!  It had snowed a few days ago, in Madison the snow didn’t stick.  But, it did around the caverns and Scottsboro.  It was such a pretty drive too. 

The caverns are so much more impressive in person than just reading about them.  This is the kids standing in front of the huge cave entrance. It is the widest entrance of any commercial cave in the world, 25 feet tall and 128 feet wide.   Todd acting like a fruitcake inside the caverns.  Gotta love him! 

Here we are – the whole Fam nearly at the end of the cave tour.  This was right before we arrived at the point where you can’t go any farther unless you want to crawl through a 3 foot wide opening on your belly.    Here are a few more pictures of everbody goofing off after we got back outside.

Gymnastics

Lael has been begging to start taking Gymnastics again. Finally, we found a class that works with our schedule and signed her up. She loves it, seems to really enjoy every second of the hour long class. She is Level 1 and will move up when she masters a cartwheel, round-off, front and back walkovers. There are about 3 different places to take gymnastics around Madison. I knew several people who go to Tumblebeez, so that is where we decided on. What I didn’t know is that Tumblebeez focuses on tumbling only, hence the name – I guess. Ha-ha! Anyway, another one focuses exclusively on real gymnastics, like the parallel bars, the beam etc. That is fine, because tumbling is what Lael wants to do. I guess we got lucky that we chose the right one! She wants to be a cheerleader, so tumbling is where it’s at! I did not influence her decision at all, I’ve actually never talked to her about when I was a cheerleader. That seems like sooooooo long ago.

Lael thinks that I should watch her every single second. The first few classes, she would keep an eye on me through the window into the waiting area to see if I was watching, especially when she started turning cartwheels or something. There are a couple of other classes going on at the same time as Lael’s class. I must admit that they are more interesting to watch than her class. One is a class full of little boys. They are probably 3 or 4 years old. Oh my gosh, they are so cute doing their forward rolls and stuff. Mostly it looks like they just play with a little jumping and rolling thrown in for good measure. There are also other classes of older girls. Both Discovery, Liberty and Bob Jones cheerleaders go there for tumbling classes. They are a lot of fun to watch. Those girls in middle school are doing stunts that we only dreamed about doing when we were in high school. We thought an extension was pretty cool. They are so far beyond that, it is hysterical. Then I think about cheerleaders back when my mother was in school. Their stunts were cartwheels, so I guess I can see where cheerleading has evolved. Anyway, these girls are totally impressive.

The Circus

I was very excited about going to the circus and the twins were excited about going to the circus. But, I am sad to say that we were all disappointed. I mean, it was fun – but it wasn’t terrifically cool like I remember it being. The last time we went was when we were in Charlotte, the twins were 3 – and they were suitably impressed. This time, not so much. Caeden wasn’t really feeling well to begin with. But still – we were at the circus – COME ON! Suck it up and have fun, darn it! But, honestly I was disappointed too. The only really cool act was the 8 motorcycles that drove around the metal ball thingy at a bazillion mph. The only saving grace for Lael was the cotton candy. Caeden didn’t really want to eat anything. I did manage to get a few good pictures when we were down on the floor before the show started. So, I can still make my scrapbook page. It will look like we all had fun, although it might not have been the best $80 we ever spent!