Summer is almost over...

... thank God. I know I shouldn't complain, and I really do love the weather here most of the time, but this summer has been crazy. Birmingham had a record-breaking heat streak of 50 consecutive days with temps above 90 degrees (heat index in the 100's). The old record was 37 days, set in 1932. The last few days have only been in the upper 80's, but are supposed to go back up again this week. Beck's bike has cobwebs on it, it's just too hot to ride. I CAN NOT wait for it to cool down a little so that we can spend more than half an hour outside at a time.

So, let's see, what have we done these past few months? Lots of Super Mario Bros. for Wii has been played in our house. Maybe a little too much, actually. Beck is completely obsessed with all things Mario, and when we tuck him in at night we play a game he made up called "Mario hints", where you guess what place or character from the game he is thinking of. We also play "Mario favorites" where we talk about our 5 favorite things from the game. Did I mention that he is obsessed? Maybe we all are a little bit, I myself was pretty excited when I finally beat the last board...

Beck started kindergarten at Hoover Christian School, which is right down the road from us.

We were a little apprehensive about sending him to a Seventh Day Adventist school, but so far everything seems fine. He does come home telling us really funny and mixed up things that he learned during the religious portion of the day. The other day I asked him what he learned at school that day and he said "Well, God was having a meeting and Lucifer wanted to come, but God wouldn't let him come to the meeting, so he went and hurt all the children". Hmmm, that's not really how I remember the story going, but it's pretty funny anyway. Beck also told us that God's family was made up of "God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spearmint". I just hope he's actually learning something important (like reading and math) at this school. Like most kids, he isn't that forthcoming about what he does every day, but we have heard from his teacher that he is very advanced in his reading and is a "great kid."

Baylor moved up to the "Busy Bees" class at the daycare. This is the class where they do the hardcore potty training, so being the lazy parents that we are, we are hoping they will do the majority of the dirty work for us. The past few months his language has exploded and now I understand what he is saying about 80% of the time. He absolutely loves to sing, especially "Twinkle Twinkle"and "Wheels on the bus." Most mornings when we go to get him out of bed he is laying there, rolling around and singing loudly to himself. So far his terrible two haven't been that terrible, usually only if he missed a nap or didn't get to do something that he really wanted to do. He still lets me baby him a little, and is always down for a snuggle. The best part is that now he is getting old enough to play with Beck, and the two of them will go off together and do things and mostly get along. Baylor loves to follow Beck around and try to do whatever he is doing. He is also perfectly content to just sit and watch Beck play Mario.

Here are some pictures that I have taken over the past few weeks with the camera on my new iPhone 4. The quality isn't too bad, for a cell phone, as long as you hold it perfectly still. I will probably still take my other camera along for important events, but for just everyday things the iPhone has been great!

These next pictures are from our favorite hiking spot, Moss Rock Preserve. When you first go in the entrance there is a tree that the boys love. We call it the "knee tree," since it looks like a skinny leg with a knobby knee.

Beck spent the rest of the hike insisting I take pictures of his weird poses.

He's a strange child, but we love him anyway.

These last couple are from today's trip to Krispy Kreme, which is also right down the road, and a favorite of all three of my boys.

Chattanooga- Day 3

Our last day in Chattanooga we managed to squeeze in some breakfast, some more pool time, and then a trip to the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum for a ride on the Missionary Ridge Local.

Rob was happy to wear all of his Tennessee gear proudly, without getting the usual dirty looks from all the Alabama/Auburn fans.

It was incredibly hot, but the boys still had a great time on their first real train ride.

I highly recommend Chattanooga as a family vacation spot. Beck is still talking about how much fun he had, and showed his class the trip pictures for show-and-tell today. We also lucked out and the boys slept for most of the 2 hour trip home. They're so sweet (when they're asleep).

Chattanooga- Day 2

On day two of our vacation we started off with breakfast at a delicious yet not terribly kid-friendly restaurant called The Blue Plate. After scarfing down eggs and pancakes, we walked down the street to check out the riverfront.  Right there on the water is a nice little park, and even though it was already in the 90's, we stayed to play for a little while.

When we got back Beck was anxious for us to get in the pool so that he could show me everything that he's learning at swimming lessons. We had a good time just the two of us. 

After lunch and naps we headed over to the Creative Discovery Museum which was the perfect place to spend a hot afternoon. 

We were greeted by a steel drum concert. I like steel drums as much as the next guy, but it was a little loud.

There was so much to do. Unlike the McWane Science Center here in B'ham, this place is geared toward younger children, which is great. 

Grossology. The entire upstairs was devoted to a travelling exhibit called grossology, defined as: "The Impolite Science of the Human Body" 

Of course the boys loved it. 

That's Baylor trying to climb up the wall of pimples and warts. 

There was a lot more to do, but it took a little bit of effort to drag them away from that stuff. 

 No children's museum would be complete without a dinosaur dig, Baylor's favorite.

We all went to Cheeburger Cheeburger for dinner that night. The food was pretty good, and the kids got theirs in souvenir cars to take home. Grandpa and I both got milkshakes, mine was cookie-dough flavored and was gone in under a minute. That night Sessy and Grandpa were nice enough to watch the kids so that Rob and I could get out. We ended up at Hair of the Dog pub and had some Fat Tire Ambers and gin and tonics and pretended like we were young and childless again. 

Chattanooga- Day 1

After our plans for a vacation at Fort Walton Beach were thwarted by the oil spill disaster, we decided to stay inland and spend our family vacation in beautiful Chattanooga, Tennessee. Chattanooga is actually very kid friendly and only a couple of hours from our house, so it was ideal. Grandpa and Sessy met us there on Friday and we immediately went over to visit the Tennessee Aquarium, which is one of the largest in the world. It is split into 2 buildings: Ocean Journey and River Journey.

This male penguin kept bringing the female rocks for the nest that she's sitting on. Each time he brought her a rock he would put it down and then make a noise at her as if to say "is this enough yet?" and she would just close her eyes and turn her head away, and then he would go get another one and do the same thing over again.

Shark Bait!!

The Ocean Journey had hundreds of different jellyfish and other invertebrates (A.K.A. Boneless Beauties)

Once you get down to the bottom floor, the ceiling is glass and you can watch the fish swim above you.

There are little nooks where you can lay down and watch the fish swim over you. The boys crawled into one with some very nice and patient teenagers.

Some juice and tickle time...

Tennessee River

Touch tanks are always a hit in this family.

The boys were pretty exhausted by the end, but I could have stayed for a lot longer, there was so much to see. We will definitely be back!