ACSC Graduation

Congratulations to that sweet husband of mine.  Trek graduated with his 2nd Masters Degree from ACSC here at Maxwell AFB.  It's been a crazy year of school for him.  TONS of reading, papers, & finals, but he learned a TON & really grew an appreciate for the topics he studied here.  He also had the opportunity to take a German class as his elective this year & really really improved to perfection his German language skills.  He took the class even before we found out we were moving to Germany.  He is SO grateful he took it.  He took his language proficiency test a couple weeks ago & got the highest score you can get.  He's all set for Germany now.

Graduation was fantastic.  He got to sit with his amazing flight & got to celebrate with them.  He really had a fabulous group of people in his flight that will be lifelong friends after this.  We are so grateful for their friendship & support this year.

It was fun seeing Trek all dressed up in his blues.  He hasn't had to wear them as much this year as his ABU's (camouflage).  I love seeing him in uniform. 

He was very proud to wear his German Gold Medal this time.  During his time here, he was able to take the German military physical fitness test which differs greatly from the American one.  It involves swimming in full uniform as well as several very physical activities.  He's SO proud of that gold medal.

Congratulations Trek.  You're amazing.  We are SO proud of you.

Father's Day

I know Father's Day isn't until this weekend, but with this crazy move & Trek leaving for CO for 2 weeks, we decided to have Father's Day 2 weeks early.  I felt bad because we hardly have any food left in our pantry (since we're trying to eat everything before we move so nothing is wasted), but I managed to make some chicken noodle soup for him with what we had.

He opened presents from my sweet friend, Nancy who sent him some cute socks, a Star Wars tie, & some candy.

We got him a new set of hair clippers, something he's desperately needed for a while now.  He was very excited.

I know it was early & kind of a drag compared to most Father's Days, but Trek enjoyed it & was happy we did something.  Happy Father's Day to the very best dad in the entire world.  Trek is my everything!  And he really is the best father in the world to our 6 kids.  We love him so much.

Tea Party

A group of ladies that I worked with on the play "Pride & Prejudice" decided to get together & have tea at the Smith Byrdhouse Tea Room here in Prattville.  This is the adorable little tea room we did the Jane Austen Tea at in March.  When I was Jane Austen, I didn't get a chance to eat or drink anything because I was speaking & talking to guests the whole time, so I was excited to come back & actually get to enjoy the food.

I ordered the princess tea (I felt like a princess too) which came with 4 finger sandwiches, 3 desserts, 2 scones with clotted cream & lemon curd, fruit, plus a bottomless pot of tea.

Their food was to die for.  Each of the 4 sandwiches was different & SO delicious.  They had a peach scone & a vanilla scone, both of which were amazing.  And the desserts!!!!  YUM.  Homemade Cream brûlée, strawberry cobbler, & red velvet cake.

I'm not really a tea drinker.  Being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, we don't drink tea unless it's herbal or fruit tea so I haven't really had any luck with herbal or fruit tea that I actually like.  These guys made me a believer.  I had 3 different teas & all three were amazing.  My first was a peach apricot fruit tea & it was my favorite of the bunch.  Once you add a little cream & sugar, it was like a warm peach drink.  The second was a fruity tea with mango, pineapple, apples, & berries & it tasted like fruit punch.  And the 3rd was an herbal carmel toffee tea which was SO rich & yummy.

There's nothing in the world like good friends & good food.  This was definitely an afternoon to remember.  It was AMAZING.

Floating Down The Creek

Prattville has been a great little town for us this year.  It is VERY small compared to the last few places we've lived so that's been a bit of an adjustment for me.  But over time, I've come to love it.

When we moved in last summer everyone told us there were 3 things to do in Prattville:

1. Go Bowling

2. Go to the Movie Theater

3. Float Down the Creek

We've done bowling & the movie theater countless times here, but we kept putting off the creek.  Trek has been wanting to float down that creek since we arrived, but you know me & water.  Ugh.  I can't swim, I'm terrified of anything water related, & that water is DISGUSTING & full of fish & snakes.

It's amazing what you do for those you love.  Trek REALLY REALLY wanted to do this, & sometimes it's very empowering to face a fear head on.  So we decided to float down the river on Memorial Day.  Everything in our house is gone right now, so we literally went out & bought tubes from Walmart so we could do this.  We're nuts!

I put a little note on Facebook telling my local friends that we planned on floating down the river & that anyone that wanted to come with us could.  We showed up Monday morning & 45 of our friends showed up right there with us.  It was INSANE.  45 tubes & kayaks on this tiny creek in downtown Prattville.  What a sight we were to behold.

We put in at the top of the creek by the Prattville Dam.  It's very shallow there & it was a large area so we could get everyone in.

The water was disgusting & brown & there were snakes, but everyone did really well.  I had Canyon in a tube with me.  He screamed most of the trip terrified, but I really believe that helped me through it.  I was more concerned at loving him & keeping him calm than I was about how scared I was to be floating down a river with nothing below me.  My boys did really well too for being nervous.  My girls (who are really good swimmers & LOVE the water) had a BLAST.

The view was beautiful.  Alabama is really a beautiful state.  It's so lush & green & full of plants.  I'm going to miss it.

The hardest part of our river adventure was steering those tubes.  The river wasn't very fast so you almost had to force paddle yourself forward, & you DID have to steer to keep clear of rocks, branches, & other hazards.

There were several spots we could stop & swim or just rest along the route.

After a mile of floating, I got out with the boys & some of the younger kids in our group.  Past the 1 mile mark, the river got a lot more dangerous & should only be maneuvered by good swimmers for the last 2 miles.  Where we got out, there was a 10 foot cliff & the kids & teens had a blast cliff jumping.  We spent over an hour there just having fun together as friends.

After cliff jumping, I took the boys & the younger kids of our group (& a few of the adults) back to our starting point.  We had strategically placed vehicles at the starting point, the 1 mile mark, & at the 3 mile mark so we could get people where they needed to go.  I went back to the dam area so the littles could swim in the shallowest water & build sand castles while we waiting for everyone else to finish floating the last 2 miles.

Trek lead the older group & they had a blast.  They had 2 inner tubes POP along the way, but my sweet husband, being the boy scout that he is, brought 3 extra tubes attached to his kayak in case that happened, so everyone was just fine.

They had a lot of fun swimming in the deeper areas of the river & found more areas for jumping.

I had fun with all the littles in the shallow water.  We spent a good 2 more hours there waiting.  The kids didn't even notice because they were having so much fun building sand castles.

We had a blast.  I'm SO glad Trek talked me into this.  I faced a HUGE fear of mine head on & I feel braver for it.  The kids had fun . . . both the littles & the bigs & everyone enjoyed themselves.  I'm so glad SO many of our friends came out to join us.

After we were all done, the teens all headed over to Cracker Barrel for lunch & fun.  We were all SUNBURNED.  We were all tired.  But BOY did we have a blast.

DeSoto Caverns

Since our time is wrapping up here in Alabama, we are in a mad dash to do everything we haven't done yet that we wanted to do.  Luckily that only consisted of 2 big things. . . DeSoto Caverns, & the Prattville Creek.

We managed to do both over Memorial Day weekend.

DeSoto Caverns was absolutely amazing.  I'm SO glad we went.  For my AL friends, if you haven't gone here yet, GO.  It's great fun for the whole family.

The park is set up like a park & amusement park.  There's a gift shop & cafe, the cave itself, & then a bunch of rides/games to play.  It is on the pricier side, but well worth every penny & that's coming from a penny pincher.  We had a blast.

The cave was beautiful.  There are cave tours every hour & the guides are great fun.  The tour takes about an hour & includes a laser light show inside the cave.  It's nice & cool in the cave & absolutely gorgeous.  It was fun learning the history as well.

After exploring the caves, we got to spend several hours in the amusement park.  You daily pass includes a cave tour & 5 rides or attractions.  We did most of the attractions together as a family, but did some separate as well.

First we played 9 holes of mini golf.  It was hilarious.  There was a creek that ran through the middle of the golf course & I think we lost more balls to that creek than we actually got in the holes.

After golfing we did the go-karts.  They have 2 tracks: one for littler kids & one for adults/teens.  They are pedal go karts which makes it a challenge.  It was SO MUCH FUN.  Trek beat all the big "kids"of course.

The 3 boys did the smaller track with the smaller go-karts.  Bladen & Craiger were cruising around that track.  Canyon spent most of his time just trying to figure it out, but he had a blast doing it.

After the go-karts we were hot & tired & decided to eat our picnic lunch.  There were SO many beautiful places to eat lunch here.  There were waterfalls, picnic tables, playgrounds, an actual campground, etc.  It was great.  We had lunch & then explored the park more.  There were so many fun things to look at.

After lunch & exploring, we did our favorite attraction of the day & we were having SO MUCH FUN that we didn't take a single picture the entire hour we did it.  I feel bad I don't have any photo evidence of the fun we had, but I'll never forget it.  Our 3rd attraction was the squirt gun maze.  They have this massive maze (kind of like a corn maze, but with wood walls instead of corn stalks).  It takes forever to get through it as it is, but then they give each person a giant super soaker full of water & let us run & scream & squirt to our hearts content.  We were the only family allowed inside during our turn & it was amazing.  An hour later, we all emerged from that maze SOAKING WET with giggles & smiles galore.

After the squirt gun maze, we let everyone pick one individual thing to do that they really wanted to do.  3 of the kids chose gem digging, all the girls chose archery, & Bladen & Trek did the climbing wall.

Canyon, Craiger, & Taya got to dig around in a pile of sand for gemstones & crystals.  They enjoyed that immensely.  They all found a whole bag's worth of treasures.  After digging them up, they washed them in the creek & washed their feet as well.

After gemstones, the girls wanted to do archery.  Lo & I LOVE archery.  Taya's never done it before & Cadence enjoys trying it as well.  I grew up shooting bows & even did archery in school so I'm decent at it, Lo seems to hit the bullseye every time.  Archery is her favorite part of girls camp every summer & she's amazing at it.  We had fun shooting 10 arrows at bullseyes.  I hit 7 targets, Lo hit 6, Cadence hit 3, & Taya hit 1.  We did pretty good.

Bladen & Trek tackled the climbing wall.  It was an interesting wall because it wasn't a vertical wall, it was horizontal.  It was challenging for them though.  Bladen made it all the way to the end.  I was proud of him.

And finally for our 5th & final attraction, we did the cannon pirate fight.  It was crazy fun.  We were in a cage with 2 pirate ships facing each other.  Each ship had 4 air soft guns & buckets of nerf balls.  It was hilarious.  They gave us a full 30 minutes to just shoot each other with those nerf balls.  We played girls verses boys & by the end we were all exhausted.  There was a lot of strategic planning, laughing, balls in the face, & smiles.  It was the perfect ending to a fun day.

Overall, it was a fabulous day.  We had a blast & would go back in a heartbeat.  Go visit DeSoto Caverns.  It's amazing.