Smith Lake with the Bantas

Brian and Shannon extended an invitation to our family for a long weekend at their lake house over the 4th of July weekend.  It was a change from our normal weekend with Steve's family, but our children were excited to try all of the water sports and spend several days with their cousins.  Thankfully the weather cooperated with us for our stay, and we spent a lot of time on the water.

Every emotion displayed here!

They were great hosts, letting us spread out and teaching our kids how to do everything.  The kids started off tubing, and it escalated from there to knee boarding, stand up knee boarding, wake boarding and finally skiing.  Preston caught on pretty quickly to it all, and wasn't afraid to try anything.  Bennett was more timid, but enjoyed the stand up knee board and gave wake boarding her best shot.  Preston and Christian even jumped off of a huge rock into the lake several times!  Walker was finally brave enough to float in the lake with his life jacket, but his highlight of the weekend was helping his Uncle Brian drive the boat.  It became his favorite place on the boat quickly!

finally happy in his life vest

"Captain Walker"

Preston wakeboarding

Bennett kneeboarding

catching some air!

Of course there was even more fun had at the pools in their neighborhood, relaxing in their hammocks, and just hanging out.  Everyone had a buddy....even Walker.  Their neighborhood, Silverock Cove, is filled with young families so there were children everywhere.  Brian and Shannon, along with Reed and Melanie Nitto, seemed to know a great deal of them too. 

The girls enjoyed baking a cake for the festivities on July 3rd with Melanie, and the boys had a ball helping light fireworks for the big show later that evening.  There was a little down time in the afternoons, but we otherwise stayed pretty active until we pulled out late afternoon on the 4th.

That tongue...always out!

Walker loves Lucy!

Thank you Brian and Shannon for sharing your beautiful home with us!

Vail Getaway

Four Seasons Bears

Steve travels all of the time to visit clients, visit job sites, visit BV offices and attend conferences.  Most of the places he goes to aren't glamorous, but his most recent trip was in Vail so he could attend a conference.  Initially I didn't think I could swing it, but his parents stepped in again to watch our children, so I snuck away with him for 5 days.

The trip went very smoothly with our flights, dinners and weather.  Steve went to work, and I got to relax!  We had dinners every night, but we made time for ourselves too.  We arrived Sunday night, checked into our room at the Four Seasons (which was very nice), freshened up quickly and met some folks for dinner.  Monday morning, we woke up early - unable to sleep we decided to take an early morning walk, and grab breakfast.  The Little Diner was great, and filled our bellies.  Steve showered and attended his conference and I packed my backpack and went on a hike. 

Atop Eagle Baum Gondola, view of Mt Holy Cross in background

I rode the Eagle Baum gondola up (takes you about halfway up the mountain), and then I chose a couple of trails to hit from there.  One was a very short one with incredible views, and the other was supposed to be a longer one to the other gondola.  Somewhere along the way I got off track, and ended up at the very peak of the mountain instead.  I didn't mind the extra steps, as the view was awesome!  But since I didn't really know where I went wrong, I decided to look at the ski map, and go down a ski run to the other gondola.  It was a fun walk/run down the hill, but boy it would have been easier with snow and skis. When I made it there, I decided to just keep on walking, across to the other gondola on a fairly flat trail.  Then I enjoyed a cold beer, and rode the gondola back down.

the sign says it all....what a great hike!

Look what I found at the top...SNOW!

At The Tenth, at the top of Gondola One

Steve and I met up late afternoon and went to our early dinner at the top of gondola one, The Tenth.  After dinner we met up with a few folks for more cocktails, before calling it quits at 1:00am!  Needless to say, we slept in some on Tuesday and then grabbed breakfast.  Steve then attended the conference and I decided to tackle another trail.  This time I started at the bottom of the mountain on Berry Picker.  This trail took me up to the Eagle Baum gondola winding through the woods with views of the beautiful aspens, waterfalls and wild flowers.  Though I went in the heat of the day, I wasn't terribly uncomfortable.  However, this hike was a very steep 2100 vertical feet that I managed to conquer in 1 hour 25 minutes.

beautiful scenery along the way

Atop Eagle Baum Gondola with the sunset

Steve met me at the base, and we changed clothes and hit the pool!  The pool at our hotel was so pretty, with lots of umbrellas, a fireplace for those chilly days, and wait staff for our every beckon call.  It was a relaxing couple of hours, before showering for yet another dinner.  That night, the view was nice, but the food wasn't, so we cut out and went to Mountain Standard.  There we enjoyed a couple of appetizers and drinks at the bar by ourselves before calling it a night.

In Beaver Creek Village

Wednesday, our final fun day, was by far our laziest day.  We slept in, and then drove over to Beaver Creek to explore.  We had a delicious pizza lunch at the Blue Moose, and then came home and napped before our white water rafting trip.  Mid afternoon we were picked up and taken to Avon to get our gear.  Then we all piled into vans and headed to our drop off for our trip.  It was a cloudy day, and the water was even colder than I expected it to be, even with a wetsuit, booties and a raincoat.  However, our guide was great, and the class 3 rapids were a lot of fun. Our last night, we dined at the acclaimed Sweet Basil.  Everything was just as divine as we had heard, and was a great way to conclude our trip.  Not sure if we will ski in this area this winter, but we both agreed that summers out west are awesome, and a welcomed break from the humidity of Alabama!  There are many things to do outside, and I am confident our children would have a ball out there too.  We will definitely return sometime to this beautiful area!

Class 3 Rapids along the Eagle River

Camp Winnataska, Round 2!

The kids have absolutely loved all of their experiences with Camp Winnataska, so it was a given that they would return again this summer.  As you know, Bennett chose to go for two weeks, but they both chose to go the same week as all of their Shades Cahaba friends in June. 

Preston got settled in his Siesta hut quickly, with a fun group of boys, but we knew his counselors were in for a wild week with that crew!  I captured one group photo before we departed, but then Pres was begging me to leave and to take my camera with me.

Cooper, George, Cade, Luke, Pres, Jack, Boone and Hayes (and 1 new kid)

Bennett was in the Cherokee hut again, but this time on the other side along with all of her sweet friends.  We got her settled in quickly, but Walker was not happy about leaving his "B-B."  We captured one group photo (that Walker had to be in as well), and then left with only one child.

W, Caroline, Carmen, Laken, Maddie, Abigail, Madeleine Anne, B and Mary Martin

Though we can send them notes throughout the week, we never heard a word back (except once, more on that later).  Preston did a better job finding the camera so there were many more pictures of him throughout the week, but I can tell from all of these pictures that they both had another terrific time!  Nothing better than becoming more independent, making new friends, creating memories and spending a week away from us to make the heart grow fonder.  Pres welcomed us with HUGE bear hugs and tears, while our big girl was more excited to see her baby brother.  Though we got a hug from her too, Bennett and Walker have a special bond and were happy to be reunited.

Indian Night - mean boys!

Late every night, photos were uploaded to the camp's private portal where only parents who have  children attending camp there can view the pictures.  So each morning it became my routine to sip on my coffee and go through the previous day's pictures.  So you can imagine my surprise when on my birthday, I saw this picture:

This photo made me cry like a baby, and I still well up with tears when I see their creativity and birthday message!  I think Daddy reminded them through email about my upcoming birthday, but what a surprise!  Favorite picture from all week....FOR SURE!

Ed's Pet World came to visit camp

Celebration of all holidays - P was St Patty's Day

Country Night

Holy Grail Night - when they burn the bridge and rebuild it overnight

Bennett always gets attached to her counselors

Finally Reunited!

All Stars Season

Typically for these posts, I try to be real, yet positive.... because nothing is that bad when you reflect back on it.  However, this year Preston participated in the All Stars post-season baseball program through Homewood, which was so poorly managed that I feel I have to write about it truthfully.


When one thinks of "All Stars," one thinks they are the "better" players of the regular season, right?  Well that was problem number one with this year's program.  They decided they would rather allow anyone who wanted to play an extended season, rather than ask those the coaches who they feel deserve to be on a team.  Preston wanted to play, so we waited.

Initially they were going to divide the boys into three teams, an A, B and C team.  Problem two....there weren't enough "A" players to make an entire team, so the coach that was coaching that team got to pick who he wanted from the pool.  The rest of the regular season coaches then ranked the remaining kids (instead of all of the kids like they should have), and put together a B and C team based on their ranking. 

 

Problem three, the two coaches who volunteered to coach the other two teams had sons that were both on the "C" team.  So who should coach?  The father of the kid who is ranked higher?  Ask a father of a "B" kid?  Nope.....they decided to just divide up the B and C kids and make two crummy teams.  I knew we should have dropped out then, but Steve thought the extra practice would do Preston good. Sadly, we watched him just get worse and burn out over the course of the season.  It was incredibly frustrating!

 

Thankfully the season came to an end mid June so we could move on with our summer, and stop living at the ballpark.  Though he had sweet boys (and parents) on his team, Steve and I were over it and ready to just throw in the towel.  The upside...Preston got two cute under armour baseball jerseys with his name on the back that he loves to wear.  He also got to hang with his buddies at the ballpark for the extra weeks past regular season.

 

Thanks to Mimi, Papa and Uncle Dan for their continued support of the "bad news bears."  Even if they weren't at the ballpark, they helped by watching Bennett and Walker, who had enough of baseball after regular season ended.

Mimi, Papa and Uncle Dan still rooted for Preston

Most of the 7 year old All Star players



Goodbye Gregory

Gregory's extended family

For the past several years, Gregory has been in and out of the hospital, suffering from cancer.  He
was diagnosed at the young age of 18, and sadly lost his battle with cancer at 21 years of age on March 9th.  He was surrounded by his family, and everyone had an opportunity to say good-bye.  We attended his funeral back in March, but the true good bye was this summer when everyone gathered at one of his favorite places, Smith Lake, for a proper farewell. 


Lisa and Greg did a great job

thinking of everything...and all of Gregory's family and close friends were there.  Teresa wrote and sung a beautiful song, and then those that wanted to share a memory (happy, sad or funny) could do it.  Then they used a small boat that Greg built to send some of his ashes off to the lake.  The ashes were wrapped up in one of his favorite handkerchiefs.  They lit tons of Chinese lanterns and sent them off.  The evening concluded with lots of food, drinking and story telling.  I know that Gregory was smiling down from heaven as everyone celebrated his life!

sending lots of love to heaven

Since we were at the lake, the boys (Steve, Pres, Walker and Beck) stuck around for another day of fun....scooting b-b guns, skipping rocks, swimming and just being boys.  I had to depart early to pick up Bennett from camp, but when we all met up later that day...all of the boys were exhausted from all of the fun. 

feeding fish (dirty feet and all)

throwing rocks

Goo giving Preston pointers on shooting

these boys love each other, most of the time