It has been a pleasure to see my little boys having a true “Alabama summer” this year.

They’ve always spent a couple of weeks per summer here, but this year, when it’s all said and done, they will have spent one week shy of two full months!!

The funny thing is that our version of an Alabama summer looks a whole lot different than what a “Yankee” may envision. Now I mean no ill-will towards our friends from other regions. I love my Yankee friends. However,  the fact remains that we have lived all over the country, and we have noticed a great multitude of misconceptions about “The South.”

One might be tempted to think that an “Alabama summer” means that my boys have been spending all day out in the country, doing things like “mudding”, fishing, playing bare–foot, swimming in a “crick”, catching fire-flies, and shooting rabbits.

Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but we don’t actually have a farm or even live in the country.  

(It would be so cool if we did, though!!) Both sets of our grandparents live in very average American neighborhoods.  Alan is from a classic southern small town. My parents live in a small city.

-“Mudding” is more of a teenage activity, which I have never participated in. I believe it’s where you drive a pick-up truck down a muddy dirt road.

-Fishing would have been great, but it just didn’t happen this year–not yet, anyway.

-Playing bare-foot:  YES!!  We did do that–every single day, myself included.

-swimming in a ‘crick’–that’s what we call a creek– I did that a few times as a kid, but my children have yet to experience it. I’m sorry, boys. One day!! Instead, Mom took them to Water World, where a sudden summer storm came up, soooo we’re going to try again tomorrow!

-Catching fire flies:  We don’t really have those at my parents’ house. Alan’s parents’ house has tons, so maybe we will do that next week.

–Shooting rabbits:  Seriously? They are 1, 3, 7, and 8. They rarely even shoot water guns. However, I am okay with them giving hunting a try when they are older.

What makes our summer great is that the boys get to spend endless hours of quality time with their grandparents. 

Family time is so extremely important. They also get to have a break from the pressures of school and extracurricular activities. I get a break from the pressures too! Plus, we leave here with freshly renewed Southern accents. 😉

Basically, an Alabama summer isn’t much different than a summer anywhere else in the U.S., EXCEPT that it is insanely hot: wet, sticky, suffocatingly hot. If you want to enjoy the outdoors, water actually has to be involved.

So here’s what our Alabama summer REALLY looks like:

He tends to have a very serious expression for photos.

This is “Fun Land”, which I mentioned in my previous post: Glitter, Fun Land and Life in Limbo.  This is the brain child of Joshua and Caleb. They confiscated Granddaddy’s sprinkler, and all of our summer entertainment problems were solved. This has provided DAYS of fun.

He did the slip-and-slide a couple of times, but he needs one or two more years before he’s ready for Fun Land.

Yesterday, the boys collected toys, called it armor, weapons, and helmets, and had a great time running around the house as knights. The most hilarious part was listening to them. I hear this from another room:

Joshua: (whack)

Caleb: Nope! Try it again!

Joshua: (whack) (whack)

Caleb: Nope! I didn’t even feel anything. This helmet is amazing. Hit me again!!!

a few hours later….

Joshua: oooooowwwwwww!!!  ow ow ow ow!!!

Caleb: (whack)

Joshua: Owww!  Stop it! You hit too hard!

Caleb: But you said….

I walked in to find Joshua rubbing his arm, holding a flimsy paperback book.

Me: Joshua, a paperback book will never work for armor.

Joshua: It isn’t armor. It’s a shield!

Me: Well, that will never work. You need something hard and plastic.

Joshua: *still smarting* yeah…..

Dan, Joshua, and I went to eat at Joshua’s favorite restaurant: Olive Garden.

I took them to Adventureland.

We played arcade games, rode go carts, bumper boats, played golf, and ate hot dogs and Dippin’ Dots. At the end of the evening, as we sat in a booth, eating our Dippin’ Dots, Joshua brought tears to my eyes. He said, “Well, this was really fun, coming here, with you.  Thank you for bringing us here, Mom.”

*instant happy tears in my eyes*

Caleb chimed in, “Yeah, thank you for bringing us here.”

Daniel echoed, “Yeah. Tank you bringing here, Mommy.”

🙂 Pure happiness!

Last night was not too hot at all. It was probably 75 degrees–the perfect weather for putt-putt.

Wishing you all a very happy, bare-foot, summer!! We will miss you so much, Nana and Granddaddy!!!Psssssst!  Don’t forget to give me a vote for Top Military Blog 2014 at Voiceboks.com! Voting ends July 31st.

The post A Real Alabama Summer in Pictures appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Grand Canyon 2014

Today we took the day off from the endless driving and spent the day doing tourist-y things instead. My dad told us about this Grand Canyon Railway that takes you to the Grand Canyon, and we decided to give it a shot. We had such a wonderful time.

The Grand Canyon was amazing, so I have more to share on that next time.

This time I just want to share a few amusing quotes from the trip so far. Why? Because I love funny quotes.

1. We were all at Alan’s parents’ house a week ago, and Joshua spotted Alan’s book, Calculus for Dummies. Joshua was incredulous. “What!!!?  I’m not a dummy!”

Alan replied, “Oh, no, that’s my book, Joshua.”

“What!?  You’re not a dummy!!”

2.  After spending weeks with his grandparents, Joshua forgot to do something. I asked him about it, and he said, “Oh, I’m sorry! I’m getting older.”

3. Sometimes I am a horrible listener. On Friday, we were at Cracker Barrel for lunch.

Alan said, “They have Fried Fish Friday today. Or did you want a breakfast menu?”

I replied, “I don’t know. Did you know that it’s Fried Fish Friday…”

4. Just for the record, Alan and I have been eating a little too much Cracker Barrel on this road trip. I have probably gained about 7 pounds. I usually have to wear a belt to keep my pants up, and I noticed today that a belt no longer seems to be required.

What keeps us coming back to Cracker Barrel??  The campfire chicken and the corn bread. Oh, we are loving us some corn bread!!! (Remember, we are truly Alabamians, and always will be).

Tonight, after we negotiated with our waitress the ratio of corn bread muffins to buttermilk biscuits that we wanted, she walked away. I think she had some idea of just how important our bread is to us, but probably not exactly how far I’ve taken this.

I told Alan, “I didn’t tell her that I already have a whole box of Cracker Barrel breads and jellies stuffed into my suitcase.”

Alan joked, “Yes, we don’t want to eat the bread. We just like to collect the bread and put it in our suitcase.”

For some reason, we just busted out laughing at this. Okay, Alan chuckled, and I laughed hard for about five minutes about all the bread in my suitcase. People at other tables were staring. In fact, even now, I can’t even type it without giggling.

Sadly, there were no leftover muffins or biscuits from tonight’s meal.

5. Okay, this is not so much a funny quote, but we’ve been hearing a rattling sound coming from the back wheels of the van when we go over bumps for a couple of days. It turns out a bolt that was holding on our brake cali-something fell out, and we were a ticking time bomb for disaster. We have it fixed, and we’ll start back out to driving more tomorrow!

Is it possible to take a road trip from DC to California without having some type of car trouble? This makes our second car issue in one trip.

6. Okay, last one. We talked to the boys on the phone yesterday. It was PRECIOUS. Joshua was really good about talking to us. Caleb said he didn’t want to talk to us.

Then Daniel got on the phone and said, “Me Daniel!…(a few seconds of silence on his side).. Bye.”

He misses his mommy, but he is having a blast at Nana and Granddaddy’s house. Ya’ll are so wonderful to do this for us!  Thank you!!!

If all goes well, we could be finished with this road trip Monday evening, Pacific time. Knowing us, and all our little tourist stops, it will be more like Tuesday. Hope you all have a great week!!

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If you come to our house this week, it will look like we plan to stay another year. There are no boxes to be seen, and all of our stuff is still sitting in its regular old place. That’s the beauty of a military move. They actually send a team of “packers” to your house, and in 2 or 3 days every single item we own–minus candles and cleaning products–will be boxed up. Once it’s all packed up, they load it up on the truck, and this whole shabang will be packed up and shipped off in only five days.

Our packers arrive on Monday!!!!  Aughhh!!!  I can’t believe it! We are less than one week out!!!!

If none of the actual moving starts until Monday, why am I all in a tizzy??? Well, first of all, the anticipation–oh, it’s a killer–but really there is just way more involved than just packing and shipping.

There are endless service providers to book to prep this house for new tenants. This particular lease requires a chimney sweep, gutter cleaning, of course a house cleaning, plus a carpet cleaning. (Thankfully, I have a husband who knows I’m a phone-phobe, and he has handled all this for me!)

Oh, but the fun doesn’t end there. We have to make sure that all of our children are squared away with shots and dental cleanings because who knows how long it will be before we’re settled into our new place?

So guess what happened this week? Caleb had four cavities, Daniel started complaining that his ears hurt, my hay fever is out of control, and as of today, John David has a fever.

Nope, the fun just never stops. Tomorrow Caleb will be getting fillings. I took Dan to the doc yesterday, and he is okay. I’m living on Benadryl and Zyrtec and still wishing I could soak my eyeballs in ice water…that notion may be lost on you non-itchy eye allergy sufferers….and if JD has a sleepless night tonight, he will be whisked to the doctor tomorrow too.

Sleepless nights almost always mean ear infections around here!

Really, I should be in bed. Do I say that on every single post??

It’s a slightly inconvenient time for everyone to be sick, but I’m just thankful it’s not throw-up.

Okay, enough about moving. Here’s one cute kid quote:

Me: (spotting Caleb walking down the stairs) Caleb, did you finish your homework?

Caleb: *looks surprised* Yes.

Me: That’s so great, Caleb! Good job! That’s wonderful. Okay, I’m going to go check it.

Caleb: …..Oh, and I knew it so well that I just didn’t even write it down. I knew it SO WELL that I just left it all blank.

Me: :/

Me: (I laughed. How could I not?) Oh hahaha, Caleb. Get upstairs, and you are getting all of this finished right now.

Kids can be surprisingly wise….

Joshua, for the last few months, has taken to sleeping in the clothes that he plans to wear to school the next day. He says, “That way I don’t have to waste time in the morning getting dressed.”

Genius!

One last thought:

It never ceases to amaze me how different my 3rd child 3-year-old problems are. The first two were so innocent at 3. Daniel has two older brothers, so he has a lot more street smarts, and he’s very talented at picking on his brothers. Tonight he was just walking around saying, “Caweb stupid Caweb stupid Caweb stupid” just to get a great big rise out of Caleb. Classic, I know, but the other boys never did this.

Later I heard him working hard at tormenting Joshua with a similar tactic. I wish I could remember what he was saying that time. It was rather clever. Unfortunately, 2 Benadryls and a zyrtec have left me with very little brain activity.

So here’s a few cute kiddo pictures, to make up for my forgetting all the funny stories:

Daniel handed JD the yo-yo, and then he purposefully wrapped himself up in the string…..over and over again. A good time was had by all. 🙂

11 months

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