The Best of Ireland.

One of the best parts of Ireland for Willie was the one round of golf he played. The day before he left he found a hard case for his golf clubs on craigslist. He picked the case up the day of his departure. All but his driver could fit in. He was able to find a really nice club to play at and he joined a few other young golfers. I remember him telling me that he knew they were good friends when they weren't afraid to laugh at his bad shots. Following are some pictures of Willie practicing, but nothing really comes from the course itself.

Civil War and Indian Ruins.

While we had visitors in August we took a trip up North a couple of hours. We visited a few ancient Indian mounds and a big battle site from the Civil War. The Etowah Indian mounds were pretty cool. The boys had fun running in the open fields.Parker and Jason became really good friends.A view from on the largest mound looking down at a few of the lower class mounds. The chief lived on the biggest and then his 'first counselor' lived on the next largest. The tribe would be on ground level.



Nikki with baby Auriana near the river where the tribe would catch fish.
The boys had to take some time to throw rocks in the river. It is such a boy thing to do.
Our family photo in front of a replica home of the Etowah tribe.
Chickamauga Civil War site is really large. You can drive around the park and then call a number on your cell phone to get the details of what happened at each stop. It's pretty interesting. A few years after the war they had a reunion of sorts and any group of soldiers (any size) put up a monument. Many of them showed the State they were from and some of them were similar in design but there were a lot of monuments around.




This was a tower than I think was built during the time of the war, but I can't remember the details all that well.
We had fun visiting sites that we hadn't considered before. Hopefully we can do more of these types of outings before we leave Georgia.

Curtains.

September just happens to be National Sewing Month. So in honor I sewed some curtains for the boys' room. I appreciated very much the help I received from Willie for putting up the curtain rod. I also appreciated the occasional help from Parker while I was sewing. He likes to put the pins away and push the button to get the thread to back-stitch.Another craft that I was able to accomplish was the 'cousin wall.' The boys have seven cousins that they rarely get to see. One way to help them remember their family is with this wall in their room.

Family Reunion.

I drove the boys up to Nashville over Labor Day weekend. Willie was out of town so this was a long drive with the two boys. I packed the van up and had 'everything' we needed. Come to find out later I left activities for the boys to do in the car as well as our new camping grill that we purchased just for this trip. The boys actually did really well during the drive. It took longer than google maps told me but we stopped a few times and took our time at each stop. We had fun. Once we made it to the campground we were the first ones there. The boys were entertained by the idea of camping. When I needed help with the tent Parker was there to help me. The rain shield was put on a little weird but the next morning Uncle Jared helped to fix it. By the time it got dark we were all settled and heading to bed. Rachel, Jared and Tori showed up shortly after. The boys were all over in the tent and ended up snuggling up to Rachel at some point in the night. We had a lot of fun on our camping trip.The best part about our trip is that it was midway to our closest relatives. Willie's sister. Why haven't we done this more often? Because we finally realized that we could make it possible and that we could make it an annual event.

Parker helped Uncle Jared to chop some wood. Parker would put it in the fire pit, then Jared would stack it nice. Then Parker would put the wood back in the fire pit, it was fun watching the process go through a few times. :)Parker helped Uncle Jared put up the little boys tent. I'm so glad the boys could spend time with their uncle.


THUMBS UP DUDE!
The kids taking a break from working. They loved running through the tent and out the doggie den door.




Morning at the beach. Parker took this first picture, not too bad.

Tori always had something in her mouth. Most of the time it was a rock or two but at the beach it was mostly sand or in this case the toy.
The Allen Family. Oh so cute!
The men getting to work while Rachel supervises.
No naps were taken this day but we did have a time of rest. I love when Lincoln snuggles up and just relaxes.

The men taking care of dinner.

Playing bocce. The kids loved throwing the balls down the hill and gathering them up.

Group shot.
Cousin shot.
Family shot, pretty good other than Parkers lack of interest.Our campsite.Family Home Evening game.