Ice Cream Social

Yesterday was the Ice Cream social and literacy night at the girls' school. What a blast! Ali's friend Callie's mom was working at it, so we got to take Callie around with us! Here is Ali and Callie putting on their shoes after going on one of the moon bounces.


All of the grades played games with their teachers. Here is Ali's teacher Ms. Randall, if you look next to her you see Julianna, then Ali then Callie. They played the game where you tried to get the Hula Hoops all the way around the circle without letting go of each other's hands.


Here is Julianna getting ready for her game. The thrid graders had to take off their shoes and throw them in a pile in the middle. There was two teams, they had to put a ball between their legs, run to the pile of shoes with the ball between their legs, then find their shoes, put them on and run back to their side with the ball between their legs.


Around this time she is thinking she can just slide them on.


Oh no! These nice new Nikes she got don't just slide on. New approach, push and push to get them on.


I think this one says: WHY DIDN'T I GET VELCRO???? Anyone who knows her dad can see how much she looks like him in this picture!


Here is Ali and Callie making glasses in the cafetaria.


Here is Julianna and her best friend in the whole wide world Cheyenne.


And here she is with her friend Christine.


And here is Callie, Sierra and Ali. Sierra is her best friend here, and was also her first friend in first grade.

And an extra special on of Sierra, Ali, Callie and Ms. Randall, their beloved teacher. Alison LOVES Ms. Randall. I love her, she is a fantastic teacher, and might I add a girl scout leader. BIG HUGE kudos for that!!!


We were also able to buy Ashland Elementary tee shirts for all 4 of us (they will be in in a few weeks), and talk to the Girl Scout lady troops for the girls. Julianna already has a Brownie troop, we have a parents meeting next Tuesday night. Julianna was not a Girl Scout before, and is very very excited about joining. I am very excited too, I think she is going to make a fantastic Girl Scout. It looks like I am going to be the leader of the Daisy troop (oh boo-hoo). Callie's mom is going to be my assistant. I am VERY excited to be her leader. I will probably also assist with Julianna's troop if needed.

Oh ya, and the ice cream was good.

College Football (Go Wildcats!!)

I never realized the enormity of college football. I guess because I went to a small college with a small team, I never knew how big it was!! Saturday as we were driving towards downtown we came across this.

And this.

Why? Because we were here!

At the UK stadium before the first home game of the season. We are hoping to get tickets to bring the girls at some point, I already got them both UK football jerseys. Lexington is so cool!

Fun new places

When we woke up Saturday morning, it was a rainy, dreary day. Jeff and I brainstormed, trying to figure out what to do with the girls. I pulled out the yellow pages and found alisting for a place that I had driven past. I went online and looked it up, it looked like fun. It is called Gatti Town, you can click on the link to see the place. We headed out with the girls, and we LOVED the place. It included an all you can eat pizza, pasta and dessert buffet:

A "midway" full of games, including this cool jump-rope game:

And a "sports room" where Jeff could sit and watch the Satuday college footall games!

The girls played games, won tickets and cashed them in for prizes. Jeff watched the games and watched over all of the stuff, and I ran back and forth between it all having a blast. What a great place!!!

On our way home we decided to go through downtown Lexington and spotted these great fountains. By then the sun had come out and it was a hot day, way too tempting for us!!! Of course Julianna went first, followed by Ali.

Next went Jeff.

And finally I took the plunge.

Alicat

Jeff and Julianna

Julianna loves the water!

The flag across the street through the fountain.

Luckily, right across from that fountain is this fountain:

We LOVE Lexington!!

Smoking

Jeff and I quickly noticed that a lot of people smoke here. I mean, A LOT. Like everyone. Back in MA, not many people smoke. You just don't see that many smokers, and those who do smoke tend to be embarassed about it. Not here. You can't go anywhere without seeing smokers. Jeff finally looked it up and saw that KY has the highest rate of smokers in the country. YUCK!! I guess that it makes sense, they do grow tobacco here, but still. Just because you grow it doesn't make it any healthier. I have also noticed a lot of people with walking around with oxygen tanks. Is there a connection?? Of course. So as much as we LOVE Kentucky, we aren't crazy about all of the damn smokers.

pictures from the pool

Another glorious day in Kentucky. We went to the pool yesterday to beat the heat. Of course I had my camera, and I started snapping. Here is Jeff talking to the girls.

Jeff and Ali playing. She had a bouncy ball and he caught it. They were fighting over it. Look at the laugh!

I managed to snap this great picture of Jeff mid-dive. Notice his nose is still out of the water.

I showed the girls the picture and told them we could try it. That led to quite a long time snapping pictures of the girls jumping in. Julie and I used to do this at Aunt Judy's house, but we couldn't take cool pictures like this back then. Here are shots of Julianna and Alison jumping in.