A whole month!

I can't believe it has been a whole month since I have updated this! I guess time really does fly!! I have so much to post about, so I guess I will start with the most recent and go backwards-ish. First of all, today is Julianna's birthday! She is 9. Since it was voting day there was no school, and Jeff took the day off, so she was home with daddy home as well for her birthday. Here she is eating her cake. She always insists on posing, you can never get a picture of this child actually smiling, just posing.


On Sunday we headed out Boonesboro State park. It is the place where Daniel Boone's family settled. It was really fun. We only had a few hours there, I would love to go spend a day. We never even explored the trails, which was what we originally went to do! Here are the girls exploring in the Kentucky River.




Julianna was happy to have her dad around. I hung back to take some pictures and Ali stayed with me. Jeff, Julianna and Dixie were well ahead of us!


We walked up to one of the locks on the river and hiked up next to it. It was really cool!


Do you recognize these wild women? If not, then you probably haven't read the book "Holes" by Louis Sachar.


It is none other than Kissin' Kate Barlow and the Warden!


Ali had two very very loose teeth. Then last week as we were waiting in her school for out parent teacher conference, she suddenly said "MOM!! Where's my tooth??? I know I didn't swallow it!!" We looked around in a panic, then low and behold, we looked in the top of the drink she had just taken a sip of. There it was sitting on the top of it!



Here she is minus one tooth! It is the bottom on, her top two are ground down from grinding her teeth!


Then just a few days later out came number two. I can't get over how cute she looks with her toothless grin!



A few weeks ago we went to a park nearby to look for leaves. We went straight from school. I think the girls just look so cute in their uniforms!

What a fantastic picture of Jeff! He loves fishing at the park. Here he is sitting on a tree trunk hoping to catch one. The people you can see in the back, the guy caught a HUGE catfish while we were getting ready to leave.

And lastly, here is Dixie, or as Jeff calls her "The Baby". She crawled into the pillowcase and went to sleep.

Dixie and Buddy

I haven't written about the new members of our family, and they have been with for almost a week now. I think it is because I feel guilty. We couldn't take Jet and Simba (or Princess and Delta) because of the move. We tried to do what was best for them, which we did except for Jet. And I feel awful about Jet.

So... Jeff has ALWAYS wanted a Dachshund. Always. We were going to get one when we got here, but decided to wait. We wanted to wait until we had a bigger place, made more money...blah blah blah. Then last weekend I was on Craigslist and under the free section I saw a "Free to a good home" I clicked on it, and it was an add for a Dachshund. It was actually a dachshund and a cat who were raised together. They are both a year old. Dixie is a female, not a full blood dachshund, she is a "Weiner Jack", one of the new mixed breeds. She is 1/2 Dachshund, 1/2 Jack Russell Terrier. Buddy is her counterpart, he is a sweet kitty. Except towards Jeff for some reason. He attacked Jeff one morning. He walked to the kitchen and the cat jumped out and scratched / bit him on the leg. Pretty bad. Ouch. I think it is because the dog had been chasing him and bugging him all morning and he was in fight mode. When Jeff walked by, he didn't realize it was Jeff, thought it was the dog and just jumped. But he is sweet as pie with the girls and me.
Just for a size comparison, here is Dixie next to my tool box.

Our sweet boy Buddy.



Buddy must have had paper in his bed when he was a kitten because he LOVES to sleep on paper.

Jeff hard at work with "the little baby" on his lap

Does this look like a vicious cat? He seems to be saying "Please make her put me down. I am a good kitty. Please."

Dixie and Jeff

Dixie at the park. She has her leash wrapped around the tree about 1000 times.

"Here dinner, I mean here ducky. I nice
doggy!"

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!!