Out With The Old, In With The New

Our Wild Adventures season passes have now expired.  We usually only get them every other year, but due to the kids having field trips to this park in back-to-back years, we were pass holders for both 2016 and 2017.  We have had a great time riding the rides, seeing the animals, and visiting the water park in the summer.  We even saw Andy Grammer and the Harlem Globetrotters here.  It is unlikely that we will visit in 2018, so we wanted to give our local park a proper farewell.  We attended the Christmas in the Park event to get one more go at our favorite attractions.  We also completed a scavenger hunt because we heard that they were going to draw a name from all completed scavenger hunt forms and the winner would get four 5-year season passes.  To complete the scavenger hunt, we had to locate four hidden hearts in the park.  We were given clues to help us locate the hearts.  It took us a while, but we found them all.  Who knows?  Maybe we'll win the drawing and get the 5-year passes.  Fingers crossed.

Since we won't be Wild Adventures pass holders this year, we decided to try getting Six Flags season passes.  The kids and I are in Atlanta several times a year with robotics competitions, so we would have the opportunity to visit enough times to justify the cost.  We can also use the passes at any Six Flags park, so we could visit others when we travel in the spring and summer.  Even though the passes are good at any park, the first visit has to be to your home park.  The kids and I picked up our passes after a robotics competition in November, but Brian did not have his yet.  He had a few days off after New Year's, so we headed to Atlanta to get his pass.  We arrived on the next-to-last operating day of the season, and it was below freezing temperature.  While there, we rode the Georgia Scorcher. The frigid air hitting our skin did not feel the best, so we decided that maybe we should put off riding the other coasters until the park reopens in the spring.  It's going to be fun.

Merry Christmas

 We had a very merry Christmas this year full of food, fun, and family.  The festivities began after the evening church service on Christmas Eve.  We went to my parents' house for our traditional Christmas Eve spaghetti dinner.  Everyone was there except for Sam who had to work.  After the meal, we opened gifts.  Everyone received many nice things.  My siblings and I all went in together to buy a new t.v. for mama and daddy.  Their old one was completely shot; you could barely see anything on the screen.  Needless to say they were surprised. 

Christmas morning brought gifts from Santa.  The kids each received clothes, shoes, a travel pillow, and a video game.   Later that morning, Granny Mel arrived and we opened our family gifts.  Brian and I gave the kids their own Vex robot, and they were really excited to receive those.

We went to Granny and Papa Buie's for lunch. I enjoyed catching up with all of my aunts, uncles, and cousins.  It was a great (and exhausting) day.

Christmas Lights

Christmas Day was on a Monday this year.  Because everyone arrived to town the weekend before Christmas, we were able to spend a few extra days with our family members.  On Saturday night several of us went to see the Lewis Lights in Hortense.  The Lewis family puts up a fantastic display of lights each year and invites the public to see them for free.  Not only this, but they also include a free hay ride and give out free hot chocolate.  We were amazed not only by the lights but also by the generosity of this family. The whole experience definitely put us in a festive mood for Christmas.

Church Christmas Performance

The kids Blast group put on a wonderful Christmas pageant this year in which they told the story of the first Christmas and sang a few songs.  It was so precious. 











Olivia's role was as one of the narrators.  She got to be on stage and interact with two of her buddies, and all three of these girls did a great job.

 Owen was Gabriel.  I always knew he was a little angel. 

 I cannot get over how seriously cute the performance was.  Each kid had a role, and their roles well suited their talents. 

 After one of the performances, the kids had a Christmas party and Santa showed up!  The kids weren't expecting this, and they all screamed with delight when he walked in.  Even the older kids were eager to sit in the lap of Ole' Saint Nick. 

I'm so thankful for the young kids in our church and all of the energy that they bring.

Snow Mountain

After the December robotics competition, the kids and I stayed overnight at Cassie and Nick's new house (which is super nice).  We got the grand tour of their new digs and played with the boys.  The next day Olivia, Owen, and I made a detour to "Snow Mountain" at Stone Mountain Park.  This is an annual event where the park sets up a snow tubing track on the large hill in front of the mountain.  The snow is manufactured, so it's really more like ice.  That doesn't matter, though.  The ice/snow may even help the tubes go faster (?).  We have never been tubing, but it was so much fun.  The tubes went down a lot faster than I thought that they would.  They had narrow tracks for single or double tubes, and then there was a larger track for family tubes that could hold up to eight people at a time.  We rode each several times.





We had a two-hour window in which we could enjoy the event, and we made the most of our time.  While we were waiting in line to get our tubing passes, we saw one of the kids' friends from school and robotics.  We ended up hanging out with their friend and his family.  The kids liked having someone other than each other to play with. 

 In addition to the tubing hill there was also a snow play area.  I think the kids liked this as much as the tubing.  They dug in the snow, threw snowballs, and made a snow (ice) man.

We had a great time at Snow Mountain.  We never get snow in our part of the state, and it was nice to be able to participate in a traditional cold-weather activity. 

Fall Robotics

The VEX IQ robotics season is in full swing.  We have already been to three competitions.  This year's game is called "ringmaster" and the students have to design robots that can pick up different colored rings and put them on poles.  Olivia and Owen's school has four competition robots this year, and both kids are on a team.

Olivia is on team A.  The A robot has finished well in every competition and has made it to the finals twice.  Olivia continues to be really interested in robotics.  At this point, she says that she wants to be an engineer when she grows up, and I think that her involvement on the robotics team has had a lot to do with this.

Owen was excited to learn that he had been selected for a robotics team this year.  He is with robot C, and his team has also done well- they even made it to the finals at the last competition.  This is Owen's first year working with the robots (whereas it is Olivia's third), so he's still finding his footing a bit.  He loves it, though.  He is really glad that he no longer has to go to the competitions and just watch.

 We continue to have the only VEX IQ robotics team south of the Atlanta area, so we have to travel four-five hours for every competition.  It's not so bad, though.  The sponsors always take the kids to a pizza place that has an arcade for lunch, and the kids love that.  Another bonus is that sometimes we can squeeze in a visit with Cassie, Nick, and the nephews.  Cassie even brought the boys to one of the competitions.  Olivia and Owen loved showing off their cousins to their friends.  We have at least one more competition in February, and then we'll cross our fingers and hope that we get a bid to the state finals.