We spent day two at Dollywood. It is by far THE best amusement park we have been to! The lines were very short, the rides were perfect....there were enough rides for ALL of us to ride. Madison only had to sit out 2 rides that Kayla was able to ride. Jerry and I didn't do the big upside down rides but to be honest....we were just as happy not doing them. The girls had a blast. The park was clean and the people were super friendly...Jerry and I said we would come back here before Busch Gardens or Kings Dominion!!! To be honest I think it was better than Disney...just because we were able to have family fun and not be in huge crowds and worried to death about where the kids are...the longest we had to wait for a ride was about 10-15 minutes. If you have not been here I highly suggest you consider it a trip for your family!

for some reason I can't get the pics up....I will upload those later...tomorrow we are off to splash country

This is a view from our balconey of the resort.


Here are the girls eating in the dinning room
the view of Seiverville from our balconey
Kayla posing on the balconey

We got to Fairfield today. Took us about 8 hours but we stopped for breakfast and lunch...and the girls did an excellent job in the car!!! We were so proud of them....we only had to ask them once to calm down and that was about 15 minutes from the resort.

With all the election talk....not sure who I am going to vote for but the more and more I read about Obama I get awfully scared....this is the last bit of information that I have read and have seen earlier....... check it out.....

The Book of Revelations!

> > > This will make you re-think : A Trivia question in Sunday> > >

School : How long is the beast allowed to have authority in Revelations> > > ? Guess the> > > Answer? Revelations Chapter 13 tells us it is 42 months,> > > and you know what that is. > > > Almost a four-year term to a Presidency. All I can say is> > > Lord Have Mercy on us.!!!!!!> > > According to The Book of Revelations the anti-Christ is:> > > The anti-Christ will be a man, in his 40's, of MUSLIM> > > descent, who will> > > deceive the nations with persuasive language, and have a> > > MASSIVE> > > Christ-like appeal....the prophecy says that people will> > > flock to him and> > > he will promise false hope and world peace, and when he is> > > in power, will destroy everything .. > > > Is it OBAMA??

this is my second painting. The first one I have up in my bedroom in between pictures of my Dad and DJ...I think of it as their home in heaven. Kayla likes the picture so much that she wanted me to paint one for her too. I finally finished this one...I worked on it for awhile....took some time off and FINALLY finished it. I told her that this is the little town that they live in. I will try and get a picture up of their house that I painted.

Kayla is really interested in penquins and was very excited about being able to see live penquins when we visited Tanner and Evan in Ohio!

We just got back from Ohio! The girls had a blast...they keep talking about wanting to go back and see "the boys." Here are some pics of our visit....I have tons more but I just put a handful here:




Here they are at the aquarium....
Here is: Tammi, Evan, Kayla, Tanner, Madison and Me outside of the Aquarium and Cincinnati in the background across the river


the kids put together their own band....Tanner sang and played guitar, Kayla was a singer and Evan and Madison (not in the picture) were the groupies!


here they are on the front porch after Church


Kayla, Madison and Tanner getting ready to hit the park and splash pad! They had a blast at this...and I wish we had one of these parks here in NC!

On the view...they talked about real age vs. calendar age. Well I took the test and my calendar age is 35.5 years old but my real age is 36.3years old. My mom turned up about 8 years older than her real age...take the test and see what it turns out for you:

http://www.realage.com/reg/regvar/st1.aspx?cbr=DDCP2887&mod=LONGFORM

times like this have such mixed feelings with them. This story brings around such emotion for Jerry and I....one of Joy over Madison's birth and her being here with us....and then one of such sadness...the loss of DJ. We are lucky to have been able to share our story....helps to keep DJ alive. Here is the picture that Dateline has up for our story:

here is the link to see the clip on dateline:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25559012?pg=4#DTL_911

the girls love swimming...I wish you could see their hair...it is tinted GREEN!! They each have their own style...Madison loves swimming under water and jumping in and going down the slide...Kayla likes to stay in the low end and dance and HAS to wear her nose plug or hold her nose...not Madison. It is truely funny how different they are....even in their swimming!

Madison has really done well with swimming this year. She gives us a hard time about wearing her floaties...so we let her swim for a little bit without any on. She does really well...she tires out though. From this video you can see her swim....I think she is doing really well. She even jumps off the diving board and will swim to the ladder...I didn't get that on tape because my batteries died....of course! Her technique is almost better than Kayla's. Kayla doesn't really like the deep end and swimming...she likes hanging out in the low end.

Madison had a rough afternoon today. She decided that her hair had too much green in it (I guess she hears me talking about how the pool is turning the girls hair green) so she decided to cut her own hair!!! In the following pictures she is napping so I took some pics of her new haircut...she was so upset after I caught her that she wouldn't let me get near her so this is the only time I could get the pics. I am pointing to the spot she cut.

The girls and I are traveling to Dayton Ohio on July 11th - 15th to visit Tammi and her family. We are all so excited about going. The girls are trying to pack their bags already...and trying to figure out how much of their rooms they can take with them. =) We have marked it on the calendar so that they can count the days down until we leave....... This should be interesting...me traveling with them...by myself. I told Madison she was going to have to wear her backpack lease and she said to me...."like a doggy??"

Kaylas tooth has been loose FOREVER! Today Stacey (Jerry's sister) was over for Jerry's youth baseball teams party....so she tied some dental floss around the tooth and pulled it out for her...she was all excited and then when it was out the fear set in...=) she didn't cry but looked like she could at any second. She is so excited to get her tooth under her pillow tonight for the tooth fairy.

this picture is showing Stacey getting ready to pull out the tooth



Here is the tooth (hard to see because it is so tiny)...and Kayla with some papertowels in her mouth
here's Kayla showing off the hole in her mouth
better pic. of her missing tooth
another pic. of her chocolate face and lost tooth!

the girls decided that they wanted to try skateboarding. So Jerry went to the the shed and took DJ's old skateboard out so they could try it. DJ only got to ride it a handful of times before he passed away...maybe the girls will pick up where he left off!

Kayla trying the board

Madison trying out the skateboard

I took the girls to see this movie on Wednesday...It was pretty good. Scared Kayla in parts...really more suspensful than scary...and Madison got antsy the last 20 minutes....

Kayla planted two sunflower seeds at school in Mrs. Howards class and brought them home about 6 weeks ago (give or take a week or two..) =)

here are some pics. of her standing beside them now...to show off how much they have grown!

We went to the movies and out to lunch the other day. I took some pictures of the girls at their favorite restaurant: www.mcalistersdeli.com


Kayla getting ready to throw her pennies into fountain.
Madison doing her famous pose in front of her fountain at McAlisters....she loves digging in our purses to get out as many coins as she can!!

Here is Kayla getting Ready to go into her first show. She rode Carolina. She was very excited and I think Nancy has started something here! We are already talking about the next horse show in September. She is going to practice at the barn with the Longs and hopefully she will re ready!


Here she is all ready to ride...she was watching JoMarie in her show and was getting ready to get on Carolina.
Here is Kayla getting ready to walk out for her show.
Here is JoMarie and Kayla with their blue ribbons.
Here is Kayla after her show riding Carolina back to the barn.