Family Day at Red Clay

Sometimes it's nice to get away from the busy-ness of our everyday lives and simply relax in nature with those that we love. So we drove out to a nice State Park and had a lot of fun! Here are some of our moments:



The park has a replica of an old Indian village, and this is supposed to be a corn barn. The kids thought it was the perfect playhouse!

The water in the creek was cool and refreshing, and Aile has a blast finding tons of little snails!


Brenner could not allow himself to miss out on the fun his sister was having, so he played in the water too. But you can see he had to take a minute to get used to the idea of actually getting his feet wet --and dirty!

New Yoga Pose

This one is called Yummy Baby Toe. Caelum has perfected it.

Aileana's New Hobby

Here's Aile the very first time she tried on the new roller skates Nonni gave her for her birthday. About five minutes before this picture was taken, she was also all decked out in her helmet, knee pads and elbow pads. She looked ready to take on the challenge with full force! But I missed that picture, so here she taking a break to rest against the wall. She has now traversed that hallway innumerable times and is getting quite good at her new skill!

Nonni's Visit--Part 2

Continuing our tour around Chattanooga sites to see, we headed up to the top of Lookout Mountain to Point Park and enjoyed walking the paths and taking in the spectacular views of the valley below.

Nonni's Visit--Part 1

We went touring around visiting some attractions in The Scenic City (that's Chattanooga) with Nonni and Grandpa Jim at the beginning of August. We had beautiful weather and wanted to get outside as much as possible. (Although the kids LOVED swimming in the pool at the hotel, so we did have some relaxation time too!) Brenner's absolute favorite place we went was the Chattanooga Choo Choo. He still asks me several times a week when we can go back!




The first thing we did at the Choo Choo was ride this old trolley. It used to be in service in New Orleans, so the trolley driver informed us. There was only one other couple on board with us, so the man let Aile and Brenner ring the bell at all the crossings. That was definitely a hit!




When we got to the end of the trolley line, Aile asked how we would get back to where we started. The man explained to her the trolley system and how stays on track. He told her that he would simply go to the other end of the trolley and start going back the other way since the trolley can't turn around. The neat thing was that to enable the passengers to continue riding forward, all the seat backs could be flipped over so we could all turn around. Aile and Brenner were quite impressed with this phenomenon, and enjoyed going down the row flipping all the seats. :)

Happy Birthday, Kara!

At the end of July, we had a fun day at Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate cousin Kara's birthday. Who ever knew a guy dressed up as a dancing mouse would provide so much entertainment...

Food, yummy food!

Yeah! Caelum is now among the ranks of rice cereal eaters! (Actually, since I'm so far behind in this blog, he is now eating a variety of fruits and veggies as well! His faves are sweet potatoes so far.) Anyway, here are a few photos of his very first non-nursing experience: