Grandfather Mountain for Abigail's Birthday

Somehow I skipped posting anything about our surprise trip to the mountains on Abigail's Birthday. We took the Wednesday off and Tuesday after work decided to tell the kids we were going to go get ice cream after supper. We rode up to Lincolnton to the Morgans Dairy Bar and Calf-A and got ice cream. By then it was 9 pm and we told the kids it was just too late to go home and we were going to go ahead and go to the mountains. We rode to Blowing Rock and got a hotel and were fresh and ready to go to Grandfather Mountain Wednesday morning. It was only 67 degrees up there and very nice clean fresh smelling air. I couldn't but keep saying IT SMELLS SO GOOD HERE! We went out on the mile high swinging bridge and then we found a hiking trail that was labeled AGGRESSIVE-PROPER HIKING EQUIPMENT REQUIRED! We looked down and everyone had good sturdy tennis shoes, so hey we were equipped! It was a 2.4 mile trail that at times you had to use cables to pull yourself up or to rappel down with. Some rocks were only climbable with ladders that were bolted to the side of them. This was one of the funnest trails we had ever been on. We were almost to the top of the "cliff side" when Brandon decided it wasn't safe anymore to hold onto Abi with one hand and only have one hand to hold and pull up himself. Emily and I went a little further on our own because we wanted to see the last ladder area. We will definitely be going back here to hike these trails again. Abigail kept saying THIS IS THE BEST BIRTHDAY IDEA EVER! We actually had 4 happy people in our party and we were so happy that we chose to spend the day there.

HAPPY 6th BIRTHDAY ABIGAIL!!!





Thank goodness Emily grabbed me before I went over the edge for good!!!  No... this actually looks like the edge, but there is actually a grassy area we walked to around behind this rock!





I took this picture about the place where Brandon turned around with Abi.  The lady in the green was standing at the bottom of this ladder that was pretty much on the side of a rock that we had to scale to get up to the ladder.  Brandon and Abi are teetering on  a mass of tree roots that just barely had enough room for you to perch to get over to the ladder.  It's hard to explain or even show in a picture how scary this actually was. 



Another ladder area-not so bad...

3 of the most important people in my life 1 mile above sea level!  High on Life!!!!

Summer Happenings!

Abigail had a waterful birthday!  We had about a dozen kids there even though some of our friends were out of town.  This seems to happen to poor Abi every year since her birthday falls near a holiday.  We also had two families that we are friends with out of town with their kids to play at the State Softball tournament so we will excuse them this year.  Haha! 

We just got back from the beach and I think all 4 of us are glad to be back.  We did have fun and the girls were able to do lots of fun things while we were there.  It just bothers me that you drive all the way to the beach and all they want to do is go to the pool.  I can drive 15 minutes from home and have them at a pool!  If I am at the beach, I want to be ON the beach, but I am the only on that feels that way I guess.  The water was too rough to get in and while the lifeguards were on duty at the beach there was no swimming signs out.  Depending on which lifeguard was out there you could only go shin deep to make waist deep if they were not looking.  The water was the roughest I had ever seen it and at waist deep it would beat you and pull you to death!   We did spend one day at the Alligator Adventure place.  I personally thought it was a waste of time and money, but Brandon seemed to like it.  The best part of that day was watching a dead alligator being eaten by 2 other ones!  I am not sure if the public was supposed to see that or not...

I guess we will gear up now and get ready for our summer vacation to Georgia.  Can't wait to spend some time with the Johnson family and catch up with them.

Tyler Graduated!!! And Other Tidbits...

My nephew graduated this year from high school and will be off to Utah to work out of town with my brother's company until he saves enough money to send himself to college.  So proud that he is done and moving on to another stage in life.

We have started the summer off with a bang.  We are never at home so don't try to catch up with us there!  Leave a message and we may get back to you before the fall!!!  Emily went to softball camp at UNC-Charlotte the first 2 weeks that she was out of school.  They worked her hard and she got her exercise that's for sure.  We traveled several nights this past week to see the West Stanly All Stars play softball in Rockingham.  Congrats to them on their district win and they are going to Wilmington for the state tournament!  Even though Emily and Abigail weren't a part of the teams it was still good to get to go see them win.
We bought Abigail's birthday present a little early (the waterslide) so we could get as much use out of it as we could this summer.  Every weekend we have someone new over to play with them on it.  It was a good investment for the entertainment department.
We went to Wet and Wild Emerald Point this past Tuesday and we got rained out around 3:30 so we collected our rain check and went home.  We went home took showers and headed to the Speedway for the Summer Shootout because my brothers wife got us free tickets, but then it was rained out.  So our backup plan was to go eat at Hooters.  Brandon got into a game of trivia that lasted 1 1/2 hours and he won us free Intimidators tickets for the following night.  So Wednesday night went went to the baseball game and were handed free coupons for Arbys roast beef sandwiches.  At the rate we are going we are going to have a summer filled with free activities!  Aww Right!!!  Thursday night Abigail went with a friend to the Oakboro festival  to ride carnival rides and she got home at midnight.  Tonight both girls are with Brandon's sister at the Oakboro festival.  Tomorrow we are going with a friend to use a pool at the house of a Nascar driver! No I am not making this stuff up!  It's crazy fun around here.  I am wondering how long we can keep this up before we crash!  Well this is our past few weeks in a nutshell.  Hope everyone has a wonderful summer.