{ BYU-Tennessee Game }

Last Saturday Aaron took the five oldest kids on a little road trip to a BYU game in Tennessee. When we had decided to buy tickets several months ago it didn’t occur to me that it would be the 1st of November and that Tennessee may be just a wee bit colder than Georgia. The night before we looked up the weather report and it called for a chance of rain and possible snow flurries and COLD! Lucky for them, the precipitation held out, but it was still a very chilly game.

Even though I would have loved to go to the game, we didn’t think the little boys would have lasted 10 hours total in the car all in one day and might get bored about 15 minutes into the game, so I stayed home with them and they got to have a play date with their friends. Next year when Ethan is a little bit older, I think a family BYU game trip will be in order. Aaron sent me pictures and text updates throughout the game, and I was able to follow the game through Instagram. It was fun seeing updates every time they scored a touchdown or made a good play.

This picture is my favorite. I love all my little cheerleaders cheering on BYU for me! I love that they are all wrapped in their blankets and decked out in winter gear and still smiling! That’s some true team spirit right there-I think I may have wimped out,46 degrees it a little too cold for my bones.

I’m pretty sure from looking at these pictures that there were massive amounts of candy from trick or treating the night before that were consumed on the drive up there…at least by Abby. Crazy girl!

They were sitting behind the end zone for the first part of the game. After the first quarter, they went to see Aaron’s friend Miles who caravanned up with them. They are office mates at work and have been looking forward to this game for awhile. Unfortunately, they had gotten tickets at different times so didn’t have seats together. Miles was sitting on the 50 yard line behind the Tennessee bench. The older kids got bored of that real quick, and headed over to the opposite side on the 30 behind one of the BYU benches. By the second half Aaron and the girls met up with them and they spent the rest of the game closer to more “true blue” fans.There were a lot of people there in the “student section” and our kids were happy to be surrounded by tons of other loyal BYU fans. The cheerleaders were there and the kids were loudly chanting along with all their cheers. I guess there were two Tennessee fans that were sitting in front of them that finally left after a while. Aaron said that Abby was the loudest and most into it the WHOLE game. I think that extra sugar helped!

Game fun via Brianna’s ipad…

They were happy they stuck on the BYU side because after the game they got to run down and get high five’s from some of the players. They followed the crowd out to the parking lot and met up with the players that were loading up on the buses and got a few pictures with the “hot players” as Brianna and Ashleigh called them. Here they are with #29 Andrew Mikkelsen and #23 punter Scott Arellano who had the amazing recording setting 81 yard punt during the game. The final score of the game was 27-7. Go Cougars!

 

{ Memorial Day at Callaway Gardens }

For Memorial Day we headed up to one of our favorite spots that’s not too far away from our house-Callaway Gardens. It seemed like forever since we had been there, and we were excited to explore some of the parts that our little kids hadn’t been to yet. While Aaron, Brianna, Austin, and Brooke headed off to get checked in for the treetop adventure rope course, I took the four youngest to the Butterfly Garden Center. Erika had studied butterflies in her class at school this year, and Scott and I read our caterpillar book many days at naptime story time. They were pretty excited to try to get to actually touch a real butterfly.

    

  

After wandering around trying to “catch” a butterfly, the kids were getting a little frustrated, and a little bored. Luckily, as we were approaching one of the doors we saw this little butterfly on the ground. I think he must have had a wing that was slightly injured because he wasn’t too quick to fly away from all of our eager little hands. Ryan tried to coax him onto his finger, but was a little unsure about actually picking it up himself.

Abby became our butterfly handler, and loving cared for her new little friend and passed him off from person to person to hold.

Scott was really having a hard time waiting for his turn to hold the butterfly, but when it was finally on his finger he wasn’t so sure about how it was tickling him as it walked around, and he graciously ended his turn early so Ryan could hold it.

After our walk through the butterfly center we drove over to find Aaron, Brianna, Austin, and Brooke at the treetop adventure rope course. The had just built this course in the last couple of years, and we had yet to try it out. The over 54 inches rule limited who of our group could go on it, with Brooke barely making the cut off with her shoes on. She was pretty excited to get to be with the “big kids”.

  

   

   

After a quick picnic lunch, we headed by the Discovery center and found a ton of turtles hanging out by the bridge. The kids were happy to find out that the turtles would eat whatever little bits of food they could find to throw to them. The turtles would fight off the fish to get even the smallest little morsel of turtle food, or crumb, or leaf, or other random thing the kids threw in. It was pretty crazy to see that many turtles in one place.

     

A swim at Robin’s beach ended out the day. After all of our activities the water felt really good. It was the first time we have been able to come with no stroller. It was really nice not to lug a big jogging stroller through the sand. The offset of not having a baby to play with at the beach, is then you have a toddler to deal with at the beach. A toddler with NO fear. Ryan loves to be in the water, and pretty much spent the whole day trying to swim to the “playground” he saw across the way. There was no convincing him that he couldn’t go play on it, or that some water was too deep for him. Lucky for us, the kids love to take him out swimming, so when Aaron or I would get tired of trying to chase him down they would take turns playing with him in the water.

  

And no trip is ever really complete without our traditional body burying of whoever is game(Brooke seems to be the lucky recipient this time), and building a sand castle with our expert castle building skills. Abby also thought it clever it build her own little “pool” on the beach edge (the beginnings of can be seen in the picture above). She would sit in her own little person sized hole to cool off, and it soon became the envy of all the kids and they set out to each build their own person spas overlooking the lake. The little boys were happy to just pool jump from hole to hole, until the angry cries from the girls were a bit too much. Luckily, we had a surprise ice cream trip to Bruster’s waiting for us at home, so we easily lured away our beach weary kids, and treated them to ice cream for FHE that night.