Lions and Gorillas and Slides!

Last weekend we made the trek out to Birmingham for Mr. Hudson's 4th birthday! We had a good time, especially since the weather had a brief warm up that day. Autumn had a bit of a "read too long in the car" tummy ache so to get caught up to the birthday boy (the Memphis crew was slightly delayed by heavy rain on the way), Autumn got a ride.

We arrived in the time catch the train which tours the Birmingham Zoo. The tour guide was cool and I told Mike I thought I could totally be a tour guide, haha!

Autumn got another ride just because.

And then we all got to ride this super fun slide! I seriously need to build one in the backyard because HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE??

I thought this one was funny because of my backback and stuff all scrunched in the tube.

Mike decided to live wildly and only hold on with one hand. Living on the edge!

Lindsay got a couple of really nice shots while Mike and I were in line including this one of Autumn and Lainey being cute. It's funny, I feel like I can see a resemblance between Autumn and just about every member of our families. I guess that's not too weird since half the gym thinks Lindsay is my biological sister and not Mike's!

The zoo's gorilla was only going to be at that location for a few more days before moving to a new zoo so they had this good-bye banner set up. Autumn signed it.

And then she decided it needed a little more work.

Gorilla by Autumn. I LOVE IT.

We got to hear the lion roar. I don't think I've ever heard one in person. We had moved on to the tiger exhibit when we heard this huge rumble. Autumn, Mike and I booked it back to the lion and just watched him roar a few times and then, his point made, the lion wandered off again. I really wish I got it on video!

This one is not a lion. BUT SHE THINKS SHE IS. Sometimes, at least!

We have another round of winter weather rolling in tomorrow afternoon or evening. If you're iced or snowed in or will be, stay warm and stay safe!

Mansfield Trip, Part 1

Ok, I still don't have Mike's photos from our trip to Missouri so this will be a two parter! Next week I'll probably post Halloween pictures sooooo we'll see when part 2 goes up! Anyway, we went to Mansfield, MO, for a couple of days over Fall Break to go to the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum. I have a suggestion to everyone: go on a festival weekend or it's pretty dead. There are 3 restaurants near the Weaver Inn where we stayed. Two were pretty decent, one was downright awful. Mike and I took pictures of each other taking pictures at the Mexican restaurant.

We were there on a rainy weekend so we didn't get to do as much trail walking as we expected. To fill the time, we went out to Whispering Oaks Winery and tried a couple of wines. We bought both of them because they were great but I don't think they were expecting any visitors. There were tours and cheese advertised buuuut there were, in fact, no tours and no cheese. They did tell us we could go look at the grape vines, though. So we did. 

We also hit this little roadside park. I googled it to make sure it wasn't a known ax murderer hang out because, well, I do stuff like that. There was a murder there last year but it was premeditated and the perpetrators were caught so we took the chance and hung out. Mike and Autumn had fun going through the rock piles.

And we all posed at the cute waterfall. There is a picture of me somewhere buuuut guess who has it? Yup. It'll be in the next batch. The colors weren't quite changing yet. It was still too warm. I can imagine the area will be even more beautiful when it's fully fall which is why it's too bad not much more happens there during this season. Mike and I went to Asheville, NC, for our honeymoon 12 years ago this same weekend and they make a living off their color season. I assumed, incorrectly, that the museum town would do something similar.

Mike had to hang off rocks for a photo op!

I'll write more about the museum next time but for now I'll just tell you that we weren't allowed to take photos at the museum and it was raining while we were there so we couldn't get any outside. But during a break in the rain, we went over to the Mansfield Cemetery and found the Wilder and Lane graves. Autumn was really impressed that Laura's daughter Rose was also a writer. On the back of Rose's grave there is a quote from Thomas Paine: “An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot. Neither the channel nor the Rhine will arrest its progress. It will march on the horizon of the world and it will conquer.” We wandered around the graveyard and looked at the graves dating way back to when the area was first settled. Pretty crazy and sometimes very sad.

After the museum and the cemetery, we had lunch at the bad restaurant and then went over to a cute used book store that had three kitties living inside! This kitty did NOT want Autumn to read this book about dogs!

We stayed at the Weaver Inn which was probably the nicest place in town! The room was pretty cozy if a bit loud. If we ever go back, I want an upstairs room to get away from the traffic noise! Autumn was nice and snug during rest time on Saturday. Best thing about the stay? Freshly baked cookies every afternoon!

I have a few more photos to share but I'll hang on to them until I have some more photos from Mike's stash. Next week: Halloween! The week after? Probably more trip pics. :D

Beach Fun Again!

Well, walking back in time a while, we had a short trip to the beach last month! Of course, here was the main event: Uncle Brad visiting from Doha!! It was great to see him and I am so sad that all my entrance photos are terrible. These two were pretty cute the whole weekend. :)

This was a secondary event. How crazy is the raft? It held all of us but I could only stay on for short bursts or my stomach would get a little unhappy. A couple people had to hang out and anchor the raft though. Without an anchoring chord or an oar we would have floated into what Autumn called "the deep blue."

The kids had a great time with the slide. Autumn eventually figured out that she could do rolls into the ocean and awesomeness ensued. This...this actually doesn't have anything to do with rolls. I just think Autumn's head while she's swimming is funny.

Going...

Going...

GONE. Autumn laughed SO HARD at her face in this picture. She cackled until she was rolling on the sofa. I mean, it's pretty funny but I'm not sure it's quite rolling in the aisles funny!

We were only able to go down to the beach for 2 days but we got a lot done. Saturday morning EVERYONE, all the Colleys, got up before dawn to get dressed and prepared for family photos. We each did photos with our little branches of the family and then everyone together. We don't have any previews or finished photos yet but here we are some time after we started sweating completely through our clothing.

 All the grandkids had individual photos except for Miss Ellie who wasn't have ANY of it. So, at the end of the day, we took her down to the beach and I tried to get a few photos. With Autumn's help, we got some cute ones! Ellie was loving this hairbrush so we sat her down and let her play while I worked on my settings and de-fogged my lens. Then Autumn very gently took the hairbrush.

Here's my photographer assistant! After the hairbrush removal seemed to go smoothly, Autumn slooooowly took the pacifier.

Ellie wasn't sure how she felt about that. We did get some fun photos. I'm waiting to see what ours look like from the photographer and then I'll edit the ones I got of Ellie to try to match the brightness he goes with.

Autumn had other fun with Miss Ellie. Seriously, she's a little Mike with the kids! And can you believe how stinking long her legs are these days? Autumn is not, by a long shot, the shortest kid in her class which is pretty unexpected.

She also had fun with Hudson and Tyler! They giggled and yelled and had all kinds of fun sitting in the hallway playing HedBanz. I need to get a copy of that game...even though the spelling of the name makes me stabby!

Sigh. And now it's off to bed. Tomorrow is week 2, day 2 of second grade!

Breakfast with Mickey!

It has been a crazy weekend. Our aikido school brought in an instructor from Georgia. We had a great time and he and the students he brought were so good for our students to meet and train with. Did I mention they all stayed here? I haven't updated the pinwheel blog in too long but my next post is going to be on that! In the meantime, here are the last of our disney photos!

First up, sad Autumn. I had the flu over Christmas so when Autumn's sniffles were joined by a fever, we put her on tamiflu. It worked out well and she barely missed a beat. Our second day at Disney was her last day of tamiflu. We didn't get in until 2am and woke up around 8:30 to make a 10:45 character breakfast. I should have given her a snack buuuut I didn't because she didn't really want one. When Autumn started drooping on the way in, I thought it was simply tiredness. We're pretty scheduled so late nights like that never happen.

Because we had some stragglers, we couldn't be seated to eat immediately. Autumn was kind of squatting in what I call her island baby position and mumbled something. Then I heard a panicked, "MAMA, I THREW UP---blarhgk." Yup. She threw up the medicine. POOR AUTUMN I FELT SO BAD. Lainey got her to the bathroom, Brad got someone to clean up the mess, and when I caught up with Autumn, she was more upset than sick. After resting a bit, she seemed pretty back to normal and was almost 100% once she had some easy to digest food in her. And, of course, these guys helped:

The breakfast was good and although it took a really long time to actually get started, the characters were really great. I can't imagine being one of these workers sitting in that costume and having kids paw at them all day. Mickey was extra nice, it seemed.

Autumn thought Minnie was beautiful:

And Ellie was downright fascinated:

Interestingly, Goofy was Autumn's favorite! She said it's because he's so tall and silly. One of the coolest things we discovered is that the characters even have signatures in character. Every time she got a new autograph Autumn would giggle and dance because their writing looked just like she hoped.

We had such a good time. I definitely want to go back someday! We have a list of things we didn't do that we want to do next time--mostly roller coasters but Autumn is dying to see Doc McStuffins who just joined a different character breakfast. :) Until next time, Disney!

Memorial Day and Autumn's Photography Debut!

I took a bit of a blogging vacation last week!! I think everyone else did, too, because I didn't get half a dozen emails and text asking where the post was, hahaha. Thank you for your patience! And once you're done here, check out these things at Passing Pinwheels:

Today: Autumn has the joy
Flip Flop to Adopt Fundraiser: If you haven't seen the final tally of our FF2A fundraiser, you must click here and then share what God has done for us THROUGH YOU with everyone you can!!
Last: More Sunshine and Lemonade!

To the beach pics!


We got to go back to Lainey and P'd's condo in Florida! It was just the 5 of us and then Lauren and Brad joined us for a couple of days. Kyle, Lindsay, Ryan, Leah & co. stayed with Kyle and Leah's parents down the street. It's really cool that everyone tends to vacation near each other! We even got to have a Colley Reunion with Mike's dad's family last Sunday in the condo's common area. Aside from visiting with friends and family, we got a LOT of beach and water time. The ocean was beautiful and warm. I'm not really into water but I actually spent quite a bit of time in it this trip!


Autumn was a little fish. She gets more brave every time we come to the beach! We had her swimming between us and P'd taught her how to swim parallel to the beach to get back to it easily. Safety first!


I giggled when I saw this picture of Lainey and Lauren. :D


Autumn spent very little time on the sand. Rafts, floating, boogies boards, people's shoulders...she totally didn't care. She just wanted to be in the water!


This face tickled me.


Lauren is in nursing school and things are pretty crazy for her so I'm glad we got to spend some time with her this trip! She was still studious--even on the beach!


One of the best times of the trip was getting to see our old friends Robyn and Zachariah. We also got to meet their kids for the first time! This is John Benjamin and LOOK AT THOSE EYELASHES! He and Autumn had a great time together and I cannot believe how grown up he is--he's only 2.5 and held his own with Autumn no problem! His little brother Jason was a sweetheart the entire time.


This is a photo of fun being had. We haven't see Robyn and Zachariah since like 2009 so I'm glad they made the hour and a half drive to hang out with us and then have lunch with us, Mike's family, and Kyle and Leah's family. It was a condo-full for sure!


Mike and I decided to be complete and total nerds and we took our computers to the beach. hahaha! We had a lot of fun playing Diablo together (our mother's day and father's day gifts to each other!) but I am SO GLAD I had the computer with me to do all the flip flop fundraiser work. I could have done it on my phone or Mike's work ipad but I am glad I didn't have to (yes, yes, first world problems but really, what of my problems aren't?? very few).


Ok, last set of pics! This year, our birthday gift to Autumn was a kid's camera. She was always running around pretending to take photos and wanting to use my camera so I thought it'd be a good first hobby! She's so fun to watch and I love downloading the pictures so I can see the world through her eyes. She took this picture of the beach from the condo's balcony.


I LOVE this. Lainey got a step stool so she could wash her hands and brush her teeth on her own. She was so excited she had to snap a picture of herself in the mirror.


I almost wonder if a grownup took this one since it's so not blurry but isn't it pretty? Not too bad for a $30 kiddie camera!!

I'm sure there will be more Autumn pictures to come but how fun is it that this is her first set of blog pictures??

By the way, keep an eye on Passing Pinwheels this week. We'll be commemorating Garrett's would-have-been first birthday with guest posts.