Chickamauga

So we stopped at Chickamauga and Chattanooga Battlefield on our way back in to town, a civil war site which was a win for the South tactically, though they lost almost 2,000 more men than the North. I was very impressed with the displays they had evaluating the causes of the Civil War (it wasn't just slavery, y'all!) and showing the progression of the war including all the major milestones. The most impressive collection was that of a man who donated his gun collection to the battlefield! The guns ranged in age from 1803-1913! 

I figured out that my phone camera was PERFECT for shooting detail through the glass because I could put the lens up to the glass (thus avoiding the reflection issue) and it was willing to focus on something close up and fairly well. These pictures were re-sized, so if you want a closer look at some of the amazing details on the trigger areas on these.

Republic of Texas Gun

Gun forged at Harper's Ferry, which changed sides 8 times during the War!

I thought this one was quite nice

And this is the butt of the gun!

The one with the filigree is in the middle

Shovel or bayonet? You make the call-- though I think it could be a dual use sort of thing.

British gun from the Civil War

Belt buckles found on the grounds at Chickamauga 

North Georgia

We are back safe and sound from Knoxville, a detailed (but boring) post to follow-- until then, enjoy the scenic view in North Georgia. LOVE my home state!

Holla back internets

Life, as always, has been pretty busy lately-- the transition from summer to after school has almost completed itself and our new checkout system is in place at work so things are going fairly well on that front. We're also getting a chance to relax at home and since after school is on, I get to think about taking a break!

This weekend, we're going to Knoxville thanks to a LivingSocial escape-- I'm DEFINITELY excited for a three day weekend to relax with Jeremy and to see S-K and Chelsea while we're there! The deal lands us two nights in the Presidential Whirlpool Suite, a facial massage at an Aveda salon, and a trip to the movies! I'm very excited, we definitely need a weekend of relaxation. I'll take the computer anyway, but I'm dedicated to not checking work stuff the entire time we're there. Period!

Next month we have a week that we could potentially take off, and we're hoping to go to NC to see my Aunt and Uncle. We'd thought about going up to Memphis, but it looks like Ana won't be there by the time we'll get there. We really hope we get to see her again before they leave the country because we promised we would, but we'll see how long it takes for them to get everything straightened out. We'll also be in Memphis at the end of October for homecoming and then up to Indiana for Thanksgiving. Since all the schools have the entire week off for Thanksgiving, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we won't have enough people to sign up for Thanksgiving break and we'll get the whole week off automatically! What a blessing THAT would be!!

Christmas is here this year with my mom, and she's really excited to have us be at OBC for their services. It's a nice, quiet, peaceful service and even though we won't have a white Christmas like last year I'm sure it'll be beautiful! I need to figure out what we're going to do for our second anniversary, too. I've already decided that I want to have everyone sign the guest book from the wedding at each anniversary. I missed last year, but I can start this year-- there's so much space left in that book, and every year that we're together we have more friends and there's nothing to say that our anniversaries aren't just as special as our wedding!

I'll stop there and see if I can think of anything more interesting to post-- if nothing else, I'll put up pictures from Knoxville when we get back!

Really, July?

It has gotten hot here. And it's been hot all summer, but now it's just oppressive. I love love love living in the South, but every now and again we have a summer that's just KILLER! Don't get me wrong, I'll take this over the heat in Arizona any day, but GUH it would be nice to walk out the door and not want to walk right back inside!

This summer has been exhausting; there's so much more to deal with than there was last summer and I'm so tired of people expecting a thousand things from me that they know I can't do. If you want hours, don't take days off. If you're bothered by something, mention it instead of letting it fester. The usual obvious stuff! But, after school is about to start and hopefully it will be a little less stressful.

We found out last weekend that Ana and Valerie were back down in Memphis; we'd assumed they were staying in Indiana. I'm hoping we get to go up soon since we couldn't afford to last weekend. It'd be amazing to see them again, and we promised Ana we'd see her before China and Mitike got here. We're not sure about when Matt and Valerie will be able to go get them, but it's looking like it might be a little bit longer so that could give us some time. We keep trying to get everyone to come visit us in Atlanta now that we have extra bedrooms and some great new Ethiopian restaurants under our belt, but so far no go!

September we're going to take a week off which will hurt financially, but we need a break. I'm planning on going up to see my Aunt and Uncle in NC since we haven't seen them since the wedding and the last time we were up there was right after my wisdom teeth surgery so I wasn't very with it! We can go up the week of Jeremy's birthday and maybe have a little bit of a honeymoon (finally...) and meet my cousin's new baby girl, Blakely! November might be excellent because all the school districts have Thanksgiving WEEK off and we may not have to open for Thanksgiving! That means we could go to Indiana early since it's our year to be there for Thanksgiving and here for Christmas and spend plenty of time with Josh and Sarah, and maybe Ana, Matt, and Valerie if the paperwork comes in at the last minute!

I'm excited for the rest of the year. Now that we're (generally) moved in to our new place, I think it'll be easier for us to cook at home a little more and spend less money going out! We're also going to try to get on top of the job search for Jeremy! Hopefully we can find him something he really enjoys and that will get us a little more income... that would be helpful for our travel expenses for sure!

Well, that's enough for now, hopefully I'll have a little more time to keep y'all updated!!

Ciao for now!

Spirit Week (last week of summer!)

Ever since I was a kid, Spirit Week has been my favorite week of summer! There's cheerleading, games, trivia, and sportsmanship and I was really proud of everyone involved this summer! 

Yellow team gets their bandanas

Green Lanterns!

Yellow Thundercats!

Vica gets mummy wrapped for the relay race

Drawing contest in the relay race

Sing the whole Star Spangled Banner! Hilarity ensued...

Izzy, Charlie, Scott, and Katherine made their own version of the Potter Puppet Pals!

Ice Cream Sandwich Eating Relay!

Chris and Sydney

SLIP N SLIDE!

Biggest water balloon ever!

Octavia and Chris

Me reading trivia

Yellow Trivia

Green Trivia

Freeze Dance contestants

The whole camp-- the teams tied and won a pizza party and ice cream!!

Aquarium Week

Older kids hamming it up

More older kid-- ALSO hamming it up!

Dolphin tank

DOLPHIN!!!!

Dolphin Tales "stage"-- the show was AWESOME!

Seahorse! 

Jellyfish! 

Candler: Miss Meg?
Me: Yes, sweetie?

Candler: Are those jellyfish freakin' you out? 'Cause they're kinda freakin' me out!

Hank flips through the digital fish book with Josh

Seal!

Claire, Sydney, and Sarah Jane

I adore the Georgia Aquarium-- one day we'll go down there to just take pictures! LOVE!

Bad Boys Bad Boys

So the kids have had some understanding issues this summer-- we've heard everything from, "Well, nobody said it was theirs so I took it-- that's not stealing!" to "Go ahead, call the police, they can't do anything to me; I'm just a kid!" SO. I called one of our after school parents who's a captain with the City of Decatur Police Department and she sent over a very nice officer to talk to them about safety and educate them on the law. The kids really enjoyed it and we had some fantastic quotes from the little ones!The big ones... they were mostly obsessed with pepper spray... not sure whether to be worried about that or not!