BOOM...was that canon I heard!?!

Why yes, it was!
Today our Pack hosted a Living History Unit, who dressed and maintained the era of the Civil War for our boys and taught them SO many wonderful things. I had to laugh when once they fired off the canon, had our boys play their enemy,and ALL of the boys fell to the ground as the canon was fired.

TALK ABOUT an awesome job! These men drew our boys into the excitement like nothing you've ever seen. We're talking 10 year old boys DANCING the Virginia Reel! They did several period dances, which the boys and girls both seemed to enjoy. Seeing the ladies in their hoop skirts dancing is just so beautiful to me.

That first canon fire almost scared the pants off of me, but as I got used to it it was neat to hear. Their camp was SO cool, the boys loved sitting around the fire and asking questions and looking at all the neat things they had to share.
As night fell, they did a night fire of the canon for us, MAN was it beautiful. They packed it with steel wool, so that as it fired, the colors could be seen, the boys were amazed!

The weather man promised us rain today, but God gave us Glory. Although we had a few sprinkles, the rain held out until JUST after the last night fire, then it came booming down with all it's might.

Later this week we'll have more about this event on our Pack site if you'd like to see more, www.pack602.com. We did this in preparation for our trip to Vicksburg battleground later this year with the boys. Teaching them is SO easy and fun when they don't realize they are learning.
If you have a boy, and you haven't explored Scouting, I encourage you to. Our boy, and for that matter our girls, have learned so much through their scouting experience that I find priceless for him. On top of that, it has brought us so much closer to him and his friends and their parents.

I hope that YOU are having as great a weekend as us! If your weather is nice, get out and do something with your kids, they'll remember it always!
Heather

It's a brand new day..in fact, YEAR!

So..2008 is gone, 2009 has come!

We rang in the New Year in our camper this year. We decided on the 30th to get up on the 31st and go to Alabama..so off we went (gotta love that camper).



Our favorite winter haunt for camping is Wales West Campground, admittedly for the indoor swimming pool! Our kiddos LOVE to swim, and it's nice to get the swim in even when it's cold outside.
So, on the 30th we shot off of yearly $50, I mean fireworks (really, you could light a $50 bill on fire and see just as many explosions around here :) ) The kids LOVE fireworks, so Jamie sees to it that they get to see some yearly. I have a terrible hard time taking pictures of fireworks, but I always keep trying. We just shot them in the backyard, so the kids could have the protection of the trampoline net (I mean really, it works great as a cage).



Through a tree for this one, I was lazy sitting on a table!



SOO much smoke!








So, New Years Eve arrived and off we went to Alabama. It's a LONG drive with all the traffic, but we eagerly await the tunnel each time, followed by the battleship, one long bridge and then our winter home away from home. The weather was great for our drive up (can't say that for the drive back) and the kids were really well behaved. Ms Molly was even good, no carsickness at ALL this time, she's growing into a world traveler that girl.

This is Wales West train station...there is a hobby train that goes all the way around the little campground, SO cool b/c they built it all themselves!





Riding the train



We didn't do much site seeing this time, but we did go to New Years dinner at our favorite restaurant, Lamberts where a roll MAY just come flying at your head, and if you happen to catch it, it's REALLY good eats!
The rest of our time we spent relaxing, walking, playing, swimming and riding the train. Poor girls got rotovirus while we were there and still are suffering a bit from it, but they were troopers.
Playing on the playground:



So..that's our New Years in a nutshell.
My resolutions for the year:

find joy in every day
get out and move more
find more interesting things to cook (and more healthy)
enjoy my family, kids and friends to the fullest

Thanks for visiting our blog!



I hope that YOU are having a great start to your New Year!!