The Bee

Cole was the spelling bee winner for his class this year. (3rd from the right on the front) The winners are seated, their alternates are behind them.

This picture was taken yesterday after the school-wide spelling bee between the 8 class winners to find a school winner to go to the district competition.

Cole made it through round one by spelling 'influenza', but 3 others did not survive.

The second round brought Cole the word 'surround' and he simply skipped the 'u'. He could have kicked himself.

It just wasn't meant to be. The same girl who won last year won this year. The whole thing took about 20 minutes!

He later said he was glad he didn't win because he didn't want to study words for the next month preparing for the next competition. Way to find the silver lining, Cole! :-)

My Surprise Weekend

Brice told me several weeks ago that he was taking me away for the weekend of the 11th, but he wouldn't tell me where. That added a whole other level of excitement!

We hit the road at noon on Friday and headed east, then northeast. He took me to Asheville, NC! Beautiful! The reason he picked Asheville is because one of our favorite bands was playing there Saturday night at a Christmas Jam concert with several other artists. So we slept late Saturday, walked around downtown, ate yummy food, and headed to the concert.

Have you ever heard of the Warren Haynes Annual Christmas Jam? We hadn't either, but apparently it's a big deal in Asheville. We were expecting some fun Christmas tunes with the various artists playing together - a typical 3-hour concert type thing. We were wrong.

The concert lasted over 7 hours!!! Holy cow! And there was no Christmas music. It was a festival of artists playing their own music for their own set of time. And the place was packed with people smoking various things right out in the open! Our band didn't come on until 12:30 am. We left after they performed. Though not at all what we expected, it makes for a funny memory.

Sunday we visited the Biltmore Estate. After an amazing buffet at the Deerpark Restaurant, we headed over to tour the house. Gorgeous! I've always wanted to go and seeing it at Christmas was priceless.

So three cheers for my husband! He planned, printed directions, purchased tickets, and kept it all secret! Thank you, honey! Merry Christmas to me!

Christmas Concert

Brice and I are unable to attend the normal Christmas piano recital this weekend, so Cole was able to show off his pieces early and in a different setting, along with a couple other students.

There is a very nice hotel here connected to our mall called The Wynfrey Hotel. A beautiful grand piano sits in the lobby/walkway of the hotel's back entrance. There Cole filled the air with Christmas tunes, Harry Potter themes, and a lovely sonata. I was a proud mama.

Occasionally the air would blow right over the music, but Dad to the rescue!

And I love how the light behind him makes him look like an angel with funny hair.

Even the grandmas came out to see the talent show!

Great job, Cole!

Our Thanksgiving

It was just adults for this Thanksgiving. Both sets of parents came over and the six of us had a great meal and fun conversation. It was just a good day.

But before the meal began, Brice and I sat the parents down to tell them how thankful we are for them. We even had a little gift for the moms. T-shirts - of course! Check it out:

Now, the important thing to note is that before this day, mom thought she had only 6 grandkids and my mother-in-law had only 4. But not anymore!! That's right . . .

We're having a baby!

Here's the little peanut:

Baby is due to arrive around July 4th.

The parents were very excited, squeals and hugs all around! My brother and sister, who already knew, were listening in on the event via cell phones strategically placed in the room. Such fun!

So maybe I'll start blogging again, eh?

The Phone Book Surprise

At Cole's school today, teachers handed out the school directory to all students. This is the yearly publication with all students' names, addresses, phone numbers, etc. Guess who's artwork was on the front cover??

Something New

Us at the U2 concert in Atlanta

Goodbye to Wubba #1

Our puppy is a chewer - she's a Lab! Initially we had some trouble finding a toy that would last longer than a week in our house. Eventually, we learned what she'd destroy and what would make it a while. Three cheers for the Kong brand!

This is Daisy's favorite toy:

It should last us 'til Christmas. This is what it replaced:

She plays hard!

Peek-a-Boo!

New Do for 32!

It was time for a haircut, she did it a bit shorter than I envisioned, but kinda sassy! I think I like it!

Yes, my birthday was this past Friday. It was a week of celebrations, but I don't have many photos.

Wednesday night we went over to Brice's parents for dinner. His brother's family was in town with their newborn and I was looking forward to holding the little bundle. After dinner, I was presented with a cake, cards, and a beautiful poster colored by my nephews. Such a sweet surprise! (no photos)

Thursday night my boys took me out for Mexican, my favorite cuisine! We went home to play a game of my choice, which, of course, was Mario Kart! (no photos)

Friday, my actual birthday, began as usual - breakfast and goodbye to the boys. The next hour was filled with various phone calls from family members and I must give props to my brother: he was the first to call and from China! That afternoon I left with my mom for her church's women's conference in Shocco Springs. It was basically a 24-hour conference with worship, games, lessons, and we had a great time! How appropriate that I spend my birthday with my mom, the birther! She brought a couple of presents for me to open in the hotel room - isn't she sweet!

Yea Mom!

Saturday night Brice had arranged for some some friends to meet us for dinner. Then we all went to see a band where a friend of ours is the drummer. Good times! (no photos)

Sunday night we headed over to a friend's house under the guise that we're having a meeting about the children's ministry at our church. After we opened in prayer, all the kids entered with balloons singing Happy Birthday and Shannon brought out a yummy chocolate cake! Turns out that another girl there had a birthday Saturday so our sweet friends decided to have a joint celebration for us! So sweet! We played a Newlywed type game - very fun, lots of laughs!! (no photos)

So, yeah, it was a great week. Shout out to my hubby for trying so hard to make me feel special - and succeeding!

In the Name of Love

My sister and brother-in-law are at a conference this weekend so mom and I flew up to keep the kids for them. You may recall that I did this by myself in the spring. I must admit that it's more fun having another grown up around!

My sister is so good about taking photos of her kids, so I thought I would make sure that continued in her absence. For those of you that read her blog regularly and are therefore going through withdrawal, here are several photos of our two days together.

There have been many bubbles

Memom is quite the cook!

"Can you find the blue marble?"

After retrieving the mail

Bedtime stories

Special breakfast outing with Aunt Anna - yea McD's Playland!

Playing at the park's water pump

A couple of cool peeps!

Just chillin' in the shade

Den Picnic - chicken nuggets and Cinderella!

We've had fun - and we're all tired! The parents return tomorrow night, hopefully in time to tuck in the kiddos and let them say "Happy Birthday" to their daddy!

Back to School!

It's official - my boy is a 4th grader!

And the 1st different thing this year - he is riding the bus! Thankfully, the boy across the street was in his class last year and the two boys down the road go to our church, so he was in good company and had fun.

He said his 1st day was "Awesome!" However, he has a "strict teacher and lots of troublmakers in his class." I'm not worried. He'll love her in no time and she'll straighten those kids out.

So back to homework, back to early mornings, back to packing lunches, back to routine!!!!

Last week, our baby church ventured out to have a VBS-style event in people's own backyards. It was called Rock the Block. We had 3 host homes that averaged 15 kids every day. Two clubs met in the morning but mine met in the evening. This was our way to take God into our communities, reaching out to local kids and developing relationships with the parents.

And what fun it was!

There were crafts,

puzzles,

games,

teaching,


singing,


jumping,

water balloon tossing,

and watermelon!

Several kids asked if we could do it again next week! I take that as a good sign!

Brice is glad that it's over, being that he was in charge of getting the whole thing organized. Big shout out to The Church of Brook Hills for their generosity - they donated supplies and personally came out to our church for training! It was definitely a great time for all involved!

Cow Day

If you've read my blog for any amount of time, you know that the Jacksons love free food! Chick-fil-A and Bruster's are two of our favorite places to get it! So of course we participated in the recent Cow Appreciation Day at CFA.

It was such fun to see the restaurant filled with fellow cows grazing on their nuggets and fries! A family from our neighborhood was there with all 3 kiddos in full attire! Unfortunately, Brice couldn't eat with us - he had class that night. But he wasn't going to miss out on the opportunity. He still dressed up and grabbed his free meal through the drive through on his way to school!

Long live the cow!

The Big 4-0 for Big Bro

This summer my brother turned 40. That's even weird to type! Fortunately, my brother is 8 years older than me so I have a little ways to go! :-)

When he arrived from China, we were all shocked to see a yellow/orange head of hair! This was his attempt to outdo anything we were planning for him. He's a one-upper, if you know what I mean. Thankfully, his mid-life crisis display will grown out and be just a memory. But we do have plenty of photos to make sure we never forget!

My mom's brother and his family came up from Florida for the festivities as well as her cousin and his wife who live locally. I didn't know my parents house could hold that many people, much less get them all around a table to eat!

Mom had an Andy-centered bingo game for the kids, Brice and I did an 80's pop culture Jeopardy game, and Becky collected messages from people in Andy's past. Good times.

And in true Cheely fashion, a t-shirt was involved! Three cheers for my clever sister!

It's a puzzle - can you figure it out? (The top right picture on the gals is a knot.)

Family Fun

If you read my sister's blog, then sorry for the duplication.

I mentioned before that we had my whole family together for a week this summer. It was a crazy week buts lots of fun! Of course, we had to get a family photo since these occasions are few and far between - and people keep having kids!

You'll notice that each family unit is wearing the same color t-shirt. That is to help onlookers be able to identify which kids go with which adults and which adults belong together. Yes, we Cheelys have a thing about t-shirts (see my next post).

Enjoy!

Men's Night Out

We had lots of extended family (on my side) come in town in the month of June. It's been over 2 years since we've all been together, and the first time Becky's youngest has been a part of the reunion! I'll have more pictures on that special time later.

One night, all the men went out to watch a baseball game - for that's what men do, right? We ladies stayed home with the youngest children and chatted over peach tea. (Please read that sentence with an old-South accent) Half-way through the night, my Aunt gets a text telling mom to check her e-mail. This is what we saw:

Yep, that's my two boys on the field playing one of the between-innings games. Here's a better look:

Brice is throwing inflatable rings over a cone on Cole's head! They didn't win but got some cool t-shirts for playing. They also came home with a couple of baseballs hit into the stands.

Male bonding at its best!

Hotlanta!

Family Summer Vacation, June 18-21, 2009

This summer, we spent four days in Atlanta, GA for our family trip. Man, was it hot!! We still had a great time though! The three of us travel very well together. We're all pretty flexible, as long as I have some sort of idea of a semi-plan. :-)

Thursday morning we left early to make a 10:00 am tour of the CNN Center. I had been with my family as a kid and remembered thinking it was pretty cool. One of the great things about Cole is his desire to learn. He wants to understand how things work. So once we started exploring how the news gets produced, he was hooked! Loved every bit of it! Plus he got to ride a really cool escalator into a globe . . .

After the CNN tour, we headed across the street to Olympic Park for a picnic lunch. They have live music in the summer on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the park's amphitheater. We ate our sandwiches and threw the frisbee while the band played and kids danced in the fountains. It just felt good.


After lunch, we walked to the other end of the park to the World of Coca-Cola museum. Such a cool place! I remembered this too from when I was a kid. But back then, the building was by Underground and it had this really cool tasting room where a machine would shoot Coke in a perfect arch into your cup. Not anymore. Now the tasting room has 5 drink stations with various types of sodas from different regions of the world!

Tasting Room

After Coke, we walked through Underground - not much to see there. However, they do have a Rita's. I first heard about Rita's when I visited my friend Marci back when she lived in Maryland. They raved about Rita's and took me to get my first Gelati - combo of Italian Ice and Frozen Custard. Mmmm! Rumor has it we're getting a couple in Birmingham this summer!

So, we ate at Johnny Rocket's, got some Gelati at Rita's, took a photo on the brick train outside, prayed with a homeless man, then headed north to our hotel.



After an evening of swimming, we put Cole to bed. Now, when we travel and stay in a hotel, Brice and I put Cole to bed and then go down to the hotel lobby while he's falling asleep. There, in the midst of the tables and chairs, you will find us in fierce competition. Phase 10 is a trip favorite but this year we had Super Racko too! It was brutal. Chairs were flying, juice was spilled, tables were broken - ok, not really, but it was nightly competitive fun!

Friday we slept in then headed to Stone Mountain. The biggest hit there - the Sky Hike! It's a three-level ropes adventure course. There are several sections for you to cross, safely harnessed and attached to the top railing, of course! Cole started out nervous, but as soon as he got out there, he wanted to do it all!





We also decided to Ride the Ducks! We took a tour of the park in an old land/water military vehicle. We went out on the lake where the kids on the "boat" could drive a little bit. Capt. Bill was lots of fun! Everyone was given quackers which made remarkably real duck sounds. I'm betting most of them disappeared before families made it to the car for their journies home!

We had a lot of fun in the park - watching the 4D Journey to the Center of the Earth, playing mini golf, watching a glassblower, walking the ropes again. And of course, watching the Lasershow Spectacular! Here's Cole with the Campfire Stories storyteller (he was great) and a worker named Andrew!

Saturday we drove up to Dawsonville to the Kangaroo Conservation Center. SO FUN! It is the largest kangaroo collection outside of Australia. Located on 87 acres, there are hundreds of kangaroos, some wallabies, and various Aussie species of birds and lizards. We took a tour through the park and the kangaroos would just stop and stare at us. It was HOT so they mostly hung out under trees. And we saw a few joeys popping out of their pouch! Beautiful place!

There was a boomerang demonstration and "lesson" where everyone could try a throw.

And they have a "pet" deer! I've never pet a deer before! It was really cool. She wasn't scared of us at all. And if you look closely at her tummy, you can see that she's pregnant!

That Sunday was Father's Day so Dad got to make the choices that day. We were planning to play some mini-golf before hitting the road, but it was so jokin' hot that Brice called it off - and we were ok with that! We ate lunch at the same restaurant where we'd had dinner the night before: Max & Erma's. Dads ate free! And as seen below, the Jackson competitive spirit is being passed down to the next generation - they are in a heated dot-to-dot game.

Recap: fun trip, it was hot, good times, it was hot, made some memories, and it was hot!