Alabama adventures

December 5

We arrived in Alabama Monday afternoon and got set up. We got to spend a lot of time with the 4 grand kids here, even got to deal with pink eye outbreak! Only 2 of them got it and not very bad. We got to watch the kids a lot while their parents worked and were reminded of how exhausting parenting can be!

It was fun to listen to Alex (7) read and hear his southern accent, especially when playing "Ah spah with mah li'l ah". We got to cheer Kimberly (6) as she learned to do cart wheels and head stands, Madison's (4) desire to clean up with a dust broom and dustpan, and watch Tiffany (3) literally dance her pants off. She had Grandpa wrapped around her little finger with her cute antics, and we got to celebrate her third birthday, which is always a lot of fun. She got a lot of cool presents, some of which their dog chewed up, but most survived.

Since the kids were off from school most of the time, we got to spend a lot of time with them.




Some of our adventures were a trip to the Clarkson Covered Bridge--one of the longest in Alabama.

There was a civil war fought there, but it seems like there was a battle almost everywhere in AL.






Another trip was to the Civil War Museum which had a lot of artifacts from the Civil War. We weren't able to do the out door tour because of the weather, but it was very interesting anyway.





We also visited the Natural Bridge of Alabama which also has the Indian Stone Head.


It's a really nice walk through woods and rocky places, streams and waterfalls pouring down the sides. We had a picnic at the end of our walk and didn't loose one child in the water.



Another highlight was a wonderful Mt. Olive Baptist Church we attended right down the road. It was very old fashioned--wooden pews held together with brads, plain wooden floors, all old time hymns sung without accompaniment due to having no piano player. The sermons were down-home earthy and very enjoyable, even if Bruce had a hard time with the improper grammar. We attended a Christmas pot luck and had communion with them. They went out of their way to make us feel welcome and we truly enjoyed worshipping with them.

We got to welcome in the new year with Jeremy and Jennifer and went out to a nice restaurant for steaks.

We had only a couple nice days of weather, lots of wind and rain and finally very cold as time passed.

At last it was time to move on. Kimberly didn't want us to leave. "Whose going to bake cookies for us when ours are all gone?" she asked.

January 3 we headed off to Texas after a last minute birthday party in my honor.