a Fair and a Cave

Luke liked the free-est things at the Fair. We bought snow cones, tickets to ride rides, showed him the exciting flashing lights of the Ferris Wheel - but let's face it - it was hot and over stimulating and he hated it all. Isn't it funny how sometimes as parents we try to force our kids to have fun? We gave up and were leaving the Fair - all 3 of us very sticky, hot and ornry - when suddenly we found all the things Lukey really wanted. We didn't need to spend money on a fancy Fair. Turns out he likes the simplicity of the Farm Life. (All you Memphians - there is a FREE petting zoo and little farm display that you can go to WITHOUT paying the Fair admission.)




duck waterslide




it's a kangaroo!!



MAMMOTH CAVE

Sunday night we drove to a hotel in Bowling Green, KY and the next morning took a tour through the famous Mammoth Cave. (Well, part of it - it's Mammoth you know - longest cave in the world - over 370 miles)
Joey here: We did the New Entrance tour because it was one of the shortest (for Luke's sake), and most highly recommended tours. The New Entrance has a very interesting history frought with adventure and riches. A man named George Morrison was a mine surveyor local to Mammoth Cave back in the early 1920's. He realized that while most landowners in the area were breaking their backs farming for a pittance, the real money was being made by the owners of Mammoth Cave by charging tour fees. Morrison ingratiated himself with the tour guides and eventually talked one of them into giving him a key to the cave. He explored the cave by night and soon realized that much of the cave's passages wandered outside of the cave owner's land. According to Kentucky law, and pretty much everywhere for that matter, if you own land you own everything underneath it as well. Morrison bought up some cheap land near the cave and started using dynamite to blast in sink holes on the surface (sink holes are funnel shaped basins where water flows into the ground). After some trial and error, a blast revealed a man sized opening into an apparently bottomless pit. After two weeks of using ropes and nephews to descend downward they reached a horizontal corridor where they found initials carved into rocks. Morrison had found the "New Entrance." Since his entrance was a couple miles closer to the main road he was able to divert a lot of the tourist traffic to his entrance and he did indeed become very wealthy.

New Entrance Tour




Frozen Niagra


Historic Entrance




Katie here: So, I think that story about that Morrison guy is funny. It reminds me of something my brother Jake would do. He even set up road blocks and had people dress like police directing traffic to HIS entrance. "Oh, are you looking for Mammoth cave? The old entrance caved in and the new entrance is this way" People were a little disappointed when they didn't see some of the historic cave landmarks they had read about but when Morrison found the Frozen Niagara portion of his cave, it made up for it. And it definitely became a famous part of the cave. (another tip for Memphians - this cave is awesome. It's about a 4 hour drive but worth it. If you have toddlers I would suggest doing 2 of the 30 minutes tours or you could do this tour which was 2 hours but it was a little rough for wild, wanna-run-around kids.)

Sarah & Shaun ... sitting in a tree....

My dear sissy Sarah got married last month. It was quite the event. The week started with a shower that my sisters and I threw for her. We ended it with a surprise song and dance for her. We wrote new words to ABBA's Dancing Queen all about Sarah and how cool she is.

Rebekah, Ems, Star, Jenny, me and Edith


I know - we are big nerds. But look how hot we all look.


Sarah and Shaun --- pretending that they still like us

The day before Sarah's wedding - we went out to sushi and got massages. This was my first time ever. It was so fun to be with her and her friends.




The Big Day....

CONGRATS SARAH & SHAUN!!!
and welcome to the family Shaun, Rachel & Jack!!!
WE LOVE YOU GUYS!

It's a girl!!!

Doesn't our baby look like she's laughing so hard with her mouth wide open and her hand on her forehead?? She's laughing because she knows how tricky she's being in making us wait FOREVER to find out that she's a girl. That little sneak. I laid on that ultrasound table for over an hour. (it's ok though cause in that office at least they warm the gel before they squirt on your belly over and over - fancy huh?)
As I laid there today and looked up at the big screen, I realized how I've been taking it for granted that I'm pregnant. Yeah, yeah - I'm pregnant, I'm tired, I'm sick, I'm getting big etc. But it's when you see this little life inside of you with her heart beating fast, her mouth opening and closing, her perfect spine and brain that are healthy - you realize what a miracle this is. Here she's been doing all this amazing developing and all her needs are met and I really haven't done a thing. She's just a real and perfect little being inside of me. Joey even rescheduled his patients so he could be there and I loved that. We are so excited. A little girl!!! Wow.



Pink mashed potatoes to celebrate




Pink rice crispy treats, pink smoothies and a sparkler to celebrate some more.

Today was a good day.

you wanna kukuwa too?

We spent a week at Joey's family's RANCH in Grover, UT. Our sister Lisa taught us some pretty fancy African dance steps. I felt like I was on Dan In Real Life where the family does group exercise every morning. Have you seen that show? Great show, btw.



Since this took place on my birthday - let me post a few birthday pics. This was the best birthday ever! Joey MADE me a mahogany jewelry box!! Did you hear that? He MADE it!!!





he also made me a cake



And I got to go on a special birthday hike - I'm pretty sure Joey, Mike and Chad found this awesome place just for me. So nice of them. We piled on 4-wheelers in order to get to it. We hiked through narrows to a waterfall. Pretty darn fun.






chad mckay esquire

such a fun birthday. And when we got back to Huntsville - my sister Jenny orchestrated a surprise birthday party with all my Songer nieces and nephews. It was so fun to be home for my birthday!

So - I need to post about my sister Sarah's wedding. She got married ya know. I need someone to send me some pictures though. I was too busy to take any. But I've got some sweet pictures of 6 sisters in sparkly bell-bottoms and 70's fro wigs - so get ready for that.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's announcement of a very important characteristic of Hale baby #2....