New England Patriots

Mom called me today to ask if I wanted to see a picture of Paris Lenon. Apparently he was featured in the News & Advance for his signing with the New England Patriots. Of course I wanted to see more, so I googled him. There is a lot more info on him these days than there were in the days when he played for the Packers!!!

Paris and I went to high school together. We were pretty good friends and I am quite proud of his achievements through the years. Unfortunately the last time I saw him was after our freshman year in college --- he was walking with a cane because he had either had surgery or was recovering from some kind of injury (I can't remember which). We haven't run into each other since, but I keep hoping he'll show up at our 20th HS reunion or something!!!

I understand his wife's name is Heather and they have at least one little one --- his name is Paris too.

Scrapping vs. Blogging

I can't believe that I'm about to announce this, but I think it's almost time to hang up the idea of scrapbooking all activities for every year!!! I know, some of you may have to close your mouth right now! I just realized this morning that I am behind a year and a half (which isn't much, I must admit) and don't see when I'm going to make it up. When I have a gap of time, I have many other projects that I'd rather work on... like painting rooms, refinishing furniture, taking care of Scentsy things, playing around on facebook, oh, and spend time with my children :).

Thankfully technology allows us to print off our blogs into books. I believe I'm going to just start doing that every year. It's pretty costly because I always have tons of posts, but if I'm not paying for scrapbooking materials, then I'm actually saving money!!!

I figure I'll finish 2008 in the next month or so and then stop! That will complete 10 years of Hambrick history and then the blog books will take care of the rest. I will continue with 1 scrapbook per boy that will include all important ordinances, scouting events, inductions, etc as they grow up. I do want to keep something up for them!!!

So onto the next phase in my life... craziness that only allows the convenience of blogging!!! What a blessing for options!!!

New Cousin

Meet Charlotte Mae Shorter.
She was born at 11:49pm on Thursday, July 16th.

This is my favorite shot because Cameron looks so happy to meet his little sister. Awww!

Congrats to Chad, Ginnie and Cameron to their new addition. Our family will be calling her by her full name, Charlotte Mae so that we can distinguish which cousin Charlotte we're referring to. Love you guys!

Natural Bridge Caverns

I don't know about any of you, but I'm not much of a cave lover. You will never catch me spelunking due to the fact that I am afraid that either something is going to cave in (no pun intended) or I'd get stuck in some small place that I'd have to work through. It nearly makes me sweat thinking about it --- and the funny thing is I'm not usually claustrophobic.
I figured we were safe to go through a tour in a cave though. Plus the walkways were wide enough that none of us were going to get stuck in anything.

This is the original entrance to the caverns. When they were starting to explore and create safe walkways, this was the only way to enter. It took about 3-1/2 hours to slide through an opening of about 20 inches to get to where we were standing. Luckily they created a man-made entrance that only took a couple of minutes to walk to the same area!!!

See that hole in the rock?
The caverns are made of limestone. For the workers to make bigger walkways, they had to weaken the limestone by drilling holes. The perfect circular holes were made with machines, but there were some along the way that were jagged that were done by hand in the 1820s.

Here are some of the cave deposits. All creations under the earth in this area are due to water. This is a "live" wall because there is water flowing. We went into one room that had dry walls know as "dead" limestone. It won't be creating any more stalactites or stalagmites because there is no water to drip.
Do you know the difference between a stalactite and a stalagmite? Stalactites cling "tightly" to the ceiling of the cave while stalagmites "might" make it to the ceiling.

Here is a natural drainage hole. They're throughout all of the caverns in this mountain. Thank goodness, because if we didn't have them, we would have been swimming in pretty deep and cold water!
Speaking of cold... the air temperature in the caverns are a constant 54 degrees. I bet the old workers were sick a lot since it's damp and chilly ALL the time.

This is a picture of the end of the tour --- where the lights are, there is another small opening to another room that opens into other caverns. Perhaps one day Natural Bridge will close down the caverns to do some more exploring in the future.
We also entered a room that had a huge crevass to look up to the ceiling. We were nearly 350 feet below the earth's surface. That was the most drastic of all ceilings.
There was also a room called the Waterfall Room. There is no longer a waterfall because the flood of '85 flooded the caverns for months and changed the way water rushed in the mountain.
Who knew a flood on top of the earth could change things under the earth so drastically?

This looks like a man-made wall --- and it was. When one of the companies that were digging and exploring were working, they didn't want to carry all of the rubble back out of the original entrance, so they stacked as much as they could in places that it would fit.

We had a great time and will likely go back once the boys have grown up more and forgotten what was in there.

The Last Day

It was a great weekend until early Monday morning! Jake and I woke up to crows making a ruckus outside the tent. Once were were awake, we then heard the thunder. Yikes! Usually you don't have too much time before the rain starts falling. Immediately we all jumped up and started packing everything. Unfortunately we had to take a break from packing up due to the downpour --- so Nana and Pawpaw and the boys got into their tent and Jake and I got into the van. Luckily we had heat to start to dry us a bit.
Once it slacked off, we finished packing up. All that was left was Nana and PawPaw's tent, so Jake and Clif stayed behind to put it away while the boys and us ladies went to the showers to get dressed. Below is a display of the craziness of our boys!

Because of the rain, we weren't able to make our breakfast over the fire. So we went into Lexington and ate at McDonalds and then headed to Natural Bridge Caverns.

To visit the caverns you have to buy your tickets at the Natural Bridge gift shop. We found the penny smashers and made one for each of the boys. I waited until we got to the Caverns gift shop and made one for myself --- actually for the family scrapbook.

The boys pose in front of the dino cowboy.

Travis tries on a couple of cute hats.

How tall are you next to the large stuffed bear?

Boys and Camping

Once we had unloaded the van and set up our end of camp, we decided to check out the lake. No one wore swim suits because it was quite chilly at the camp site and we weren't planning to stay too long. Well, we should have put the boys in suits because they were swimming within a few minutes of seeing the water.

Jake and Clif hang out while the kids play in the water

We have 3 little pyros in the making!!! Good thing I took coloring books and Nana had games - ha! They spent all their time looking in the forested area for wood. Once they had gathered it they'd throw it in the pit immediately. I believe we had a fire going all but maybe 2 hours on Sunday.

Travis and Daddy hang out in the hammock.

Playing in the lake on Sunday. This time everyone was in swim suits!

Apparently Cave Mountain Lake is known for all of their salamanders. The kids would find them and put them in the little pools they made in the sand. It's a miracle that the poor salamanders didn't die. As soon as one kid would let one go, another group was there to "discover" it and torture it some more!

Cave Mountain Lake Camping

We went on a family camping weekend at Cave Mountain Lake Campgrounds. Where is Cave Mountain Lake you ask? It's in Natural Bridge VA. For those of you in VA, go I81 to exit 180A and follow the signs to Cave Mountain Lake. You'll be quite impressed!

Our weekend started on Saturday after Brad's baseball game. We didn't leave home until after lunch, so we had a bit of a late start. Good thing Nana and PawPaw got there by 11am when all campers pulling out have to be gone!!! They got us the best camping spot in the area --- this was per many campers and hosts!!! It is the only double site that the grounds have, but I doubt it'll be long before they make more since it's so popular.

This is the main hub of camp... you have the picnic tables, our prep table, the fire pit and stove tables. There was even a double grill that we used for our hamburgers. Next time PawPaw won't have to bring his little grill.

Here was our seating area where our camp chairs stayed throughout the day. That's Nana and PawPaw's awesome tent in the background. It was huge! They had their mattress on one end and the 3 boys slept on the other end with plenty of room to spare.

This is an idea of how large our site was. This is the walkway from one of the parking areas.

And here's a look from where the van was parked.

The boys were ready and willing to help cook --- even Travis.

The first night we had hamburgers and hotdogs. The second night we made an enchillada casserole in the dutch oven. Everything was yummy.

Brad helps boil the corn to help pass something off for scouting.

We rode in the back of the truck to drive down to the lake to check it out.

One of our biggest rules was to take your shoes off before you get into the tent. This little one didn't adhere to that rule!!! The 2nd night we found that he had opened our tent and gotten in. (Notice the blue blanket on top of the bag??? We figure he saw it through the window and had to get it!)

Watermelon

All the boys ate all weekend was watermelon. They sure don't get their taste buds from me! I think Mom cut up 2 seedless melons and the boys probably ate nearly 1.5 of them!

I love this picture because it shows how different my children look from each other. Of course Travis and Brad look very similar, but it's amazing how opposite some of their features are from Wyatt's. Interesting!

Travis' Birthday

We celebrated Travie's birthday on Saturday since the boys and I would be heading home on Sunday after church. We figured since we were at Grammy and Grandpa's, we'd also invite Nana and PawPaw for cake and visiting.

Here is the awesome cake that Wyatt and Grammy made. Wyatt had helped me pick out everything for the cake before we ever left for Grammy's. Travis LOVED the candles and the fire.

Little Man opens his gifts. He didn't get a ton, but just enough to satisfy him. He got a Handy Manny video as well as Inspector Gadget, Bob the Builder, a car video and some CDs. He also got tools and big boy underwear (I can't wait until those are used daily!)

iPod for a 3-year old?

Travis is turning 3 on Sunday! Jake is going to Youth Conference for the weekend, so the boys and I are heading to Lynchburg to visit Grammy and Grandpa and to have a Scentsy party! While we're there, we plan to celebrate Travie's birthday.

Of course Mr. Big Stuff knows he's going to be 3, and when you ask him what he wants he always says, "An iPod!" Yup, our children have been technologically brainwashed!
Due to the request, I thought I'd be clever and just get an MP3 player with a screen so that we can load movies and/or shows onto the thing as well as music. We got one and I started loading our iTunes onto it... there's a problem with that though because iTunes are MP4s which are not compatible with MP3s. Needless to say the little piece of junk went back to the store.

So here's Travis opening his new gift! It's a portable DVD player. This way he can watch movies and listen to CDs and life is good!

Brooke looks on to see what cool stuff is in the case.

These two monkeys are 2 peas in a pod! They get into so much trouble together! Whether they're climbing into one of our unlocked vehicles to play, or turning the water on to spray the hose at each other, they have tons of fun.

Every morning Travis looks out the window and asks where Brooke is. And according to Nicole, Brooke starts walking over to our house when they are heading out to daycare in the mornings. They can't get enough of each other - and both go in screaming at night for baths and bed.