July 30th

Look how our Bethany has grown! We are so proud of her!

On the Southern Belle

Today Nate and I braved the humidity of Chattanooga and took the kids out on the Southern Belle river cruise. I think the heat made us all a little less exuberant than we might have been, but we all had a lot of fun. The kids enjoyed seeing the captain steer, the ducks swim by, Coolidge Park, and a great view of "our mountain." Yeah! for the Southern Belle!

This Morning

Good Saturday Morning from Bethany!

A Few Good Pics

Uncle Aaron's B'day Luau

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AARON!

Jacob and Naomi love telling stories to Grandaddy.

On Friday July 18 we visited with Aaron and Fish for Aaron's birthday. Aaron has been out of the country for his last two b'days, so this was a big event!
We enjoyed quite the Hawaiian feast!

Just Playing Around

Play Time

We got out a new toy for Bethany this morning and all the kids enjoyed it. : )

Creative Discovery Museum

We went to the Creative Discovery Museum on Friday with our friend Audra and her daughter Ari. Lots of Fun!

Swimming in the Rain

Bethany Smiles

Cousins

Jorja, Naomi, Bethany, and Jacob

Swimming at Granna's

Great Pics of Bethany

Bethany is wearing a dress that I wore as a little girl! Isn't she precious!

Barbecue and Independence

Fourth of July Party with the Pughs

In the picture to the left, you can see my mom with Jorja, Mandie with Izzy, Sydney in the tube, and Carly and Naomi swimming.
















My dad's family celebrates all warm-weathered and some cold-weathered holidays with Grandaddy's famous barbecue chicken. The men smoke the chicken on an in-ground grill and Grandaddy makes his secret recipe sauce. The best ingredient is the family--we all gather around to get our fingers and faces (and all the rest of us) messy while we satisfy our insides until the next time we can get together. Two more standard ingredients for our get-togethers are guitars and water. There is always a little laid back guitar picking as the clip here of my dad shows. And the water is for warm weather only, but the kids love it! Almost all of Grandaddy's 15 (I think I'm counting correctly) great grandchildren were there and in the pool. Happy Independence Day!

TIGERS TIGERS TIGERS

On Thursday, our family visited Tigers for Tomorrow. You can link there to read about it for yourself. Our pictures only show a bit of how amazing it was. The best tigers were the four youngest, who were in a cage by themselves. Naomi says, "The tigers were jumping," and Jacob adds, "the tigers were jumping because they wanted to eat my hat. The biggest tiger wanted to go around the fence to get my hat, but they had it closed." If the tiger could've gone around the fence, Jacob says, "He would've eaten my hat," and Naomi adds, "and he would've eaten us!"