Should I use my invisibility for Good or Evil?!?!?

We were going tubing in Helen, GA and I told David that once you locked the van, give the keys to the workers and they had a place where they stored them. David didn't feel comfortable doing this because so many of our belongings were in the car, that he decided to take the key with us down the river. If he would have told me he was set on that, I would have been able to give him some suggestions, but he instead, just ignored my suggestions.

We tube all the way down the river and as we are waiting for the bus, David realizes he lost the key to the car. The bizarre part is we locked his dad's keys in our glove compartment. The irony of it all is when we got back to the car, it wasn't even locked... except for the glove box. We paid someone $20 to break into David's dad's truck where he had an extra set of keys. I suggested that Wanda, the boys and I wait in Helen (shop and eat) while they drove back to our house to get the extra key. This would have only taken 2 hours... however,

This is a picture of very stubborn men... all four of them... no one listened to me and David's dad insisted we drive all the way to the cabin to drop us off and then they would drive back home and get the keys. This doubled the length of time of this experience. In the meantime, I was getting good and worked up thinking about where that extra key may have been and what our options would be if it wasn't at home. In the end, it all worked out and we did have the key at home, but it just begs the questions as Chandler from Friends put it, "Should I use my invisibility for good or for evil?"

HAS is an Olympic sleeper - meaning if sleeping were an Olympic event he would medal. ( He gets that from his mother). I think he plays so hard that when he crashes, he's out for the count. He loves the blanket and throws it back in his crib when he wakes up from his nap. I can't count the number of times we've found him asleep with the blanket half in his mouth and half out. We tried to get another blanket so we could interchange them easily, but he wouldn't have any part in that. He throws the other blanket out of his crib if we try to give him the wrong one.

I love these little preppy outfits... David hates them. He says I need to dress him more like a boy... I think he looks handsome... David doesn't look that bad either :)

Our Father's Day was a little bit different because JMS was in Pennsylvania with David's dad and David had to work. Apparently criminals don't care about holidays... Anyway, HAS loves David's uniform, the badges and the toys on the gun belt. He loves to push the emergency button on David's radio. HAS is now recognizing the words patch, stripes, and badge and can point them out on David's uniform.

One thing I hate

While I love the hustle and bustle of a city like Atlanta most of the time, I hate the summers in Atlanta... particularly June, July and August. 90 degrees in high humidity is terrible. I hate it when you step outside and instantly feel like you need a shower. This is magnified by the fact that I am 28 weeks pregnant. I like the fact that there is something here for everyone... but I hate the summers here... I can only imagine how much worse it will be in August when it is equally hot, but I am 38 weeks pregnant... ahhhh... the things in life to look forward to.

I love being pregnant

I love being pregnant and what is even better about this time is my closest cousin is due about two weeks before me. We are both having boys in Septemberish. While this is certainly not a flattering picture of either of us, we did have a great time together at the cabin.

Our other two are 5 months apart. Her daughter was born almost exactly 5 months after HAS. JMS is an awesome brother and loves any young children. He loved playing and holding the baby as if she was her own. We tried to get Lisa to give her up, as we know that no Sokols will ever have a girl, but she wasn't having it. Oh, well... What can you do?!?!?

We did realize that HAS is a little jealous and doesn't like Mommy to hold and love on Babies, but hopefully that will change when the new Sokol baby gets here in September. He didn't mind being the one that gave Her the love, just as long as mommy wasn't doing it.

Old Friends

HAS in his Alabama football helmet... can't tolerate
that... have to raise him as a Buckeye fan :)

While I was in Alabama, I was able to catch up with Sandra Conner. She's probably my oldest friend. We've been friends since middle school when I raided their junk food cabinet because we never had one and where I watched "Dirty Dancing" with my hands over my eyes because I was not allowed to watch PG-13 movies (not until I was 17 :) ) We had a great time catching up.

Bridge Street

HAS loved the fountains, but he was very slow to approach them at first... He was running through the fountains and of course, he fell. He scraped his chin and never even cried about it. This prompted mom to ask me "Does he even feel pain?" He does, he's just a brute.

JMS striking his pose in the fountains. He loves being a big brother and allowing little brother to follow him around everywhere. We are living it up until JMS gets sick of himMbeing everywhere he is.

Big Bugs

The boys and I were visiting mom and dad in Huntsville and went to the botanical gardens to see the Big Bug display. The gardens were beautiful and we went early in the morning before it started getting hot. JMS with the Big Ladybug...

I love my new camera and how close it gets to things like these butterflies.

Mom with my two boys.

Bats Galore

At the cabin, we had a friendly bat who was hanging out under our covered porch all day. At dusk, he went out to find food. We didn't think anything about it. Later that night, we were all in bed for the evening when David woke me up because he was laughing. I went out into the family room where mom, dad, and David were all standing there laughing. We had a bat that came in through a small hole in the cabin wall (as best we can figure) and was hanging out in the cabin. Dad had heard it while they were trying to sleep. These creatures are much tinier than you can imagine. I, however, have a very healthy fear of bats... I hate bats. We were standing around trying to figure out the best way to get the bat out because he was behind a huge beam that was less than 2 inches from the wall. Dad had some strange idea about using tape, mom suggested insect spray to stun him, and David mentioned using his taser. We finally decided to try mom's insect spray approach. Dad isn't really crazy about bats either and David assumed the position of video taping the "bat incident." Once sprayed, he fell to the ground and we were able to get him outside. He crawled over to the edge of the deck and flew away. It was a very strange night.

We're not always the smartest people

So, we went camping and it rained... of course... that's my luck. The chances went from 30% up to 60% and 80%. We decided to wait it out and see how things would go. We were going to try to get in our family bike ride because it wasn't supposed to rain until after lunch. We loaded the kids and bikes into the minivan and off we went. First of all, we couldn't find the trail head for the bike route. We went an hour out of our way and took our new van off-roading, but in the end we found it. We piled out of the car, loaded the bikes down with three bottles of water and four packages of crackers. It was only supposed to be a 2-3 hour ride at best. The book described the hills as steep, but short. Obviously the book that we were following and I have different opinions of short. They had apparantly never tried these "short" hills with an 8-year old without a gear bike. Needless to say we made it to the top when it said we should bear to the left at the fork. Now, keep in mind that David had an odometer on his bike, it was just in kilometers instead of miles like the guidebook. David thought we should go left (primarily because it was downhill) instead of right (uphill). The surface was described as "forest road." I didn't think we were on the right trail. We continued on while I had a sinking feeling in my gut that we were going the wrong direction. HAS, however, didn't care at all. He was in a covered bike trailer that was going downhill pretty fast. That's heaven for him. He laughed and giggled the whole time. The further we got into the ride, the more I knew we were on the wrong path. It just wasn't a Forest Road. However, David refused to turn around because it was all uphill. We crossed several rivers/creeks in which we had to disassemble the trailer from the bike and David carried all three bikes, the trailer and HAS across the river and we put them back together from there. He never quit laughing and smiling. What an Easy Baby!!!!! We finally found a hike-in campsite and crossed the river for the final time. We started out going one direction on the forest road at the same time it started pouring. I'm not talking a little bit of rain... I'm talking... POURING... HAS just keeps laughing. Meanwhile, I can't say anything to David about the rain, because he warned me that riding in the rain was my idea (which it was). We did find our way back and we had some food and water to spare. Looking back, it was great fun, but in the middle of it, it was really nerve wracking. Every time I think of this "adventure" it gets funnier and funnier.

Call it a day

Mom and Dad were supposed to meet us at Amicalola Falls to camp, but after the forecast decided to bail on us. After looking at the forecast, we decided tent camping may not be all it's cracked up to be, so we packed up our campsite in 15 minutes and decided to meet mom and dad at the cabin instead. It only rained on us for about 5 minutes of our closing it in... just enough to get everything wet, so we had to get it all back out when we got to the cabin. JMS was devastated because he wanted to camp. He did get David to promise him a night or two in the tent in our backyard one day. If you know David's love of the outdoors ( smile) then you'd know how disappointed JMS must have been for David to promise this. We did make it to the cabin in one piece...

Let's go camping...

We are taking the boys tent camping tonight. The weather looks great if we can just avoid the rain. The chances are 30%, 50% and then 30%. Hopefully, it will go all around us, but not hit us. We plan to hike, ride our bikes, and play some games. We'll see how fun tent camping is with a rambunctious one year old. I'm waiting on him to fall asleep so he can get a short nap before we leave, but he's not playing that game. It's almost as if he knows that we have some exciting plans this afternoon and he is too excited to go to sleep. JMS is very excited and I can't wait to time us and see how fast we can set up camp. Here we come Dahlonega.

Mom and dad are meeting us tomorrow night, so the boys will love it and camping with my parents is always fun.