Quick – before I head over to the kitchen to figure out dinner for my 75 hungry boys……

Last post –
Hope you all had a good Mother’s Day. I was 2 for 3 on calls. Maybe his phone is broken?
Correction -
ALL of my wonderful children did call on Mother’s Day. Unfortunately one was unable to make the connection. I’ve been told there were several attempts made – and there is a message on my cell phone (which I will get to pick up later this week when we once again get into Verizon Territory!).

Just wanted to set the record straight. OK?

Here’s a picture to make you smile today….

Happy Tuesday!

Do you think they come up for air????

And here’s the new kid on the block….

Mama is saying – so what are YOU looking at! And I can’t get over how close their markings are. It’s almost like the perspective is goofy!

So we finally got out to somewhere other than Home Depot in Dothan! We found a small ice cream shop (Blue Bell Ice Cream…yummmmm!) over in Geneva, AL (only about 15 miles away!), and decided that the 90 degree day on Friday warranted a trip! While in Geneva we visited Fowler Park – just a little local park located where two local rivers join (that would be the Choctawatchee River and the Pea River….don’t you think those letters could have been a little more equally distributed!). It was a pretty day and we enjoyed just wandering around. And I enjoyed taking lots of pictures of live oak trees with Spanish moss, cypress trees growing out of ponds, and the expansive rivers. And yes, you get to see them too!

(Who’s that good looking guy with the paint on his shorts!)

Hope you all had a good Mother’s Day. I was 2 for 3 on calls. Maybe his phone is broken? (We’re a little tricky to reach – no cell phone reception and no answering machine on our land line. It’s always a challenge, and everyone is usually surprised when we actually answer a phone call!)

Coming soon – more cute family pictures!

I was collecting some fun pictures I had taken this week to post tonight, and was busy thinking up cute captions and explainations.
HOWEVER – all that was back burnered when I snagged these great pictures of my little cuties, Hayley and Ellie! I bet you couldn’t have resisted either!

See what I mean?

So, this is parents weekend at TC and most of the 2nd Platoon boys were blessed with visits. Blessed with family hugs, food not served on green trays, and excursions either to the beach in Panama City or the movie theatres/Adventureland/bowling alley pleasures of Dothan. That huge blessing of going “off campus.” There were ten boys in 2nd however that didn’t have visits. . After we cleared it with the guys in charge (and found out that there could be some subsidy from the boys’ accounts), we piled those ten boys into a Teen Challenge van and headed to Dothan for our own brand of fun and excitement (and food not on green trays!).
When our miniature golf plan got rained out we opted for a movie. We pulled up to the theatre with just minutes to spare for the matinee. While Gary parked, I got the 12 tickets. Surprisingly, the ticket girl (also the manager it turned out) offered us a dollar off each ticket. Sweet! But I couldn’t find my wallet so I sent one of the boys off to get Gary’s wallet and hurry back with it. But much to our dismay, he didn’t have his wallet either! (How two responsible adults could drive away with 10 boys in their care and neither one of them have their wallets is beyond me, but alas, it happened.) So there I was, standing at the movie theatre ticket window with 10 boys standing there expectantly and no way to pay for the tickets. The ticket girl (bless her heart) offered to send a bill to TC for the tickets so the boys wouldn’t be disappointed. I was like, you’ll bill me for these tickets? Really, you’ll send me a bill for these tickets? So she wrote up an invoice, had me sign it with my name and phone number, and in we went. Have you ever heard of that???? So we send the boys in to get seats (since the movie was about to start), and I wait for Gary who’s making a quick head stop (as they say in TC land). The manager comes up to me and asks if the boys can have a soda and pop corn. Umm, they can, but remember, I have no resources, I say. My treat she says. I really support what you’re doing there at Teen Challenge! Now popcorn and a soda might not seem like much to you, but to those 10 boys who already saw us get into the movies without any money, it was close to a miracle. If not a miracle, certainly an unexpected blessing. Oh, and the movie was pretty good too! Nim’s Island – go see it!
Now, we’re back in the van and as I look for the 10th time for my wallet (how could we have been so remiss), I find $80.00 tucked away in the bottom of my purse! Since the movie problem was already solved, we decided that instead of just heading back home we could afford dinner at CiCi’s – all you can eat pizza for $4.99. Sounds like a teenager’s dream, no? We had a nice leisurely dinner and then headed back to Bonifay. Before we left Dothan, though, Gary thought he’d show them where he had found a geo cache several weeks before. So we stopped a neighborhood playground – and finding the little hidden treasure became secondary to the PLAYGROUND!!!! Oh. My. Goodness. If we had known how much fun they would have at a playground, we could have skipped the movie all together!

Ah, but then we would have missed the extra blessing. How good God was to us this day!

(Yes, that means there will be cow pictures)

So we started out by the field in the front of the property. There are about a dozen cattle out there, and a couple of younguns. Here is one giving new meaning to “lunch on the run”:

Then we went back to check on the new foal. There are five or six other pregnant mares back there, so we weren’t quite sure what we’d find. Well, it had been quiet (no new deliveries), but it was good to see Spice’s baby.

It cracks me up that she/he (I haven’t a clue) looks like an entirely different foal from the other side!

From there we headed to the back of the property. Remember those cows that used to live in front of our RV? Well, we were going to visit them. We couldn’t get very close, but they must have thought we were coming with food, because suddenly they were all heading our way. It was a little spooky – here’s a shot of a line of the little guys looking expectantly us.

I confess we were a big disappointment.
However, the next day the whole herd was back in our “front yard” (the pretty horses were moved to other pastures!). There must be at least 20 calves in the group. So cute!
Here is our new front window view –

Here’s a bunch of them not too far from the fence. These babies have a nice variety of color, don’t they?

I haven’t a clue what all the Moms are looking, but it probably had to do with that food thing! It would have been nice of them to at least look at the camera!

And to wrap up the farm animal post – here is a close up of some of those babies!

No special reason. Just cause.