It's Junior High Time!!

We started Friday morning off with a pedicure. NiNi, Emma, and I tried a new place just off of 280. We checked out the art gallery next door and left NiNi talking art and painting classes while Emma and I headed off to Taziki's for lunch with Camille, Caroline, Missie, and Lexie Liddell. We had a great time talking about who got what teacher what period and with which friends. We then headed over to the Jr. High to decorate the lockers and put books away. The lockers are decorated by the 7th grade girls "big sis'". I love this idea. I'm not sure when they started doing it, sometime after my days at Briarwood. The 8th grade girls pick an upcoming 7th grade girl to be a big sis to. They decorate your lockers and are there to answer questions about school, teachers, and whatever. This is what we found when we got to the school.

Emma's Big Sis sure knows her...candy!

We then set about decorating the inside of the locker. This is also a new thing since I was in school. It's cool to adorn your locker with wallpaper, rugs, lights, and such. We bought the leftover off of Caroline when we saw she wasn't going to be using it all. We had thought we would do wrapping paper but this worked out great.

(Not an actual picture of Emma and her locker, she wouldn't pose. This is Camille and Caroline's locker...since we bought her remnants, it looks like hers.)
Emma went about getting all of her things into the locker and then talked and goofed off with friends for a while.

We moms had a good time seeing each other but as time passed close to 3:00 we had to go pick up Nolan from football practice. All in all, a fun day!

Emma had Victoria over this past weekend, a lot of dancing to the new Wii game was going on!

Emma and I getting ready for some back to school shopping.

I had promised Emma at the beginning of the summer that she could do the feather thing in the hair. Well, it's now the end of the summer and I'm finally getting around to fulfilling the said promise (I never said when I would do it, just that I would). We were out shopping with some friends and found a place at the mall. Here are Emma and Caroline sporting the feathers.

She now is reminding me that I also said she could dye a streak in her hair...wonder when I'll get around to that??

I've had many problems with my hair but frizzy due to humidity has not been one of them...until we have hit 95..110 with humidity.

Here is what my hair looks like now.

Update on the Cornhole game

It took 11 days in all but the games are finally finished. Todd put on many layers of poly to create a slick surface but felt that it lacked some slide. He then covered the top with carnauba wax. This created such a slick surface that the bags wouldn't stick at all but slide down and off the boards. Windex was applied and finally the perfect slickness was attained. Todd then drilled handles to the side for easy carrying and away we went to Oma's to try them out.

Even paired up against Mamu's official boards, Todd's rocked.

The lights are still a possibility of being added for nighttime use, but I can already tell these are going to get a lot of use at tailgating events and fun get togethers.

The White Knuckle treatment

Ok, we finally made it to get Nolan's learners permit. His b'day was back in May but it seemed like every time we wanted to go something prevented it. Well, on July the 13th....we finally made it and he passed. I drove most of the way home but around Buck Creek, I pulled over and let Nolan take over. I hear from the back seat "Ok, now I'm ready". This is what I see...

Such a sweet and supportive sister....Todd says all she is missing is a crash helmet and pads.

The Ocoee

Since Emma turned 12 in January, we were able to white water raft on the Ocoee this year. No more "dirty bird" (Pigeon Forge) for us!

Our sweet friend Delaney went a long with us. I had been warned by her mom that she was a screamer....but I had no idea. We picked Delaney up at 5:45 in the am at Cracker Barrel and began our journey.

Todd had rigged up the computer with movies to keep them occupied.

but teenage girls don't occupy easy. Emma's shoes became an easy target.

We were making such good time that we got to the Chick-fil-A too early to eat breakfast. Yes, Todd makes his driving route out by the CFA locations! So we stop at another Cracker Barrel, but to eat this time. Todd taught the kids the secret to the tic tac game, so beware if they bet you money that they can finish with one left.

Pancakes, eggs, and waffles adorned the table, so of course we had a mini syrup bar...

Still making good time with Lookout Mountain just down the road, away we went.

View from the top. Emma and Delaney feeling faint from such a height.

The view looking down the incline. We had driven the car to the top and after seeing this view the kids were glad.

The girls had to try these on from the gift shop.

Next, it was time to tackle the Ocoee. We donned our helmets, life preservers, and had paddles in hand as we marched to the bus. After a bit of fussing about who would sit where on the raft, we ended up with Delaney and myself in front, Nolan and Emma in the middle and Todd and Kimsey (our ocoee guide) in the back. As we pushed off we saw another boat from our group piloted by a rookie, slid between two rocks, dump all it's passengers, and promptly got stuck to the bottom. Kimsey said it would be there for a long while, it was going to take 8-10 guys to pull it from the bottom against the rapids. Kimsey was fantastic. He took us through the rapids and we hit every spot dead on but he didn't take risky chances so we all stayed in the boat. At one point he asked who wanted to ride the bull. Nolan and Delaney both wanted to do this so he said the other could ride hell's hole. I was impressed with Nolan as he sat on the front of the raft, held onto a rope at the tip and hit class 4 rapids head on.

Pictures taken by the Ocoee photographer showing Nolan riding the bull.

What a day. We had two pooped girls on the way home to prove it.

I went all the way to the Ocoee and all I got was this lousy sunburn....

The kids are already planning next years trip...good memories!