County Fair Time!

 

We took our annual trip to the county fair a couple weeks ago.  Our favorite part is seeing all the animals.  They had a great petting zoo where the kids could pet all the farm animals and even hold a chicken.  We are going to Sea World in a week so we decided to wait to do rides until then.  Plus, fairs in Tennessee in August = HOT!  Waiting in lines did not sound appealing.

 



 

Trying to get my kids to love chickens as much as I do.  Too bad Luke isn't that easy to convince.  They recently made it legal in the city of Nashville to have a couple pet chickens.  Maybe one day....

Trip to Biltmore

Luke and I were able to take a getaway weekend trip to see the Biltmore a couple weeks ago.  It was a great break to hang out with just each other for a couple days.  The Biltmore was amazing to see.  It's hard to imagine they could build a house like that 100 years ago in the mountains.  I have no idea how they got all the supplies there to build it.

Building for just the gardens.

We stopped at Tennessee's new state park, Cummins Falls on the way back on a whim.  It is listed in the top 10 swimming holes in the US.  It was beautiful.  You can see Luke in the pictures climbing up the ledges by the falls.  It was a long round about hike down to the falls, so Luke decided it would be a better idea to scale up the side of a steep hill/cliff instead of taking the long way back on the trails.  This involved me grabbing on to tree vines to pull myself up the whole way and stating several times that this was a crazy idea.  Luke ended up saying this part of the trip was his favorite part.  Boys and adventure....

Treehouses

When my mom and dad visited this month, we braved the heat and went to the botanical gardens.  The summer special exhibit were treehouses from various stories.  Our favorite "treehouse" was this fish made out of CDs and swim noodles.  I had to drag Isaac out of there because he was having so much fun.  I was ready to get out of the 100 plus degree heat!

Anniversary Balloon Ride

We had planned a hot air balloon planned for our anniversary back in October, but had to reschedule due to weather.  The schedule balloon rides either at sunrise or sunset.  I had the bright idea to schedule our first attempt at a balloon ride at sunrise, which back in October was meeting around 5:30 am.  Not the brightest idea when you have a baby under one and are still getting up a couple times a night.  When the balloon pilot called us that morning at 4 am we were so relieved, especially since we had just finished feeding Micah at 3:30.  Needless to say we schedule the next balloon ride for sunset. 

We ended up landing in a random person's yard.  It was a great flight!

Disney World

We took a trip to Orlando with our family and both sets of parents and siblings a couple weeks ago.  The trip was a lot of fun!  We even got to go to Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios.  Isaac loved the rides and characters.  Micah enjoyed the rides once they started, but waiting in line was not his strong point.  He only lasted about 2 1/2 hours at Disney World, not the ideal age for theme parks.  I always wondered why some parents but leashes on their children.  Now I wish I had one for places like this.  We had fun hanging out with family, swimming, and doing things around the resort.  Luke had his annual work conference that week so he was busy there part of the week.  He even was asked to speak at a small luncheon on college savings plans. 



Isaac loves Sulley

It was fun spending the week with cousin Madison

Micah trying to decide what he thinks of the "It's a Small World" ride

Micah Knows His Animals

I have been meaning to post this for months now.  I finally got around to it.  Micah loves learning new animal sounds.  I think all kids love anything to do with animals.

Marathon Weekend

A week ago was marathon weekend at the Aull house.  We had my cousin Deana, her friend Kathy, and my college roommate Steph and her boyfriend Bill here to run the marathon.  It was a fun filled weekend!  I thought it was one of Luke's life goals to run a marathon at some point, so  back in January I signed him up to run the full marathon.  After signing him up for the run, he claimed that it had never been one of his life goals to run the marathon.  But he went along with it and trained for his first marathon. 

The first 16 miles of the race went smoothly.  Around mile 16 Luke started to cramp up and had slow down a bit in the race.  It was a hot day which did not help. Luke did finish the race which is a huge accomplishment.  After the race he spent awhile in the medical tent recovering.  The first couple days after the race he said he would never run a marathon again, but just yesturday he mentioned he might consider running it again. 

4 miles into the race (Luke & Steph)