Dear little tomato plant,

oh how I love you. Why do I love you? Because we planted you and you are actually growing. Also, because you are the only plant in our garden (if you can even call our little, pathetic, patch of ground beside our house a garden - don't laugh all you with serious gardens (Steph, Elisha)) that is actually producing fruit. I love you because I know how expensive tomatoes are at the grocery store, and it makes me happy to not have to buy them for a little while. But the main reason I love you is because of a sweet little girl. This little girl. I love you because she loves you. She loves to talk about you and care for you. She checks on you a lot. The minute her daddy gets home from school every day she reminds him to water you. They take care of you together. And that makes me happy.

I love watching her get excited when one of your tomatoes is almost ready to pick.

And I love cutting up and putting that tomato in one of this little girl's favorite dinners, like haystacks.

So thank you, little tomato plant, for more than just tomatoes.

Love, her mom.

Bless Tennessee!

Dan's brother, Brian, entered the MTC on July 8. The next night, Dan was helping Leah say our family prayer, and he whispered to her, "Bless Brian in the MTC." Leah, having never heard that term before, thought a few seconds and then repeated, "Bless Tennessee." It was all we could do to keep from busting up laughing . . . . I think we've been spending too much time in that state lately!

And here's a cute picture that Annie drew for Brian during our last FHE. She's getting to be a good little drawer! (She definitely gets that from Dan's side of the family:)

Harry Potter Party

The opening night of the 6th Harry Potter movie is definitely a great excuse to throw a party. And what a party it was! From the moment we read the invitation, via Howler, we knew it was going to be a blast! Especially because it was being thrown by these two: our awesomest party planner friends ever! (dressed as Filch and Madam Hooch)

This party certainly didn't lack attention to detail. From the decorations (pictures on the walls, original art, and theme displays), to the food (cauldron cakes, cockroach clusters, ton tongue taffy, bertie bott's beans and butterbeer), everything was impeccably planned. Just take a closer look at the potions display on the wall!

So, a little over a year ago, I had planned an Enrichment activity where we did a white-elephant gift exchange as part of the fun, and ended up with this crazy hippie witch costume. I thought it would be great for the costume box, and who knew I would actually find a use for it this soon! Dan made me a crystal ball, Heather lent me those awesome glasses, and my costume was complete: I was Professor Trelawny.

Dan went as Draco Malfoy (his dental school grad gown was the perfect costume), and when we arrived at the party he was fittingly sorted onto the male dominant Slytherin team. I was sorted into Gryffindor.

The first event was a full blown Quidditch Match. This was a total riot!! Dan and I were both Chasers, trying to score the quaffel into one of three goal posts. The Beaters were placed in the corners and tried to peg the Chasers with bludgers . . . . if we got hit by a bludger, we had to freeze and count 5 Voldemorts. Dan took a bludger to his neck, and I got beaned by one in the face from across the field! But as it goes in Quidditch, 150 points goes to the team whose Seeker finds the Golden Snitch first, and Kristie (aka Cho Chang!) came out victorious after finally pounding it out of a tree in the front yard! Slytherin wins it! (Seriously, this was so fun. When can we play again? I want to play without wearing a rediculously hideous bright colored dress! I wonder what the neighbors were all thinking?)

The second event was a race where each team had to unscramble a series of Fat Lady Passwords and then whisper them in order to Madam Hooch without looking. This game was intensely fun, and Gryffindor won it after finally unscrambling the word "transfiguration!" The night was tied, 1 to 1.

So for the tie breaker, the last event was Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean Toss. We had to toss jelly beans into an egg carton with certain points designated to each slot. The only rule: You can't touch the carpet. As you can see, the competitive spirit led us to come up with some crazy ways to toss the beans!

Look who won: they thought they were so funny doing their Slytherin cheer! Hisssssssss!
As punishment, the losers had to eat one bean. Grass, dirt, fish, vomit . . . . we didn't know until we ate it.

Thanks Whiteheads and Bastians for the AWESOME party!! We had so much fun.

What a bunch of cRaZieS!

Nashville Temple

Before saying goodbye to the Johnsons on Sunday, we went to church and walked around the temple. We had teary eyed goodbyes and then we headed north to Ohio and they headed south to Georgia. We're so glad we did this little meet-in-the-middle trip!

Our Nashville 4th of July!

We woke up Saturday morning all ready to celebrate the USofA! We put on our red, white, and blues, and walked a few blocks down to Broadway, the heart of Nashville.

We tried on cowgirl hats, took pictures by guitars, and peeked into bars to listen to the amateur country music artists just waiting for their chance to be discovered. I loved it - totally Nashville. I always try to imagine myself living in whatever town or city we're visiting. If we lived in Nashville, I would definitely buy some boots.

At the end of Broadway street we came upon a family fun zone . . . . lots of inflatable slides, bounce houses, and ice cream. All for free. Perfect.

By this time it was early afternoon, and pretty warm outside. We decided to go back to the hotel, get on the kids' swimsuits, and head to a splash park or the fountains in downtown Nashville. But when we got to the hotel, that decision was quickly trumped by the kids . . . . all they wanted to do was to swim in the hotel pool. So, that's what we did!

In the evening, we again joined the masses and hit the streets of Nashville. We ate dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory and then slowly made our way down to the riverfront where all the big festivities were taking place. Nashville has one of the biggest fireworks show in the nation, along with a country music concert, and we wanted to take in all the excitement and atmosphere.
But when a test firework went off, we realized we were a little too close to the action. Luke did NOT like it. Leah and Annie didn't either.

So, we had to move farther away. We walked up the street aways until we came to the city courthouse. In front of the building is a huge lawn with a perfect view of the firework show. We set up our camping chairs, including the Johnson's new accordian style 6-kid couch limo chair, or whatever it's called. We had barely gotten situated when it started to sprinkle a bit. Uh, oh. Well, no problem. We'll just move up to the courthouse and sit against the doors - there's about 1 foot of overhang that will protect us if it starts to rain. And anyways, the forecast said the rain wouldn't come until 10:00. We should be good. Right after we got resituated, the fireworks started. What? Why are they starting? It's only 8:15, and they aren't supposed to start until 9:00. It isn't even dark out yet. They're kind of hard to see. Oh, well. We'll just sit and enjoy them anyways.

Well, about 5 minutes into the firework show, we understood why they started shooting off the fireworks 45 minutes early . . . .

And can you believe we actually stayed and sat there for the remainder of the show? It was crazy. It was some of the hardest rain I had ever been in. And it came from out of nowhere, like it only can in the Midwest. And let's just say, that foot of overhang? yeah, whatever. It was craziness when it started to pour . . . .Dan was frantically trying to cover up all our cameras, cell phones, etc, while Lisa was trying to keep her newborn dry (thanks to a random stranger that offered her his umbrella), and I was huddled under an umbrella with all 5 little girls crying and laughing at the same time. Ryan and Katie were loving it, wanting to dance around in the rain.

Then we had to run 7 blocks back to our hotel. The rain never let up. Just picture us running through the streets of Nashville, 4 adults, 8 little kids, 2 double strollers, laughing about how we will never forget this. We were completely soaked by the time we finally made it. The hotel staff was handing out warm towels to the hundreds of guests coming back. It was definitely a memorable 4th of July.

Just Being Together

This little trip was all about just being together. Well, we like exploring new places as well, but our girls just love their Johnson cousins, and it's so fun for them to get together. And we got to meet adorable 7 week old Matthew!

After leaving the Mammoth Cave on Friday afternoon, we drove down to Nashville, checked into the Renaissance Nashville Hotel, and then drove on over to Centennial Park to see the Parthenon. The Parthenon in Nashville, built in 1897, is a full-scale replica of the original Parthenon in Athens. It was beautiful, and the perfect backdrop for pictures (which is important to Dan and his sister, Lisa, in case you didn't know:)

The kids had so much fun running, jumping, following, laughing, posing, rolling, climbing, chasing - just being together.

Oh, and Lisa took some glamour/goofy shots of us as well! Because Dan and I like being together too.

Mammoth Cave

For the 4th of July of weekend, we decided to go somewhere fun with the Johnsons. We picked Nashville - the perfect half way point between us (in Columbus, Ohio) and them (in Columbus, Georgia). We drove out Thursday night, and actually stayed the night in Bowling Green, Kentucky, because we wanted to hit up Mammoth Cave National Park on Friday morning.

Did you know? Mammoth Cave is the world's longest known cave. It is so long that if the second and third longest caves in the world were joined together, Mammoth Cave would still be the planet's longest cave and have nearly 100 miles left over! I had no idea the world's longest cave system was in Kentucky.

What a welcome for people driving into the park!

We did the "New Entrance Tour" at 10:30. It was two hours long - just about right for the kids. Actually, I think their favorite part was the bus ride we took to and from the "new entrance."

Here we are entering the "new entrance" (discovered in 1920). Do we look scared or what?

The caves were awesome. The first half of the tour was descending 250 feet into the caves, climbing down steep metal catwalks and squeezing through narrow walkways. The kids were having a blast. The second half of the tour was spent in larger chambers of the cave, listening to the tour guide, experiencing complete darkness when they turned off the lights, and pointing out stalactites and stalagmites.