Speaking of eating...

Supersized meatloaf....

New recipe for the no-knead bread, which was reeeaaaally good, btw.

All of which added together for an homage to Mr Ed...owner and proprietor of one of my favorite burger joints when I was about Emily's age.

NEW pet...warning...feeding picture included

So we got a new pet, a three foot ball python, from a family that was just about done

with the excitement and joy of snakes. I like snakes. They like mammals. Weird.

Here she is, looking at the He Man movie Dan left for her to look at. 

No name yet, we agreed we wanted a new name, just have

not decided on one. It's hard with so many

invested people choosing.

So, her first feeding with us was on Friday, never seen it up close,

none of the kids freaked out. I'm kicking myself for the

FIVE mice we caught and released last month.

That's $13 worth of mouse. sigh.

Name suggestions so far

Josh: Fluffy or Spot

Breanna: Snake

Emily: Monty (get it?)

Rachel: Orma (orm for snake, a to feminize)

Sam: Mr Slithers

Dan and Ava really don't know. 

plain, ordinary wonder

Josh has found something exciting. Electronics, appealing in the form of a door alarm. We've bought kits off and on through the past few years, which he had been interested in. Usually he requested mom or dad to help, and we did with smiles. At his peer program, they worked for two days on wiring and cutting and pasting cardboard. When it didn't quite work, I offered to take him to Radio Shack (remembering fully how much my baby brother enjoyed that store from age 8 til, hey, now!) So we traveled to the mall, he spent some time digging through the drawers, and talking to the salespeople. He held his own with them, made his choices on wire gauge, LED size, and other accoutrements. At home, he designed his sign, asked me to cut it out, and then worked from five pm to 11 pm. He got a complete circuit, but decided the light wasn't bright enough (although the buzzer can be heard all over our three floor home). So, he wired three more lights in the circuit, explained to me that they were in series, and that there wasn't enough power from the batteries, and proceeded to figure it out. From his scout book, he has learned all the formulas I remember from E&M, and he's functionally using them. He has very strong interests, ones that others may not approve of, or agree with, but that's not their job. My job is to help my children find their interests, facilitate that interest the best way I can, and create with them a life in which they can be happy and one that they fully appreciate.

From Charles D Hayes, at 'CreatingLearningCommunities.com'
"More to be pitied than those who have fallen through the "educational" cracks are those who have been intellectually lobotomized in the name of learning. Marking time in lives of stultifying mediocrity, with no strong interests in much of anything, they put up with jobs they hate and pretend to enjoy the mindless entertainment they pursue to compensate. Holding elitist status in material possessions, and having far more wealth than eighty percent of the human beings on this planet, such people nevertheless complain about how poorly the world treats them. On nearing the end of their lives, those who have viewed their existence as barely tolerable drudgery begin to panic at the realization that they have never learned to truly think for themselves nor felt the exhilaration of intellectual engagement. Would that all human beings could experience throughout their lives the plain, ordinary wonder of existence that comes through active curiosity."

From my OU alumni letter...received today

"College Colors Day, which coincides with the kick off of college football and back to campus for students, is an annual celebration dedicated to promote the traditions and spirit that make the college experience great by encouraging college students, fans, and alumni to wear apparel of their favorite college or university throughout the day of Friday, August 29th. The Collegiate Licensing Company, a division of IMG Worldwide, organizes College Colors Day. "

Yes, of course the CLC organizes it, it's money-makin'! But here's a pic of Emily's spirit...a blanket she made for the fair.


Ironically my husband wore his new OU issued shirt, in green. ~eyebrow?~

Thrifty Thursday, gas edition

So, inspired by an online blog, I've been doing an experiment on ethanol gas vs alcohol free gas in our vehicle, 2002 Ford Excursion. Jennie C figured out mileage on a full tank of each, and found that her vehicle did much better on alc-free gas. We started with ethanol, but then blew the whole experiment by driving to Dallas...thereby getting all highway miles and nearly 15 mpg (woohoo!)

So, I bought the alc-free gas, and did our normal driving pattern and got 11.9 mpg. (!) 

Then, bought the ethanol gas and after our normal driving pattern, got 12.4 mpg. Hm.

So again, I'm going to say it depends on your vehicle, and perhaps your driving patterns. I'm glad we did it, because it's just more food for thought. 

On one hand....to fill our tank, alc free gas costs $4 to $6 more, and if we're not getting better mileage, it's not worth it thriftywise. 

On the other hand, I do tend to shop at gas stations that are alc free because the stations around here tend to be independently owned and I like supporting small businesses. 

On the other hand, looking at the environment, gas has hidden costs such as drilling, refining, shipping. Gas with ethanol has all of that, plus the hidden cost of growing corn (water, fertilizing, harvesting), refining, and then shipping to gas refineries to make final products. 

On the other hand, producing ethanol actual creates energy so perhaps it works out in the end. 

And in the immortal words of Tevye (surely you got the idea from all my 'other hands'?) what people buy is mostly based on TRADITIOOOON!  Perhaps not the gas they they've always bought (On the other hand, ethanol has been in our gas since the 80's) but on traditional thinking surrounding supporting gas or ag or large chains or independent station owners.  Or perhaps the tradition of buying whatever costs less regardless of the long term cost.

What's wrong with grocery stores

Breanna has a bit of a UTI coming on, so I went to the store to pick up some cranberry juice, it has been probably two years since anyone in our family has had this issue, but things have changed.

At Homeland, there are 48 different flavors and brands of cranberry "drinks". (to be fair, we went to wal-mart and they only had nine different flavors, from three brands and yes, I counted because I was furious) Not one of those bottles actually contained JUST cranberry juice. Not even the ones labeled 100% cranberry juice. What they mean is 100% juice, with cranberry. Most of the ones that state 100% juice contain (in this order) apple juice concentrate, pear juice concentrate, distilled water, couple of chemicals, and finally, right before the chemical food coloring, cranberry juice concentrate.  IN THAT ORDER! For those who don't read labels like we do, ingredients are always posted in order of weight in the product. 

The cranberry cocktails are an even more frightening dietary puzzle. The ingredients on those bottles start with distilled water, then corn syrup. Usually followed by apple or pear juice concentrate, food colorings, cranberry concentrate and last but never least, some preservative chemical. sigh. People drink this. Without thinking. And then criticize ME for not allowing my children to drink juices. Well, find me some real juice that isn't all apple. We do buy orange juice, one particular brand. That's all I want!

Emily and Rachel were with me, and suggested perhaps that we look at the frozen juice concentrates. Perhaps that would do it! So we walk over, and welch's cranberry 'drink' concentrate lists their primary ingredient as CORN SYRUP. That's not juice people. They then suggested looking at the produce section and juicing our own, but of course no one sells cranberry at this time of year. Late September perhaps, but not in August. I guess if we can get our hands on a few pounds, we'll have to buy all we can, juice and freeze for occasions like these.

The irony comes in when you can walk to the pharmacy and pick up a bottle of powdered cranberry, in a pill. You can't buy the juice, but you can buy it conveniently bottle and missing who knows what from the processing. We decided to buy Northlands 100% juice cranberry (I refuse to type it in the order they do) which is 100% juice from apple, grape, pear and cranberry (I'm guessing so that they can change based on cost of ingredients and not have to reprint labels), natural flavors, vegetable colors and ascorbic acid. It's very possible that she'll react to it, ascorbic acid is quite frequently made from corn, as are natural flavors. sigh. But at least the label says gluten-free, so Dan can have it. ;-)

Why do they sell this crap? At the risk of sounding like my dad....because the American consumer will BUY IT! For years now, people have bought whatever was cheapest. So manufacturers have figured out that they can just save money because a majority of people will not even READ labels, and just buy whatever is cheapest. The minority can just suffer. Pay a fortune for a doctor, but fill your body with the cheapest crap you can't afford. We'll head to the health food center later and see if they have real cranberry anywhere.

Crafts ahoy

Start off with some clay...

pinch and twist and mold....

til you have a snail on a leash...

or a whale on a leash

How men clean....

Or, how one must clean after the wife has been sick for two months!

Talk about build-up....

It works very well, I must say, I only snickered the first time I wandered in to see what all the noise was about. And it was a lot faster too! He graciously allowed me to snap one shot of it.

Three years ago, we started unschooling

From June, 2006, talking about how we started

Talk about a loaded question, unschooling is a topic I just started bringing up with my parents, sure haven't brought it up with a whole lot of other people. After all, we're relatively new to homeschooling itself, our kids have been in school until a year ago. Breanna and Josh both were in school for five years, Josh starting at the normal five yo age, and Breanna at three due to federal law mandating that schools provide resources for disabled children ages three to 21. Emily joined them for preK and kindergarten, and Rachel a year later for preK. 18 months ago I was completely finished with dealing with the schools special ed services. There was no way they were going to provide the resources they were supposed to without a huge fight. I finally realized that it was not worth it. The fight was out of me, I was worn out, and I was doing so much at home there was no point in fighting the schools anymore. I was ready to pull them at Christmas break, but dh asked me to wait til the end of the school year, so that the kids had a very final closure with them.

So in May, school was out, and we transitioned right into a school-at-home environment. We were all comfortable with that, and in fact, Josh and Bre both had great summer school opportunities that I finally (after four years of fighting!) had gotten in place. Josh's turned out to be great, actually finishing up some things that I thought were important. Breanna's placement was the worst school program I had ever seen. She was supposed to spend the first month in a regular program getting social skills in place, and working on some academics, but then the second month was with the autism program at another school. When I visited that program, the kids that I have known for years through therapy and classes had regressed so much that it was truly frightening. I was told to my face that summer school was a 'babysitting' program and that parents had no place in the classroom. When ongoing questions revealed that the teacher had not even read Bre's IEP and had no idea what she was supposed to do with her, I refused to send her.

Anyway, we started off with school-at-home, like I mentioned, but still very eclectic and very child-led. Following the kids' interests, we checked out dozens of library books each week, did crafts and experiments centered around those, the kid had math books, and I had goals from the public school system in each grade that I figured I would refer to for my own comfort. Imagine my surprise when by October, with very little direction, my children had achieved their goals for the year. Good timing too, since about that time I was put on bedrest for a problematic pregnancy. The end of October and much of November was spent with me in bed, the kids around me with TV trays full of crayons, playdough, puzzles, crafts...with the TV going full time and me reading nonstop.

It was during this time period when I realized that I did not have to do anything to 'teach' my kids. They were learning so much on their own! The girls were constantly coming up to me and telling me "Did you know..?" Josh started reading the types of books he'd never been comfortable with (any type of fiction, really!) and was comparing them to factoids that he knew from previous reading. Most importantly to me, they were so proud of what they were doing on their own. After our baby was born, dh was home with the kids, and really got to see how relaxed we were, and how well that was going. He's a natural facilitator, great at letting kids figure things out, helping when they need it, providing lots of opportunity. He lets you know things without ever lecturing...totally something I'm working on!

After he went back to work, the kids and I were left at home, trying to figure out the new dynamic. It's always a little tough to add a new person to a household, especially when that person is pretty much helpless and needs constant care. I dropped a lot of things I had held too closely, clean house, laundry always done, manicured lawn (okay, that last one you can laugh at, you would if you knew me....we never have had grass!) Letting those things go allowed me to spend much more time being with my kids, and for the first time it allowed to me examine MY passions. WOW! What a life!

At this point we're all still learning. I'm still learning to be a nicer mom. I'm working on my own issues, all my past hurts and disappointments. The kids are watching me closely...they are seeing how choices you make affect you a long time in the future, but they also see how we can make choices now to get to a better place. They are learning to find and follow their own passions, and I'm learning to trust that perfect experience. They've learned that they can call me on the carpet when I'm getting mean about things. And I'm so proud because I know that they will be the kind of people who won't get tossed around, pushed around, ignored. Not only are they learning all kinds of stuff about the world, they're learning all about themselves too!

Super update as of 8/08: At this point, we've gone all the way to radical unschooling. But more importantly I've learned that it doesn't mean that *I* have no rights either. So we've spent a great deal of the past year learning to balance the needs of everyone in the family. It includes chilling out after the morning larks have fallen asleep instead of maintaining their normal daytime screams. It means the larks are a little more quieter in the morning when they wake up much earlier than our nightowls. The kids don't LIKE dishes or laundry or weeding any more than they did before, but with me being more compassionate about it, and them being willing to see how important it is to some people (not just me, Emily lost several plants in the garden when Rachel stopped weeding HER bed) they are tremendously helpful and enjoy doing these things. I feel so blessed, I can't imagine choosing any other life than the one I have, surrounded by kids, stuff and even a new pet. I'll blog that later ;-)

Not Back to School Party (or NBTSP!)

SO last year, since we finally had an unschooling group we loved, we planned the notbacktoschool party. It was so much fun, we decided to do it again! Different park, different activities, but the same fun-loving people we call crazy....um, yeah.
Felt slightly evil driving by our homeschool with "Brick in the Wall" blaring, but it was ultimately healing for the kids.

Started off with some bubbles...

But our most popular activity was the basket of 100 hair color bottles and mirror...

Do your own style...and Dan has style!

Baby Emmitt had some help (from mom, honest!) and he loved it!

Deal was, party is NOT for just kids, we're equal opportunity party animals! Hey, we didn't have to go back to school either. Heather made these cool templates for shapes.

Of course there was water....splashpad was a prerequisite for this party. 

Sam and Andrew duke it out...

There was a treasure hunt, complete with laminated maps (we have a certain mom who is, needless to say, putting us to shame) that she designed the day before the party. Thanks Suzanne, the whole deal was great!!! 

Yarn dolls (and octupi!) by Rachel, Izzy, and Emily

While Sam (not mine, obviously, mines a boy!) makes a fairy bracelet!

Sack race, Dan's first ever. He was small enough to run normally which was so funny!

Lily bounces ever onward...she's SO cute!

The ol' egg in the spoon race! My favorite part? When Lyric dropped her egg, shrugged, and took off RUNNING, totally beating the pants off of everyone else. LOL!

The grownups came in last, what's up with that? This was followed by an egg toss.

Of course, we only had two dozen eggs left over. We'll leave it to your imaginations!

My favorite tradition (hey, two years counts as tradition!) is the cookie decorating!

Take fifty people, one hundred cookies and a pound of dyed circus colors icing, and you've got fun in the making! Sam even took candy from the treasure hunt to decorate hers!

Told you they were circusy colors! He proves it!

Gratuitous splashpad scenes "Help, I'm drowning" dance, by Rachel

Bucket o' doom

And I'm not identifying this kid, for his own protection, although I'm sure his mom had no problems with him alleviating his thirst this way. ;-)

Gotta climb all the local trees, again with my favorite musical (ok one of the many)

TRADITION!!!!

Lots of other cool pictures, there were so many people there, but blogger is having a heart attack now, sooooo...I'll leave you with these. I'll find blogs that have pics and edit to add them in so you can see more. FYI is the best group ever!

Monday Morning Ponderisms, Five year old edition

Your bread is so good, it's like a pillow in your mouth.

If someone ever breaks your heart, don't tattle to your parents.

I LIKE this game (said while throwing dinosaurs into the ceiling fan)

Mom, why does the sky change colors?

Vikings are cool, they get to pillage EVERYone.

Hey, mom, did you know my butt can talk?

Mom, can you make me a superhero blanket? Only I want it with Dr Strange because he is so unappreciated!

I'm so sorry, like as sorry as all the clouds (on a rainy day)

For Easter day, we should have LOTS of butterflies.

I think God is a pretty nice guy, because there aren't any bad guys in heaven.

Funny cartoon

and it's a hint for something exciting! Any biters?

Dan's partying now!

Dan at my most despised kid pizza store ever....but I sacrifice so he can have a good time. My brother and SIL called up to see if we wanted to meet them while they took my nephew, and I said SURE. Dan hasn't ever been, and he had a good time, for about 45 minutes. Then he started to get overwhelmed by the noise, and he says that the smell of the wheat was making him sick (he does have celiac disease, so it's possible) We beat a hasty retreat, after saying THANKS! for the good time.

"A baby is...."

"...God's opinion that the world should go on."

Carl Sandburg

Emma Dawn, born to her blessed parents at home

and just so I can brag, a picture of ME holding her. SO precious

It's a trend....

After spending the day at the Omni....oh wait, the newly very pretentiously named Science Museum Oklahoma (sounds like it's a chain of museums really) the kids were inspired. Mom does not have pictures (loser) but my friend Heather got some GREAT ones.

Here are the kids with the cups, inspired by the tinkering room...



And Ava, so tired she can't sleep, blink or smile. She's orfully cute tho.

Thrifty Thursday

In honor of thrifty Thursday, some good, plain recipes:

Potato Soup (is that with an 'e'?)


Four potatoes, peeled and diced (~50¢)
half a cup of diced onion (~25¢)
one carrot, thinly sliced (i dunno, a ten lb bag for $3, and I used one?! 7¢)
one celery stalk, thinly sliced (same as the carrot...pennies?)
four cups of water (free)
tsp salt (a penny?)
tsp pepper (a few cents)

Bring to a boil, simmer til veggies are soft

Smash with potato masher

Add two cups of cream (or a can of canned milk 50¢), warm through
Total $1.40 for eight servings

Tomato Soup


two tbsp oil (cents)
half a cup onion (25¢)

heat oil, cook onions til translucent

add 14 oz can of tomato sauce (88¢)
add one can of water (free)
tsp salt (penny)
half tsp pepper (penny)
tbsp basil (say, a nickel)

Less than a $1 for 8 servings

The kids and I threw this together today, and a loaf of homemade french bread (50¢) really brought it all together, thinly sliced and toasted.

and we had three bowls left over for lunch tomorrow, for the lucky folk who get there first.

Measles caused by homeschoolers???

This is just all kinds of pissing me off...enough so that i'm blogging in the middle of the day.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26333787/

The article actually says that many cases were caused by homeschoolers, although appr 40% of the cases were kids under the age of one, obviously NOT homeschoolers and probably not even cases of refused vaccinations since MMR starts at 15 months. Grrrr. Actually 25 kids were homeschoolers. How is that many cases? Maybe some...if I had 131 cookies, and ate 25, that would be many, but if there were millions of homeschoolers and hundreds of kids with measles, that would qualify as 'some' homeschoolers.

quote:
None of the 131 patients died, but 15 were hospitalized. (from me, probably because they were treated with tylenol, which can cause complications in viruses that clear through the liver)

Childhood vaccination rates for measles continue to exceed 92 percent, but outbreak pockets seem to be forming, health officials said. (obviously then, vaccine schedules aren't working. According to recent studies, efficacy is around 80%)

Of this year's total, 122 were unvaccinated or had unknown vaccination status. Some were unvaccinated because the children were under age 1, making them too young to get their first measles shot.

In 63 of those cases — almost all of them 19 or younger — the patient or their parents refused vaccination, the CDC reported.
unquote

And at the end
quote:
Since 2001, the preservative has been removed from shots recommended for young children.
unquote

Technically not true. Your vaccines are made with all the same thimerosal that it had before, but it is 'washed' from the vaccines. Not 100% effective...from what I remember from organic chemistry.

Scary things...

In a fit of disgust at the kitchen, I lost my unschooly temper and lectured for all of five minutes about disgusting mildewy washclothes and rotting juice in the fridge water dispenser. As my kids stare at me...thinking, nay KNOWING I've lost my mind...I grasp for ways to explain why my hormonal butt was freaking out over a few random items and VOILA!

It hit me like a ton of red slime...we had PETRI dishes in the basement. And even better, we had refill bottles of AGAR. How many homeschoolers keep that in stock? Think Henriette pussycat as we say "Meow Meow Meow!"

So, we took samples, just the three, any more and I might have gotten sick from the ideas....the first picture is 48 hours later (the suggested waiting time) However, we tend to procrastinate and the second picture is 96 hours. Unfortunate since they were out on the counter when our friends came in for potluck dinner. I'd bleached the cabinets by then, JIC!

I know the mold....but the red slime scares me a bit. The kids, not so much. Eh...what's a little slime between friends?

Monday Morning Ponderisms, Founding fathers edition

"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law." - Thomas Jefferson

"I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus." - Thomas Jefferson

"The experience of the United States is a happy disproof of the error so long rooted in the unenlightened minds of well-meaning Christians, as well as in the corrupt hearts of persecuting usurpers, that without a legal incorporation of religious and civil polity, neither could be supported. A mutual independence is found most friendly to practical Religion, to social harmony, and to political prosperity." - James Madison

"Every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience." - George Washington

“The Law given from Sinai [The Ten Commandments] was a civil and municipal as well as a moral and religious code.” - John Quincy Adams.

“It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.” - Patrick Henry

At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, James Madison proposed the plan to divide the central government into three branches. He discovered this model of government from the Perfect Governor, as he read Isaiah 33:22;
“For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver,
the LORD is our king;

I realize and apologize

I haven't been posting, but for good reason.

My friend Christy (whom you'll see listed in blogs I visit...yeah, over to the right a bit) had her lil babe! I have been so enchanted with Miss Emma that I was there for a full 24 hours whilst my dearest worked from home with our seven. We brought Aden over to play the next day, and then I spent Friday catching up on all the housework I skipped. Teehee.

This weekend started Thursday night with one friend spending the night, then Friday night another, and then Saturday another. Thankfully the girls are staying at a friends house tonight so we can recover ;-) J/K. We are so blessed that all of their friends fit in so well in our household, not only in the fun but they always help with chores and such. Makes me raise an eyebrow...how did we get so lucky??? Of course, with seven kids already running around, what's one...two...three...wow. I think we have five extra on Saturday! Heather was over with her three so I guess that doesn't quite count. I'll have to upload pictures. I would do it now but I'm far to lazy...uh, resourceful, to waste energy going downstairs. Not just personal energy, but like, uh...electricity to turn on the stair lights and um....plug in the camera. Yeah. that's it. I only have 240 pics on the machine to upload. Sigh.

Another personal post, in a place I hopefully won't lose it

"Treaty of Tripoli, treaty signed to ensure that we were not "at war" with the Barbary nations that were controlling mediteranian trade routes, Article 11 is as follows:"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries." take from that what you will..."

Need to verify, look up later.

Ah, the stuff I never learned in school.

Easy place to store info....

Just for me..."These aren't the posts you're looking for....(repeat) these aren't the posts we're looking for. You can go about your business....move along"

Romans AD 57
2 Tim: during the reign of Nero 54-68 Paul was martyred after the big fire of Rome in 64.
2 Peter: Peter was martyred during reign of Nero < 68
James: 50s or early 60's
Hebrews: before the destruction of the temple in AD 70.
Acts: AD 63.
Luke: AD 59-63 or 70's or 80's
Mark: AD 50's or 60's or before AD 70.
Matthew: AD 50's to 70's
John: Late in first century

Found a new fav website

http://stupidfilter.org/

Following are a few quotes from their FAQ that made my Friday:

"Isn't filtering stupidity elitist?"
"Yes. Yes, it is. That's sort of the whole point."

"Won't people just try to defeat the filter, the way spammers try to get around spam filtering?"
"we think it's reasonable to count on the laziness of the stupidest commenters not to do this."

"Do you really expect to be able to detect and filter anything that's conceivably stupid?"
"a sufficiently advanced AI would probably filter out the whole of human discourse, which isn't the idea."

"What about ironic uses of "stupid" diction?"
"However, we consider the StupidFilter's irony-ignorance to be a feature, insofar as even if an allegedly smart person makes a short, stupid comment, their smartness doesn't make the comment any less stupid. If your mom had designed the StupidFilter, she might say "If you can't say anything smart, don't say anything at all.""

Monday Morning Ponderisms, Thoreau edition

'If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be.
Now put foundations under them.'


'Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.'


'Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.'


'Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.'


and then, why I'm not posting so much right now
'How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live

Lil rides....

Started off with the littler rides....Sam on the bumper cars. Everyone was smirked at his T hat while Zane wore his OU hat.

Dan is so excited, he and Sam had major plans for wrecking each other.

Ava really wanted to drive but she just wasn't big enough. Poor gal. Rachel was nice enough to share with her and let her tag along.

And Emily sat around and puffed and quietly stewed about waiting for the bigger rides.

She did get on the truckers ride..

her and Rachel and Dan joking about being off to see the wizard.

and Sam rode with a cute red headed girl lol!

Ava and Bre tagged along with some other new kids...

and then rode the train. Do you see Bre with her fingers in her ears on every ride?

This is a noisy section...

especially with Sam on the bell.