Fall Fun

Chloe up on stage for the last of "Hot Cars, Hot Nights" in PM. She was chosen to help with drawings for the night. She did a great job and enjoyed being in the spotlight.
Hunter, Chloe, and Gaga dancing to the beach music band. I couldn't get a good picture because they were dancing so fast and I was laughing so hard. Hunter was hilarious. He had just gotten a new pair of shoes that light up when you walk. It was dark out for the concert so he kept dancing around and looking down at his shoes. It was so funny! I was so proud of him for dancing along with everyone.
Looking at all the cars. Hunter also had a balloon, but he loves to pop them as soon as he gets them.
Chloe and her new bike. Just a tad too big, but she rides is like a champion!
GO PINK!

Trike-a-thon

Hunter and I have had a really busy month of October. We have had travels home to Pilot Mountain every weekend but one! Boy that makes for a crazy time, but we had lots of fun. Wasn't too much fun for David who was stuck working most of those weekends!

Riding in the St. Jude's trike-a-thon. This is a great event that we have been looking forward to since last year. The kids from the preschool raise money by getting donations for participation in the trike-a-thon. It is a little chaotic, but loads of fun and eveyone has a great time!

Patiently waiting to start! Burrrrrrrr, it was really really cold that morning!
Still riding...you can stop at the pit station and refuel with snacks and juice. Most of the boys made a quick stop and just kept right on going. The girls were so funny, they each got what they wanted and all sat down in a circle to chat and eat! The parents of only boys got a big kick out of this!
David walked around with him the entire time. Hunter did fantastic on his bike, but we still have trouble stopping....especially when little ones are out of control and flying about everywhere!

Fall around here is such a beautiful time of year. The mountains just glow for every sunrise and sunset. We are blessed with a wonderful view of all the fall colors from our front porch and from a few last trips out to the lake.

Mountains across the street. I think we need a better camera to really capture how beautiful the mountains are in the evening when the sun is setting. They look like they are on fire.
Cherokee National Forest. You can see how much they have dropped the water levels.
Hunter feeding a few ducks scavenging food from the end of season boaters.
This little guy got really close to the boat. You could have fed him from your hand...but not Hunter. (You guys remember the zoo? Hunter doesn't particularly care to touch undomesticated animals.)

BIKE!!

Nice weekend visit from Aunt Jenny and Chloe. The swing set is a hit and everyone loves to play on it!
Chloe likes to pose.
Here is our little Lance. He rode about 1 mile on the Creeper Trial. It was so much fun and he loved every minute of it. He rode across the bridge about 5 times. I really think he wore a path in the wood that afternoon.
First trail ride on his new mountain bike!

Headed for the bridge.
On our way to visit the neighbors.
I really don't know who was more excited about this moment, David or Hunter.
Played some golf last week and Hunter learned how to 'tee it up.'
Getting ready to putt....and he made it of course!

You all know by now how much Hunter loves to ride on things including but certainly not limited to mowers, tractors, trucks...and on and on and on. Well, he finally is able to ride a big boy bike, or 'big bike' as he calls it. David and I were in shock. I just didn't think they made bikes that small and then I didn't think he could really do it. We stopped by outdoor store in Bristol where they also sold bicycles. David was looking at the fly fishing gear and I was looking at the shoes (yes, we were watching Hunter, it is a small store and the bikes were nestled in between the shoes and fishing gear) when Hunter just got on this little bike and started riding it around. It was a little too big, but once we asked to lower the seat he just took off like he had been riding for months! It was so much fun to watch his excitement. He could do it and he was so very proud of himself. Of course we took it home and it is the very first thing he asks to do every morning. The pictures are great and I hope he enjoys bike riding for a long time.

Reunion weekend!

Just a really pretty picture of the Creeper Trail from my friend April.
Last night together! So sad to see everyone go.
Amanda, Hunter and I relaxing while we wait for the boat to get going!
Gianna and her daughter, Anna Rose, or Rose. She is 2.5 and Hunter thought she was the greatest! She was the sweetest little girl with a rock star personality!
Kathy and her son Tyler. He was 15 months old and had fun chasing around the 2 year olds.
Picnic in Damascus.
Adult section of the picnic!
Hunter and his new BFF, Rose.
They played and played...
April took a picture of the tree house about 1/2 mile from our access to the Creeper. I think I posted a pic of this before, but here's another if I did!
Creeper Trial bike ride. We all rode from the trial head in Abingdon to our access point in our neighborhood. It was about 7 miles. Tyler and Hunter even enjoyed the trailer ride...well up until the last 10 minutes!
First day together, we had lunch at the Martha Washington Inn.


What a wonderful weekend we had with all my college buddies! When we graduated from UNCW we all vowed that we would stay in touch and try to have a reunion weekend every year. Well, we have done a pretty good job of staying in touch but....we let too much time pass before we all got together again. We did really good having get togethers up until we started getting married, having children, moving all over the country and officially starting adult careers. We all haven't been together since my wedding, which was over 4 years ago. This is way too long to go without seeing some of your closest friends! We had lots of fun and thankfully the weather was beautiful. It was nice and warm during the day with cool, chilly nights.

FAIR!!!

These went a little faster than I thought they would, but Hunter really liked riding them!
I don't know why they chose the chicken!
The first ride of the evening. "Jeep, jeep!"
Yes, I know you all hear it. David: "I sure would like to have one of these." Me: "Are you kidding me, you need to sell the vette."
David did let Hunter sit on it first.
Loved it.
This one too.
This was his favorite. He kept going back to it and saying, "big, big!"

Hunter really, really likes to ride on things. The tractor, the car, his ride on toys, his tricycles...anything that moves Hunter wants on it. He will even ask, "mommy, ride it..peas?" So when I saw the Washington county fair was coming to town I just knew we had to go. I figured it would be really small, but when your 2 and you never get to ride on rides I knew Hunter would have a ball. So off we went to the big fair in the country. I just have to mention that the parking was in a huge cow pasture and they even had extra spaces set aside for 'all terrain vehicles'...yes I guess folks just rode their four wheelers to the fair! Anyway, I knew there would be some smaller rides for him to ride but I had no idea there would be a HUGE tractor display. They had every kind of farm equipment piece of machinery you could ever want and better yet you could sit on them. You guessed it, for about one hour all we did was let Hunter climb on one tractor to the next. Just when I thought I couldn't take anymore tractor stimulation the new Spider motorcycle vendors showed up so David and Hunter moved on from the tractors to the motorcycles.
Hunter also enjoyed the rides. There were only a few that he could ride but he had fun. We went on a Wednesday night so there were not many people there and so he was the only one on a couple of them. It was nice because we didn't have to wait in any lines, but I think Hunter would have preferred to have some company.
In other big news at the fair, Hunter actually petted a baby cow! David and I were in a state of shock. While waiting for the rides to open we visited the stockyard expedition. We weren't real sure if Hunter would be in to this (we were having flashbacks of the zoo) but he really liked looking at the animals. Not touching them or even trying to touch the cages, but he did look at them and he wasn't clinging to my neck. He was walking around like a big boy. We all had a fun time at the fair. There isn't much to say about this fair but the best part is that Hunter loved it!

Back to shcool!

Hunter on his first day of school--2009.

Hunter's fist day of school last year. Where did the year go? He still looks like a baby.

Hunter has started back to school for the fall and it has been great. I love the extra time in the mornings and he loves playing and seeing all his ole buddies again. He has 2 new teachers, Ms. Deb and Ms. Tiffany and lots of new little friends. I am especially happy to see more boys this year in his class. Last year he was the only boy out of 5! I took his diaper bag the first day and very quickly realized that he was too big for a baby bag, he needed a back pack. Ms. Deb politely said on day one, "Mrs. Simmons please leave that big thing at home and bring that boy something he can hang on the hook outside the door". So now he has his own little back pack where he stows some cars in case he gets homesick...I guess and off we go. It is really cute and I will have to get a picture of him carrying it. They do all kinds of fun things and last week the theme was 'all about me' so they had to have a picture of their family and they made hand and foot prints. This week must be about trucks because he colored a picture of a garbage truck and very proudly showed it to David and I this evening. Of course, for those of you that really know Hunter, the one color he used the most to color the truck---ORANGE. He is crazy over the color orange. We went shopping the other day for some desperately needed big boy clothes and I bought everything orange I could find. We are working on our colors and he is getting really good at it. He knows orange, blue, and pink (thanks to Chloe). It is hit or miss with red and green. He is also trying to count. So far we have made it to 2..I know baby steps right! Sometimes I can get 1,2,3 out of him but that is hit or miss too!