Hurricane Relief pictures

The hurricane pictures are ready. There were 144 pictures that we took on the 4 day trip, and I've selected 14 of them. I will definitely post more later. Also, I would like to post more in-depth comments on the trip. I'd like to have Abigail write some too. Anyway here are the pictures. If your are looking for pics of Jack and Chris' B-day, see the previous post.

Our crew: left to right (back) Sam, Andrew, (middle row) Abigail, Rebecca, Melanie, Scott, (lower row) Jesse, Jenell, and Greg.

The interior of the house we were working on. We worked on the roof, so the inside still looks like this.

The outside of the house. Trash from the hurricane was still everywhere.

Half the roof already had shingles on when we arrived. This is the other half.

We had to do some of the roof in the rain and wind. No one fell though!

The finished product.

Some men from another crew helped us finish the roof in double time.

Here's Andrew feeding seagulls. The wind was blowing so hard that the birds just hovered in the air like humming birds.

That all the pictures for this post. Like I said I will try to post more later...

[JESSE]

Jack and Christopher's Birthday

Sorry about the lack of posts over the weekend. Jack and Chris' birthday was on Saturday, however we had the party and Friday. Here's pictures. I hope to get more up later. (hurricane relief pictures will come soon too.)

The boy's got real bows and arrows for their birthday! The idea came after they enjoyed shooting at an outdoors expo last month (see earlier post).

Jack's cake: Cubs equipment.

Chris' cake: dog.

Chris blowing out the candles

They also got targets and haybails as gifts.

What we've been doing

The reason for the large break in the posts over the past few days has been that the two lead bloggers in our family (Abigail and I [Jesse]) have been doing hurricane relief work down at the gulf coast. Our dad was leading a group of Samford students down there and we, as well as Sam, went with them. It was a great success but I don't have time right now to go into great detail, so I will devote a later post to the trip once I have pictures to post as well.

Of course I must talk about The Game (yes, it should be capitalized!). Da Bears play the Arizona Cardinals on Monday Night Football, and for those of you didn't see it...well, I'm sorry! The Bears played awful for three quarters and were down 23-3 at the end of the third. However, they managed to win 24-23 without their offence scoring (2 fumble returns and a punt return). It was one of the most miraculous comebacks ever! (Find highlights of the game here or here) The Bears are the only 6-0 team in the NFL right now.

In other news I took the PSAT/NMSQT test yesterday. I don't know my score yet, but I feel comfortable with how I did. Also, Jack and Chris' birthday is Saturday.

That's all right now. I'll post more about the trip soon...

Past, present and future at our home

Sorry about the hiccup in the posts. I was determined to keep this blog going and still messed up. Oh well...

Most of what we've been doing (besides school) has been on the weekends. Most of that has been football-related. Tis' the season. Da Bears are doing great!! They beat Buffalo 40-7 on Sunday. Their record stands at 5-0 and most NFL experts say they're the best in the league! We agree! We were able to see some of the game on TV until the network switched games because the Bears were winning by so much.

Saturday, we went to watch a Samford football game. Samford is not having as good a season as da Bears. They lost, but we still had a good time. The weather was perfect and still is now. We've been staying in the 60s and 70s here but by the end of the week (next Saturday) we could see 30s in the morning! Fall is definitely here!!

Over the weekend some of us might be going on another trip down to the Gulf coast to help in hurricane relief from Katrina last year. Some of you know that a few us did so last year; gutting out flooded houses. This time we will be rebuilding damaged homes.

Well, that's it for now. I'll post again soon...

Saturday (late post)

This Saturday was a busy day. We started off the morning with a fall festival near our house.One novelty was a 'Penny car', which, of course, would have to be a car covered in...

Pennies!
The man who owns the car was diagnosed with arthritis in his hands, and, in his own words, "I wasn't about to take up knitting!" So, instead, he covered his old car with pennies.
Why not, right?
This is Christopher escaping from a 'burning building'.
A group of firemen were there with a trailer home which they had simulated to fill up with smoke and seem like it was on fire. The goal is to teach kids what to do in a fire.
The rest of the festival was pretty basic: games, food, music and, of course, pony rides.

From there we went to 'Alabama Outdoors Expo day' at Oak Mountain State Park.

This was a cool booth where we got to shoot with a fake gun at a screen showing a video with birds flying up from a field of grass. The 'gun' was like a video game controller, showing which birds we hit with a laser pointer on the screen.

After that, we went to another booth to watch a video explaining the basics of shooting a real fire arm and then we went out to a field to give it a 'shot'!

We each got some safety goggles and ear plugs and sat down at tables with the instructors. In front of the tables there were several rows of targets to fire at. These pictures don't show how many people were there, but it was a pretty good crowd.
Then, Jesse and Daddy tried the shotguns for a while, but the rest of us went to try archery.

We all thought it was fun, but we discovered that Jack is a natural archer.

The deer and bear in the background are a couple of the foam targets.

The bows we are using aren't real hunting bows, but are practice ones to re-interest people in this ancient sport.

We finished the day at a Pizza Hut watching the final quarter of the Alabama college football game. Alabama lost, but it was a wonderful day.

Monday post

Well, we are pretty excited this morning after the big win last night. For those of you who couldn't watch, the final score was: Chicago Bears 37, Seattle Seahawks 6. Some people might call it a boring blowout, but to us it was perfect!
Thanks for cheering!