Hollywild

Benson, Mrs. Lula and I made the trek to Spartanburg to go to Hollywild. It's this little zoo place out in the middle of no where that features celebrity animals that have been in movies and commercials-- The most famous animal is pippi longstockings horse, which we got a picture with, but i just realized I accidentally deleted it and thus do not have it to share :(
When we drove up, we realized it was actually CLOSED during the week in October, but we BEGGED the people to let us walk around and feed the animals and they thankfully obliged. We didn't get to do the "safari" part, but I've heard that part's really neat at Christmastime, so maybe we'll go back then!
Here's some pics from the fun day!

We laughed so hard at this group of llamas-- have you ever taken the time to stop and look at llama teeth? They've got some seriously messed up grills!


Ok-- this massive lion was like, REALLY close-- and he was ROARING really loud at another lion on the other side of the park-- and since all that separated us was this flimsy chicken-wire-esk fence-- I encourgaed the group to walk quickly on past this exhibit as I didn't want him to get a hanckering for one of our little ones!!

This tiger was in a lot of movies and it tells which ones on the sign, but the only one I really new of was "Prince of Tides." I thought that was pretty cool!

I mean, the tiger is cool, but those pigtails just GET me! LOVE THEM!

Feeding the baby deer:




And we had a nice little picnic by a pond that had about a million ducks and geese on it who REALLY wanted our food!

This is a Zonkey. Or a Debra depending on your preference. It's a cross between a zebra and a donkey. Kinda crazy looking!

And Benson got to feed the zebra!


He loved climbing the fences to look in the cages...

And here's the three cuties feeding the tousands of coi and catfish. Very cool experience!

Maggie Valley Fall 2009

Oh the wonders of the self-timer. :) We had everybody except Jonathan who was on a church retreat! Here we are in front of, what we decided, was the prettiest tree in all of the mountains! :) Which just happened to be in our yard :)

And of course we had to do our individual shots:





I think this scripture is fitting for this picture :)
"Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.

But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers."

Psalm 1: 1-3

Take One:

Take two: Addie Grace NOT HAPPY about being left on the "little" rock!

Feeding the horses...



Look at those pigtails!!! What a cutie!!!

Between his jogging suit and turtleneck, Benson looks like he could be about 70 in this pic :)

Hannah found a worm! VERY EXCITING!!!

Four tigers in the bed :)

There's just something about children in footie- pajamas that is so cute!

Look at those blue eyes!

I think Hannah and Benson look so much alike in this one..


"Nakey-Sgetti!"


THIS is the part about having a one year old that I DO NOT miss :)

Tub time!

Jeremy's girlfriend, Brittany, brought the children buckets with all kinds of goodies in them, and needless to say, they were a HIT! They all wanted to be IN the bed WITH their buckets watching Finding Nemo-- I mean, could it get any better than that?!

It was another wonderful time together in Maggie Valley!

A trip to Greenville!

Benjamin had some business to do in Greenville, so Benson and I got to hang out with Kell for a while and Benson thoroughly enjoyed getting to "test drive" Lael's toys!
Then, we got to go out to eat at Smoke on the Water in downtown Greenville. It was deLISH and I would highly recommend it if you're in the area!

Kisses for Megan Lael! Next time Benson kisses this little one, she'll be on the OTHER side of this belly!!

Kelli and Lael, Jess and Pop-eye

And i just had to post this pic, because you can really see he's finally getting some HAIR! We've started having to brush it, which is a completely new thing for him! He says it looks "sharp."

And on the way out of the restaurant, Benson got to check out the mini excavator (how about that tractor terminology!) that was sitting in the parking lot, which was TOTALLY awesome! :)

2009 SC State Fair

We went last Wednesday night for our annual fair outing.
It was greasy and good as always!

Benson ate his corn dog like a corn cob-- from side to side... silly boy...

The delight of the night... tractors...



Cool bee hive :)

These two love each other so much!

Benson kept bending over trying to get Benjamin to look at his face when he was talking to him-- this was rather difficult since he was on his SHOULDERS!

Here's Benson, totally PUMPED about a funnel cake, even though he had no idea what a funnel cake was... he could just TELL it was good because of how excited I was about it! :)

Benson's first funnel cake!

Fun times!!