Happy 90th Papa!

My sweet Papa Blair turned 90 years young in May. We had the wonderful opportunity to celebrate with family. His other child, other than my Mom, is my Uncle Billy and he and his family live in Georgia. Uncle Billy, Aunt Jean and their two daughters, Sharon & Angie and their families traveled to Tennessee to celebrate with us. (Unfortunately, due to a soccer tournament in Clarksville, my boys were not able to attend).

We spent Saturday at Cassie's house and had lunch and dinner together. It was so much fun to spend time with family that we don't get to see as much as we'd like and have the cousin kids get to know each other. It made us all want to get together again and not have to wait for another big birthday.

Cassie & Mandy have both already blogged on this event (of course - because I'm a month behind!!). I wasn't going to post anything since they had, but as I looked over theirs again, we all have different pictures, so I'll share some of mine, too. If you want to see theirs, here is the link to Cassie's and Mandy's. (Hopefully this will work)


This is me & my sweet Papa

Uncle Billy & Aunt Jean created somewhat of a theme for the weekend - Aunt Jean made these cookies of puzzle pieces and hand iced and piped each person's name on them. Not only were they so cute, but they tasted great, too!

Part of the kids at lunch time.

Ed, Sharon & Papa fixing their lunch!

Rachel & her family weren't able to be there either since Washington is SO FAR AWAY, so I took this picture just for them. They sure were missed!!

Aunt Mandy took Rebecca outside and gave her some wonderful volleyball tips!

Our city folk cousins were amazed at Cassie's country living. I wish I could have captured Zach chasing the chickens. Eventually one was caught and here is Sharon & Olivia petting it!!

Zach tries out the rip-stick, but not with much confidence

Ruth & Julianna - such cute little girls!

Rebecca & Noah

We had a big rainstorm move in, but afterwards, it was nice & sunny (and hot & humid, too). A dodgeball game ensued....I'm thinking Uncle Tim drew the short straw for his teammates, if you know what I mean!

I'm thinking Uncle Justin might have stacked his team!

Aunt Jean came with a goody bag of games & prizes and that was great during the time it rained!
This is tic-tac-toe with cups of water & pennies. They all loved it!

I think the boys are talking about trading!

We brought corn hole and Justin & Zach played for a little bit

Enjoying the country life....

Lydia & Nonie

We made a digital scrapbook for Papa that is FULL of pictures - beginning when he & Mimi were married through their life and kids and grandkids and continuing on through the great-grandkids. We all enjoyed getting our pictures together for the book and Papa loved it!

Josiah - sooooo cute!

Back to the theme - the idea is that we are all different pieces in our family but put together we make a beautiful picture. Awesome, huh? Mom's cousin from Georgia made this incredible cake and sent it with Billy & Jean. It was so neat...

Each family had a piece and each piece had everyone's name (Cassie's piece was a bit crowded!!)

What a special day. What a blessing to have my Papa live so close & get to enjoy him.

Clarksville Soccer Tournament

We went to Clarksville, Tennessee and played in their soccer tournament. We won all 4 games we played and came in first place in the tournament. This has been a really good season for our team and we are very proud of them.

Our champion team (Coach Matt was at church and a funeral that afternoon and couldn't make the Sunday games)

Christian with his medal

This championship game win was our 100th win as a club. The boys took advantage of that and got Coach John covered in mud. That wasn't hard to do since we'd played 2 games in the rain. He was a good sport and we're all proud of this young soccer club & team!!

GMS Sports Banquet

Since Christian played on the Middle School Basketball team, he was invited to the Sports Banquet. We were excited about going. We left the girls at home and had a nice time with just Christian. They asked us not to take pictures during the presentations but I got a couple of pictures of Christian with his award....


Christian & his friend, Tristan

The boys playing around

The banquet was held at Smiley Hollow which is a really neat place here in Greenbrier. It's also the location where part of the Hannah Montana Movie was filmed. If you saw it, then you might recognize the pictures below - its in the barn where she sang the "Hoe-down, Throw-down" song. I thought some of you might enjoy the pictures. It is a neat place!



That's the dance floor in the middle

The Last AR Sounds Game (for a while)

I know I've posted a few blogs on this subject, but I had to post this final one, at least for a while... At the elementary school, they do Accelerated Reading to encourage kids to read. Once you read a book, you take a quiz on the book and get points for that. Based on your grade level, there are different amount of points you get for prizes, etc. For the 4th & 5th graders, they have to get 100 points to attend the Nashville Sounds Game.

Christian made it all 4 years he was able to go. Rebecca has made it one previous year but wasn't quite as motivated as Christian was. However, this year, she decided she wanted to go, since it would be her last year. She also was reading the Harry Potter series, so that made it much easier to get to the point level faster. We were very proud of her and so Matthew & I were both able to go with her.

We didn't take many pictures, but I'm posting the ones that I did (first two) and then she took the others. Assuming Julianna will make her points in 2nd grade when she's there, we'll have 4 yeas before we go again.....

Rebecca and her friends Makenzie & Sarah

We had GREAT seats!!

Sarah

A couple of other 5th grade boys

Makenzie

Spring Volleyball

Rebecca played volleyball again this spring on a local recreational team. This is the same place she played in the fall for the first time. We were a little worried at the beginning since our team didn't have a coach but after a couple of practices, one mom and one dad stepped up and agreed to coach. Typically, there is one practice a week until games start and then there are only the games. But our coaches wanted an additional practice. It was amazing to see how much better the girls played on Tuesday nights after a Monday practice, especially since only 3 of the 8 girls on the team had ever played before. We saw huge improvement with the girls and it was a very positive season. Way to go, Spicy Chicks!!

Rebecca with her trophy at the end of the season

After diving for the ball....

Rebecca really learned to serve well this season and by the end was consistently getting her serve over!

Rebecca also began to bump the ball extremely well & was a valuable player on her team

I think it's funny how far off the ground she is!

This is Cassidy, who was on Rebecca's team last season. They played against each other this year and had fun teasing each other.

When the season was over, the girls signed each other's shirts. This is funny - Rebecca sandwiched between the twins on her team!

The Spicy Chicks with Coach Jeff & Coach Kristi

Mother's Day

Julianna's gift for me from church

My precious children

A pretty good family picture for a tripod and a very sunny day!

Love this - gotta have the silly picture

My sweet Julianna

My pretty Rebecca

My son, Christian