Seeing Birmingham...

I cant remember when it was that I went to Vulcan last. What I do remember is that I am terrified of heights and there was this glass elevator that my dad practically forced me to look out as we rode up. When we got to the top I was really, really, scared! I was ready to go immediately!! So, when we got ready to go back down, I was not excited about getting back on that elevator! so, my dad told me that the only other way down was the staircase in the middle of the pedestal and that I would have to do that by myself (I think he thought that would convince me to just take the elevator!... Well... it didnt) I took the stairs by myself (maybe mom came too... I really dont remember) I remember taking at least a portion of them on my bottom!
That little story is just to prep the fact that I had never been back again until this past week with Angel and Mike. I decided one afternoon that I would just drive them around Birmingham and we would just look at the city and possibly go to Vulcan. So, Angel jumped in the front seat, Alex in one of the middle seats of the van and Mike and Jordan got in the way back. As I drove around I acted as tour guide to Angel about some of the different sites while Jordan gave his version in the way back to Mike. Jody wound up calling and he got out of class early so we decided to go to Vulcan. After dark it is very pretty! We got there and the remodeling is really beautiful (I cant believe it has been done for 4 years and I am just now getting back up there. Much less never taken Jody to such a landmark of Birmingham). Guess what?? the remodeling still has the glass elevator and the walk at the top is no longer enclosed... and not only is it not enclosed, the walkway was a grate walkway!!!! Try to guess whether I went up!! NOPE!!!
The picture above was my view of vulcan for the evening... and the below picture is Mike, Jordan and Angel sitting at the same place that I took the above picture, except out over the city! As you can see I was already high enough! Alex did go to the top with Jody and was not scared at all. (She kept calling me a "Scaredy Cat, Scaredy Cat!!")
The picture below... is the picture that Jody took from the top of Vulcan!
That evening we also went to The Alabama Theatre. I was hoping that they would have something going on so that we could just go in and look around. But we just took pictures outside and peeked in through the windows.

The next afternoon... I took Angel out again because I was trying to show her some of the "castles" around Birmingham... I could only find this one, and it was smaller than some of the ones that I have seen before. But, it was across from a very gorgeous view!

Here is the "castle"s view below...


Note in the picture of the beautiful view... the couple to the left... we think that we may have walked up and intruded upon a proposal!... OOPS!!

What We Did On Our Spring Break!

So this is sort of a lengthy post with lots of pictures, but I just wanted to give a glimpse of what we did for our Spring Break.
It started with towel making. Susan, my nextdoor neighbor and friend, came to me with this cute idea of making these hooded towels for bigger kids. Completely someone else's creative idea... but we started brainstorming all the different things that we could do to make them even cuter! The following two pictures are just the simplest of what we came up with! I am stashing away a couple to give as gifts, and am even contemplating making and selling them if anyone out there thinks they might be interested in one for themselves or for a gift.

ON MONDAY... We went to the Zoo!!! They have a new Camel ride which will more than likely be her only camel ride of the season, because it is entirely to expensive... $5.50 to have the camel walk around in a circle!

YAY!!! The baboons are finally back on exhibit!! Well, maybe they never were gone... but I dont know if there has ever been a time that Alex has seen a Baboon at the Birmingham Zoo! These McCaws are very similar to the ones that I just posted on the cozumel post, but they are just so beautiful! ON TUESDAY....Alex went to play with her good buddy, Rainesy Roo! And after they played there for several hours, Raines came to our house and played and at dinner and attempted to spend the night... The girls had lots of fun together ... they had not seen each other since November! Despite the looks in the pictures... they were really excited about seeing each other! ON WEDNESDAY... Alex could wait no longer to dye eggs... so arent they pretty??? (Funny Story... we dyed eggs in our class at school the week before we let out for spring break, there is a little girl who got very uneasy about us doing this. She kept asking us why were dying the eggs, why would we want to do that? She was afraid that we were killing the eggs by "dieing" them) ON THURSDAY... Alex and I had a slumber party at Granny Betty's. We took Granny to Jasper to see my grandfathers Aunt Vera... and came back and painted. Alex has been asking to do this again for a long time. I could tell that Granny was very tired and "give out", but she got out the paints for Alex and they started working on a flower painting. I finished up mine that I had started about a year ago. And we slept and woke up and Granny fixed us breakfast and we had an Easter Egg Hunt inside. My City Scene... Alex signing her masterpiece So zonked out that she was hanging off of the bed and her pajama top had come untied and she did not even know. Easter Egg Hunt... Can you guess where Granny and Alex hid the eggs from me?? Look very carefully...LOL!
ON FRIDAY... Alex drove the military street sweeper... and we picked up Angel and Mike from the airport. We all ate at Lonestar ... and I did not have to cook!!! I took the following pictures across the runway while we were waiting on Mike and Angels flight... I know Beth, you have to be jealous that I got three good ones... (btw... I never saw the plane in the picture you took) Maybe your husband should buy you a cool camera like mine! ;0)

ON SATURDAY.... We went to the lake to ride bikes and four wheelers... Lots of fun!!


Angel, Jordan, Mike and Alex at the Old Place

Pooped after a long day in the Country... ON SUNDAY... It was Easter... The Easter Bunny came to see all four kids and Mom, Alex, Angel and I all went to church together at Trinity... then it was off to Granny's for lunch! I dont think I have mentioned on this blog how much I miss Pawpaw!!!

Some More Colorful Cozumel Favorites!

As I think I had stated in an earlier post here Corey was giving me some quick little photography lessons during our excursion, so all of the following were pictures taken manually. Some better than others... but, remember this was my first day working with the camera this way... I will have some more recent pictures to post later from Alex and I's trip to the zoo this week for Spring Break.
Here is one of the many outdoor bars that you find in Mexico! I took the picture just because I thought it looked cool!

This was the outside of a resteraunt (or bar) we just stopped to see what was on the menu. I like the picture because this is how just about all of the area that we went to was... random paintings on the walls, all the buildings are different colors. Yes it was a beautiful day... but that was just enhanced by all of the cheerfulness of colors on the city buildings. Really makes Birmingham drab.
As most of you know... Jody loves to ride bikes!! Although he does not get to do that much of it lately because of school. He likes art that has Bicycles in them. We have this piece of art in our bedroom, that is pretty cool, but it has this naked lady on it, so I really do not want it out in our living room. But, after I took this picture, I really liked it so I think I may get it and the following ones of bicycles printed to display somewhere in our living/dining room area.

Okay! I know that it is trash! but it looked like art! (I think Erin took a picture of it also!) It was just interestingly sitting next to the sidewalk as we were heading back to the ship.
This is such a common site along the buildings and sidewalks... What I noticed in Cozumel. The three most popular forms of transportation were/are:

1. Bicycles

2. Mopeds/Motorcycles (which BTW do not follow any traffic laws... I know we saw at least one "almost" wreck... Oh, and interestingly these people can fit whole families on their motorcycle/moped... I think we saw up to four on one!!

3. Volkswagon Beetles (ca. 1967-1980) This was humourous to us while we were there because there were so many of them... but, I just did a little research and apparently Mexico had a big manufacturing plant of the beetle for many years.

I LOVE THIS PICTURE! I know Jody was really feeling bad at this point in our excursion and and we had to pay $5 to take a picture with our own camera of this iguana! I know it sounds silly... but like I told Jody at the time... they have to make their living somehow... Some of the areas we were in were very, very poor! Anyway, I think the picture is great and it was worth the $5 to me!
This was just sitting outside of one of the market stores, to show what sodas they sold! NOTE: the Coke Light (Not Diet Coke!) Apparently, according to Jody, The US is the only country that calls it Diet... everyone else calls it Light!
Just thought this was interesting! We didn't see people doing this all over the place, just this one lady but I thought it was neat! It reminds me of the girl in the "Jungle Book"
STREET PERFORMERS!! The one above was a clown, entertaining people at The Hard Rock Cafe!
The above "performer" was dressed as a sculpture! He would sit still for a long while and then move and scare people.

COZUMEL COLOR!!

One of my favorite things about Mexico, is all of the color... Here are some of my favorite pictures that I took... with lots of color!
A pier that was at the beach "Paradise"
Pretty McCaw's
The entrance way to a home!
Not sure what these were (maybe maraccas) but they were so colorful!
More items from the Market!

I WANT TO RIDE MY BICYCLE... I WANT TO RIDE MY BIKE!!

Jody took Alex out to the park this afternoon to ride her bike. This past fall we had taken her training wheels off, and she did okay... but was too concerned with getting hurt to concentrate on balancing and pedaling. So, as she was getting on her socks and shoes, she asked if Jody would put the training wheels back on so that she could ride alot. We told her no... that she had to practice without and if she went back to training wheels, she would never learn how to ride without! So the following is what happened today within just a matter of a few minutes!

And here is what she looked like just an hour after returning from the bike ride!

Easter Egg Tree...

This week Alex reminded me that we had not done our Easter decorations. This usually consist of a cheap wreath on the door, and a couple of rabbit Easter related things to set out on the dinning room table and coffee table.... and of course the Easter Egg Tree. My mom did these trees for us when I was little, and when Alex was born I started doing them for her. When she was two years old though, she imagined up this whole Easter Bunny/Egg Hiding Scheme!! All on her own, she said that all of those eggs on the tree were there so that when the Easter Bunny came, he could hide them all for her! Only she told me this after we had hung approximately 50-75 eggs. So the tradition continues... and the Easter Bunny does hide the eggs (usually not all of them though)... the weather has hindered the outside hiding over the last couple of years, though... Maybe this year will be better!