Rachel's 13th Birthday, Part One

For Rachel's 13th birthday we brought season passes to the fun park in Louisville, only 10 minutes from our place. We had never been and thought it would make for a good summer gift. We were able to take six of her friends to the park for the day on free friends passes and had a fun day. I can see us spending quite a bit of time there over the summer, especially at the water park as it gets hotter.

Rachel and Taylor on a ride which makes most people feel ill. Joel did it once and is not keen to do it again. One boys was actually sick on this ride. Yuk. Mark and some of the kids on the boat ride.

The water park where we spent the later part of the day. This also has 4 or 5 great slides. The pool is a wave pool which Matthew really enjoys.

This video is of Matthew and I on the Ferris Wheel.

Mother's Day

My request for Mother's Day this year was a family picnic. While the weather is nice you just have to make the most of it here. We went to Bernheim Forest and had a lovely afternoon. The kids treated me very well buying me a special lunch and even finding me some New Zealand cheese from my favourite, but too expensive store, Wholefoods. The also bought me my very own MP3 player. Now I don't need to borrow the girls all the time to go to the gym. Thanks guys, I love being your Mum.

We always appreciate the wildlife and often end up with far too many photos. Here are a few. One aspect of wildlife we didn't appreciate this time was the deer tick that we found on Matthew the next day and had to burn off. Not nice.

Fishing in Kentucky

We had our first experience fishing a Kentucky river last weekend. Two brothers from church took the children and I. It begun before dawn when they picked us up, the next stop was McDonald's for the compulsory chicken biscuit and sweet tea, also compulsory was country music on the way. We caught no fish, probably due to several inches of rain the day before and a flooded river but the kids and I still had a lot of fun.

We were fishing down the bottom and up the top of this dam. apparently it is normally a trickle and you can easily walk across it.

Fishing here in America still involves putting a worm on a hook, not Anna-Marie's favourite part of fishing.

Ben and Anna-Marie

Joel and Rachel wading with Eli. The only catch of the day were fresh water crayfish which later escaped in our house. Anna-Marie found one by standing on it with bare feet; yuk! She wasn't very impressed.

Rachel and Joel ended up very wet. Joel fell in a few moments after this photo was taken as his hand is right by a snake that he hasn't seen yet. He got quite the fright.

Thunder Over Louisville

The Kentucky Derby is here. Louisville goes crazy over the derby and one of the things they do is called Thunder Over Louisville. It happens two weeks before the derby and begins with an airshow and ends with the biggest fireworks display in North America. It was incredible. These are not my photos as I forgot to take my camera. I borrowed these off the Internet.