Last Day of Summer Break

It was a pretty quiet day today.  Madison was practicing her form today, because tomorrow night is a big night for her at taekwondo.  She'll be testing for her blue belt, and the most challenging aspect of most of these tests is the part where she demonstrates the proper form.  She has this routine, going from kick to pose to punch to jump to kick to twist to ... well, you get it.  She needs a little more space to do this sort of thing, and the great room here is about the best we can do, although it certainly is no martial arts studio.  The end result is an abbreviated version of the form, something a little more mental than the actual routine itself.  And that's really where the biggest challenge of all is:  knowing what move to do next.  She sits there like one of those ski athletes before a big slalom, practicing in her mind, her eyes closed and her head twisting this way and that as she mentally goes through the different moves.  She's gone through it enough, and after last week, she's feeling much more confident than before about the testing.  She's certain she'll earn that blue belt, and after the long summer of sacrifice, she's certainly earned it in our eyes.

There was some piano practice today, but not that much.  We'll start that up in earnest soon enough, as piano lessons are also starting with the beginning of the school year.  Madison will be keeping herself busy soon enough, after a nice, long, lackadaisical stretch of the summer break.  At least it seems that way when compared to the breakneck pace of June.

She didn't go to church tonight, and the reason for that is that tomorrow is the first day of school.  We wanted her to get enough sleep, and she wanted that too.  Not only that, it's good to go into that first day prepared and all cleaned up too.  Madison had a nice long, relaxing bath, and she got all her supplies and material ready for the big day.  After prayers, she got to bed early tonight, although she probably didn't fall asleep for another hour or so.  It's difficult adjusting to a new schedule, but that will come within a week, especially after getting up an hour earlier than normal.  We don't have to get up terribly early for middle school, but it is certainly earlier than it has been lately.

Daddy was able to come home from work for a bit, but not for too long.  Summer break is over, but summer moving along with such an intense and unpleasant humidity.  It's difficult to remain outside for too long, even under overcast skies.  It's just a hot, muggy atmosphere, even at night.  You just know rain is on the way, and it does come, and it goes, and it's still muggy afterwards.  Slight breezes during the rainstorms cool things a little, but then things move on and we're back to muggy again.  We've got plans again this Saturday for going somewhere, but we may plan for indoor activities.  We'll go and do some things locally again - it was fun last week hitting a few of the museums.  Maybe we'll do another one this weekend!

Quiet July

Summer break is winding down, and it's been a quieter July than most, although we've had a few moments here or there.  But mostly it's been quiet here.  Madison has spent a good deal of time in Stardew Valley, occasionally being prodded to get up and do piano practice or run through her form on taekwondo.  We were all at the grocery store today, a place we actually hadn't been in a while.  We were running low on supplies at the fort, so we went out on this epic grocery shopping binge, something I think I've never done to this extent before.  I mean, the shopping cart was beyond full.  There was no room in it for anything else - we filled up the trunk of the car too!  But we should be ready for the school year, and ready for the apocalypse too, if that should happen.  We've got a lot of food right now!

Tonight, Madison was at taekwondo, one last day with her purple belt.  By her own admission, she needs to practice on her form somewhat, as the testing is on Thursday evening.  But she was there along with the others who have gone through the summer months working towards achieving that new rank.  Hopefully all that effort will be rewarded in a few days.  Madison is excited about that, as she's given up a few things to stay in taekwondo and earn the belt.  Next year, we may take a break over the summer, but we'll see.  The end result of this was staying home a bit more than we usually do over the summer months.  But in the end, that blue belt is on the way, and she's certainly worked hard for it.

We had a great meeting about our KidPak series, "Toy Box," today, and all that remains is drama writing and proofing these booklets that Daddy has written.  I have finished two booklets, each one over thirty pages long.  So next comes the proofing.  It'll be a fun series, I think.

Tonight we were still in that western mood, after the events of Saturday's National Day of the Cowboy.  That being said, we watched the old Disney gem, "Home on the Range."  All three of us loved this movie.  I can't understand why others do not, but there's this period of Disney movies that are really under appreciated, like "Emperor's New Groove," "Meet the Robinsons," "Lilo and Stitch," "Chicken Little," "Treasure Planet," and more.  "Home on the Range" is right in there in the midst of these - it's a fun movie.  Seeing all the western scenery on our screens was fun too, given this weekend's visit.

It was a quiet night, not much going on, and part of a quiet day, and of course part of a quiet month of July.

Godzilla vs. Doc Williams

We had another chiropractor appointment this morning, all part of the back-to-school ritual.  Madison has such a great time with Doc Williams here, the two of them always joking around as adjustments are made here or there.  The whole family had an appointment, as we usually do.  We've been doing this for quite some time - here's a picture of Madison from 2009 - she's known this chiropractor her whole life!

We went to Cracker Barrel after this, sharing lunch together and drinking this amazing soda they have there.  There are a lot of unique sodas for sale, and we always try something new.  This Dark Cream soda there was fantastic.

After a nice meal, we got home and did a lot of work in the yard with Nana and Ye-Ye, who were here to lead in that effort.  We've cleared a whole lot of shrubbery and weeds and fallen leaves, and really opened up an area to the side of our house.  We've got a long ways to go, but it's looking better and better each day.

Tonight, Madison finally saw a movie she hasn't seen yet, but heard about before:

It's Godzilla from 1998!  This movie is a historic movie because it is actually the first movie that Mommy and Daddy went to see together.  We've probably talked about this before here on this blog.  In fact, here's one of the first times we talked about Godzilla 1998, along with some super early pictures.

She actually really liked the movie!  By the director's own admission, this is a popcorn movie.  It lacks any real heaviness, and is just simply a fun movie if you don't stop to think too often.  And of course, it is this Godzilla that has a big history with our gifts and so on - to this day, we have a lot of this merchandise in the house, big and small versions of the 1998 Godzilla.

After the movie, we decided to get to bed on time.  We've got to start training ourselves to get to sleep at a reasonable hour, as school is starting pretty soon.  We started a new book, "Dark Force Rising, " the second part of this Star Wars book series we're reading.  This was from Madison's request, as she liked the last one so much.

After prayers, it was time for bed, and time for bed for all of us.  Not long now, and we'll be on that school schedule once more... it's hard to imagine actually thinking about this, all this while it is still JULY.  Crazy!

New Volunteer

Madison was serving her first Sunday at KidPak today, mainly standing alongside the walls and ready to be of assistance to any of the older volunteers during service.  This consists of escorting kids to the bathroom, and perhaps some behavioral issues - a tap on the shoulder, and a redirection of focus for a kid who is being a distraction.  Madison didn't have to do too much though, as the number of kids here are down somewhat, this due to summer month activities. Lots of people go on vacation.

Speaking of which, Mommy was doing some vacation research today, and it sounds like we'll be doing some fun stuff this October.  It'll be a good mix of things we've done before, some seasonal things, and some new things we've been wanting to check out.  It'll be fun!

We watched another Spider-man movie, continuing our Spider-fest.  We're almost done with that, and in fact we are done with the book we've been reading, "Heir to the Empire."  The girls liked this book, with Madison liking it so much that she wants to move on to part two tomorrow.  Again, these are the sequels we Star Wars fans were hoping for.  But they're still good to go back and read.  Books are so good at taking you to new worlds, or in this case, several new worlds.

It was a quiet, and frankly kind of dull day.  But it went well this morning, with church services taking up a majority of the day.  We're in the summer months, so this series is good to visit again as we prepare for the newer series coming in August.  We're going to the Toy Box, and that'll be fun.  Daddy has finished writing on that, and it is shaping up to be a really fun series.  Mommy is ordering costumes and looking at how to make other costuming elements.  The set is being created, and the it's all coming together.  It'll be great!

Madison is good with being a volunteer of different roles until she goes back on stage again.  She's anxious to go back on stage, and in fact will go on stage again in December for sure.  We may have her do that before then - we'll see.  But other volunteer jobs are there, from photography to sound booth work to what she did today.  She'll try them all, or whatever she wants to do.  We're just happy to see her helping out, and the staff was happy to see it too.  She looked great there with her black volunteer vest, there to assist.  Really, that's pretty much what she was doing before though - helping out.  Now it's official!

The National Day of the Cowboy at the Booth Western Art Museum

Today we made a trip over to the Booth Museum of Western Art, all part of a celebration of the National Day of the Cowboy.  As you can see, it's a remarkable place, but to begin with, we weren't actually inside the museum at all.  This is because there were many cowboys outside, many demonstrations, music, and all sorts of great cowboy things.

For example, we actually spent a good deal of time here with this gentleman, learning about the card playing antics of cowboys, and useful skills, like how to cheat at poker.  This guy was fantastic at dealing from the bottom of the deck, while appearing to deal from the top.  It's a great sleight of hand trick, one I imagine takes quite a bit of practice to master.  The bottom line here is don't play poker.

Here's something that was the highlight of the day for Madison.  It started out when we watched these guys in a friendly competition to see who could be the quickest draw.  It's an official competition - when the light goes on, they draw from their holsters, pull back the hammer, pull the trigger and fire.

Oh, and hopefully they've aimed while doing all that.  I'm actually not entirely sure who won, but it was pretty amazing to watch.  We stuck around for a while, just checking out the quick draws, and that's when we were actually offered an opportunity to do it ourselves!

That's right, Madison, Daddy and Mommy all lined up with loaded guns in our holsters, ready to give it a try.  They actually gave us multiple shots, loading our guns for us each time.

Here's Madison, mentally preparing and getting ready to draw.  She had a bit of a swagger there with a big iron on her hip.  And even Mommy was in on it!

She's a pistol-packin' momma!  So the light flashes in the target, and right there and then we pull our guns out as fast as possible and try to hit that target!

Mommy and Daddy never actually hit it.  The thing is that you just don't aim with your eyes so much, doing any of that careful lining up.  You just draw and shoot.  And although we both got fairly close, there was one clear winner in all of our shooting.

Madison hit her target twice, and each time under two seconds.  She's never held a gun before, and here she is, pulling it out of the holster, pulling back the hammer, aiming and pulling the trigger, and hitting the target in under two seconds.  Pretty awesome stuff!

Here's the proof of her shots, those two black spots just off the the bullseye.  Those were the last two shots, as she was starting to get the hang of it.  This was easily the highlight of the day for her, and one of those unexpected blessings we received.  But there was plenty more to see outside, including the jail!

Madison is in the pokey.  Her crime?  Bragging too much about beating Daddy with the quick draw.  There were plenty of wagons and a small western townscape built here as a backdrop for many of the performers.

As you can see, we were all dressed up as well in our western attire.  Those people who dressed up as cowboys got $2 off the entrance fee to the museum.  But we fit right in with everyone else here, although we were a little more modern in our clothing.  Here's a couple guys I ran into, and I even made the picture look a little dated, as if this were taken quite some time ago.

There was quite an assembly there, with musicians as well as folks selling various bits of western clothing, or holsters, or other props.

This man was the host of the event, introducing bands that would play cowboy music, or introduce people like Doc Johnson.  You can see his wagon in the background of the shot above.  And you can see Doc Johnson below:

He was the magician, or at least the old traveling medicine guy with the wagon.  He had a great routine that had Madison laughing quite frequently.  He had some great tricks as well, such as shooting this handkerchief off the gun, bouncing it off a tree branch way up high, and having it land in a cup back about three feet in front of him.

Madison loved that one, but this one here had the kids laughing most of all.

Both he and a volunteer had put tissue in their mouths, and when asked to pull the tissue out, of course the kid pulled out a little bit of tissue (what was put in).  But then the magician was pulling out more and more and more... some of these were standard routines, but he had a great delivery and the kids loved it!

We also saw this gentleman from Gwinnett County.  He was great with bullwhips, snapping them at will and with such frequency that he could create a fast-paced rhythm.  He could hit targets, and at one point, he asked for a volunteer.  Guess who that was?

Madison went up there, and was quite a bit nervous - because to the left and right of her, this guy was snapping those whips!

She was having a great time though, despite the nervousness.  Of course, he was inspired by Indiana Jones to learn how to snap those whips.  We should have asked him how possible it was to grab on to things with them.

After listening to some music and walking around a bit, it was time to actually head inside the museum, and we were certainly in for a treat.  Of course, we got our discount for dressing up - as did others who were in the museum.  We got ourselves a few drinks at their restaurant first, cooling off a bit from the hot summer day.  But then we found our way into the different galleries, and they were all magnificent.

As you can see, there were many large scale paintings there, all themed around Western America.  There were also plenty of sculptures there as well.

We sat in the dark at one point, and watched a fifteen minute movie about the west, one that featured many of the paintings that we were looking at.  Here's one painting that Madison liked the best, a picture of a horse emerging in the sunlight.

There were plenty of places to just sit.  The Booth Western Art Museum was much bigger than anticipated, with a much greater collection of artwork and items than we imagined.  They even had some authentic stagecoaches.

Oh, and here's Teddy Roosevelt:

"My nose is so itchy, it's driving me insane. I hate to ask, but, as you see, I'm missing a few body parts. Could you please give us a scratch?"

And this painting below I remember from a history book I had some time ago.  It's super large, and was amazing to see right there in front of us.

The museum had many, many paintings to see.  You could spend a lot more time there in fact, and one of the great things about the pieces of art is that there was something to learn with all of them, so we walked away inspired, but hopefully a little smarter too.  That's why we stayed away from this one-armed bandit:

This is a very odd slot machine.  Fortunately, it wasn't up and running - although I'm fairly sure that would be illegal here.

The Kachina dolls reminded me of some of those trips to the Southwest I made.  At dusk in the flat desert, you think you see something out there on the horizon out of the corner of your eyes.  Is it just a desert plant, or is it something else, watching you?  Yeah, these things give me the creeps...!

Here you can see a horse sculpture looking on at a very large landscape painting.  And below, you can see as Mommy and Madison check out the native Indian wardrobes.

We looked through the different galleries, and actually spent quite a long time here at the museum today, far more than we anticipated.  Here are just a few more pictures Daddy snapped while inside the museum:

We left at closing time, essentially, and were quite content at the happenings of this remarkable day.  It was a lot of fun, and somewhat educational as well.  We made the drive home with little incident, and it wasn't long after that when we went to bed for the night, after reading and praying.  It was a good day though, one we'll always remember, a great way to celebrate the National Day of the Cowboy.

Expedition Bigfoot

This morning, Daddy got the car taken care of, and we did quite a few more things this morning that were basic "maintenance."  It was a pleasant morning - we got a few things done with piano, cleaning, and just a few other tasks on the list.  But as soon as Daddy returned, we were off an an expedition!

It was a Bigfoot expedition!  We drove up to Blue Ridge and paid a visit to a museum that we haven't gone to yet, one dedicated to anything related to Bigfoot.  It's a very comprehensive collection, a place filled with stories, casts, pictures, equipment, drawings, videos, and all kinds of material.  Here below are some of the pictures we took, and some captions we posted when sharing this on another social media site.  It was a fun visit!

We spotted Bigfoot!  That wasn't so hard.

Our expert team of trackers listens in on the howls of a Sasquatch!  

This museum actually had a large collection of artifacts and donated material from Bigfoot hunters around the globe.

The green dots are sightings, the yellow are possible sightings, and the reddish colors are places where Bigfoot goes to a little more often than others. Apparently, East Point is a hot spot for Sasquatches?  Our area where we live didn't have quite as many visits, but just north of us is a pretty popular place for Bigfeet!

This would be a great name for a rock band.  It goes without saying that if you see this on the ground, you should be very careful.

Just put this on the Christmas wish list. It's great for golf courses AND tracking down Bigfoot! 

The working area of a Bigfoot tracker. The truth is out there!  This area looked like it is still being used as a gathering place for those who spend their time tracking, a place to share information and so on.

Welcome to Expedition: Bigfoot! This Sasquatch Museum entrance here had sculptures, Tibetan prayer flags, a map of the Himalayas and more photo ops.

The Ape Canyon incident is dramatized here, as desperate miners attempt to hold back the door to stop several large hairy creatures, who were apparently somewhat upset at one of the miners for shooting one of them.  Several of these stops had earphones where you could pop some on and listen to stories and sound effects.

Fortunately, the name "Big FOOT" caught on before people started seeing this cast.

David leads an inspiring lecture about Mr. Foot. Please hold all questions until the end.   This room was a nice little gathering place, and you could picture the owners of this facility being excellent hosts for all the Bigfoot trackers throughout the world.  

The Purported Sasquatch is a legendary figure of the Cohutta Forest region. This sample was found in a campground's shower drain.

Many, many foot casts were on display here at the museum, along with knuckle casts. Could these be footprints of a Gigantopithecus?  A video proposed this simple thought, about a Gigantopithecus species still roaming the earth.  That's a word I never heard of before "The Jungle Book," but it's fascinating to think that something like that did exist, and these creatures were very large! 

Q: Has anyone been able to take a video of the hairy creature that roams the Himalayas?  
A: Not YETI!
There were a few exhibits dedicated to the yeti as well, as it is basically just Bigfoot, only with white fur.  One interesting thing we learned here was about just how many cultures believed in this same creature.  It's something that every continent has a name for.

Air Yeti

Evidently the story of Bigfoot goes back many, many years as well. Madison said that's the totem pole from Gravity Falls.  One of our selling points in getting her here was comparing this place to the Mystery Shack!

Spotted outside - a whole family of them!

Why you want to leave me!?  For some reason, we thought this carved sculpture looked somewhat like the dad from "My Big Fat Greek Wedding!"  That may be a stretch, but regardless, we were saying "Why you want to leave me" for a while.

Madison got a new friend in the gift shop, a small yeti she's named "Everest."  Daddy picked up a new ornament from the gift shop, a small Bigfoot that says, "Believe!"

Bonus visit, just up the street:  Its a Muffler Man!

We got home a little later, deciding to return to the house versus waiting around for the drive-in movie there.  We'll do that perhaps later, as there is a drive-in movie actually in Blue Ridge.  It's technically closer to us than the one in Tiger, Georgia. The irony is that "Toy Story 3" was the last movie we saw at a drive-in, and "Toy Story 4" was playing at this one tonight, roughly nine years later.

We got home, and tonight we decided to watch "Harry and the Hendersons" because why not?  Madison had not seen this movie, and Daddy has seen it about a zillion times back in the day.  I have this movie memorized, apparently.  It's still good though - it hasn't aged at all, and Rick Baker's costume is such a wonderful creation, so full of heart.  Harry is a Bigfoot you can really cheer for - the movie is just so much fun to watch, even all these years later.

We did our reading tonight, and said our prayers before bed.  It was a pleasant day today with a little adventure thrown in for good measure.  Bigfoot was the theme of the day, obviously.  I think we were inspired by "A Goofy Movie" the other day.  Anyway, the map above didn't have any sightings of Bigfoot in our county so much, but you never know.  Maybe the next time we hear the sound of rustling outside, perhaps that's something bigger outside in our back yard.  Perhaps I'd better go check for footprints... big footprints...