Buddy Walk

This weekend the Coleman family joined our cousin Ava in a Buddy Walk to raise money for Downs Syndrome awareness. Ava is the daughter of my first cousin Michael and his wife Michelle. She is approximately two months younger than Sarah and is a sweet as can be! We were happy to come and join in on the celebration of Ava and others at the walk which took place at Keeneland Race Course.

Chris is coming with the wagon and supplies at the ready to make this a fun and successful day for us all. (those of you with toddlers know exactly what I am talking about)

Mamaw and Papaw McReynolds also made the trip up to join Ava and her family and friends. Sarah is pretty content with her milk and donuts in this photo!

This is Ava's sister Grace. She is growing up to be such a beautiful and sweet young lady.

Here is my cousin Michael in the center of two of his friends who joined us as well.

This is Michael's wife Michelle and the star of the day, Ava.

We were also fortunate to visit with some farm animals as well. Check out the Llama.

Sarah was much more interested in animals of the mascot persuasion.

Luckily, Michelle also came prepared with some parade items to keep the little ones busy...Sarah loves batons!

Sarah preparing for our walk with her grandparents.

Here is the Coleman clan (this is the best photo we could get...she was so interested in the balloon that we couldn't get her attention) ugh!

Ava's Parade is on its way. We brought up the rear of the Buddy Walk.

As you can see, many people participated on this day.

We caught up with Ava to snatch a quick photo with her daddy.

Mom seemed to be enjoying herself on this beautiful day.

I had to include this photo of Dad. We get so few of him. He is usually the one holding the camera in the background.

At the end of the walk, Sarah was pumped to see Clifford at the finish line!

This excitement quadrupled when she spied the bouncy castle. She has become quite good at this over the past months. We are contemplating a birthday party at Bounce U this December... Stay tuned.

As Sarah was exiting the bouncy castle, she lights up as she hears the chicken dance in the distance. We quickly strap on her shoes and she is ready to rock. Mom convinced me to join in the dancing fun as well as you will see here!

I had to include this photo. These are some of my students from LHS taking time out to volunteer serving lunch at the Buddy Walk. These are some great young ladies!

The fun just continued all morning! Sarah got to ride in a medical helicopter!

This smile reveals pure joy. She had such a great time today!

After the walk, we spied a quick look at Keeneland. They open for fall racing next week and the place was buzzing with people preparing the staff and grounds.

Believe it or not, I have never been to a meet. I have been here before to take photos. Hopefully I will be able to attend a real race this season! I just love this beautiful scenery (check out the unique tree to the left).

Mom, Dad, and Sarah have never been here at all, so we went on a mini-tour of the grounds.

Sarah especially loved the track. I touched the poly track surface, it feels like rubber!

This photo ends our adventure. It really was a joy for us to visit with family and support our cousin, Ava. Sarah had a fantastic time. The organizers of this event should be very proud of their efforts. We look forward to more Buddy Walks in our future!

Bye for now.

Song and Dance

Sarah is becoming more dramatic by the day. While I was working on my school blog, she began to dance to the Bonanza theme I added to a slide show of "wild west"skits my students did in class this month.






This song (along with the chicken dance) has become a favorite request at our house.
Go figure!








Sarah is really getting into Sunday School songs lately. Chris and I were cracking up at this rendition of the Wise Man. It should sound like "the wise man built his house upon the rock" and "the foolish mans built his house upon the sand". Sarah has a whole different version that is incredibly cute. I am constantly amazed at this little girl.

Later gators,

Angie

At home in the mountains (continued)

I had so many photos related to our trip to Pike County last weekend, I decided to create a second post of the remainder of the weekend after we left the reunion.

As we left the reunion, we drove by an old mine that Chris's family used to mine for coal to heat their homes. Chris said he was very tempted to climb in there as a child, but knew he would get into big trouble if he did!

Once we made it back to Pikeville and had dinner with my Mom and Dad, we made our way to Melody's house to see all the progress since our last visit. You might remember that we came weeks ago to paint and help with flooring. It has come a long way since then. Here is Jessie showing off the downstairs, which is virtually complete.

The upstairs is still under construction, but the downstairs is move in ready!

I really like Melody's choice of colors and woods. I am excited for her family to get to finally move in.

Sarah stops to pose for a couple of photos with Mamaw and Papaw before leaving (it is really late at this point, but she doesn't seem to mind). People often tell me that Sarah looks just like me... I never noticed the resemblance before but I really see myself as a child in this particular photo.

Here is a photo of Mamaw, Papaw and Sarah.

The next day, we got up and went to church. Here is a photo of the back of the church where I attended as a child. It is under major renovation currently, so we cannot use the front and the side doors. They are holding worship in the basement until the new auditorium is finished. I will update this photo on my next visit (it should be complete this fall).

Even though these photos don't exactly fit this post, I had to get them in. Monday we went to Caden's house to celebrate his birthday. Sarah brought Caden and Cohen pirate hats from Long John Silvers. Though we never got the perfect photo, these were awfully cute.

Whew! Now I can delete some photos from my camera to make room for new adventures!

Bye for now,

Family Reunion

We made our way back to Pike County this weekend for a Coleman family Reunion. It has been as long as ten years since Chris has seen some of his family and he was excited to catch up. When we got the invite, they told Chris he would turn on a road he could not place (he thought this was odd because he lived there for 14 years). When we finally got there, we figured out why...The reunion was on top of a reclaimed "strip mine" (for those of you who know mining terminology, this will make perfect since but the non-mountain folk will probably be "googling" it right now). As we made our way up a very steep hill, we began to wonder if we were in the right place. But we began to see family in vehicles and on atvs and we knew just to keep going and we would get there eventually. It was a really cool place to spend a day. The mine left the mountain with a perfectly flat area that was much larger than a football field. This gave the young as well as the young at heart, lots of room to play corn hole, horseshoes, frisbee, and four wheel.

This is the landing we used for the reunion.

Some members of the Coleman family camped out in tents and an RV on Friday and Saturday night.
Much of the day was spent exploring the mountains on four wheelers. This is Jerry and his son Jared in the foreground.

Here, Chris and I are making our rounds on the ATV. It was lots of fun!

Sarah had a blast bouncing and sliding in the blow up castle.

Regina's daughter Kaitlin resting from the bouncing fun.

Dana was the face painting artist in residence on this day.
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The kids spent some time painting faces and arms, (and stomachs).

Chris and Sarah spent time with Chris's uncle Leonard. He really seemed to enjoy himself with all the family around for the weekend.

Norma and Fran sharing a hug.

Much of the day was spent sitting around catching up with relatives who live far from us.



Sarah is small, but she's a force to be reckoned with!

Edward, Fran, and Della sharing stories.

By this point in the afternoon, Sarah was beginning to wear out from all the fun. We had to leave for a couple of hours to let her nap at an aunt's house.

Chris and I made our way down to the lower portion of the mountain, where Chris's uncle Ed has an authentic Civil War era cabin complete with antiques located for anyone gutsy enough to "rough it" in the overnight (with no "facilities"). He was offered it as firewood, but instead, took it apart and numbered it piece by piece, and rebuilt it on his property. No one has slept in it yet, but I am sure the kids will get lots of use out of it during the day.

Inside, we find lots of antiques, like this high chair, that Ed and his daughters located to place in the cabin.

The cabin only contains one room, and is said to be a "honeymoon cabin". This meant that when a couple got married, they moved into this small cabin until they were able to build their own larger cabin (as the family began to grow). I guess many families called this home over the years.

This is Chris's uncle Ed, the owner of the land we used for the reunion, as well as the cabin.

This is the view from the cabin's front porch. Ed is working to try and seal up the pond so that it will hold enough water to stock it for fishing soon. Chris says he would stay overnight if I was willing. I will have to think about this one...

I thought it would be appropriate to end this post with a photo of the Coleman family homestead. All of Chris's uncles, aunts, and cousins and immediate family spent many hours together in this home. It was nice, even after Pearl and Daniel are no longer with us, for the Colemans to come together for a weekend to share in the special memories created in and around this home. Chris hopes for many more reunions to come in the future. We are glad Sarah is going to grow up with a strong sense of her family heritage.
Bye for now...