A call for prayer:

So, I've been battling a wicked, nasty ear infection this past week. I tried the holistic natural route...including sticking a baked onion on my ear and oddly enough, that didn't work! Go figure. So due to immense pain and the lack of enjoyment I was getting from going "what?! I can't hear you?!" a thousand times a day...and also the short lived enjoyment of having my Mum constantly saying "Now you know how I feel,...and you make fun of me..*sniff*", I decided to go to a walk in clinic. By the way, if you're in the NN area, the walk-in clinic is run by Sentara and it's right next to Thimble Shoals- do not look up ENT's in the phone book, as it's nothing but page after page of adult "entertainment" in the form of call persons...discreet and tasteful?! hahahahahaha!! snark!

At any rate, they had to pry my ear canal open with a poof sponge thing, like the ones you get in the store, where they are an inch when dry but expand in water to around 6 feet or something....so that's basically what they stuck in my ear.  It's still in there too....less pain in the parts of my face that really needed relief...but I have a road block in my ear canal..."What?!"

They also gave me vicodin....thank you!! a pain killer in a narcotic mix...this will help! I can sleep! thank you!.....

Or, so I thought. Nope! Every side effect listed decided to visit me. No sooner does that stuff hit, then I get hot flashes, tingling dizziness even in my legs...and then...I start crying!!!  What?! Where did that come from?!  My mom is stomping around going "She is never...NEVER...taking that stuff again"  she even made baby rice for me to eat to help my tummy.  But, evil vicodin is not done....it turns the sweet baby rice on me...yes it does...

So, I'm slowly recouping from the villainous weaponry of a twisted pharmaceudical mind somewhere...but I still have pain in the ear...and you know what? I'm cool with that.

I'm off to rest before the beast rears its ugly head again. What?! I can't hear you...........

Please pray for the hearing to come back and the pain to take a really long, permanent type vacation...

Thanks

Kate.

Here's the pics of Megan & Liz at the elephant in the zoo:

Isn't that just the epitome of cuteness?! I could just eat 'em up! Also, a before and after of the re-vamped zoo. I think the first pic. is around 2000 and this last was 2008. wow! Liz woud've been almost 4 and Megan about 3. April probably knows best. For those who aren't sure, my Liz is the brunette and Megan the blonde.

Blessings, Kate

My sil sent this to me...too cool! Enjoy!:

Actually, an adventure through a portion of Mammoth Caves, KY.

So, we took the physically challenged/small kids in tow tour, called the Niagara Falls. There were only 13 steps with an optional 60 or so, which I did with a couple kids, but mom did not.  It was dark, but dry in the cavern, and we weren't that far down, so the temps were in the 70's. It was lit by pink lights and we had a very nice guide, whom the girls were constantly concerned about since he jumped off the path and stood on the edge of a precipice to give us the finer points of our tour. I include some video where you can hear me laboring to breathe from the 60 + steps and then hunching over and walking side ways through the squeezy bit.

Since we had recently finished C.S. Lewis' The Silver Chair we had a great time "Many fall down to the deep realm, and few return to the sunlit lands" I only got to say it once or twice, since it was a bit on the creepy side and the girls asked me not to repeat it. te-he. So here, briefly, and very poorly lit, some pics from our excursion to the caves.: The woods next to the entrance:

Elena is holding a walking stick I bought from a guy who has a woodworking/tchatchkie shop on the roadside near the caves. It has a compass in the top and a redneck compass attached as well.  The red neck compass is a hand made whistle, so when you blow it they'll yell "Yer raat thar!" .

Hope you enjoyed our brief tour through the deep realm....

~Kate

 at least, our bit of it, in picture form: The Audobon Zoo and such.

Liz w/ baby Ezekiel           and the gang:                    

back: Caleb, Megan, Elena; mid: Hannah, Daryl John, Beth Anne; front: Lizzy, Ben, Jacob

This is cute, cause we have a pic of Liz & Meg at this same baby elephant statue when they were like 4 & 3 yrs. old.

Goats!!!                                                          The goat climbin' thingy...Daryl John being "huffy"

The peacock that attacked my mom on our way to the Swamp exibit.  Ben at Monkey Hill.

The re-did Monkey Hill which is like the highest point in New Orleans, a man made mound sitting in the middle of the zoo. It used to just be a hill you could run up and around, now they've added some climbing equipment and this snazzy waterfall ending in a pool. The kids had a ball. There's Hannah trying to float, but her skinny rump was touching the bottom. te-he.

Hannah with Ezekiel.                     Nan watching the kids in the pool she got for my nephews and niece.

After we left LA we headed to IN via the Mammoth Caves in Kentucky....you'll get that bit next.

Hope you're all having a good week. We're still tired!  ~Kate   

Well, we found it, so the good news is that I am not imagining all of it .  April , with her arm still in a sling after her wrist surgery, the girls, April's 2 kids and I piled into the van to redo our quest for Tunica. We finally realized that Mapquest had it wrong, and managed to learn from our last fiasco of a trip...what should've lasted 3 hours took 5 and we never found it.

So, this time, April found someone else who had actually been there, and mapped our way. We had a delightful trip up and following the signs ended up in MS. We didn't get a "welcome to MS" sign, we just saw the city marker...we did see a historical marker for a guy whose name I forgot (isn't that nice?) who had helped to fund our revolutionary war...his grave is there along this back road in MS. We passed a field of donkeys, a country store from the late 1800's and found the small parking area for the primitive trail that leads into Tunica. Now, I was at a different entrance when I was there 16 years ago. I know that. I know there are several entrances because one of the things you can do is go on a dirt bike/ four wheeler trail.

I will say that this forest never heard nor saw such a sight as it did that day, with us ill prepared traipsing through. We just wanted to see the first water fall. We did not have the right shoes, no diaper bag for little man, and one bottle of water between all of us, thanks to the wits of April's 11 year old.

Now I did warn everyone that it had really steep hills and ravines and such, the good news is that the beginning of the trail had some very thoughtful stairways to avoid some of the more steeper descents. We paid entrance fee on honor system and filled out a paper that asked what day you were there...so I put "Tuesday" you know, in case we weren't out by Wednesday and all .

So, in pic. form, and some video, our crazy trip to Tunica. You can see some other shots, including the warning about not doing the primitive trail unless you were an experienced hiker, had no physical infirmities and so forth...hahahaha, at April's blog. At the beginning of the trail:

after the sign, we followed the stream bed...looking over the falls...

Heading back: exhausted, wet....

Poor Daryl John had not signed up for this. He got to the point where he absolutely refused to keep going on his own steam (who could blame him?!) We tried cheering him up by naming his brief fit the "angry bird" . We all pretty much ended up taking turns carrying him up the steep hills.

And lastly, we reached the van...exulting in our survival and desperately thirsty..the good thing was that D.J. had a pediasure in his bag. On the way out of the area, we were roadblocked by these really rude birds:

After this we discovered a group of women in an extremely old, broken down car, who were stranded doing a test run for their uncle. I offered my cell phone, which earned me rather sardonic looks and derisive laughter before I realized that we were no where near a cell phone signal. So, I offered a ride to one of them, which was accepted. When we pulled up to the uncles house a couple miles away, both April and I exclaimed about how sweet the property was, we had in fact remarked on how much we liked it on our trip in, this prompted a rather bemused "Where are ya'll from?!" remark from the lady...apparently she didn't share our fascinated charm with country life.

Next up will be pic's of the new baby and from the Audibon Zoo!

~Kate

 So, here's some lagniappe, my "thrown in for good measure" sight seeing. We begin with a trip on Sat. to the capitol of Louisiana, or as my friend John puts it: "Where corruption began" .  Let me preface this bit with the information that we were headed to Baton Rouge to the Mall of Louisiana to ride the carousel and do a bit of window shopping and just have a nice day out. So my friend John says, "How bout a quick jaunt over to the capitol building", actually what he said was the "New" capitol building. Louisiana "New" is very different from Florida New.  Let's put it this way, the high school I attended and graduated from in 1992 (which didn't get air conditioning until 1995) updated by re-painting the exterior of the school. That's it. In Florida, new means: "we just built this". In LA new means: "this building is 200 years old and we freshly painted it, your welcome"

So anyway, we all pile out of the van and see this:

And here's John w/ some of the kids:

I call this shot, "Justice with a headache" I've no idea what it really is though:

The ceiling in the foyer:

We glanced at the chambers and were told by a staff member that if we looked straight up we could see a pencil embedded in the ceiling from a bomb blast in the early 1970's.  It was there. He didn't say why they didn't have a brass plaque mounted with this fascinating bit of info. either.

Next, we got on the elevator and went up like 20 floors, got off and squeezed onto a small elevator which went up the remaining floors. The good news is, there is a gift shop to hang out in at the top, for those of us who have a problem with heights.  Here's some pics. from the look out:

You can see the rain in the distance.

We went back down and got a quick shot of the governors private elevator:

which is right next to the bullet holes in the marble walls from the assassination attempt on Huey P. Long. Here's a blurry picture of part of the Long display down the hall on the left as well.:

Hannah then informed us that she didn't like this mall at all. Especially the pictures of the bloody guy (Huey P.) So, we piled all the kids into the van and headed for the fun mall. Here's Hoppy and John w/ his son on the carousel:

Afterwards, we went out to dinner at Cracker Barrel and had a very silly time of it. It started with a very mature woman who told us that the next time she felt up to getting the kids menu's, she'd get us some, before toddling off. We did fine till I saw Elena dismantling her menu...she pulled off the specials sheet that was stapled on, which invited a lecture on what something stapled meant: ie: it belonged there!! Then we see that on those Cracker Barrel old fashioned brown paper menu's she had drawn a smiley face on a picture of mashed potatoes. Which started another lecture on not coloring the menus...she had herself all confused! We laughed heartily over Lanies "happy" potatoes..someone somewhere is gonna get that menu and ask for the Happy Potatoes and not be happy when they get plain old mashies.

Boredome was setting in:

Here's our really nice and patient waiter, he was also very efficient, we were well pleased:

He really liked the happy potatoes and even told us how he was partially responsible for the invention of strawberry lemonade. Wow! Almost on par with Al Gore huh?! Just teasing...we really liked our waiter.

So, that's it for now, it's really late, or early depending on your point of view and we're in a hotel in Tennessee on our way to Mammoth caves in KY. Have a great evening/day/thingy!

~Kate

Check out the video to the left above my sidebar pics: it's Yo-Yo Ma &Bobby McFerrin doing Mocking Bird.

I thought it was sweet, and thought the girls would get a kick out of Bobby McFerrin...Don't Worry..Be Happy.

Have a blessed Sabbath tomorrow.

~Kate.

We're here, and it's actually cooler, slightly, than VA when we left.  Baby Ezekiel is cute.

Already had Sno-balls and should be having po-boys soon. yum...also looking forward to a trip to Morning Call.

Off to get my friends daughter who is returning from camp. Boy will she be surprised to see the girls! .

Have a great weekend! ~Kate