Summer Vacation Day 5- Diamond Cavern

Day 5 continued with a stop at Diamond Cavern part
of Monmouth Cave National Park. Down Down
we went into the cave walking on extremely steep stairs.
It was a nice 58 degrees in there. This was my first
cave experience and it was really interesting. Avery did
excellent navigating the stairs and all the walking. 

Summer Vacation Day 5

On the road again...
We left Memphis without visiting their zoo because
the weather was horrible. It poured and poured! We
had a short break from the rain to stop in Nashville for
lunch. I love to visit places that the Food Network has
been so I looked one up and we decide to try
Arnold's in downtown Nashville and boy it did not
disappoint! Seriously some of the best food that Andrew
and I have had in a long time. We left after lunch and
continued on... 

Summer Vacation Day 4

On day 4 the kids and I came back home
to get daddy so that we could leave on our
adventure to Kentucky and Ohio. Aaron woke
up sick and running a fever the morning
we were to leave so we let him go back
to sleep and waited to see how he felt.
When he woke up he seemed to be in
better spirits so we headed off on our
journey. About 2 hours into the trip he
started to look like he felt bad again but
we got out of the car to visit a museum
in Jackson, MS. The time out of the car
seemed to help so we continued to
Memphis to spend the night. We also
did a little geocaching along the way at
rest stops. 

Summer Vacation Day 2 & 3

We spent day 2 & 3 of vacation at Chicot State Park.
Pop Pop and JuJu rented a cabin again this summer and
invited all of us to come fishing. I borrowed a selfie
stick from a friend and Avery enjoyed taking pictures
with it.  We all enjoyed some fishing but it was HOT!
Avery soon called fishing "boring" so she went inside
to watch tv. We introduced Uncle Jake and Pop Pop
to geocaching while we were there as well. If you ask
the kids what their favorite part of staying at the cabin
is they will probably tell you the "friendly" alligators
that come to try to steal our fish!

Summer Vacation Day 1

We started off our summer vacation or
summer adventure as we like to call it! Our
first day was spent at the New Orleans zoo
since we brought Gram and PawPaw to the
airport anyway.  Plus we get in free now
after I bought a membership earlier in the
year.  It has poured down rain when we
arrived which made us almost decide not
to go but so glad we did. The rain had cooled
it off and the cloud cover kept it that way!

Winshape Camp

Our July has been jam packed with fun! First off
was a week of Winshape Camp at our church.Our best
buddy Jackson attended the camp with us as well. He might
as well be an honorary Gaines! I volunteered all week
and wasn't really sure what to expect but I was blown
away by this camp. I was also exhausted! We are
hoping they will be able to come back next year!

Happy 4th of July!

We spent July 4th pretty low key. Daddy
went to study that morning and then our
friends came over for hamburgers and we
finished the night off with fireworks.

Geocaching

We have been doing a lot of Geocaching this summer.
Aaron has been really enjoying it. We have found almost
all of the ones in our town and we found a few while on
vacation. Some have trinkets in them so the kids love to
trade when we find those.