Back to Guntersville

In the fall of 2011, the family went to Guntersville, Alabama, for a week while Jeremy was fishing a tournament.  This year, Grandpa and I went back again with the Yorks...for the same reason.  Jess had to work and we missed having her along.  The first day or two the weather was on the very cool side, but the sun came out long enough for Grandpa and the kids to go out for a while to shoot hoops on the basketball court or take "rides" in the hammock.  Then each day became colder and windier. 

  One day wasn't quite as bad, so we ventured out for some fresh air in the afternoon.  We checked out beautiful downtown Guntersville.  It really is a nice city.  It is spread out over quite a large area with the lake in, out and all around it.  It has some beautiful public buildings.  But the "downtown" area didn't take long to cover.  We went into an antique store.  The grandkids had never been in one, so they were kind of interested in all the "weird" old stuff.  "Old" to them is anything from the '80s.  (The 1980s that is...not the 1880s!)  Savannah fell in love with a couple of old teddy bears she saw.   After looking around downtown for a little while, we went out to the Walmart shopping center.  They have some other stores in that area and one that we went into was Claire's Boutique.  Savannah didn't remember ever being in one and I told her how her mom and aunt Jessica used to love to go in there.  She did, too!  She was trying on hats, glasses and all kinds of glam and striking a pose in the mirrors with each one.  Emery even got into the act with the glasses.  Especially those that were a little "different"...like with attached moustaches. 

   We passed the time for most of the week with school work (like studying the phases of the moon with Oreo cookies), craft projects (the girls made hand "painted" silk scarves), games like Pick up Sticks, Dominoes and Mancala during the day...and Rummikub at night and home-cooked meals for the cold and hungry fishermen.  And watching the new season premier of Duck Dynasty was a shared experience.  :)

 Papa Jim came up to watch the weigh-in on Thursday and Friday afternoons.  When we were there last time, we went about 45 miles northwest to Huntsville to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center.  Since there wasn't anything much to do while waiting for the weigh-in on Friday afternoon, we decided to go back up there and let Papa see it and see how much the kids remembered.  We were very surprised at how different it was.  Last time there was a lot of construction going on  and all that was open now.  The kids spent a lot of time in the area about black holes.  They could get "passport cards" and record their experiences in each interactive exhibit and they can check them on the computer when they get home.  Emery scaled the rock wall all the way to the top 3 times and after he and Savannah went into the "Mission to Mars" simulator, they both came out beaming and made Papa go in with them a second time (Grandpa chickened out).  We left there and got to the lake just as Jeremy was about to weigh in.  The timing was perfect because they got to go up on stage with him again, but we didn't stand around in the cold wind for more than a couple of minutes.  After that, we ate at Wentzell's Oyster Bar, which is a York family tradition.

  

    Friday night and Saturday morning we saw just enough snow flakes to make everyone very excited.  Jeremy cam

e in 37th place and got a check, so everybody was happy, happy, happy.