my blessed life

This week has been full and fun!!  We began Mr. B's 10th birthday celebration on Sunday (a day early) with our special meal out with my parents and sister (my parents are so awesome to take us all out on each birthday!).  Mr. B picked Chili's this year.     On his actual birthday, Monday, he opened his gifts here at home.  Then we went to Chick-Fil-A for lunch (his total fave!) where we also enjoyed a birthday cookie cake.  Yes, celebrations around here involve LOTS of good food! :) Then Monday evening we drove to Union City, TN to spend the night and visit the Discovery Park of America on Tuesday.  The whole family went and we had SO much fun!!   If you have never heard of the Discovery Park of America it could be because it's practically brand new!  It's been open only about a year and a half.  It's located in a small town about 3 hours west of Nashville but it is well worth the drive!  And the ticket prices...

So a few weeks ago we were able to take our family to a Lego Kids Fest in Nashville.  These are happening in various cities around the country and if you're able to go to one I highly recommend doing that!  It was SO MUCH FUN !!  The tickets were for a four hour time slot and I have to say that I really didn't think we'd need to stay that long ...but we could have stayed longer !  There was an incredible amount of things to do and see.  I took, like, a thousand pictures ...which I have so graciously pared down to some faves here for you ;) This event included activities like: the brick battle zone, a Lego pizza relay race, Lego car racing, Creation Nation, thebiggestLegobrickpileyou'veeverseen, the art gallery, and tons more.  There were special build areas for everybody's favorite lines: Star Wars, Bionicle, Lego Friends, Lego Disney, Mixels ....and a special family build area with a monochromatic theme (ours was purple).   ...

This week felt almost like our school year had started back again.  We took a fun field trip with several other families from our homeschool group to Cheekwood Gardens in Nashville.  Each year Cheekwood hosts a special homeschool day, usually developed around their summer theme.  This year the main theme was Big Bugs , along with emphasis on Andy Warhol's Flowers and a couple more smaller-but-just-as-beautiful exhibits.  We really enjoyed it ( even if there was a heat advisory and I thought at one point we might truly melt...ha!) !   Here are some highlights from our day:    David Rogers' Big Bugs  Patrick Dougherty: Little Bitty Pretty One twig sculpture On the Carell Woodland Sculpture Trail More of the Carell Woodland Sculpture Trail If you live near Nashville or are passing through, this is a great spot for enjoying nature, strolling through gardens, taking a leisurely "hike" on the sculpture trail, bro...

 Our summer is about to officially wrap up~can't believe fall is almost here!  August has been crazy busy so far, but these last couple of weeks are (hopefully) going to be a little slower. We had two short trips back-to-back at the beginning of this month ...which made me realize more than ever that my son is just not a very good traveler.  But we survived.  And even had some fun in the meantime ;) Our first trip was to Indianapolis for a ministers conference.  I didn't attend much of the conference, but I did get to hang out in a cozy hotel room downtown with my kiddos, eating some delicious pizza, and watching lots of the Food Network (a guilty hotel splurge since we don't have cable). The kids and I also did a bit of walking around downtown while Vince was at the conference.  Indy has a lovely downtown and I always enjoy visiting there! So then we came home for a couple of days and turned around and headed back to the Cincinnati area....

Well, I'm not actually here to debate; however, we did attend the much-talked-about debate between evolutionist Bill Nye and creationist Ken Ham earlier this month.  It's been so crazy around here that I haven't even had a chance to mention it.    When the debate was first announced, we thought it would be a good experience for our family.  So my husband was up bright and early the day that tickets went on sale.  It's a good thing, too, because they sold out in 2 minutes!  We were very excited! So we made the trip up to the Cincinnati area the day of the debate and just got checked into our hotel and headed back to the debate to get as good of seats as possible.  As you can see in the photo above, we were toward the back of the auditorium.  It was a packed house!   And it truly was a great experience for our family!  I really did wonder how my kiddos would do, needing to sit through a 2.5 hour debate with no restro...

This week we had the opportunity to view some original art by one of our family's favorite American artists: Norman Rockwell.  The Frist Art Center in Nashville will  have this exhibit until February 9th, if you're interested.  It's well worth the visit!   My parents, especially my dad, have always been fans of Mr. Rockwell.  I well remember a large art book (the only one my parents ever owned) of his works.  I would look through it over and over, enthralled with the faces of our country's history and the emotions they told.  Rockwell certainly knew how to speak to the human emotions and expressed them so well in his art. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing so many of his works (over 40 paintings plus some sketches, Saturday Evening Post covers, and a short film) in person.  They are such detailed oil paintings!  And to think he used to paint one a week   for the Saturday Evening Post for years...

This past weekend we had a friend in from out of town, so we decided to take  her to visit one of our favorite local places: Christian Way Farm.    It was full of fun that day~lots of animals to see and feed, new piglets just born the night before, beautiful flowers ....there's always wonder on the farm. It's like you're closer to God's creation. ***** Don't miss a thing here at My Blessed Life! Subscribe, Follow, & "Like" today!