Pops in the Park

This is just a quick post to let everyone know that East Coweta High School is doing pops in the park again this year. It is held at the Senoia Park off of Seavy street if anyone is interested in coming. Phil and I had a really good time last year and plan to attend again this year. Sophia's favorite was the drumline last year we will see what she thinks this year. :) Here is also an article that the Times-Herald wrote about the event : Pops in the Park

Hope to see you there!

Harwell Photography

Sophia is getting her pictures taken tomorrow with Jeremy. He does such great work but wish me luck because I'm taking her by myself. Phil has a meeting he has to be at so it is just going to be me and the peanut. :)

Here is his link if anyone is interested in looking at his web page Harwell Photography

These are some pictures he took for us this same time last year. :)

A Visit to Adam's Farm and Mother's Day

Phil, Sophia and I decided to go to Adam's Farm this morning. Emorie, Isabella and Mrs. Casey came along too to help us pick some strawberries. Sophia was especially well behaved and really got into the spirit of it - as you can see from the Photos. She also learned a valuable lesson about what happens when you run with strawberries.

I've had a wonderful Mother's Day. It started with Phil getting Sophia up and given breakfast then she came busting through the bedroom door while I was getting ready for church with a huge grin on her face and said Mama. :) He also gave me a cute Mother's Day card and a pair of earings that are just beautiful. Later we went over to Perry and Judy Baker's house and visited with them for a bit. Phil was interested in buying Perry's tiller (that is another story). Then we went for a walk around a pond in Peachtree City. They have just renovated this pond/park and it was really fun to watch Sophia play on the new equipment they have. There were also lots of people walking their dogs so everytime we passed one she would yell DOG! :) When we got home Phil had prepared a wonderful roast with vegetables and yorkshire pudding YUM! It has been a really nice weekend. I hope you all had a great one too!


Sophia picking strawberries

Running with her strawberries.....

This is what happens when you run with strawberries! haha! She was fine she didn't even cry..she was just a little sticky until we got home. :)

Mother's Day picture. This is the best we could get and she is pointing to a dog across the street. :)

A Couple of Pictures

Here are a couple of pictures of Sophia from yesterday. She will finally say her animal sounds and even has one for the sound of a car.

Here is a picture of Sophia telling me the cow says MOOOOO!!! :) She is so cute when she scrunches her little face up.

Reading herself "Goodnight Moon"

This is a singing clock that my dad got her while we were down there. She LOVES this clock and makes the song play over and over while she dances. It plays Hickory Dickory Dock by the way but a more up beat version. :)

This is Sophia's other persona Hollywood. :) She wore these glasses all around Target while I finished shopping so I bought them for her. She thinks she is hot stuff when she has them on. Check out her wheels in the background she likes to try to run Cleveland over with her dump truck. :)

We are suppose to be going to Adams Farm this weekend so I hope to have lots of cute strawberry pickin pictures to post. :)

Tasmania

Burnie, Tasmnia at Sunset


Someone's Palm tree with the hills in the background


They even have a KFC in Tasmania, the Mcdonalds is a few blocks away!

Tara wanted me to write something about my recent business trip to Tasmania.


The purpose of my trip was to visit a Caterpillar business unit that manufactures Underground mining equipment and visit an underground copper mine. Luckily my visit also co-incided with a public Holiday in Australia - ANZAC day - which commemerates the sacrifices of their armed forces. This long weekend afforded me some time to go site seeing and get to know some of the people that live and work there a little better.

I was hoping to see all kinds of different animals while I was there, unfortunatly most of what I saw was dead on the side of the road. Most of the marsupials are nocturnal so you dont tend to see them out during the day time. At night I managed to see a lot of Wallaby's. Tasmania is home to the famour Tasmanian Devils, but sadly their population is shrinking due to a mysterious disease spreading across the island. I could have visited some devil sanctuaries but most of the activities are in the evening so I didnt end up making the trip. I did discover though that the prolific wallaby has very tasty meat, and no it didnt taste like chicken - more like rabbit.

So I worked most of the time in Burnie on the North coast of Tasmania, but I did visit the mining town of Queenstown near the west coast. Queenstown is very small - about the size of Senoia, and is dominated by the Mt Lyell Copper mine. I was lucky enough to catch the project manager of the mine and take a tour with him, which involved driving down into the mine to depth of about 1500ft below sea level into the hard rock. The mining operations are very interesting, as they use explosives to break up the rock and then use Caterpillar equipment to shovel and truck the ore out of the mine.

Im glad I got to visit Tasmania, and some of the very nice hospitable people who live there. Its a beautiful Island, with awesome scenery and some very large expanses of uninhabited land.

St. Marys Visit

Sorry it has been awhile since I have written anything but our house has been turned upside down. Phil has been gone for a week and two days now and I'm so ready to have him home. Sophia has really missed him too and the few days after he left she would ask for him and look for him. She has become very attached to me which is very sweet but she cries now when I leave her. I hope that gets better once he gets back. He is coming home tonight and I can't wait!!

While Phil was gone I thought it would be a good opportunity to go down and visit my family with Sophia. She was really good during her five hour journey down there. We had recently bought a travel dvd player just for this trip and let me tell you it was a life saver I don't think she would have done nearly as well without it. I don't usually let her watch a lot of TV but I was willing to on this trip as long as she didn't scream for five hours. :) We stayed at my parents house for about four days and visted with my sister and brother-in-law and their three boys. Sophia loved playing with her two youngest cousins one is eight and the other one is two and a half. They would chase each other around the house screaming and laughing. The eight year old was really attentive to her and would help her down stairs and watch out for her. It was nice having the extra help.
One of the days that I was down there we went to the Jacksonville Zoo. Which is a very nice zoo and they have updated it a lot since I was little. Sophia's favorites were the elephants, giraffes and gorilla. She made the elephant noise when she saw them and squeeled. She got to see the gorilla face to face. He was running back and forth hitting the glass and stopped in front of her I thought she would be scared but she just smiled and laughed.
We came home the following Sunday and have been working on getting back into our routine. Phil is home now also and is struggling to get back in the right time zone. :) It was nice to get to see my family though and I think Sophia had a good time.

Sophia loving the carousel. She would cry when it would stop. We ended up letting the kids ride it twice.

Sophia and her cousin looking at the fish.

Going down the slide. This slide was very fast and it looks like Sophia enjoyed it. :)


Aunt Lisa, Maga, and Sophia at the zoo. We were waiting on the boys...they were looking at bats and other icky creatures.

Sick Again!

Well I haven't blogged for awhile so I thought I better update everyone on what the ball family has been up to. My grandfather passed away about two weeks ago so on the day of the funeral Phil kept Sophia for me at home and had quality father/daughter time. While I drove down to Ashburn, GA to attend the funeral. It was a very nice service and it was good to get to see my mom, dad, sister and brother-in-law again. My grandmother has alzheimer's so my mom is in the process of finding a good nursing home for her.
On a happier note a lot of my friends had this past week off of work because of spring break so Sophia and I got to visit with them some. I took Sophia over to Emorie's house on Tuesday to play with Isabella. It was nice getting to catch up with Emorie and her mom was in town also so it was good to get to see Mrs. Casey. We had a great time and Mrs. Casey made a delicious lunch of hamburgers and french fries yum! Sophia had fun playing with Isabella and by the time we were leaving Isabella was refering to Sophia as MY Sophia. :) On Wed. I went with Emorie, Isabella, Mrs. Casey, Deana and Cameron to Jumping Jelly Beans. We had so much fun it took Sophia a little while to warm up to it. She cried the first few time we crawled into one of the jump play areas but by the end she was wanting to get in. I took her down this really tall slide twice she never cried going down but I could feel her clutching onto me. :) I think Phil and I should have a date night there it was really a lot of fun. Later this week my neighbor's daughter came into town from Indiana so Sophia and I went over to there house to play with her little girl Sadie. Sophia got to play with sidewalk chalk for the first time and loved it. I just went out and got her some of her own.
After all that fun we had to end the week with Sophia getting sick AGAIN!! She felt a little warm Friday night but it was so hot that day that I thought she was warm from being outside. We went to dinner that night with Robert and Carly and she was a little fussy but nothing to unusual. :) Saturday morning she woke up and she definately had a fever 102.4! Yet again it is a weekend really what is it with getting sick on weekends and holidays? We didn't take her to the ER this time we went to a place called ChildTime. My pediatrician recommend them for after hour visits and after going there I highly recommend them!!! We were seen really quick the doctor there that day checked her ears (no ear infection yay!) then we checked her throat and took a swab. He thought it was a virus infection but wanted to test for strep just in case. Then he checked her white blood count. Turns out it is a virus (she has a throat infection) so there isn't anything we can give her but they were really thorough.
Anyway that is a little of what we have been doing. We should have some more pics and exciting news coming soon. Phil is going to Australia and I am going down to St. Marys to visit my family. We hope you are all doing well!!