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We had a blast in Alabama with our oil family! We usually park 45 minutes away at a huge lake, but this time, found a little local spot for our short stay in Huntsville.....
Our friends and business partners there, Darren & Angel, always bless us with the most AMAZING meal. They are from Fiji and have ALL the good recipes!!!! This time it was curry and rice, holy amazing. The kids had a ball playing outside, while the adults visited.
Sweet Darren surprised me with MY FAVORITE.....Rosie's Salsa!!! The BEST Mexican out there, for serious. I may or may not have rocked this jug and held it like a baby! ;) (and then ate it for my meals everyday! haha)
Then it was time to work! Angel and her team did a FABULOUS job filling each class....we had a ball! Lots of new oilers coming to Huntsville! :)
We even got to have a Rosie's Fajita dinner after our second night of classes, thanks to Darren dropping it off after work. SO thoughtful! I loved getting to hang out with Angel and Kathryn more before we left town.....
The next morning, the students of 4 Oaks Academy finished their school year.....WAHOO!
Time to celebrate!
We let the kids pick wherever they wanted to go from dinner to CELEBRATE.....
Is it any surprise they picked Rosie's Mexican?! You are looking at a future 3rd, 5th, 7th and Junior in HS right here...... 
Look at how they've changed since we hit the road 4 years ago, April!
They picked the TV foodie famous, Bigfoots Little Donuts for dessert. Hot and fresh off the line, Peaches & Cream, Honey Cinnamon and Funnel cake
We left early the next morning to head to Franklin, TN trying to beat a line of storms....
I just don't think we did this area any justice at all. We sat in the parking lot in Franklin, TN for a quick oil class in the local coffee shop, and from what I hear, missed a TON of cool things to do and see.
Next time, Franklin. Next time. We always try to think of fun games to play or crafts to do during travel days. Today was, a stamp the playdough guessing game! :) 
We headed to our campsite in Kentucky and got all set up....the kids were at each other, and it was pouring out, so no evening walk in the forecast.
We decided to divide and conquer. The girls and I would stay here with chocolate and a girly movie, and Dale would take the boys in to see the Corvette museum. You know, the one that had a sink hole in the center at one point? At the last minute, Destiny decided to go along. No problem! Papa would be proud. My dad was a corvette fanatic and had 17 different Vettes in his lifetime.. I stayed behind with Avery and we decided on swiss chocolate (Thanks, Elaine!) and Little Women, the movie. Not 25 minutes later, Dale calls.....the boys were fighting and despite being warned, had just lost their privilege of going to the museum that day. Everyone was headed back home for dinner and an evening at home. RUT RO!!!! Those lessons are hard on EVERYONE involved. We ate dinner and headed to bed. Tomorrow is a fresh start! 
The next day, instead of home church, we headed out to go enjoy our Creator's Creation: Mammoth Cave.
We had just read about this in Paxton's school books and one of my favorite Christian Fictions, so it was perfect timing.
Mammoth Cave National Park Facts:
Mammoth Cave National Park is a 52,830 acre park located in the state of Kentucky in the United States. It is named after the cave it partially encompasses, called Mammoth-Flint Ridge Cave System, which is the world's longest known cave system. Native Americans have inhabited the cave region for at least 6,000 years. It is believed that the first Europeans to discover the cave system did so in the late 1700s, although it is not known if it was Francis Houchin or his brother John Houchin who officially made the discovery. In 1941 Mammoth Cave National Park was officially established. 
There are a variety of different tours available, all varying in sites, length and exertion. They range from 2 -6 hours in length, all offering an incredibly memorable experience. A few of the more popular tours are Frozen Niagara, Fat Man’s Misery, Domes & Dripstones and the Grand Avenue.
The main Grand Ave tour was sold out, note you will need to book FAR in advance for this one! We picked a moderate difficulty 2 hour tour, Domes & Dripstones, and hung out in the free museum while we waited for the buses. I was just fine until I read all the warnings associated with this tour about those fearing heights and suffering from claustrophobia...... Ho boy! So glad for this bad boy. Balance is wonderful for times when you are feeling overwhelmed, stressed, or just feeling anxious about something. It's also good for days kids cannot focus or sit still! It's grounding and centering and smells wonderful! I dosed myself in it while we waited. Ahhhh much better! Now if I get nervous, I can sniff my wrist. 
We arrived at the cave entrance and the descent down began.......and kept going and going and going.
I have never gone down so many dark, damp, steep, slippery stairs in my life! Avery's eyes were HUGE and her teeth were chattering!
The formations are incredible and vary in size, color and size. The Drapery Room looks like pleated drapes in a pale limestone. The Snowball Room has the appearance of hundreds of snowballs, varying in size. Frozen Niagara looks like a waterfall, frozen in time. These are just a few of the unique formation waiting to be seen at Mammoth Cave. Each area seems to be a doorway into another new world of shapes, colors, sizes and creatures.
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When you are done with your descent from the cave, you walk through this nasty soapy stuff that gets your socks wet. It is supposed to help you from spreading a disease to other places since its present in the mammoth cave bats.
Since we were so close to the Corvette museum, Dale decided to take the boys to it, attempt 2. He dropped the girls off at the mall and took off. It was fun!
Avery found some cute magnetic earrings. She wants to get her ears pierced so bad, but we are looking for some improvement in responsibility and clean up first, so these will do.
We pulled out the next day for Ohio!
BUT, not all travel days are fun and relaxing....... Let's do a little travel day math, shall we? 30 ounces of water x 5 Ferguson stainless steel cups = 150 oz of cold refreshing water ADD to that equations, the Mother of ALL POTHOLES and that equals.... Over a GALLON of water flying out of said cups, and rushing all over the floor and under slides! ?????? 
BONUS: We lost all our dash gauges too. But never fear, Mr. Fix It is on the job!
Hidden blessings:
*The floor will be oh so clean when we stop tonight. *My cup jumped across two open laptops before spilling. Thanks, Lord! *We may never know why the Lord needed us off the road that 30 minutes but we trust it! * askdsf *Dale got it fixed and we are back on the road again! OHIO - Here we come :) Hugs, T 
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 After Ohio, we headed to Indiana so we could cross the river and visit the Kentucky Ark Encounter. It was quite the encounter, wow! So impressed with the thought and detail put into this huge museum.  I do not think I ever once grasped, in Sunday School, the magnitude of the ark.....  So, we had a very very special visitor come all the way from Kansas to meet us for the next few days of fun. NANA!
The inside of the ark was dark and kinda orange to recreate a lantern look. You enter one the bottom of 3 floors of INCREDIBLE and in-depth displays showing what Noah's ark may have been set up like. I have a lot of pics, so I will be using slideshows so you can dig as deep as your interest level allows. :) One of the neatest things about this ark set up, was each set of basket cages you walked by, had the noises of the animals inside them. This was in addition to the creaking of the giant boat, the BOOM of thunder during the storm happening outside as well as rain fall. There were a few times I swore the boat was moving, because it was THAT convincing!!!!! Slideshow:   Our journey lead us from floor to floor, each more impressive than the last. The attention to detail on this displays, and the Biblical education pouring out of each is BAR NONE! We could've spent two days here probably, just reading it all. Paxton's attention span kept us moving and we did the whole thing in about 4 or so hours. Slideshow: Outside you can go walk the gardens, eat at a huge restaurant, do the petting zoo or just kick your feet up. It was so fun to get to spend the day with my momma AND some of my oil family, too! Miss Kathy is part of our doTERRA team, one of mom's builders, and she and her girls were sweet enough to bring mom to the museum and meet us for the day. They were such a delight!  We grabbed some Mexican and headed back to the RV. Kathy and mom took the girls to the mall, then back to Nana's hotel for a slumber party before they parted ways. TOO FUN!! :) I left this place with my heart so FULL and my mind finally had the answers to some of my burning questions of childhood about the ark, dinosaurs, the ice age and more. What a NEAT experience! It is a MUST for your family! We got the boys down at a good time because the next day we would be exploring the Creation Museum! We picked Nana up from her hotel and headed over.  The first thing I noticed about the Creation museum is how huge the outside is. Lots of gardens, and bogs and fun bridges to walk through.  Slideshow: While the Ark museum is fairly new, just a couple years maybe, the Creation museum is like 10 years old or so. That was news to me!   After a few exhibits, you enter this cool tunnel and "Travel back" 6000 years...... Slideshow: And viola, just like that, you are in the Garden of Eden.....  We were BLOWN away by the animatronics and displays that literally walked us through the old testimament highlights!    Sweet Nana splurged for us all to go to the Plantarium show, we got in line early because they said it fills up fast.
We had a two day pass to the Creation museum because of the combo pack we bought, so we decided to call it a day and go to Chewey's to get some grub. We dropped Nana and the boys off at the hotel for there turn to have a sleep over and made plans for pick up the next day.  Dale and Destiny took off the next morning to go get Nana and the boys, and see the final part of the Creation museum we missed the day before: Bugs and Dinosaurs. Avery and I stayed back to get ready for a fun day with Nana at our RV park! When they arrived, we were kicked back by the pool reserving them some seats. We spent most of the afternoon there, visiting, dozing and catching up! Ahhhhh this is the life!  We planned a simple Steak Caesar Salad supper and once it cooled off a bit, headed out to walk the trails.  
We played games until it was time to beat a thunderstorm into town! We had SO much fun with Nana. So special that she got to come all this way to be with us and explore God's Word in museum form. Travel safe Nana! She is off to visit her BFF in east Ohio while we headed west. Both teaching essential oil classes! And both planning on seeing friends and having a fun time! :) Until next time! Hugs, T  |
Tonya Ferguson
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