new years in waverly

for new years eve, we drove up to waverly, alabama to spend some time with amy (high school friend of remi's), greg, ivan and leo. the first thing we did after recovering from being ambushed by the boys as we got out of the car, was walk down to the park to stretch our legs, swing on the swings... and have a nice nerf gun battle to the death.here, ivan is demonstrating the daredevil way to go down the slide. the best, he tells us, is to do it without putting on the breaks. 'you should try it. it's pretty fun' he tells us. i think he was putting us on.on the way back home, there's a shootouti'm pretty sure remi lost this one. then, before amy got home from work, we all went out to collect wood for our bonfire.

remi, the boys and enough wood to almost keep us warm into the new year.with his mom in his lap, leo managed to stay a little warmer than the rest of us ivan, mostly safely, kept us entertained with fireworks, rockets, poppers, and a slew of other stuff amy brought home for the festivities.

n

what a great way to ring in the new year. thanks, ya'll.

as promised, before we left for the long drive back to the dash (winston-salem), we endulged the boys in a bout of wrestlemania, a game that mostly consists of them jumping on us trying to knock us over and us picking them up over our heads and dropping them on their beds. we started this game when they were 6 and 3 years old respectively. now they are 11 and 8. i think the next time we see them we may be trying to tackle them while they are dropping us on the bed.
leo, letting me put his hair up.
amy and remi, by their amazing japanese persimmon tree grafted onto the trunk of an american persimmon tree. the tree was exploding with fruit the size of softballs.
as we were leaving, we had one last shot
here's a video of leo demonstrating the swingset obstacle course. you're not allowed to touch the ground, which is why he has to go back and start over.