Part IV ~ Dothan

It took me longer to get this last part posted than I thought it would. I didn't know how to organize it and couldn't decide what pictures to use. I took so many pictures. Anyway, it's the last entry, and I'm tired so you get what you get. We stayed 6 days in Dothan, Alabama with my Dad's cousin Barbara. She's got a nice house with three cats. She spoiled us and I want to live with her all the time.

Aunt Dot (my Grandpa's sister), Natalee and Barb

This is the 12 layer cake that Barb baked for us. It's made from scratch with boiled frosting. Holy cow, it was so good. It was just one of many things she cooked. She made us breakfast every morning with biscuits and grits. She did chicken fried steak with okra another night. We had a fish fry at Ann's with homemade onion rings. Yes, we probably gained 40 lbs. in the few days we were there.
Barbara took us to a lot of antique shops. Mom and Dad love to go antiquing and you've never seen so many antique shops in your life as there are in Southeastern Alabama. This is Natalee in a hat she thought was quite fashionable. At one store we saw the sign below. It ruined our ability to steal anything.

A very welcome change for us was the weather. It was so warm. Natalee loved playing in Barb's yard. She got to chase squirrels, throw rocks and pinecones in a brook and run through the sprinklers. If we ran through the sprinklers here in early April, we'd catch pneumonia.

Everything was blooming everywhere you looked. It was so pretty!

We went to a historical park called Landmark Park. It was fun in a Wheeler Farm sort of way. It was raining on and off the whole time we were there, so we had to dive for shelter at any given moment. Natalee loved all the farm animals and the little general store was so cute. They had a walking trail with bridges over the swamp. We saw lots of fish and turtles, but no frogs. The frogs were very illusive.

They are pretty proud of peanuts in Dothan. It's the peanut capitol of the world or something like that. I wanted to see a peanut field, but never did. Or maybe I saw one and didn't know what it was. Anyway, since they are so proud of the peanuts, they have these little Peanut People all around the town. We saw drove around and saw a lot of them. Nathan liked the one in front of Hooters the best.

One of the days we were there, we drove down to Panama City, FL for a day at the beach. It was so much fun. Natalee swears she saw a crab and was afraid to venture too far into the water after that. However shortly after she claimed to see the crab I actually did see a jellyfish. In all we saw several and managed to catch one in a bucket. I was just fine with her not going too far out. The waves were pretty powerful and I didn't want her to get stung or washed away.

Another fun thing they have in Dothan is murals. I don't know how many there are, but they are just randomly placed on buildings around town. It's pretty unique. This is just one, but you can see how huge it is. They have them for all sorts of things pertaining to the town's history.

This is Natalee and my dad in his first grade classroom at Cloverdale Elementary School.

On Saturday we went fishing. My 3rd cousin (or something like that) has a private pond behind his house. We took the poles out and Derel got us a container of crickets and we were set. Natalee has always wanted to fish, but really doesn't have the patience required to really do it. However we were at a no patience required pond. You pretty much put your pole in and pulled out a fish

I wish we would have counted how many we caught. I know that I got 4, but Nathan and Natalee probably got 15 or more.

At the end of the day, Nathan caught a Bass and he was pretty happy about it. Look at him with his manly Barbie fishing pole!

On Sunday we went to church and afterwards Mom and I went to a wedding shower for another distant cousin. Dad took Nathan and Natalee out to Ft. Rucker where my Grandma Dean worked while they lived in Dothan. They also went to the Boy Scout Camp that my Grandpa helped build. While they were there, Dad managed to find Natalee a frog. She'd really wanted to catch one so that was one last wish fulfilled.
Here's Nat by an Azeala bush. They were so pretty and they were everywhere. This was taken the morning that we left to come home.
This is the last we saw of Mom and Dad. They dropped us off at the airport and were so sad to leave us that they cut their trip short two days.
When we finally arrived in Salt Lake, after enduring many hours of flying, some of which was spent on a plane with broken airconditioning, we were met with a big surprise. Our suitcase had been smashed and broken by the baggage people (or the baggage equipment) and we had to wait while they got us a new one. Then we had to unload all our stuff on the floor. The whole ordeal took almost 2 additional hours. I've never been so glad to get out of an airport.

We were so blessed to be able to go on this trip and we loved every minute of it!