Emily at Puckett's Best of Kids On Stage

Emily at Kid's on Stage - "Betrayed"

This is the song that Emily's group wrote.

Michael Rock Band Camp - Come Together

Michael has the guitar solo

Awards Day

Michael and Emily had their awards days on the same day. Fortunately, they were at different times! Michael got A/B Honor Roll for the year and a Safety Patrol and Good Morning Oak View award. Emily got A/B Honor Roll for the year for the 1st time ever. We are so very proud of both!

Graduation Night

Michael graduated 5th grade last night. Grandmother and Grandonnie drove down and surprised him. After the ceremony, we headed over to his friend Connor's house to celebrate with Connor and Abbi, his church friends. Fortunately, I must have gotten my tears out earlier in the day and I didn't embarrass Michael at graduation. It was a bitter-sweet day!

Michael's Art Show

School is winding down and Michael's school had an art show. They displayed their best projects. Michael was supposed to have 2 things, but they apparently lost his "Louisville Slugger Bat" made from everyday objects. They eventually found it, but not in time for the show. His drawing is the blue and black one to the right of him.

Mother's Day

We started out the day at church and then Kevin and the kids took me to Bonefish for lunch. After we got home, one of Michael's friends came over and they played for a while. I decided that I wanted to walk through downtown Franklin, so we loaded up and walked around and stopped off at Ben and Jerry's. After we got home, I read, updated the blog and napped. It was a great day!

Volleyball tryouts day 3!

Em and her friend Kelsey before going to tryouts...

Emily after tryouts. She's still smiling so that's a good sign?! She ended up not making the team. She was pretty sad about it last night, but seems to be doing better today. There's always next year...

Emily's volleyball tryouts

Well, so far she has survived. There is 1 more day of tryouts. Here is a picture of an arm bruise and a floor burn on her knee. She was wearing knee pads?

The Asthma Walk

As you may or may not know, Michael was diagnosed with Asthma when he was in kindergarten. Since then, he has been on preventative medications to help him. He usually only has problems when he is sick, otherwise it doesn't seem to be an issue. We have recently stopped one of his medications and his body seems to be handling it just fine. We are hopeful that one day he will outgrow it.

Last year, Michael heard about the Asthma walk and wanted to participate in it. Unfortunally, it fell on Derby day so we told him that he wouldn't be able to do it. This year, he asked us as soon as he found out about the walk . We decided to put aside our selfishness :0) and let him do it. He ended up collecting $560 for the event. I believe he was 7th highest fundraiser in Nashville.

Kevin ended up walking with us, since it was raining and football was cancelled. The event was held at the zoo and he walked with the few people from his school team that showed up. Fortuantely, the rain held off for the most part during the walk. It was damp, but there were no downpours. The animals was quit active, so that made it fun. Thanks to all of you who supported him on this walk! It was a great event for a great cause!

Happy 1st birthday Blog!

Michael's broken arm.

Our weekend was busy, filled with movies on Friday, games on Saturday, Main Street Festival on Saturday night, church on Sunday, lunch with our SS class that afternoon AND a visit to the Emergency Room on Sunday night.

I didn't see it happen. Michael and Em were swinging. Michael was very high and his sister bumped into him causing him to fall to the ground. He landed flat on his arm and apparently on his chin sending a tooth into his lip. Both tooth and lip are still intact! There was blood, screaming and crying. Kevin finally stopped crying (ha!) and we loaded up and went to the ER and SAT for 2 1/2 hours or more and then found out Michael had a compression fracture in his left arm. Michael said in the ER, "Wow, that really hurt.".

He got his lovely UK blue cast on today. He has to wear it for 4 weeks and then he will switch to a shorter cast for 2 weeks. There's nothing quite like being a Gabhart!

Wednesday at Dollywood

Wednesday we went to Dollywood. There are really only 3 good rides there - all of them roller coasters. I used to love roller coasters when I was younger. Now...not so much. I like them after the first hill, or so I thought. The first coaster we road was the Tennessee Tornado. There are 3 loops on that one. After we got off, I was very dizzy. The boys road it twice. Then we road the Mystery Mine. Most of that one was indoors, so you couldn't see what it did. What we could see was a little crazy. There was a 90 degree drop and a loop where it went really slow. It didn't look too bad, so we all did it. It was the craziest ride I have ever been on. There were 2 sections where you went straight up at 90 degrees. I can't even tell you what else it did. I think I have blocked it from my mind. The last coaster we road was Thunderhead. Apparently, it's one of the fastest wooded roller coasters in the nation. It was also crazy. Emily was done after the Mystery Mine, so she didn't ride on that one. They road the water ride 4 times in a row - real smart - and were soaked for the rest of the day. It was about 68 degrees yesterday. Needless to say, they were a little chilly last night. Michael went back and road the Tennessee Tornado and Thunderhead before we left. I think he has finally found his inner-daredevil. I'll post pictures later. I'm almost caught up on the week!

A Snowy Tuesday

Tuesday morning we woke up to a dusting of snow. Luckily, the roads were clear. We were going to go to the Aquarium; however, the rest of Gatlinburg had the same idea, so we went to Ober Gatlinburg. We rode the Tram - this is not one of Kevin's favorite things, but he was a trouper! After we got up there we had planned on ice skating - also not one of Kevin's favorite things. However, we noticed that they had snow tubing. We did that instead and had so much fun. The track was pretty high. By the time we finished, it was really fast. On my last run, I ran into the wall. Emily and Michael had a blast since they had never experienced real sledding. It even snowed while we were up there.

After tubing, we went back down to Gatlinburg to grab some lunch. A man with a very deep voice convinced us that we needed a really good SIRLOIN BURGER, so we ate there. You need to get Kevin to do his impersonation of that man.

After lunch we went to the Aquarium, which was great. The crowds were way down by then and we were able to walk right in and walk around with no problem. It was a great day!

Monday in Gatlinburg

We left Knoxville Monday morning and drove to Gatlinburg. We couldn't check into our cabin until 4:00, so we drove around Pigeon Forge, visited the Wal-Mart to get a few things (I hate Wal-Mart!) and did a Mirror Maze. Then we met my friend Cindy and her family for lunch. After that we got our cabin. It's in the hills of downtown Gatlinburg. There are 3 levels with a spiral staircase. The kids think it's awesome. They are on the 3rd floor with the pool table and we are in the basement. I think they got the better end of that deal! The middle floor has the kitchen, living room, and another bathroom. That night we all watched a movie and had a raccoon visit us out on the deck.

Sunday night and Monday morning in Knoxville

Sunday we packed up and headed to Knoxville to see the Cromers before heading to Gatlingburg. It was so good to see them! We had dinner together and the kids played for a while before we checked in at our hotel. The hotel had a pool, so Em and Michael went swimming for a while.

Monday morning we loaded up our car and ate breakfast at IHOP and then on to Gatlinburg.

Is it Spring Break yet?!

Well, it is not Spring Break yet. We still have another week! Ugh! We are all so ready for it. This past week we had our normal schedule. Voice lessons and volleyball for Em on Tuesday. We have recently added flag football practice to our Tuesday night schedule, also. Kevin is the assistant coach. We are so excited about Michael's coach this season. He goes to our church and is such a nice guy. Speaking of coaches, Em's volleyball coaches are SO cute. They are in high school and play for their school team. They are so excited to be there and the girls think they are the coolest, so the actually listen to them.

Wednesday Michael had his guitar lesson and Pepper and I had our 3rd class together. We got a "much better" from the teacher. He told me that we were in the "dog house". I guess that means they were going to tell us, thanks but no thanks. We have redeemed ourselves for at least another week. If we survive that, we test with the Delta Dog Society to be a registered pet partner team on Sunday the 5th. If your dog barks, you are immediately dismissed. If your dog bites, you are dismissed and not able to retest. I'm a little nervous about the test. Who knows what she will do.

Thursday, Em had an extra volleyball practice. Friday, she had another birthday sleepover (3rd one in 3 weeks!)

On Saturday Michael had practice AND got a haircut. He was not happy! Em had a volleyball game. They won all 3 games. In the last game she served 12 in a row of their 15 points ( I had to brag a little). Then she headed off to go to the Predators game with the Middle School. There were only 5 girls, I think. The rest were boys. Kevin, Michael and I ended up going to the game, also, but we were on the opposite side of the arena. We were actually in the "Cell Block" section. That's the section where the serious fans sit. They start lovely chants with colorful language! Michael said , "the lady behind me said the "s" word a lot". Unfortunately true! Oh, in the midst of all that, there were Severe Thunderstorm warnings AND Tornado Warnings. Nice.

Sunday, of course, was church day. We have one more week of school and then we're on Spring Break. We'll be heading to Gatlinburg for a few days for some R and R. We can't wait!

Our past week

We started the week on Sunday night attending the Winter Wonder Jam concert. We were all tired from the weekend, but went anyway. It turned out to be a really great show. There were even flames shooting out of the stage - cool! We're so glad that we went.

This was the week that Em's big project on Jane Goodall was due and we went to the school "Wax Museum" for the viewings. Each child had to pick someone who had made a contribution to society in the arts, science, politically, etc... She did a great job and got a 94 on her project.

We also got report cards this week. Michael had all "As" and Em had 3 "As" and 2 "Bs". We were very pleased with both.

Kevin left for Vegas on Friday (I'm guessing he's planted in front of a wall of TVs watching NCAA games) and today we've run from football practice to a volleyball game. Emily's team won 1 and lost 2. The last game was 14-15. Ugh! Oh well. it was their 1st game. Tonight Michael is going to a sleepover and Em and I are having a girl's night out! That's all for now.

Emily's Puckett's Debut - finally!

They misspelled her name!

Franklin- Wednesday, March 4–Linda Davis’s “Kids on Stage” Showcase Join us this evening for a very special show with some very awesome talent! Grammy Award-Winning Singer/Songwriter Linda Davis will be joined by some of the stars of Kids On Stage: Nikki Archuletta, Jordan Birdwell, Deanna Cunningham, Jessica Foulk, Emily Gaphart, Millie Grasso, Vanessa Hendel, Hannah Johnston, Mo Kirkpatrick, Jessica McCall, Maci Pye, Kendall Swanson, and Taylor Ware. This is a rare opportunity to see some true superstars in the making. 7pm show, $5 cover, reservations 615-794-5527.

So that's the ad on the Puckett's website. As you can see Em's name was misspelled. I even emailed them with the correct spelling. Oh well. It happens. We haven't told many of you, but Em is taking a class tomorrow on Stage Performance and she is singing at Puckett's this Wednesday night. It's a big deal.We'll see how it all goes. It will be very telling as to whether she is serious about singing or not. We bought a new video camera and will do our best to record it and get it out on the blog. Say a prayer for her and her momma!!!

The 5th grade Presidential Program

Michael's 5th grade program was this week. For those of you who don't know the story, the 5th grade class does this huge project/musical presentation each year about all the president's of the United States. They are assigned a president or first lady, have to research that person, write a paper, prepare a speech and get items from that time period. Then it ends with their play and display of all they have gathered.We knew about this project when we were in DC. We were debating whether we should buy a book about the presidents when we were there. Well, it wouldn't have helped, because Michael was assigned a Vice President. There were more boys than presidents. He was SO bummed. He said "Mom, he's not even a Republican!".

Anyway, Michael was chosen to be Walter Mondale. We googled his email address and they ended up emailing each other Friday a week ago. Michael thought that was cool. Modale was VP in the 70s so we went to Goodwill and found some plaid polyester pants. I had a K-Tel album from the 70s and a fondue pot. Their program was cute. Nobody passed out. Hopefully, we'll get a DVD of it, because my video did not turn out - or course.