Liz and Megan (and a little bit of PJ)….RANDOM

Megan and Liz have too much fun sometimes . Here they are in all their silliness!

Above: Liz taking a random photo of a leaf on the car window….it turned out kinda cool.

Above: The girls went to the mall and came home with “matching” jackets.

Trip to Brunswick, Georgia

We just had an awesome family trip. We got to drive down to Brunswick, Georgia (about 5 hours for us), which is where most of Frank’s family lives. His Mom and Dad are there as well as his brother, sister-in-law, two nephews and a niece.

Brunswick is part of what is called the “Golden Isles of Georgia,” which is south of Savannah. Some of us in the family had never heard of the area until recently, let alone been there before…so it was very exciting to visit.

Check out the website for the area to find out more: The Golden Isles

There are multiple islands grouped together…we were able to visit St. Simons and Jekyll Islands while we were there. It was a short trip so we didn’t get to see everything…but that’s a good excuse to go back.

The area has a lot of historical value as well, which I didn’t know. Megan impressed us all with what she had been learning in her Georgia history class this quarter.

Above: Jesse and Ashley.

Above: Liz and Lyndsey.

Above: Mikayla enjoying the sand and the surf.

Above: Marc Anthony. He just turned 15 the week before this and he is 6’1″!!

Above: Lyndsey having her picture taken while taking a picture (and some random kid in the background).

Above: Great Picture of Megan. This beach was called “Driftwood Beach” because of all of the cool trees washed up on the shore.

Above: Lyndsey enjoying the ocean breeze.

Above: The kids loved climbing around and finding “cool stuff” in the sand and rocks.

Above: Mikayla and a shrimp boat off in the distance.

Above: Mikayla and Lyndsey.

Above: Marc Anthony, Uncle Marc and Ashley.

Above: Liz, Shayne & Frank just hangin’ out at the beach.

Above: Jesse, Marc Anthony, Ashely & Megan. This was a home on Jekyll Island (I think from the 1700′s??) that they are in the process of restoring right now. Most of the buildings on the Island were made from a mortar that was filled with sea shells. There were sea shells everywhere….all of the walkways, instead of bark dust or something, were either paved with sea shells in the cement or just plain sea shells scattered loosely. I had never seen that before.

Above: Frank checking out a gravestone.

Above: This is a cool bridge that goes from Brunswick over to Jekyll Island. Frank says that it used to be a drawbridge, so you would have to wait until the ships passed through before you could pass over.

Above: This is the marshland of the island as seen from the top of the bridge. There are a lot of marshy areas. The land must be very flat because when the tide comes in it goes IN a long way.

Above: This is back at Uncle Marc and Aunt Lynn’s house. The kids had a lot of fun there as well as at Grandma and Grandpa Noldens…who fed us really well while we were there!

Halloween Tombstones

Frank took the week off when the kids had “Fall Break” (I’d never heard of Fall Break until we moved to Georgia). He’s very creative and has a lot of fun with the kids. He helped them create a “Graveyard” in the front of our house (at the top of the driveway)…to get ready for Halloween.

Unfortunately, it rained soon after and they didn’t survive. But it was very cool for a day or so. Liz’s didn’t get put up before it rained and I never got a picture of it or of Mikayla’s…bummer!!

Above: That’s PJ’s nickname….given to him by his 4th Grade Teacher.

Above: I didn’t know about this one until it was in the ground. Hehe.

Above: Remind us to tell you the Golden Corral Whale story sometime.

Above: Frank’s tombstone.

Above: I knew it would get her one day!

Above: That’s my boy.

Liz’s said: “I told you I was sick!”

PJ Turns 11!!!

Oh, my, heck!! PJ is 11 now!! He is turning into such a cool young man. The one thing he wanted to do for his birthday was go to IHOP for breakfast with just Mom and Dad (no competition for attention, I guess). Plus we went out for Pizza a few days later on his actual birthday with Aunt Sandi, Hannah, & Seth.

Above: PJ, Liz & Hannah.

Above: Megan, Mikayla & Ashley.

Above: Seth & Donovan

Above: Frank “where’s my pizza” Nolden.

Above: Hannah, Aunt Sandi & Megan.

Above: Let’s Party!!

Above: “I can’t take all this attention!”

Above: Frank, “Yeah, I can handle 11.”

Above: Oh, yeah…the football I always wanted!

Above: Mikayla and Ashley got him a 3 month subscription to BrainPop.com, an educational website that he really likes.

Above: “I’m a science nut!!”

Above: PJ and his first microscope (that actually works). Aaahhhhh!!!

Above: Megan, “Why isn’t it MY birthday?”

Above: Liz, “It’s gonna be alrigh’ bud.”

Above: PJ, “Oh, yeah. Now I’m stylin.”

Liz’s Sweet 16

Our beautiful Liz just turned 16!! OH NO!!! We can’t handle the dating and the driving and all the crazy stuff that goes along with it . Lucky for us Liz is a confident girl who knows who she is and what she stands for…and isn’t afraid to do what is right. She is AWESOME!!

Above: Since Liz had to leave her billions of friends back in Vegas less than 2 months before her sweet 16…she had to be content celebrating with Mom and Dad . We took her to the Cheesecake Factory in downtown Atlanta and then we saw “Les Miserables” at the “Fabulous Fox Theater.” It was a fun evening.

Above: Shayne and Frank at the Cheesecake Factory.

Above: Celebrating at home with family. Oh…yes…we LOVE the Jonas Brothers!!

Above: A quote that Liz likes prepared by Megan.

Above: “Woohooooooooooo!! I got the iPod I wanted!!”

Above: Frank, “I just don’t know if I can do the teenage thing again (and again and again and again…..)”

Above: Donovan, “I’m thinkin’ Liz had better share!”

Above: Ashely, “You can fit how many songs on that thing???”

Above: PJ, “Wake me when it’s my birthday….next week!”

Stone Mountain – with Kids (1st time)

We got to take the kids to Stone Mountain near the end of September. I have another entry about Stone Mountain (when we took G&G Slade)…but for reference, you can get info on it at:

http://www.stonemountainpark.com/

We had a lot of fun, but we are going to have to go back because we didn’t get a chance to do everything we wanted to.

Above: Getting ready to explore the park.

Above: PJ didn’t know he was famous!

Above: WOW! A Blimp!

Above: The carving in the granite was really cool. What are you digging for Donovan??

Above: Donovan – Always the poser!

Above: Megan and Liz “on top of the world.”

Above: The guys hanging out on top of the “mountain.”

Above: Frank (loving the heights) and the girls.

Above: You can kind of see Atlanta in the background.

Above: Many posers (ATL in the background).

Above: We took the Tram up, but decided we would walk down…how far could it be, really?! It was well over a mile walking over rough terrain. And it got REALLY hot! THEN, we got to the bottom and realized (actually we realized after we were part way down) that we were over a mile from where our car was parked on the other side of the “mountain!” We wanted to catch the train that goes around, but when we had waiting in line before we decided to give up because the line was long and the train got full…so we didn’t think we would be able to get on (after waiting for possibly 30 minutes). So we kept walking. Two miles doesn’t sound very far…but we hadn’t been anticipating it being so long, it was hot, we had some whiney kids with us, and we had no water bottles! We figured if we ever do that again (it won’t be for a while)…we will be more prepared! . And, yes, Megan is walking backward .

Above: Just as we were starting our walk down the hill, we saw this police car at the top (I wouldn’t want to drive up that hill!). Some guy had fallen and his head was bleeding.

Above: They have a rock climbing wall there. This is PJ and Don. PJ made it all the way to the top.

Above: PJ still climbing.

Above: Mikayla and Ashley starting out.

Above: Mikayla and Liz. Mikayla made it all the way to the top as well.

Above: Megan didn’t make it very far .

Above: PJ got a little crazy on his second attempt and went WAY far away from the way on the way down (I don’t think he was supposed to do that).

Above: We finally got a ride on the train. It was kind of boring…but we were all way excited to sit down after much walking.

Above: Resting after a long, fun day at Stone Mountain (that’s Miniature Golf in the background).

Date Night — Atlanta

We were a little worried when we first moved to the Atlanta area that our “Date Nights” were going to be a little bit less exciting than when we lived in Vegas. But we have discovered that there is plenty to explore in Atlanta. Here are a couple of our outings:

Above: We went to the CNN Center one night. Unfortunately we were too late for the tours. We are going to have to go back though…Shayne is addicted to CNN right now.

Above: This is (Frank) outside of Coke World in downtown Atlanta. This is near where Centennial Olympic Park is (where they had the bombing when the Olympics were in Atlanta).

Above: This is Shayne – also outside of Coke World.

Above: We discovered this really cool restaurant in downtown Atlanta (it is derived from Gone with the Wind). The decor was very cool and the food was to die for. Frank discovered molasses over cornbread here…he had never had molasses. He was dying over it and then I took a bite and was like, “Hmmmm…yeah…yummy.” I didn’t get it .

You can check out the interior at: http://www.pittypatsrestaurant.com/lookinside.html

Above: After dinner at Pittypat’s Porch, we got to go to an Atlanta Braves game (they were playing the NY Mets). Frank is a DIE HARD Braves fan…so it was really fun for him. The weather was perfect (it was in September), and it was just really fun to sit in the park and take it all in.

Above: The Braves ball park: Turner Field.

Above: More of Turner Field.

Above: We rode the Metro Train (MARTA) into the ballgame. This was taken late at night after we got to our final train stop.

Above: While I was taking this picture some “MARTA guy” told us that we couldn’t take pictures in that fake bus front….which is silly because it looks like that is what it is for. He was rambling about some terrorist thing or something…I don’t know. But we still got the photo .