Big Trouble in Little Zebulon

Coming at ya again for another round of events from the Allred household. Mostly these are just come cute pics from the week. We had a nice evening in the comfort (right) of the lower 90's this week. We thought we'd take advantage of the limited sweating instead of the usual dripping and go outside to play a little ball. Notice Lincoln's game face. Are you intimidated? I am. He is serious about playing ball and he would growl if anyone got near the ball he was chasing, which was all of them. He was actually suprisingly good at connecting the ball and bat. I was surprised. And earlier in the week I gave him a haircut. I LOVE the "before" pic with him in the brown towel. I tell him to smile and this is what we get. This boy has SO many facial expressions. This one is our favorite. Seriously, could he be any cuter? Then the next pic is the "after". This is his "Griffin face". for all of you who have ever been to Griffin, you know what I'm talking about. He's a thug. Dr. Allred has already ordered the gold teeth and the gold chain with a dollar sign on it is coming for Christmas.


Now for the featured section of the week: "Big Trouble in Little Zebulon". When Jason and I first got married in 2003, we drove a newly purchased "flying machine" from Utah (where we were living at the time) to Georgia. I say "flying machine" because that's the only thing I have ever heard it called. My Father-in-law has this thing with names....if he gives something a nickname it's permanent. He doesn't bother with formalities or correct terms. If he thinks the title fits to the object, that shall be it's title thereforth. Anyway, so the purchase of his first "flying machine", as Bob calls it, was first in 2003. Right away he starts taking lessons to learn how to fly this. All you men out there reading this, just bear with me becasue I am going to describe this machine in ladie's terms. So, it's basically a go cart type machine with a propellor in the back and then it's connected to basically a parachute. Got the image? There's no protective casing around the driver and/or passenger. RED ALERT!!! You are flying in a go cart!!! It's the strangest contraption. So Bob buys another. He's a collector of things...mostly machines of some sort....vettes, boats, non-running vehicles, whatever. I've actually never seen him fly this "flying machine" because he usually does it in a supervised airport type place with a teacher. He decides that this weekend is the weekend when he will bring the contraption home to their compound in Zebulon, and give Jason and whomever else rides. Jason tells me I should go. Right off the bat I said, "YES!". Then I started to think about it. It was a million degrees outside and I was dripping with sweat just watching them try and start the engine. Then I see the helmet I would have to wear that looks like it might raise your body temperature 10 degrees at least. No thanks. I thought I would wait for a cooler day. Seemingly dumb reason....but I was the smart one. Jason decides he wants a ride. They strap themselves in and off they go. Right when they take off, a gust of wind comes along. Bob has to go with it and turns....heading striaght for a line of trees. He pulls up and barely clips the tops of them. Clipping the first treeline slows them down, thus taking them lower. Another treeline coming up....SMACK! They are going through a forest pretty much. The wheel ends up getting stuck right on this branch and it is 20 feet up in a tree. In the ruccus, Bob fell twenty feet to the forest floor, while Jason is still up in the tree with the propellor going. All this time we were all up at the house. A friend alerts us that the boys were stuck in a tree. I go outside to look and I hear something....is it screaming/crying or laughing? One of the two. Laughing. Yes, they were laughing. Phew....a relief. At least there was no major injury if someone's laughing. We drive up to the accident site (in their backyard) only to see Bob mangled, bloody laughing, and slightly out of sorts and Jason stuck up in the tree. To make a long story short, Bob had a few injuries (perhaps one or two cracked ribs), Jason climbed down the tree, and they retrieved the machine the next day by cutting down the life-saving branch. Apparently this was accident number two for Bob. My advice to you Bob: get your money back from your lessons! Doesn't getting into two accidents say something about your teacher? So, are you waiting for the good ending? Conclusion: Bob is selling his "flying machines" and switching hobbies to something a little less risky and more age-appropriate -- like base jumping. Just kidding. You gotta admire the man, he really lives life!









Lincoln going to the bottle. It was a stressful day. He just couldn't handle the near-death experience thing.