SEFF 2009

The end of April saw the Timms family making their now annual trek to South Georgia for the Southeastern Electric Flight Festival (SEFF). This year, however, there would be a new tradition-- camping on-site!! Yes, we were taking the new RV on it's maiden (for us) voyage! Michael and Emma went down a few days before Abbie and I, as she had a bunch of make-up soccer games that week and we wanted for her to be able to participate in at least a few of them.

(on the flightline with Daddy)

(Our dog lover with 'Servo' the SEFF dog)

I neglected to get any pictures of the camping experience-- it worked out very well, though-- considering we were 'dry camping' (for you non-RV-ers, that is the lingo for no electric, water or sewage hook-ups!). We did find a local campground mid-week to dump & refill all of the tanks so it wasn't like we were completely roughing it-- we had showers and AC and working appliances (a pleasant change from last summer's trip!!).

Michael had a BLAST at SEFF-- which probably goes without saying. The girls, however, also had a ball. They were the fill-in "Fly Low Girls" and shot a ton of pictures and video with Mr. Fred (the official photographer/videographer of the event). Here they are doing their thing:

We also took some time for 'educational experiences' (you can take the homeschool mom away from the 'home' but she will always be on the lookout for ways to bring the 'school' to her kids!!). We made a repeat visit to Plains, GA-- home of former president, Jimmy Carter. The girls and I had visited 2 years ago, but Michael had not-- so we took him out to Carter's boyhood home which was a working farm back in the 1930's. Even though we're not big fans of this particular president, it is a neat place to visit purely from the historical aspect.

(A cool windmill/water pump that was ordered from Sears back in the 1930's)

(Washing clothes the old-fashioned way SEEMS fun!!)

(Emma, of course, loved the animals!)

(Peanut butter ice cream-- the BEST part of visiting Plains!!)

The girls and I left Michael at the field one day and we made the trip down to Albany (about a 45 minute drive) to the Flint Riverquarium. This was a neat place full of all kinds of water creatures from alligators to fish to giant turtles. We enjoyed seeing river displays from different continents (which tied in nicely with our geography studies this year-- always a plus!) and we rounded out the day with a movie about Australia (the next continent we would be covering in school).

(On the banks of the Flint River)

(Emma and 'Rusty' the red-winged blackbird-- who was VERY friendly!)

(Abbie petting a bamboo shark)

We made lots of new friends at SEFF and were able to put some faces with 'screen names' which was fun. These little cuties are the daughter's of an online friend in Texas:

On Friday night, we helped organize a cookout for the 3D Hobbyshop crew/addicts! Despite being gone all day to Atlanta to a homeschool convention, I managed to coordinate my efforts with Costco to produce this for the 'Brotherhood':

All in all, it was a great week... the RV worked great (although 'dry camping' is still not my preferred choice!), the weather was beautiful, we made new friends, had fun as a family and even got some schoolwork done-- what more could you ask for??! Oh-- I almost forgot-- the icing on the cake was that we all got the chance to view Saturn (& the moon) nightly from telescopes set up onsite!