Riding in the DeLorian

Jump into our DeLorian.....we keep it parked in the garage just for times like this, when we need to go "back to the future". This time we're going back to Spring Break '10.

Here's Part 1: Dollywood

Someone got a little wet....guess who?

We LOVE Dolly! Especially this little fan :)

My big guy Parker took a break to give Mom a picture.

We all took on the new mountain ropes course challenge. They have 4 courses to choose from: rope bridges, zigzag beams, water blasting up at you, swinging bridges, etc. All tons of fun to try your hand at while strapped in a 5 pt harness.

Dallin braved the zigzig trail with ease while trying not to look down for the camera lady...aka Mom


Gretchen making is safely by the skinny curve. I did this part with her later and its by far it the hardest part. Plus your guideline wants to get stuck right at the corner, just where its hard to pull it.

Even Dad got in on the challenge.

If the water ride doesn't get you wet....the cute gal behind the squirter will! :)

While at Dollywood: some of us like to ride wild, crazy fast, give you whiplash, rollercoasters/some like to watch all the backporch bluegrass, chinese acrobat, eagle stunts, funny magic shows/ some of us eat our way through the park.....one delicious treat after the next.

Oh yeah, he ate the whole thing!

A footlong corn dog with fresh cut tater twirls...yum!

We were able to learn some new tricks at the Imagine' Show.

I am having the kids practice this for the next time we have friends over.

I think its just what our family needs....a dinner show

Another new trick we picked up at the show. Cause who doesn't want to give friends a ride on their bike? Of course, they will need to fan you while you are working so hard.

Inside this working grist mill is some of the yummiest, stickiest

softest cinnamon bread you will ever eat. Trust me! We've eaten a loaf or 2.

Coming Soon: Spring Break The sequel-Zoo Safari

Better Late Than Never!

Our little lady had her 7th birthday on Valentine's Day. Yeah, I know that was like, FOREVER ago. But if I am going to get back to this blog, I've got to start somewhere......right?

Happy Birthday Gretchen!

We love you!

A little sugar cookie rolling and cutting.
healthy fruit kabob making

some of the cute mini chefs wearing their lovingly made aprons ;)

The gals cooking up some fun!

Gretchen celebrated her 7th birthday by doing some cooking with her gal pals. The silly girl cooking show started with dipping pretzels in chocolate and rolling them in colored sugar crystals. At this point they were still managing to contain the silly giggles, and they didn't even ask to eat the pretzels. Then they moved on to mini pizzas: rolled out their dough, put way more cheese than the average person needs on a full size pizza, and assorted toppings. Gretchen loves black olives, but her gal pals were TOTALLY grossed out by them. :) While we waited for the pizza chef to bake them up, aka Dad, the girls made fruit kabobs. (You know I have to fit a little healthy food in there somewhere.) The event was finished with 8 giggly flour coated girls who rolled, cutout & decorated sugar cookies with enough sprinkles and frosting to spread from here to California. They had me laughing at their cookie "creations". I made each of the girls aprons, and I noticed several had stuffed candy-whose purpose was to decorate the cookies-into their apron pockets. Gretchen had a fantastic time. I was so happy to see her enjoying her friends and laughing with them. They are the sweetest bunch of gals, and I would have them sugar coat my dining room anytime!

P.S. Kudos to Chef Dad, who rocked in the kitchen/oven area, he was very tolerant of the silly cooking show. Even he had a great time with the ladies.....mess and all! :)

You know you LOVE them! You know you WANT them!

Its that time of year! One of my favorite times of year....when cute little girls come to the door asking for me to help them raise money for their girl scout troop. Well, this year its gotten even better. MY cute little girl has reached the age where she is raising money for HER troop.

Why do I love this time so much? THIN MINT COOKIES! I love them, I freeze them to enjoy the chocolate minty goodness all year, until those cute gals come back.

Gretchen would LOVE for you to enjoy some delicious cookies. There are EIGHT different types of sweet goodness for you to choose from. I have included a link with pictures and descriptions, in case you haven't already found a favorite. http://www.girlscoutsrv.org/cookies/cookie_varieties.html

They are $3.50 a box. Money will be collected when my cute Girl Scout delivers them with a huge smile on her face.

Happy Turkey Day!

Happy Thanksgiving

from our little turkeys to you!

We hope your thanksgiving is full of family, friends, food and fun.

With Love-

The Hopfer Gang

Don't Blink You Just Might Miss It!

I always have the best intentions of keeping my blog/photo journal/family newsletter updated but it just isn't happening. Here's a flashback into October:

Gretchen at one of her meets mid balance beam routine.
Gretchy going for gold on the uneven bars-sorry for the blur. We can't use a flash & they are in motion. Those 2 equal photo torment for me! Any advice will be gladly taken.

She did it! 1st place-uneven barsHer level 3 team-1st place winners. They have won 1st place at 3 of 4 meets so far. The girls in black are new gals to the team-no competition leotards for them.

Our gymnast showing off her medals-1 gold, and 3 silvers.

Ghost rider-Dallin

Don't vampires always have pink teeth? They do when 6 yr old girls pick them out.

Parker the skeleton.

Our 1st grader with her letter at the post office.

at the fire station

with the librarian

at city hall with the Mayor

We have gotten off to a great start for a super fall season. The kiddos are keeping me busy as usual, Richard has taken a couple of weeks off of traveling, (thank goodness) and we are enjoying the perfect weather.

Gretchen's class took a community field trip to City Hall where they met the mayor, and other employees, none of whom could really explain to the kiddos what they did there. It actually was pretty amusing for some of us chaperones. They only thing they could think to tell the kids was they collected property taxes. To which the kids asked, "what do you do with the taxes?" I don't think they were happy with the answer! The Mayor then had the class ask questions, and they are a smart bunch of cookies. I am betting those City Hall employees & mayor are better prepared for the next group that comes through. Lesson learned: 6 yr olds are A LOT smarter than you think! They also went to the library, post office-where they mailed a letter to themselves, and the fire station. It was a fun field trip and they were very polite and inquisitive 1st graders.

My scary trick or treaters decided to dress up like the evil side of Halloween this year. Normally, I don't let them lean towards EVIL but I chose to give in and let them embrace their inner bad sides ;) Dallin was the ghost rider, Parker was a skeleton, and Gretchen started out as a witch at the church Halloween party and by the next night decided on a vampire. They got a ton of candy, which was dumped into gallon size zip locs and hidden for bribery treats later. I did take out my yearly Halloween tax I charge each of them. Its hidden in another secret place ;)

Gretchen's gymnastics is mid season. She competed in 2 more meets in October: one at the Gaylord, and one in Gallatin. She placed 3rd overall at the one in the Gaylord-she won two 2nd place silver medals, and two 3rd place bronzes. At the meet in Gallatin she placed 2nd overall-

she won first place-Gold on uneven bars! She placed 2nd-silver on floor and 3rd on vault. At both meets her level 3 team won 1st place. She is doing a great job at pushing herself to do better, and keeps improving at each meet. I love watching all the cute gals competing and seeing those smiles when they succeed.

I have some great pictures from fall break to post....very soon! We recreated memories from a previous trip. Very funny! I know you can hardly wait ;)

Finding Fun in a Corn Field

Everybody knows that the best pumpkins are always in the BACK of the pumpkin patch.

Which way out of here?

Gretchen checking out the map from an overlook.


Rich and Neal discussing which path to take. Well, not really. Who knows what they talk about
hopefully its where he got that camera so my hubbie can get one for me! I have camera envy ;)

One of these dudes did not wear his coat....too cool for warmth.

Anyone who knows Richard, knows we are headed into his FAVORITE season. He loves fall: leaves changing, cooler temps, spirited drives with leaves blowing behind, pumpkins picking & carving and stealing candy from his kiddos. It had been pretty warm around mid TN up until about a week ago and the cold weather has blown in. I am wondering where those indian summer days went.

Last weekend we went to try out the corn maze at the Rippavilla Plantation with some fun friends. The corn maze is cut out like the solar system with pitstops along the way telling you about the planets. For those of you with kids, you know we read about 2 sentences total about the planets the whole time we were there. What's more fun: learning about the galaxy or running through a corn maze, hiding until the right moment and then jumping out at your family to try to scare them? We managed to not lose anyone, checked out the pumpkin patch and warmed up by the campfire before heading out. It was a fun afternoon and a great way to get started on our fall festivities.

Proud Mama

Gretchen was promoted to the Level 3 gymnastics team this past spring. This took our gymnastics days to 3 practices per week. I often hear from the boys, "gymnastics again?" She has been diligent in her practicing, never trying to skip practices, and always giving it her best, even when she fell on the balance beam mid handstand. She was a little skiddish after that, but jumped right back on that beam. This month started competition season. Not knowing what to expect, her first preliminary meet was a little overwhelming. She was nervous, excited and I was just plain stressed. She did not do as well as she could have done, which led to her comment on our car ride home, "I don't want to talk about it!" We were proud of her for getting out there and trying something new. Our first state sanctioned meet was this past Saturday. I was still nervous, and she was counting the days until the meet all week. She worked her fanny off at practice this past week and all those hours in the gym paid off. She ROCKED at the meet!

The sparkly leotard
Warming up with the team. (She is the cutie on the end.) The competition
Performing her beam routine.

The VICTORY!

Gretchen took 3rd place in: vault, beam AND floor!

She also won 4th place All Around!

Go Gretchen! WooHoo!

First Day Smiles

The first grader, Gretchen in her favorite clothing item.....leggings.

This girl LOVES her some leggings. No, change that, she loves any clothes that SHE picks out.

Parker, 3rd grade, who as you can see is totally thrilled that I am taking the yearly first day of school picture. He really wanted to ride the bus the 1st day, but I really wanted to walk him in. He was a good boy and let me walk him all the way to the door. No hug...he ditched me as soon as he saw his teacher and friends. Good thing I got one before we left :)

Dallin is so excited to be going to middle school. Yeah, 6th grade!
I think he secretly enjoys that he knows whats going on and I don't.


All 3 kiddos has their first days of school last week. We have successfully made it through our 1st full week of school: no tears, no complaints, no drama. Both of my elementary schoolers have great teachers and several buddies in their classes. This definitely helped calm the first day jitters! They have jumped right in and even made some new friends. Dallin is loving middle school. He mastered the combination lock on his locker on the 1st try, and is a pro at getting from class to class in time. He likes his teachers, though he admits that he thinks a couple are strict and give more work than others. We are off to a great start!

I'm Baaaaaaaaaack!

Okay, so maybe I have been riding the lazy train or the busy train or the "what blog?" train. Sometimes a gal gets so far behind it looks like she is in first place. So, after hearing the Phineas & Ferb song for the 100th time, "There's a 104 of summer vacation..." I started thinking about how fast the summer has gone by. With only 2 weeks until school starts, how did we spend those days we had off? Which by the way, was 83 days of summer vacation for my kiddos. Not nearly enough! Whatever happened to going back AFTER labor day? Granted there are some days I thought about holding them under the pool water to see just how long they could hold their breath ;) or really wanted to see anything but pb &j for lunch, but I love summer break with my kiddos. So here is a glimpse into summer break, Hopfer Style! Maybe if you are lucky, when the kidlets go back to school, and I am left with the dog all day, I'll expound on the fun seen in the pics. Or maybe not.......

Parker and Dad checking out downtown Nashville via the top of the Adventure Science Center.
Pioneer Pals riding in the handcart at Pioneer Day.

Dallin's 11th birthday-the boys having some pizza & cake post kayaking the Duck River.

Parker, Trevor, Porter and Dallin watching the fireworks at the University of North Texas.

Happy 4th of July from Sydney, Gretchen & Kara!

The big brothers with the little sisters battling in the pool.

Gretchen with 2 of the 100's of quarter horse babies at the ranch.

Parker checking out the quarter horses at the Green Valley Ranch.

The boys riding the trolley in downtown Dallas: Parker, Dallin and best buddy Trevor.

We did a little exploring in Cabela's after we visited the Bureau of Engraving. Lots of stuffed dead animals and outdoor sporting goodies at Cabela's and lots of stacks of money at the bureau. No pics of the money they run everyone and everything through security. I wonder why????

Sydney & Gretchen in a hall at the art museum that was full of origami butterflies.

The gang outside of the Crow Musuem of Art in Dallas.

Taking a little time to brush the goats at the Nashville Zoo with buddy Neal. These 2 were in Kindergarten together and he told his Mom "Gretchen is the most beautiful girl EVER!" I'm going to keep my eye on these 2. It starts out brushing goats....

Our little princess, dirt covered, could not be pried off the four-wheeler. She loves it and rode well into the night. Got to the love "the farm!"

Enjoying a nice summer night at the drive-in with buddies Neal & Wyatt. This night we saw Up & Night at the Smithsonian. We love the drive-in!

Hanging out at the park by the Franklin library. I have sucessfully gotten 2 of my 3 kiddos to love reading as much as I do. Guess which one tolerates it?