Friday, December 17, 2010

Christmas Past

I have been going through lots of old photos and here are a few of my favorites.








Would someone please tell me where the time went?  These little fellas are now 28 and 25. 


Merry Christmas (and where did November go?)

I know I am terrible, but I have a great excuse.  It's like this,  I have been very busy at work making site visits to the Early Childhood Ed. teachers.  Really I have, there are 41 of them and they are all over the state so since September I have been on the road. I finished the last teacher visit on December 9.  I drove home for Bunco and then have been in a whirlwind trying to finish up everything for Christmas.  I saw Dr. Dare on Monday  and next Monday he will do surgery on my knee.  Yes I realize that is just 5 days before Christmas, but I have really been getting everything all organized and I think I can pull it off. 
We will see. 
Here is the group picture of our Bunco group.  I love these women, they are so much fun. 



Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Cotton Pickin' Time

I have really enjoyed my trips around the state lately.  I really have enjoyed the "miles" of delta flat land.  It amazes me how one field will still be green, one is brown but still has the cotton and yet another has been "picked".
I stopped to take a few pictures of this beautiful site.  (no I don't remember where) and when I rolled down the window I was hit with a smell from my past.  I am pretty sure it was the scent of "cotton poison" as Daddy would say but I was sent back in time in an instant.  No mistaking that smell.
Here are the pictures.  Isn't this pretty??






Tailgating (sorta)

We wanted to enjoy the State game in style but were unable to make the trip to Starkville so we "tailgated" at the house or would that be kitchen gating???
Oh well we had great food, great company and a great game. 

And the BEST Dawgs won. 
Way to go dogs!!!



Lauren's Birthday

Happy Birthday Lauren
We had a great dinner out and then back to Mark & Caroline's for "dessert".  Lauren opened her presents.
We gave her present to her early, a gift certificate for a massage.  Her very first one.  We wanted her to have a very relaxing birthday.  I think she enjoyed it.  Here are a few pictures from the evening.



Monday, September 27, 2010

Happy Birthday Mark!!!

Mark turned 25! Wow it is so hard to believe time has just flown by. We had a great celebration, with dinner at Rusty's and then back home for King Cake and presents.

Day in Natchez

We took a drive down to Natchez. We had a great time, eating bar-b-que, shopping and just watching the boats go down the river.
It was great.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

DAWGS WIN!!



I love this! Especially the end.

[If the video is cut off on the right side, double click to take you to Youtube.]

Friday, September 3, 2010

It's Time!!!




Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Rainbows, Sunshine and a Broken Microwave

I love Harry and David pepper & onion relish and recently I found a recipe to make it at home. I decided Sat. would be a good day to see if it is like H&D's. I cut and chopped and had the best time. I had learned the correct way to use a knife at USC Summer Institute and really put those skills to work. Anyway I am just getting the relish on to cook for an hour and decide to heat up some leftovers for supper. I thought I heard a zzzt sound from the microwave but with so much going on I didn't pay much attention to it. I served up our plates and noticed the food wasn't as hot as Paul likes it so back it goes in the microwave. I checked on it just a minute later and smoked poured out of the microwave. Guess I know what that zzzt sound meant. I rushed to open doors, windows, get fans anything to keep the smoke alarm from going off. I hate that sound!! While we were rushing around Paul happened to notice a beautiful double rainbow. So in the middle of all the confusion, I grabbed my camera to take pictures. Guess this was God's way sending me a reminder to calm down eveything would be okay. Message received. Thank you God. I tried to get a picture from the front of the house showing the our house at the end of the rainbow but it didn't turn out. You may notice the front door is open to air out the house.

Vacation Day Seven - Heading home down the Blue Ridge Parkway

Sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean

What a wonderful way to end our vacation. We got up early to pack up and hit the road. I looked out and saw this beautiful sunrise. I told Paul I wish I had gotten up early some of the mornings to see this beautiful sight. Paul told me the whole point of a vacation was to sleep late! oh well. We headed out toward Stuart, Va where we entered the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was so foggy for about an hour we couldn't see the scenery.
We pulled into a Parkway attraction and the fog seemed to lift. We got out several times for pictures and were so surprised how cool it was. The truck said 67 at 2:00 in the afternoon. Nice change from the 100+ temps we had back home.


Vacation Day Six - Pictures and Shopping

We spent the morning at the beach knowing it was our last day. : (
That afternoon we went out to take some pictures and do a little shopping. Va Beach has some great setups for "kodak moments" We took advantage of a few of them. I had enough forethought to bring the tripod so we could have some "couple" pics.


Vacation Day Five

Okay I had to take a brief break to do some work. Now back to our vacation.
Day five was Thursday and we spent the day at the beach. We did have a brief rain shower so we packed up headed inside for a short time. We ate lunch and then decided to see the sights on the Broadwalk. This is a wonderful wide concrete walkway along the beach. There is also a bike path that runs between the boardwalk and the hotels. All week we had seen families and couples riding in bicyle powered surreys so we found a vendor and rented one for an hour. No problem. OMG thank goodness Paul has very strong legs! I tried to help. AND I must have because my legs were so sore the next day. We gladly turned in our surrey a "few' minutes early.


Friday, August 20, 2010

Vacation Day Three and Four

As we drove to the hotel on Monday night I noticed several things.
1. There were crowds of people everywhere and this is after midnight on a Monday night. Really??
2. The street names sounded very familiar. Baltic Ave., Atlantic Ave., Pacific Ave, Mediterranean Ave. Sounds like a Monopoly Game. Well I googled it and the game is patterned after Atlantic City and Virginia Beach is patterned after Atlantic City.
Now back to day three, you won't see any pictures because we spent the entire day on the beach and I didn't even take my camera with me.
But it was great with the exception of the very cold Atlantic Ocean.
BRRRR
Day Four was our 31st wedding aniversary and to celebrate the day we did a sight seeing tour back to the lighthouses we missed. I wanted to climb the tallest lighthouse in the world. Lordy what was I thinking.
But it was great once we got to the top.
We also checked out two other lighthouses and Kitty Hawk area.

I'll continue our trip tomorrow.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Vacation Day Two The Outer Banks of North Carolina

What a beautiful (and long) day. The scenery was breath taking.

We headed to the coast and arrived at the outer banks just in time to board the ferry for a 2 hour 40 minutes trip. We must be very lucky, seems you really SHOULD have reservations and know the departure times. We got to the dock about 10 minutes before the ferry loaded and after a few minutes we were driving onto the ferry.
We were even treated to a beautiful rainbow on the trip.

Here are some pictures as we approach Cape Ocracoke. It is hard to believe that pirates once roamed these waters. In fact Blackbeard is buried here on Cape Ocracoke. Shiver me timbers!


Ocracoke Lighthouse

We drove a little farther and then boarded another ferry for a short ride to Cape Hatteras.
By this time the sun was setting and we were two tired and hungry vacationers. We headed to Virginia Beach and made it just after midnight.
I'll leave you with a beautiful sunset from the ferry


Vacation Time Day One

After a very busy summer for both of us, we took a wonderful vacation. I'll post in sections. Yes I took lots of pictures (most of the time). We did take the tripod for a few shots of both of us.
We left Sunday morning at 3:30 am. Yes in the morning. We got up at 3 and were pulling out of the driveway at 3:30. We made it to Tuscaloosa in time for breakfast. I drove while Paul took a short nap. (Needless to say I had already had a few naps) We stopped for lunch somewhere between TN and NC at a Bar B Que Place and then made it to Greensboro for the night. Here are a few pictures from day one.


Thursday, July 15, 2010

Blueberry Pickin Time

Our blueberry bushes did great this year. I decided to try my hand at making blueberry jam.
It wasn't that hard and even if I couldn't find all my equipment, I made it work.
I got 20 jars of jam. We took a jar to Matt and had biscuits with blueberry jam for breakfast Sat. morning. Yum.

Happy Fourth of July!

We had a great July 4th. Paul, Mark, Lauren and I went to Memphis to see Matt, we ate some good barbeque, saw a Redbird game (they won in the last inning with a home run), played golf, shopped, had a cookout with burgers, hotdogs and made homemade ice cream and got to see 2 fireworks displays.
What more could you ask. Matt was a great host and Duke was very well behaved and included Annabelle in some fun times too.
Here are some pictures from the game.

And these are from the backyard cook out.

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

Paul is the most wonderful father and our sons love him so much. They went to play golf (after giving him some new equipment and clothing for the event).

Another love of "the guys" is firing up the grill and smoker.
Here they are getting some chickens ready to smoke.