Lots of Snow Fun.

1. Clothes Washing Machine
2. Hot Water Heater
3. Electric Heat Pump
4. About Half of the Water Pipes
5. Microwave

That is a list of the main things we have had to replace just this year. I have survived pretty good without the microwave so far. As I mentioned in my last post, it blew up the Sunday before Thanksgiving but the one we ordered for the above-the-range kind won't be in until the end of this month.

Our furniture is supposed to be delivered the end of this month too. And we found a mattress we like and bought it this weekend which will be delivered on Monday. We have already moved our bed into Elizabeth's room and she loves it. We had the cable company come put in a new outlet for our computer and moved the desk out of the guest room. Elizabeth's former daybed is now in the guest room along with the full size bed and it looks nice. I need to find a new comforter for the daybed to match the other. It all fits great as that bedroom is pretty big. It will be nice whenever we have families come to stay, especially with the pull-out trundle under the daybed. Elizabeth is looking forward to having a few friends over to stay in it.

On to the exciting things in our lives right now. Yes, Christmas is less than a week away AND we had a pretty good snowstorm come through yesterday. Good for us here in the South anyways. In our area we had eight inches of snow. My parents who live less than 15 miles down the road only had around 3-4 inches. Crazy weather! Of course with this kind of unusual snow in our area, power is out, water is out for some, some phone lines are down and lots of people wrecked last night when they were trying to get home. I heard of several people who had to drive four hours to go 10 miles to get home. Abbie came over yesterday evening to play and the kids and I played out in it this afternoon. Thankfully, Wade was off yesterday and we haven't had any incidents of loss of power.

We have had eight total inches already. Our friend, Abbie, came over yesterday to play with the kids and then we all went out to play (and work for Wade - shoveling the drive) this afternoon. While the kids built snow forts around back, I snuck to the front and built a snowman to surprise the kids. ;)

Elizabeth was going to be in the city Christmas parade two weekends ago (Dec. 4) but we all ended up walking in it. The kids rode on the float most of the way but Wade and I walked alongside handing out some candy and just talking with other parents. I was dreading it because we had started a cold spell but with all of our Under Armour clothing, Hot Hands, etc, we had fun!

We had been expecting snow that weekend and it came that Friday night. The following day we were supposed to drive to Pigeon Forge to spend the day at Dollywood with Wade's employees and their families. That was what his firm did this year for those who wanted to go. We got tickets to get in the park and also a meal that afternoon at the Christmas Pavilion. We did wake up to snow and I wasn't sure we should brave it but Wade and a few tears shed by my children convinced me otherwise. We ate breakfast in Jonesborough at the Pancake House and started on our way. The roads were really okay and once we got there it had stopped snowing. We had a great time. We watched a few shows including a 4D experience of The Polar Express, ate a late lunch around 2 with his fellow employees/families and then rode some rides. It was cold but it was FUN! The kids had a great time. We ended up buying a bunch of fudge AND season passes for this coming year. For $98 we were able to buy us all four season passes which will be nice for the summer months. The kids have reached the ages that they enjoy some of the scarier rides.

About the first of last week we finally got our Santa letters written/designed and out in the mail. Surprisingly we received letters back from Santa the other day - official return address and official stamp, lots of fun stickers, etc and everything. WTG USPS! My kids were super excited. Here is Andrew's letter and him signing it. We didn't even put postage on our letters and it made it anyways. I was hoping it fell into one of those non-profit organizations that get free postage. Oh, those don't exist? Well, ours obviously made it anyways. ;)

Last weekend the kids had their Christmas recital at an area assisted living facility. They both did great and had fun. After talking with their piano teacher we have decided to go from 30 minute lessons to 45 minute lessons so she can have more time to work with them and have fun to. They love lessons and don't mind practicing too much either. Andrew played "Come Little Children" and Elizabeth played "Joy to the World".

Before I close I have to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my lovely mother who turned (should I say?) 63 today! We are only 30 years apart. ;) She is a wonderful mother, the perfect "Nana", etc. We had our family Christmas dinner at their house tonight with my dad's side of the family and had a great time.

Remember, Christmas is only six days away. Yay! Here are my Christmas cuties - the photo I used on my cards this year.

Day Trip to NC. Celebrating Giny's Award.

I guess I could say the days are getting filled with holiday plans but really, people, aren't they always? They are for us! On Tuesday I went with Lorrie to Blowing Rock, NC. She needed to get something specific as a Christmas gift and I came along for the ride but did a little shopping myself. I've been there before but not in the "downtown" area and never to get to shop like we did. It was nice to have a fellow slow-paced shopper to meander through the stores and show things to each other. I like to point out things of interest all the time. It drives Wade crazy, I'm sure. Lorrie was good to entertain me by looking at each little thing. ;) Heehee.

Wade had gone that day to Chattanooga for a meal to honor Aunt Giny as Orange Grove's "Person of the Year". The state senator gave her an award and her face was plastered everywhere. She was excited. I would have loved to go with him for Giny but with the kids in school it wasn't really possible. They had taken her on a photoshoot for the pictures of her on the program, the annual report for this year, etc. On page 14 of the Annual Report there is an article on her. She started as a day student there in 1975 and has been a residential student since 1981. Wade said her acceptance speech was one of the best he had ever heard. She thanked Orange Grove, her family, Tom and her nephews. He said when she sat down she said, "Tell Leslie I'll see her at Christmas." Love that girl!

Yesterday I went by the furniture store and ordered our new bedroom furniture. I am SUPER excited about that of course! It may not be here until the end of the month and possibly not until next month but it's a busy time and I need to get things moved around before we get it. The cable guy is coming on Monday to put in a new outlet for the internet downstairs. I'm moving the desktop out of the guest room and into the kids' playroom area. Then we're moving Elizabeth's daybed into the guest room so now it'll have a full bed plus it. I thought it would be nice for when families come to visit. We are giving Elizabeth our current bedroom furniture. We may go ahead and get a mattress for us to sleep on and move the furniture into her room in the next couple of weeks. I'm going to paint our room a new color so it would be nice to have the furniture out. I also did some more retail therapy yesterday at Kohl's. ;)

Off to eat lunch. I heated up some leftover homemade chicken noodle soup I made on Monday in the slow cooker. It is SO good! Yummm! I need to write the recipe down so I don't forget how I made it. Oh, and I had to heat it in the stove because our microwave blew a week and a half ago. We have one ordered but it won't be in until the end of December!!!! Yeah, I know. LOL

22 days until Christmas! :)

Halloween, Celebrating Birthdays and Thanksgiving.

Going from October and Halloween into November and all the festivities it brought . . .

Halloween 2009
A photo of Andrew from his Halloween party at school. For some reason I did not get any good photos of him on Halloween. His fault because he didn't want any made. I still would like to get a few of him in his costume which was an Army parachuter.

Elizabeth's costume - "Buccaneer Beauty" as it was called on the package, aka, pirate. ;) My parents and my nannie (who is inevitably cold) with them that evening.

Birthdays
For Andrew's birthday he asked for us to take him to a UT football game so the weekend prior to his birthday we went and got to watch the University of TN beat the University of Memphis (56-28). We ended up staying the night in Pigeon Forge and driving the next morning home to make it in time for church. (Horrible photo of me. Yes, I had to say that. :-P)

His actual birthday, November 13, fell on a Friday, a school day so he wanted to celebrate at school. I brought a couple of cookie cakes and drinks for the class.

We had to celebrate his birthday again (we don't UNDER do it in the Farmer family) on Saturday with family. Since we had done so much already we just had my parents, my sister and Uncle Steve and Aunt Jeanette over. Wade's dad had come in for an appointment earlier that week to be with us.

The Hershey bar cake was actually MY cake that Wade made me again this year, but we weren't going to buy or make him another one so I shared. ;) Wade and I went out for my birthday on Andrew's birthday. We did things a little backwards this year. I'm 33 now. Woohoo. My birthday buddy. He likes that our birthdays are back-to-back.

One of the fun things that the kids' school does each year for Thanksgiving is have a re-enactment of the first Thanksgiving. The second and third grade classes get to do it with the second graders coming as the Native Americans and the third graders as the Pilgrims. I have some good photos of Elizabeth from when she was a pilgrim and a Native American. This was Andrew's first year; we borrowed a costume from a friend.

  

For Wade's family this year, I cooked a nontraditional Thanksgiving meal. I ended up making a beef roast but after I came back home I was "hankering" for some spiral sliced ham. So I bought one. I saved the ham bone and used it to make a delicious meal of soup beans (pinto beans soaked overnight and seasoned, slow-cooked in the slow cooker) with fried potatoes and onions and cornbread. A true Southern meal and I might add DELICIOUS!!

As is our tradition, we put up our Christmas tree the weekend of Thanksgiving. We bought a new "faux fir" this year. We picked a 7.5 foot slim tree which fits great in the space in our living room where we always place it. I am enjoying the slenderness of it too as it doesn't seem to take up so much space.

Washington DC

Catch-up continued. On to DC . . .

We had been driving close to 4.5 hours on Saturday when Wade wanted to stop and stretch. The exit we were getting off had one of those brown signs for the Natural Bridge. In my sweet, please-give-me-what-I'm-asking voice, I said, "Can we go? Can we???" LOL He said "sure!" and we spent three hours taking in the awesomeness of the Natural Bridge as well as walking the beautiful paths that had a creek running along it. They also had a Monacan Native American village (recreation) but it was closed when we got to it. It looked very similar to the structures of the Wolf Creek Indian Village that Elizabeth's class visited on a field trip once. Our tickets also included a pretty cool wax museum and a pretty cheesy toy museum. I was so happy we stopped as I know we would have never drove that far to visit the place. It has a very interesting history too as it was surveyed by George Washington for Lord Fairfax and then later it was purchased by Thomas Jefferson and so on.

On Saturday night we stayed in Staunton, VA and started the next morning for DC. Really, right outside DC in Maryland for the Gaylord National Hotel. The kids LOVED the atrium. Starting at 6 and going on the hour until 9, there was a water show in the atrium that the kids could watch while sitting on our balcony. At first I wasn't sure if I wanted the atrium view instead of the outside view but I'm glad we got it. We could see straight out the atrium to the Potomac River so it was a win-win. ;)

We spent Sunday afternoon walking around the National Mall since Wade was with us and got to participate. We spent a lot of time at the war memorials as well as the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Memorial.

On Monday the kids and I had a tour scheduled for the U.S. Capitol. Thankfully, we took a taxi and left early. Our tour was at 11:10 but we got there early enough and was able to get through the security screening quickly and be put with a tour group at 10:20. They had a wonderfully inspiring video they showed to everyone at first. The inside of the Capitol was beautiful. I think the tour lasted around an hour and a half. The kids and I had not eaten any real breakfast so we ate breakfast afterwards at the cafeteria in the Capitol. It was good food and decently priced. I think it's where the congressmen/women eat.

After the tour we walked to the Natural History Museum. We spent several hours in there. We were constantly moving and if the kids were older, we could have easily have spent longer. One of the neat things we got to see was the Hope diamond. The kids didn't know about it but I did and had to take a photo as it rotated around. ;)

We ate lunch there and then moved on to the Air and Space Museum before catching a taxi to go back to the hotel. Andrew wanted to go back before the last museum but I assured him that he would enjoy it. He did! In fact it was then Elizabeth who was pooped and ready to go back. :) He loved all the space vehicles/crafts and airplanes. We could have spent several hours there but our feet were sore and it was getting close to supper. I let Andrew pick our taxi driver as we walked out and they were lined up waiting for visitors. We walked all the way passed them once before we went to the one driver who had spoke to us and said he would take care of us. LOL

I was so proud of myself when I decided *I* would drive to the National Zoo on Tuesday. Unfortunately, it was a nasty day as it was foggy and misting the entire time. We had fun despite the nasty weather. The thing that thrilled me the most was getting to see a REAL panda bear! They are only at I think three zoos in the US.

We parked in the last lot which we later found out was the perfect spot because there wasn't an attendant at the gate nor was it locked the entire time so we were able to park for free. The zoo is free as well so other than our lunch (which was a little over $30 for three less than average burgers), it was all free. I was definitely glad we had decided to drive ourselves instead of paying a taxi driver. They had all kinds of elaborate Halloween decor out. The kids enjoyed that almost as much as the animals.

On the way home though I made a wrong turn and ended up in a not-so-nice area of Maryland as I was getting to our hotel. I mean, I was staring straight ahead for about five miles of red lights and thought about pulling my jacket hood up so no one could see me. Yes, it was that bad. People were milling about all along the sides of the road for a few blocks. I was doing a lot of praying. LOL We made it safely in the end, of course!

Wade skipped the morning meeting at his conference because the week before our Senator's office had called from DC and told us they had worked us into a White House tour on Wednesday morning. We drove to Union Station to park and took a taxi to the WH. We figured out something was going on when we were standing in the right line by the park ranger station but was moved to another location. See we were by some of the main gates to get in the WH. After a small problem with getting through the initial security (we were on the list to get in but not THE list so they had to go look our info up quickly before letting us through), we got to stand in line for another screening.

While in line we noticed several of those large black SUVs that you see the presidential entourage ride in drive through the gates and go up toward the main entrance. We also saw LOTS of large, strong men wearing armor and holding huge, automatic weapons. Something was obviously up. After walking through metal detectors, we started the "tour". I put TOUR in quotes because it's a self-guided tour and only of like maybe five, six or seven rooms. No big deal. AND if you have seen The Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC then you've seen something at least ten times better. Seriously. LOL But it was the White House and it was a chance of a lifetime so we still enjoyed it. When we were in the Red Room we discovered the reason for all the prior moving of lines, large burly men and mysterious black SUVs. The President was coming in within a few hours for a bill signing which would be taking place in the Red Room. We were glad that we had an earlier tour as I knew all the afternoon tours would be cancelled and all those people who had made reservations months in advance were in tough luck.

I have no photos of our White House tour as we were not allowed to carry any bags, cameras, etc while on the grounds. We walked about five blocks toward Union Station and then realized it would take us quite a while to walk the remaining 15 blocks to get there so we grabbed a taxi and got back, ate lunch at Union Station and started on the road toward home (close to 1 pm). We arrived to the house around 8 that night. Just in time to get our bags out of the car, get the kids ready for bed and school the next day! Ha ha! They went too.

September. October. November. Yeah, It's Bad.

A few weeks ago I checked my blog to see how long it had been since I posted and it was only three weeks. I thought, "oh, not bad" because not much had happened in those three weeks BUT um, now we're getting close to two months and yeah, a lot had happened. LOL So you know that means an undesirably long post to try to catch up. :-P

Update on Scuba. A few days after posting our little growing tadpole, he died. I knew it was too good to be true. He made it almost to the frog stage. In fact, he had all four legs and he had turned green. He just had a little nub of a tail left. It was cool! I definitely want to get another tadpole to watch metamorphorsize. Does a dead frog sorta give you the heebie jeebies? Then don't look at this picture. Sorry.

One thing I'm excited about is that I joined a book club in September. I *love* to read and getting together with like-minded people to discuss books is so much fun! Our September book was Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks and last month's was The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (say that five times fast!) by Mary Ann Shaffer which I had read in August but perused again for the club meeting. Since August I have read an average of 21 books. Granted, some of those are shorter children books (lots of Newbery books and some that average 200 pages), but I have enjoyed getting back into books and other times and lives again.

Other things in September:

• Wade's hometown friend got married and we went to a party to celebrate in Mount Juliet, TN. That meant shopping for a new outfit or two, a fun weekend with my sweetie and getting together with some friends from his hometown.
• The kids' school had spirit week the last of September and they always enjoy that. Pajama day, crazy hair day, 50s day, etc. They wanted me to buy them the colored hair spray this year for crazy hair day. Andrew was loving his hair but as you can see he didn't want his photo taken. He looks like a punk just like his hair here. ;) Elizabeth's hair didn't do as well since it's long. I tried to have her let me put it in three ponytails to spray different colors but no.

Going into October:

• Wade and I went to see "Frankenstein" at the Barter Theater the first weekend in October. It was really good!
• Tom came to spend the weekend to watch Andrew play football (Oct 9). We had planned on going to the Altapass Apple Orchard afterwards for the day but the rain was horrible and Elizabeth got sick. She had a fever for two days that we couldn't break. I ended up getting the same virus the following Monday and was sick on the sofa for almost three days with a fever.
• When Tom was visiting, he took Andrew to Dick's Sporting Goods to buy him a birthday present early. He ended up buying him two pairs of gloves. One for school and one for football. He let him have the football ones early so he could wear them the rest of the season. Andrew was so excited about them that he slept in them that night. His game was the following morning. It was cold and raining. When he came home I asked if he enjoyed wearing his new gloves for the game. He said he did but he gave one of them to the quarterback to wear during the game. He said he didn't want him to fumble and was doing it so the team would win. That big bubbly feeling of love and pride came welling up inside. That boy is a good one!
• Andrew's football team continued to win all their games until they played a team in mid October. This team had won all games too. They lost to the other team by ONE point. I am happy to say that at the championship game they played the same team and won by TWO touchdowns! Woohoo! Go Redskins!!
• At the championship game, they let Andrew run the ball. He never touches the ball as he generally plays right front guard on offense. Well, my boy didn't fumble the ball the first time he got to run it even though it was raining and it was a hand-off. Not only did he not fumble, my boy ran the ball FORTY FIVE yards in the first play. As you can tell, I was SUPER excited. I was so proud and happy, I was about to cry. LOL Proud mama and daddy we were!
• We carved our pumpkins the weekend (Oct 17) before leaving on our trip. We knew our next two weeks were hectic and another time would not be available. Can you tell where we did it this year? Our dining room. Unbelievably, we have just started to use that room after 7 years of living here. I decided a few weeks ago that we would try eating dinner in there one evening. The kids loved it, especially Elizabeth, so we have been eating in it a couple of times a week. It's nice not to see the paper clutter from a day of school in the kitchen as I eat too. We let the kids decide what they wanted to carve on their pumpkins and let them do a lot of the work. No pressure this year with patterns which made it so much easier, simpler. Some photos from our carving . . . (As you can see the kids wanted to wear gloves when they were dealing with pumpkin innards. LOL)

Andrew's is the one with the snaggle tooth (right) and Elizabeth tried for a traditional jack-o-lantern (left).

• This is a Burroughs electric adding machine that Andrew found in the attic of his great-grandparents' house. Tom is cleaning the house out to put for sale since Wade's brother has moved out. It is HEA-VY! I haven't research too much about it and we cannot figure out how it works. I think there is a lever missing on the side. Maybe.

• I had a good appointment with the dermatologist. He removed the white mole on my forehead that I've hated for a long time. It was like a bulls-eye and really no one ever noticed it but it was a problem for me. He took off another place that was new but it came back fine.
• My grandmother, Bertha Trent, passed away on October 20th. She was my dad's mom and before she went to the nursing home, we were all very close to her. I would spend a week or two with her every summer as a kid and loved her so much. Growing up, her friends would call me "Little Bertha". I had mixed feelings about that as you can imagine. I didn't like the name "Bertha" but I loved my grandmother so much that I liked being likened to her. However, I wasn't too sad as it seems as though we lost her years ago. She had been in the nursing home for, wow, around seven years and for almost all of that time she didn't know who most of us were. When Mom called to tell me she had died, I had so much happiness for Grandmother. She was such a godly woman and loved the Lord that I was a little jealous of where she was. :) I *know* I'll see her again someday.

Washington DC! Yep, we got to go. Wade had a conference he wanted to attend and thought it would be a great vacation for us all. Elizabeth and Andrew missed three days of school but it was worth getting to travel through the beautiful state of Virginia and seeing all the fall foliage and getting to make a spontaneous stop to use the bathroom and decide to spend three hours visiting the Natural Bridge and getting to visit all the memorials and museums, etc. This visit continued in the next post!