Christmas Tree Farm

Sara and David, our friends from church, asked us to go with them the Sunday after Thanksgiving to pick out a real Christmas tree at a Christmas tree farm up 65 North. It took a while to get there, and we had to navigate through this super sketchy one-lane tunnel that snuck up on you after a blind curve. But we eventually arrived at Beavers Christmas Tree Farm, and perused for quite a while among the White Pines before eventually finding our perfect Christmas tree. At this point, I was all prepared to get pics of the whole cutting down stage (since they give you a hack saw and you have to cut it down yourself), but my Paul Bunyan like husband had the tree down before I could get a good photo! After carrying our tree to the side of the "road" (I must confess I didn't help a bit with this part), we walked back to the main area to pay while I tractor came by to pick up our tree. After paying, the workers loaded it on top of Rob's car for us, and we headed home (surviving the sketchy tunnel once more) to decorate our first real (as in alive) Christmas tree!

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving with my family in Clay and enjoyed spending three full days with everyone. Big Mama was gracious and let us spend the night at her house and made us a wonderful breakfast every morning. Lots of my extended family on the Haskew side (my mom's) got together for lunch at Big Mama's Thanksgiving Day. Most of my cousins have several kids each running around, so there's always plenty of excitement. This year, mom got very creative with how she would display her turkey, so I've included some pics of the food. Dad didn't fry a turkey this year like usual, but we had more than enough to go around and plenty of leftovers too.

On Friday we arose bright and early for some day-after shopping. I went with mom and my cousin Kristi at about 5:45 a.m. We didn't get back until 2 p.m., when I crashed for a three-hour nap and Robert took off to play racquetball with David, Ryan, and Madhi. Saturday's big event was going with David to get his tattoo - his 18th birthday present. Check out the pics. It was quite the experience. Ryan and I are now the last third of my immediate family not to have our own "ink." I'm not going to talk about the Iron Bowl (Let's just look ahead to next year.), but we did have a fun party with Victoria as our own personal Bama cheerleader. My cousin Eric and his family came by too, along with my Aunt Cathy and Uncle Chris, so it was great to see them. Somehow, I didn't get one photo of my infamous one-armed Canadian uncle who visted for the week.

Savannah

Here are some pics from our trip to Savannah we took a few weeks back. We went to visit Jake, who teaches high school there. Robert's parents drove down from S.C. to meet us for the weekend and J-Go and Ben drove up from Jacksonville, so we were so excited to see our friends and family and have our first visit to Savannah. It's a very neat city.

Happy Birthday!

So, I have to send a big happy birthday to all our siblings and siblings-in-laws who have birthdays this week.

Happy Birthday to Reeves and Mike (Robert's brothers-in-law) on the 18th!

Happy 18th Birthday to my brother David - today!

Happy Birthday to Robert's sis Bec on Friday!

We love you guys!

LSU Game

So around the end of the season this year Robert and I decided the time had come to end our days of mooching off our friends' parents' tailgates and host our own. What ensued on the Saturday of the Bama/LSU game left us more exhausted than we have been in quite some time, but was a blast. Dad picked Rob and I up at 6:15 (yes, you read that correctly) to go down to T-town and stake out a place on the Quad to set up our tent and unload what turned out to be way too much food. (We'll plan better nex time.)

After a fun day of watching other football games, seeing our many friends who dropped by, hanging with my brother and his Bama Bound crowd (they're seniors in high school going to UA next year), and getting some gumbo from some taligating LSU fans (totally dad's idea), we settled in for a great game with a disappointing ending. Jake gave Robert an extra ticket, and I watched the game on the quad with my parents. Ryan and David both got in the game. Kyle, being the wisest child in the family, took advance of everyone else being away from the house and threw a party to watch the game in Birmingham with his friends and Kristi and Clay!

Since we only brought a little TV, we wisely set up next to a group with a huge flat screen. Next time I'm not only taking into account the size of the TV but also competency level of the guys trying to set it up because these guys had a ton of trouble getting their dish to work and pick up the game. But all turned out well, and we got to watch most of the game. Actually, Robert's mom and dad brought us an old sattelite dish they had (thanks!), so next year we shoudln't run into this trouble with all of our tailgating adventures.


This is my favorite picture. We were walking by an abandoned Bama tailgate and noticed some other Bama fans taking a pic of themselves "killing" LSU's mascot. I told mom to do it to, though I must be honest and say, being the animal lover that she is, she first posed cuddling the tiger and smiled big - until I told her it was an LSU tiger and she had to be aggressive!

Our good buddy, Sam, dropped by!


Like I said - WAY too much food. (Notice the leftover Halloween candy!)

David and Ryan and their buddies.

Ashley came by too...as did Ben (who Robert snuck in this pic)!

I totally snapped this right as dad was mid-yell after a big play!

Mom's friend, Teresa, also joined our tailgate.

Trick or Treat

So I have been incredibly tardy in my blogging and am just now posting my Halloween post two days before Thanksgiving! :) Oh well! We had a big Halloween get together at our house with some friends from church and enjoyed playing catch phrase and waiting on the trick-or-treaters. I was dissappointed that we didn't have as many as we hoped. In fact, the first four were completely illegimate - a 27-year-old man dressed as a cowboy who just randomly walked up in the sunroom and took some candy (I honestly thought he was a friend of a party guest!) and three older teenagers. But then we got some little kiddos who were so cute. I was loading them up with candy because we had so much from all our guests and not very many trick-or-treaters, so their parents are probably still mad at me. I did go crazy decorating the house, and will certainly go crazier next year because I bought more decorations at 80% off after Halloween!

Here are some pics of the house:








Parker and Kristi

Lisa and Katie

Sara and Meg

David and Martin.


I even put orange, purple and green lights in our fake tree in the sunroom, but these pics don't quite capture the entire spooky spirit!

Wallking to Remember

My mom is participating in a Walk to Remember on Saturday to raise money for Alzheimer's reasearch. I'm so proud of her. I've pasted her email about the race below:


Being of poor mind and body, I recently “walked” the Race for a Cure and Crosspoint’s 5k. With very little preparation this 48 year old SURVIVED!

Now I’m on a roll. I have spontaneously and very last minute decided to walk for a cause that is very close to my heart. It is the Alzheimer’s of Central Alabama’s 13th annual Walking to Remember event at Riverchase Galleria, THIS Saturday, November 3rd.

I am the first member :0) on "Big Daddy’s Team" and if anyone would like to join me that would be great! It is a 3-mile, family-friendly indoor walk. Registration begins at 7:30 and the Walk will start at 8:30.

Of course, the purpose of the walk is to raise money for Alzheimer’s research. If you would LIKE to contribute (no pressure) please do so by going to www.alzca.org and clicking on the donate button at the top of the page. Enter “Big Daddy’s Team” in the “review your order” section.

Hope some of you can join me and at least a few will donate. :0). You are all special to me and have played a significant roll in our journey with this disease.

Thanks so much.