Mountain Retreat

This year's family mountain retreat took us to Bat Cave, NC.  The house really was great (like all those in the past), but like many of the mountain places we visit, getting there involved "turning off the paved road"! We had beautiful, but cool weather for two days and enjoyed hiking around the property and eating too much.  On Sunday morning we were surprised with about 4 inches of wet snow and still snowing!  It wasn't supposed to happen until 6pm!!  We thought we were stuck because there was no way 2 of our vehicles could get out of the very steep driveway.  Luckily, the owners had a friend/neighbor that came up and cleared us a path out!  As Bill would say, it just makes the story better.

Paper Jamz guitar was a popular and entertaining gift!

Moon Dough for Andrew - this stuff is amazing!

The gang!

Our Sunday morning surprise!

First snow of winter

The first Saturday of December we visited Mimi and Papa T for the annual Christmas photo.  Can you imagine trying to get all these kids in a shot AND THEN adding in 6 more that couldn't make it???  The finished product was great as usual.

On our way home it started to snow and by the time we arrived we had a light dusting - our first snow of winter!

  

Singing at church

These kids aren't quite ready for the Hallelujah Chorus, but they are SO CUTE!!

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Away in a Manger

Rocketry

In the last year, Bill and the boys have taken to building and launching rockets. I think the time in the garage is a great stress reliever for Bill and Joshua really likes the launch.  Andrew, however is still scared of the launch process and cries and doesn't want to watch!  On a cold Saturday in November, they all went to Bill's dad's house for a guys day and gave me (mom) a chance to get some Christmas decorating done without as much "help"!

Each rocket is named.  Below left is the "Silver Streak" and on the right is the "Big Bertha".  Both of these rockets are still part of our collection, but sadly, some (like the one above) have been lost in the wind!

Panther's Stadium Tour

I don't know what we were thinking when we decided to take this crew on a tour of Bank of America Stadium!  It was a great chance to see an old college roomie, but we didn't get much out of the tour!

My two plus a friend's little girl and her two.

JT always has a pose and Andrew, well, "silly" should be his middle name!

Halloween Dress Up

Yes, I am still very behind in the blog, but I have a goal - be caught up by the end of January!

Halloween is not one of my favorite holidays because I have a 5 year old that is not very brave when it comes to scary things and also because it is the beginning of a 2 month candy/sweets addiction that I have to fight terribly come January!  This year we attended a costume party that required all attending to dress up.  There were lots of scary decorations there, but by the end of the night, JT was doing much better!!

We started Halloween evening  by going to the church for Trunk or Treat and these are the characters that joined us...

After church we came home to let the boys trick or treat through the neighborhood and who would have thought that would require a costume change!

 Daddy worked very diligently on this Jack O Lantern!