Hiawassee Nov 2011

We had a wonderful weekend with all of Spence's family to celebrate his mother's 70th birthday.

Here are some pictures from the weekend.

Katy, her daughter, Ivy, and husband, Fred, Nathan, Spence, Winston, me
Cy and Malinda
Caroline, Nathan's daughter, Leighton, Sarah
William

 Cousins playing together.  Winston was 2 in May and Ivy will be 2 next March

 Big Cousins playing together!  They had fun with their "photo shoot," especially with the apps on Sarah's Itouch.  I'll have to do a separate post just with the pictures they took with that!
Leighton was 14 in August, Sarah was 12 in June and Caroline 15 in September

 We were still able to enjoy some of the fall colors on the mountains.

 Birthday dinner for Malinda - and cake and ice cream!

 The girls got out Malinda's wedding dress and took pictures of Leighton in it.

A fun weekend for all!  Looking forward to doing it again in a few weeks in Greensboro for Thanksgiving.

Enough already!!

Back in September, we had quite a mouse problem.  This is what greeted me one morning when I woke up!!  YUCK!!

Last week, we had an almost sleepless night.  Between Winston crying from not feeling well and a mouse scratching, we only got a few hours of sleep. 

While we were gone to Hiawassee for the weekend, the mouse poison that we had put out (little boxes that have blood thinner in them that the mouse eats) did their work.  Unfortunately, Spence had gone under the house and plugged lots of holes where he thought mice might have been getting in.  He was so thorough that the poisoned mouse couldn't get back to his nest!  We came home to a smelly house.  I finally found the culprit!!

Needless to say, all the windows are open and we are airing out the house! 

I'm tired of the furry little things.  They are UNWANTED house guests!

Part of California Trip Sept 2011

I have all the airshow pictures on Sarah's computer, so I'll have to do a separate post for those.

But here is most of our trip.

How do you keep a 2 year old occupied on a 5 hour flight?  Vanilla wafers and stickers!  Better than the last time Winston was on a plane!

We flew into SFO and were able to have lunch with Craig and then see his office.  The kids all liked his "double" computer screen!  It was good to get to see him, but we were sorry to miss Donna

We were only able to see Christy for a few minutes in the cell phone lot of the airport!

Winston had fallen asleep in the car, so only the older 3 got to visit with her.

 On the way to Redding, we stopped at the Jelly Belly Factory.  Caroline got to taste a "grass" jelly belly from the Harry Potter set and about threw up.

Aubrey and Olivia took the day off on Friday to play with the boys (and the girls when they weren't doing school work.)  They had lots of fun together - including hair salon.

The whole crew had pizza before we picked Amelia up from school.

Caroline had her eyebrows "threaded."  Here's the "After" photo!  Such a pretty girl!

Here she is in GREAT pain - having it done.  Her lids were puffy and red for quite awhile after she had it done.

The kids tried on their souvenirs from Dubai - Winston is displaying the mixed nuts he was given. :)

Braves Country

We were able to go to a Braves game on Wednesday and watch them beat the Florida Marlins!  It was Weather Education Day, so we started out near the third base dugout and watched a weather presentation by the Channel 2 Meteorologists on tornadoes, hurricanes, lightning and more.

 
After the presentation, we paraded around the warning track.  We got to see lots of the players up close and watch them get the infield ready for the game.

 Winston even got to walk on the track by himself. 

Then we went to our General Admission seats.  They were really high up, but they were shaded!  And since it was almost 90 degrees F., we were happy for the shade.

Winston took his nap - despite the noise and hubbub. 

When he woke up, he was a sweaty, silly-haired mess.

Our tickets came with hot dogs, water and chips.  After the game, we took some pictures near the statues outside the field.

Atlanta's hometown hero, Hank Aaron

Ty Cobb


And William doing his own impression of a slide.

It was a fun day for all!

Apple Pie

We had friends over last weekend and Sarah was "chef" for the night.  She wanted to make an apple pie and churned out TWO of these creations!  YUM!!

Baseball Star

Watch out Chipper Jones, here comes "Winkie" - his name for himself! :)

If you can't open the link, go to youtube user:alindbergh

Lego Land

William was finally given his reward for memorizing ALL 150 Children's Catechism Questions - a trip to Lego Land with Spencer.  They flew to LA a few weeks ago - on a Monday, spent all day Tues at the park and came home on a red-eye Tues night.  They had a great time!

There were huge Lego creations like this all over the park.

William got THREE driver's licenses from this ride.  He really liked it!

But his favorite thing was competing in this game.  There were four groups that tried to be the first to "get out the fire."  He and Spence honed their technique until there was no one who could beat them. 

 He thought the irony of this creation was pretty funny!