November 2013

In Utah pumpkins left too long after Halloween freeze, in California they go moldy, in Louisiana their faces fall off.

Fabulous Friday with the relief society...I was in charge of the this growth chart. Pretty fun!

Brett Favre's High School.  Jer took all three girls while I was busy crafting.  Kiln, MS.

Youth service project.

Ash's birthday party...her hair was supposed to look like a Hello Kitty Bow. It didn't last too long.

Then we made these headbands for all the girls to wear.

While I painted these cans for a baseball toss, Ashlyn painted plastic cups and wanted to give them to her guests as prizes, she was so worried about them and making sure they were given out. Guess what? We forgot.

Can you see the bow tie's on the little boys?

Masks for pin the bow on Hello Kitty.

Kitty shaped cheese or peanut butter sandwiches, fruit kabobs, bow tie home made macaroni and cheese, and of course the cake.

Kids made their own treat bags from the idea pictured below....just took some work out of it for myself.

Ashlyn's preschool walked to the library for a field trip and picnic. I joined her because she was so sad when they went last time and couldn't check out a book.  She sure was happy to see me!

Cupcakes I made for Ashlyn's school snack and birthday celebration.

Going to preschool on her birthday, with her new skirt on.

New horse shirt!!!

She didn't quite know how to respond after opening the baseball t.

The weather finally cooled down enough for me to tackle organizing the garage so we could get two cars in.

My skirts. If only everything in my home and garage were this organized and labeled.

I even had enough supplies hanging around to make a bike rack.

Wala!

Another daddy daughter football date.

 All in preparation for seeing the real deal.  We took a weekend trip and got to see first hand what tailgating is like at the University of Alabama. CRAAAZZZYYY!! They had a parking lot just for campers, and its overflowing! Big screen set up right outside.

Bear Bryant Museum.

I was just in awe at how much trouble people went through and how nice their set ups were!  It was pretty cold and I was also very surprised to see how dressed up everyone was. Lot's of red pea coats and black and white hounds tooth leggings....SO CUTE!

I felt really under dressed, but I was warm for the most part!

Watching the elephant stomp performed by the band before the game.

Alabama state capitol building in Montgomery.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s church.

 

The capital had a display where each state had donated a rock. It was pretty fun to look at with the girls.

The first Confederate White House.

Running around at the park. At least, the kids were for awhile and I tried to get a little rest in the warm sunshine, BUT the girls had other ideas.

 Burial place of Hank Williams.

A court of honor like I've never seen!  I even contributed a cake that looked like a big marshmallow.

Squirrels, frogs, salamanders, goats, anole lizards, black widows, a herd of sheep, deer, elk, turtles, tree frogs, gophers, moles, skunks, cranes, raccoons, muskrats, and even a bull moose are all among the wildlife I have seen in my backyards over the years. However, the evidence of this creature's presence is the most unnerving. Fortunately a neighbor identified it as a King Snake... unfortunately that meant nothing to us until he explained that they eat the poisonous snakes. I'm still unsure though, does that mean we should be glad we found this?

Playing dress up.  A Lorax witch.

Jeremy on a youth activity. World War 2 Museum.

Through work Jeremy was able to get second row seats to the Pelicans game!  We sat right behind the bench and had the security guards staring at us the whole time!  I even started chatting to the guy next to me who turned out to be a left tackle for the New Orleans Saints!

 Sad to see Elder Miles leave our ward.  It was pretty cool when he came and Jeremy immediately knew he was Tanner Miles cousin. Tanner was a priest Jeremy worked with in Bakersfield.

Ashlyn's Thanksgiving lunch celebration at preschool. The food was SO cute! A brownie bite with a sail, and a clementine with a celery piece to look like a pumkin.

Quincy was also looking super cute!

 

True Jeremy style, we went to try to see an Ole Miss football game with no tickets and no hotel.  It was a freezing night, but everything worked out great. It was quite an experience to stay in this TINY somewhat dumpy hotel room with 5 people. Quincy went to sleep pretty quickly and I thought I might get some work done on the blog or 2012 Gillespie Chronicles but as I was comfortable in the bed making sure Quincy was fully asleep I decided just to go to bed - around 8. How nice!

 

Graceland.

A rumored house on the underground railroad.

Peabody Hotel.  This was an interesting attraction, a hotel known for its ducks.  Yep, as a drunken joke the manager put ducks in the lobby fountain after a hunting trip. The ducks just stayed there and swam all day and the guests liked them so much they have been a tradition ever since. Now it is quite the production, with a red carpet walkway from the elevator (bringing them down from their overnight enclosure on the roof) to the fountain.  You can definitely get into the excitement of it, but if you step back and look at what you are doing, it's pretty anti climactic, and well a little foolish. A lobby full of people watching ducks walk a hundred yards to a fountain.

Our second living quarters were much more comfortable, an upgrade at a Residence Inn in Nashville.  The girls had a blast in the loft, and Quincy got some nice sleep in the separate bedroom.  We even made a spaghetti dinner to make it even more cozy.  We spent two nights here so we could explore more of the area.

Ole Miss game. I was kindof jealous Jeremy bought the girls hot chocolate AND kettle corn.

Quincy took a nice spill down this inclined hallway. Jeremy said that with her slippery coat on she just kept sliding like a penguin!

View from the rooftop duck enclosure.

Some "real live" southern Barbeque for lunch.

 Grand Old Opry.

The Opry Hotel had AMAZING botanical gardens inside. They were huge and all decorated for the holidays.  I think there were five "atriums" and we got very turned around more than once trying to get back to were we parked.

The Parthenon.  It was a dang Monday (it seems like all the good stuff in the south in closed on Monday's) so we couldn't go see the Athena statue inside, but it was still really cool walking around the outside of the building. Playing statues. - Vanderbilt college campus was right next to this so of course we drove around the stadium. 

 

 Country Music Museum Hall of Fame.

 

Carrie Underwood.

The girls would tell us where they wanted their picture taken...they wanted A LOT.

Dolly Parton.

Best exhibit ever!! It was so fun to see this and to have LIVED it!  It took us back "home" and was cool to see what an important part of country music history "the Bakersfield sound" was. Now, I am not just saying this because we lived there, but I thought it was the most well done exhibit in the museum.

 

 

Kelly Pickler.

Dixie Chicks.

 

Being in Nashville we HAD to see some live music.  Basically you can just walk a strip of building and pick one, it will have live music and alcohol. We choose one off the beaten path that wasn't a bar so that we could actually have some dinner and enjoy the setting with the girls.  It was pretty awesome when Quincy wasn't squirming all over the place.

Check off another college on our SEC college tour!

 

Our most excellent Thanksgiving abode.  A studio cabin just outside the Smoky mountains, complete with wooden deck and hot tub!

 

Oh, and did I mention the heart shaped jetted tub right out in the open?  The girls loved it, and I can see how it might be nice to soak and watch a movie under other circumstances. It was nice to have a separate bathroom with tub and shower though.

We woke up to a winter wonderland the next morning so of course we had to take advantage and try snowman building and a little sledding.

Dad surprised us with tickets to Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede dinner theater horse show.  The girls LOVED the show, but weren't so thrilled about the finger foods...including an entire chicken for each of us.  Ashlyn got very concerned..."is that a bird momma?!" It had to be immediately removed from her plate.

Afterward the girls wanted to go see EVERY horse, but we couldn't make it around in time.

A brisk morning walk.

Our "quickly becoming traditional" Thanksgiving hike. Part of the Great Smokies were closed so we drove this particular one way loop called Cades Cove and got out a time or two.

It was a pretty long and beautiful walk with some little adventures along the way.  We crossed a couple of streams uneventfully and then on the last one on the way back, it was ME that slipped right in for one soggy foot.  It was a really fun walk back as we all told things we were grateful for, and got pretty creative. Ashlyn's were very fun to hear.

 

 Thanksgiving dinner buffet.  The girls chose this one so they could pick as much of they wanted of their favorite things. The downfall of this buffet was their potatoes and gravy...they both sorta looked like gravy! 

Before we left the next morning to start our trip home, the snow had melted and things were already warming up.

Great Smokies...can you see why they are called that?  I kept wondering if they had anything to do with the line of the kids song, "On top of old Smoky...."

In Cades Cove there were several little old churches and dwellings that were interesting to drive by. We might have gotten out but the one way traffic was so slow we didn't want to loose our place and it gave us plenty of time to gawk as we puttered by.

Another hike in the Smokies. This one had LOT'S of ice! Even the paths were covered making it a little difficult on the steepest parts.

...but what a view!

Highest point in the park.

One last walk and some play time in the lower part of the park where it was a little warmer.

Kicking the leaves away so we could see the trail better.

Wah? I just realized what this was a picture of...I totally don't remember that happening.

Playing the statue wind up game.

It just happened to work out that we were close to Auburn on College Game day so we stopped by for the festivities!

Toomer's Store, what the corner is named for.

Where Toomer's Corner Trees used to be.

Stock photo

 

What a month of travels!