A Very Special Gift

One day this week I got an email from our second granddaughter. I could almost hear the excitement in her voice as I read her email. She had found something especially for me and bought it with her own money (they had already given me my birthday present so it wasn't like she was looking for something to buy). Today she brought the gift to me when we met them at the ballgame. She jumped out of the car with the gift bag and hurriedly ran to me. I was so surprised to look in the bag and find one of my favorite things---a lighthouse!!! As much as I love lighthouses, I REALLY love this lighthouse. How special that she found something she knows I like and she bought it with her own money. Isn't this one of the prettiest lighthouses you've ever seen. Thanks, Ash!! I love you!

A Day of Thanksgiving

Today just happens to be my birthday. Above you can see what I found on the kitchen bar when I came downstairs this morning. These were birthday gifts from my sweet hubby. As you might be able to tell, my interests run the gamut from fishing to clothes to a new charm for my Pandora bracelet to SO many other things. While I'm more than thankful for these gifts (can't wait to catch the big one!!), I am thankful for so many other things today that money can't buy. Both of our sons called me this morning to wish me a happy birthday, grandchildren have sent emails this week with happy early birthday greetings and messages that they love me, and many friends have called or sent birthday greetings. These all mean more than everyone knows. But, today, I am also thankful for LIFE in general. I love my life. I have a wonderful family, fantastic friends, more blessings than I can count, and I am alive!! Five years ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Please don't think this is for sympathy. It's not---God has been with me every step of the way and I'm fine. However,as many of you know, it takes a while to process that diagnosis. One of the many things that kept going through my mind was "I want to see my grandchildren grow up!!" God has given me 5 more years to watch them grow as well as five more years for me to experience so many other things. I don't know, as none of us do, how many more years I'll be here on this earth. But, I do know one thing, I'll never ever take one breath for granted. Today I am fine and able to enjoy life to the fullest and I intend to do that as long as possible. Thank you to all of you for my birthday wishes, but mainly thank you to all of you for what you mean to me. I thank God for you as I thank Him for every day.
Philippians 1:3-I thank my God in all my remembrance of you.
Psalm 118:24. This is the day which the LORD has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it. ...

It is only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up, that we will begin to live each day to the fullest; as if it were the only one we had.
~Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross~

Murder Mystery Dinner

We recently hosted a Murder Mystery Dinner for the young people at church (young professionals) and some of their friends. It was a blast!! There was never a dull moment from the moment the first guests arrived until the last one left. The setting was the 1920's and each guest was typecast perfectly to fit his/her own personality. I was actually amazed at how each person really got into his/her own role and played the part to perfection (well, almost). Here are some pictures from our fun evening.

My First Award!!

How exciting it was to see that June from The Butler Family gave my blog an award. Be sure to check out The Butler Family blog and see their precious family. Here are the rules for the award:
1) You must thank the person who gave the award and list their blog and link it

2) You must share "10 Honest Things" about yourself.

3) You must present this award to 7 others whose blogs you find brilliant in content and/or design, or those who have encouraged you.

4) You must tell those 7 people they've been awarded HONEST SCRAP and inform them of these guidelines in receiving the award.

10 Honest Things About Me

1. I am a Christian, wife, mother, grandmother, sister, sister-in-law, aunt, and friend
2. I like to spend time with my family and do special things with our grandchildren
3. I enjoy the beach and the outdoors and anything involving "nature"
4. I love Auburn University
5. I enjoy photography
6. I like to entertain
7. I like to travel
8. I like Bible studies
9. I am about to retire after teaching ESOL for many years
10.I love our Farm

To be perfectly honest, it was difficult for me stop at 10. I love my life and enjoy it to the fullest. Every morning I try remind myself, "This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it."

I am passing this award on to the following bloggers whose blogs inspire and encourage me:
The Macs
Our Journey of Love
Happily Ever After
Walk With Me by Faith
Sweet Caroline
The Averitt Family
All Things New

Check out these blogs. I'm sure you'll be inspired as well.

Tailgating with Family and Friends

Our sister-in-law planned a fun tailgate party for the Auburn-Kentucky game. We met at our nephew's apartment and ate burgers and visited and met several of our nephew's friends. We even found good friends walking by unaware that we were all there and invited them to eat burgers with us which they did. It was great to see them and they even became my personal shoppers because the weather had turned so cold, I needed a sweatshirt in addition to all the other layers I had on!! They went shopping and got a WARM sweatshirt for which I was extremely thankful. The wind was bitter. Anyway, here are some pictures of our fun tailgate party. We're so thankful she planned for us to tailgate together because we needed some happy memories from the day. We left the stadium dejected and bewildered----Kentucky beat us for the first time since 1966!! However, it's still GREAT TO BE AN AUBURN TIGER!! War Eagle!!

Time With Grandchildren

While visiting our children and grandchildren recently, we took the grandchildren to see Children's Letters to God at their local theater. It was excellent and very well done. Before we went to the theater, we went to eat together (no parents---just grandparents and grandchildren).

After dinner, we left for the theater.



Time to go in and sit down for the musical---a fun evening and then a spend the night party after leaving the theater.


The next morning our oldest granddaughter made muffins for us.

She also spotted a beautiful blue jay in their front yard and called me to see it. She knew I'd love to see the bird so she specifically called me so we could go out and watch it together.

Then, another granddaughter showed me the scarecrow she's made for Halloween.

It was soon time to leave for Auburn to tailgate with our family and friends before the game. More on that later. We had a great time with our children and enjoyed the special time with our grandchildren.

Nursery for Miss A

Recently we helped paint Miss A's nursery. It's still not complete but our daugther-in-law has done a great job in planning what she wants in there and where she wants it. She is a GREAT shopper and has found needed baby items at good prices. What a super job she did of picking out the paint that matches the bedding. One older sister wanted green and one wanted yellow so she's trying to make sure they both have their color choices in the room for their baby sister. Here are some pictures of the prep work and the finished paint job. More picture forthcoming when everything is put in its final place but for now you can see a work in progress. I love what she's chosen!

A Confederate Rose

My husband, who probably thought this was a weed when he obligingly planted it a few years ago because he admittedly knows nothing about plants, looked at our Confederate Rose today and said, "That's pretty. You should take a picture of that." So, I did since I'm such an obedient wife. Seriously, I thought that was a great idea because it is gorgeous. It does really well in this climate. We have some of these at our Farm which is about 70 miles north of here and they don't do nearly as well there. Maybe some of you know another name for them but we always just call them Confederate Rose---I think they're a member of the hibiscus family. Please let me know if you know more about these plants (or trees).

Filled with buds just waiting to burst open

When they open they're white, but by the end of the day, the bloom is a deep pink.

Be sure to stop by Susan's Outdoor Wednesday for more outdoor pictures.

Show Us Your Life-Tailgates and Favorite Teams

Every week Kelly hosts Show Us Your Life and this week it's favorite teams. That's a no-brainer for me. Our entire family graduated from Auburn-my daddy, my husband, my brother and sister-in-law, both of our sons and daughters-in-law, and me) so we have strong ties to Auburn University and not just the football team. We have season tickets to football games and also try to go back for a basketball game and a baseball game every year. If a swim meet is in town or a gymnastics meet when we're in Auburn, we go to those, too. In other words, we bleed orange and blue. Here are a few pictures of some of our trips to Auburn this fall.

Our nephew is a sophomore at Auburn and is a trainer for the football team. Here he is on the sideline just behind the yard marker (looking over his left shoulder).

A picture on the jumbo-tron of some of the students

The Auburn University Marching Band in the pre-game show

One of the best pre-game activities in college football---our eagle circling the stadium before landing at mid-field while the crowd yells "War-r-r-r-r-r Eagle!"

It's GREAT to be an AUBURN TIGER!! War Eagle!

Do You Just Love Christmas??

Apparently I'm not the only one who loves the Christmas season and gets into the spirit really early. We just left Lowe's and they already have Christmas decorations for sale and I know most other stores do, too. In fact, I was in a cute little boutique several weeks ago and they were setting up their Christmas "room" and it was still September! Well, Jill over at The Averitt Family has a Christmas giveaway on her blog. Go over to visit Jill and check into her exciting giveaway! I did ----- it would be so much fun to win.

Homecoming 2009

Our niece was chosen as a freshman maid on her high school homecoming court this year. We were so excited and went up to spend the day in order to see the parade and then the presentation of the homecoming court before the football game. It was a fun day with family and we are so proud of Stephanie. She looked beautiful, and, what is even more important, she is just as beautiful on the inside. She was excited but totally unconceited. What thrilled me was to see how happy all of her friends were for her and how many people came up to sincerely congratulate her. Stephanie is just the same Stephanie all the time and apparently has been a great friend to all. Here are some pictures from the day.




Congratulations, Stephanie!

Stale Sandwich Friends

Recently I wrote a post about our long-time friends who are staying at the beach for a month. I mentioned that the first time they came over to visit us when they moved to our city many years ago, we had leftover sandwiches (or stale sandwiches as we affectionately refer to them now). Their older son and his family are visiting them this week so we got to see David and his family. We had not met his wife nor his two little boys so we had a great time getting to be with them. I've enclosed some pictures of their family. They're all leaving Tuesday so we'll miss them, but we're planning another get together sometime soon.

Some pictures of David and Chris' cute boys playing in the condo.



David and I had to eat raw oysters at Peg Leg's Pete's while they're here.



They're all leaving Tuesday so we'll miss them, but we're planning another get together sometime soon.