To post or not to post...

Ok, so here's the deal. When I try to post photos my computer shuts down my internet connection. This is bad if you have a photo blog that desperately needs to be updated! In lieu of photos I guess I will have to actually write to keep you updated on our latest & greatest happenings.

A quick rundown of the rest of last year...

~ In October Nana came for a visit and brought her new knee with her. We tried to wear it out & almost succeeded. We went to the movies, celebrated my birthday, did word searches, went to Lowe's to build things and visited a pumpkin patch, to name a few things we did. The kids really enjoyed their "surprise" visit from Nana for their fall break!

~ Also in October Dan & Charlotte Miller came out for a visit. While they were here we celebrated Eli's birthday ( a few times) at school, at home and at The Rainforest Cafe. I was able to see the Hermitage - President Jackson's home, with Dan & Charlotte; which was something I had never done before. (That's the good thing about visitors, you get to do things you might not do otherwise!) We also went out to eat at lots of fun places and of course we had to go to Miller's Grocery for lunch one day. Dan & Charlotte even made it to the Great Smokey Mountains before it was closed due to snow and ice. Thanks to Dan, I now know where every Harley Davidson shop is in a 100 mile radius! It was a fun visit! :)

~ In November I got to go with Adrienne on her first field trip in kindergarten to the Discovery Center here in town. They still rode the bus even though we didn't travel far and it was a highlight of the trip. Before school let out for Thanksgiving, Tony & I were able to go & have a Thanksgiving lunch with Adrienne & Eli in the cafeteria. It was so cute to see all the little Pilgrims & Indians dressed up in their paper vests & hats. It did make for a noisy lunch however.

~ Esther invited us to their new house in NC to celebrate Thanksgiving & Brandon's safe return from Baghdad. Sadly, Tony could not get off from work to travel that far and I did not feel safe trying to drive it by myself in the snow and stuff. However, a friend here in town told us that we had to celebrate Thanksgiving with her family since we couldn't travel to be with ours. They re-arranged their schedules and celebrated on Wednesday with us so Tony could be there (as he had to work on Thursday). We had an awesome southern style Thanksgiving down in Alabama with Sandi and Randy and their families on Wednesday and the kids and I had a quiet day at home on Thursday.
I can't help but recall our first Thanksgiving here in Tennessee at the all you can eat buffet at Shoney's. It was our first away from our families and I was so sad. Thank goodness I can laugh about it now. While I still miss our families, especially during the holiday season, I am so grateful for the friends God has put into our lives here to fill the gap.

~ December brought me another field trip opportunity, this time with Eli. His class took a trip to Nashville to the Children's Theater for a production of Alexander and the no good, very bad, horrible day. (Or something like that.) It was fun to go to the theater even if it was for children. I really enjoyed it and so did Eli.

~ Adrienne participated in the children's choir at church this year and performed beautifully on the stage despite the child next to her that was determined to make the worst possible faces she could. Adrienne is still singing the songs and even put on a performance for her classmates at school just yesterday with another girl in her class at school who was also in the choir . "I just want to love you Jesus... I just want to praise you Jesus... I just want to love you more and more." I often pray that my children will show God's love to others at school and am amazed at how my prayers are answered through their childlike faith.

~ Speaking of music...Adrienne and I went to a Christmas concert together. It was "Have a Fancy Yancy Christmas". (Yes, Yancy...not Nancy.) I don't know if her cd's are in your local Bible bookstore but if you can find them I would recommend them highly. Rockin' music for kids and enjoyable for parents. www.yancynotnancy.com

~ On a funny !?! note...Tony's patrol car was vandalized by an unidentified vegetable one night. We're pretty sure it was a zucchini. It made quite a mess and broke his mirror. He even had to fill out a police report. (They offered to put some extra patrols on the house in case the villainous vegetable made a return.)

~ Our Christmas was pretty low key. We went to the Christmas eve service at church in the new sanctuary and wow, it was amazing! The music was great and sharing in communion as a family with the kids almost brought tears to my eyes.
After church we went home to find that Santa had come while we were at church so we could have Christmas together before Tony went to work. The kids had so much fun opening up their gifts from us and from their extended family. It was also neat to see how excited they were to give us the presents they bought by themselves at school with their own money. They did a pretty good job too at picking out gifts that would mean something to the other person. It was so sweet to see the hug Eli gave Adrienne after he opened up his #1 Brother key chain from her.
Christmas Day Tony was working, but was able to be home for a few hours in the morning to eat breakfast with us. Thankfully most everyone else was at home too so it was a fairly quiet day at work for him.

~ New Years Eve the kids and I stayed up to yell "Happy New Year" to each other and watch the ball drop in Times Square. It was a fun beginning to the year and the kids have bragging rights at school from staying up so late. :)

~ So far this year things have been going smoothly. We're trying to get back into the school routine after being off for Christmas break only to come back to school and have two more days off for "snow". I think we managed to get two inches. They're calling it the "blizzard of 2010". It was mighty cold though, for Tennessee. Things are just starting to thaw out and I actually saw buds forming on some tree branches today as I was waiting to pick the kids up from school.

I'm looking forward to seeing what this new year brings and hopefully I will keep you updated!