November

When I went to log into the Blogspot website a few minutes ago it said, "WHO THE HECK ARE YOU?"

So, here I am in July, blogging about November. We're halfway through our camp season, which I'm very much looking forward to posting about. In the meantime I'm going to try to remember what happened last year.

Mostly November was full of the usual school stuff, church, riding lessons, etc. This picutre was taken by Jenny D. one Saturday afternoon. Amelia went with them to help Ruth's Sunday School class rake leaves for an elderly couple at church.

The best part is jumping in the pile, of course.

I continued to fight the messed up camera battle, and with my reluctance to use it and be disappointed with the photo quality I didn't take many pictures during the first part of November. I took the yucky one with me to McDonough for Thanksgiving.

We signed up for the Thanksgiving Day 5K in Atlanta, as we did last year. We headed to Atlanta on Wednesday the 21st to pick up our race packets. The kids enjoyed the thrilling ride on the glass elevators in the Marriott Marquis. It's amazing how often we're like the typical country-come-to-town bunch. It doesn't take much to amaze or amuse us.

Jonathan and Lisa and the girls met us at Mom and Dad's that evening. James, Jonathan, and I planned to run the race, then come back for an afternoon of turkey and such, followed by a few days of hanging out with the folks. James gave me an early Christmas present, a GPS watch and heart rate monitor. I had my brand new running shoes ready to go, purchased on the way to Atlanta. All was going according to plan until about an hour after dinner. Suddenly I didn't feel so good. I was hoping it would pass, but within the hour I realized I probably wouldn't be going to the race the next morning. I spent an un-restful night, the details of which I will spare you. I weakly waved goodbye to James and he and Jonathan left for the race without me. James was especially disappointed because he was planning to cheer me on in my running endeavor, and most likely wouldn't have done the race if I wasn't going to. (What challenge is a 3.1 mile run to an Ironman?) He ended up first in his age group though, so that wasn't too shabby. I made it out of the bed and to a chair at 2 PM, and had the house to myself as they decided, for some reason, to move the party to Nanny's house. It was a Thanksgiving dinner never to be forgotten, those two saltines and that glass of Ginger Ale!

I did feel better by the next day, though everyone else took turns either actually having a mild case of it or wondering if they were going to be next. We ventured out anyway, to Panola Mountain which is a state park not too far from mom and dad's. I went there as a kid, and remembered running all over the granite outcroppings, as it's actually an exposed part of the rock that makes Stone Mountain. I figured the kids would enjoy it too.

There were hiking trails, but the granite is off limits. Probably either too slippery for the state park's insurance company to be comfortable with, or as is usually a state parkly thing to do, fenced off because it's a rare lichen habitat or something.

Whew. We almost didn't mae it over the downed tree.

There was a teeny bit of rock that could be sat upon.

Watch out for that eclipse coming down from the left upper corner.

Here's one thing I don't remember from the days of my youth- air traffic. Apparently Panola Mountain Park is in a holding pattern zone. Ah, the sounds of nature.

Brynn gave it up.

There was a play ground, which is a huge bonus in the eyes of everyone under 12.

Actually, the adults had a pretty good time too.

After that we headed to a tree farm because the grandparents wanted to give the grandkids the opportunity to pick out and cut down a Christmas tree. Jonathan and I loved going to the tree farm down the road every year and picking out just the right tree. (The hole always goes against the wall. Every tree has a hole.) We also loved the cider and those shortbread cookies with colored sugar on top in Christmas shapes. We both loved it so much, apparently, that we chose to have fake trees for our own homes so our kids will never have that annual experience! (Truthfully, we are unwilling to continuouly water it, sweep up needles, and then have to figure out what to do with the thing at the end of the season!)

We landed at Yule Tree Farm.

If you keep your cider in a water heater it stays hot!

They had some cool stuff for kids. This looks just like our blob at camp but the edges are buried in the ground and fans keep it blown up. If the blob ever dies we know what to do with it now.

Gotta feed the baby!

So we wandered the entire tree farm, and apparently all that were left were these cypress trees. I didn't know those were even an option for Christmas trees. I thought they were used for landscaping. "You must bring me a shrubbery!" Name the movie.

Being we were already there and all, and little boys were already armed with saws, we decided not to be too picky.

So we killed the fatted tree and hauled it home.

This is not the tree we cut down. This is the fake one that lives in the basement, which Grandmom had the kids decorate first.

Meanwhile, Nanny enjoyed hanging out with Brynn.

The next day we sicced the kids on the real tree. (Yes, it is sicced. Thank you, Grammarist.com.)

We enjoyed our time as a family, in spite of the illness I apparently brought with me. It's always fun to get together with everyone and hang out. Love those guys and gals!

We hauled out our own Christmas stuff when we got home. We were going to Texas for Christmas, but the kids always enjoy decorating so much we drag it all out for them. We usually take a leisurely few days to put everything out, stepping around or in or on boxes as we go.

Once the Little People nativity set was out the boys grabbed the proper men to guard Baby Jesus, as they've taken to doing each year. I'm not sure if the one at the top was overwhelmed by the Spirit or what. I'll have to hunt down pictures of the kids decorating the tree. I guess there are few somewhere....perhaps I will put them in the December post, which will happen next summer.

On November 30 we went to Rebecca's for our annual Gingerbread House party.

Here we are, destroying her house.

This year I found a gingerbread tree at the store, which was almost more fun to decorate than the house. It was definitely easier to put together. We outsmarted those things with hot glue this time, instead of icing. Icing is apparently only sticky when it's either on the floor or your hands. It's not an approved material for residential construction.

Elizabeth worked on hers for well over an hour. Maybe one day she'll be a Pinterest junkie.

The houses went home with us and stayed on the counter for a month. It's curious how pieces go missing every now and then. Occasionally there's a gap in the roofline, or one of the gum drop shrubberies disappears. It's a mystery.

And that's a wrap on Novemeber in July.

We finished camp last week, and the kids and I are visiting the family in McDonough we haven't seen since May. There's a great big group at camp this week, so we had to leave James in Cleveland. We'll see how much I can get done on another post while I'm here. Next week we fly into another school year. The summer whizzed by at an unbelieveable speed and I"m still wondering where it went!

Okay, I'm on to December. Bye!