Memorial Day Weekend - Part II

Here are a few more pictures from our fun weekend with the Smith Family and Emma. In case any of you are wondering, we have noticed that our camera takes horrible pictures and we are just procrastinating buying a new one. Part of me is afraid that if we buy something, Canon will come out with a newer, better model the very next day.

The kids watched Nancy Drew in Emma's room on her mini TV. I'm sure Ella got a lot out of the movie. :-) Ty appears to be more interested in a roll of tape than the movie.

At one point, Andy took the kids for a ride on his lawn mower. I'm not sure who had more fun...Andy or Ty. Actually, Ty loves all kinds of cars and he has figured out how to make an engine noise by, essentially, rolling his R's. He does that all the time and I think it's funny to think of all the adults out there who can't roll their R's when they speak Spanish etc.
Here are the Smith kids in the hammock. They played in the back yard quite a bit.

We also had a Smith Family favorite--SCONES!!! Mmmm. That brought back good memories of making scones on Sunday night.

Arick, Emma and Brianna played Wii quite a bit. Amy bought it just a couple days before coming out here and the kids had a blast. Someone...I won't mention any names, was so into Wii that he was complaining of a sore bicep the next day.

We also ended up getting an American flag. So now we can be patriotic. Andy led a flag-raising ceremony and helped Emma, Arick and Ty hang the flag on our flagpole. I also figured out why we most likely have a flagpole. The house was built in 2002...which was after 2001...which is when 9-11 was. Everyone was super patriotic back then.

Memorial Day Weekend - Part I

We had a great weekend with Andrew and Amy in town. It was even more fun to have Emma visit as well. Andy and I have never had a more entertaining Memorial Day weekend!! It was so much fun to watch the kids play together and to take everyone to some of the fun places around here like the Children's Museum and the beach. They also had a lot of fun playing with the Wii Emma was able to come over and play during at least part of each day from Friday through Monday. She loved her room and was excited to get to play with my nieces and nephews. She and Brianna got along so well you would have thought they had been best friends for years! Emma is also the same age as Arick (for a few more months, anyway) and they had a great time as well.

Here are a few pictures from the Children's Museum. This is Captain Ty. He was quite enamoured with the pirate ship and took his navigational responsibilities very seriously.
This is Ella playing with some of the sea shells.
This is Bri and Emma all dressed up and singing "I'm a Little Tea Pot".

We also spent most of the Memorial Day Holiday at the beach. We went very early and got a great parking space by 8am. We stayed until about 1pm and everyone had a blast. Andrew, feeling nostalgic, purchased a boogie board and taught Bri, Arick and Emma how to boogie board. It was very entertaining. The water was not too cold and there was not any seaweed, so it was great.

Here's Arick showing off his mad skills.
I couldn't remember who Ella reminded me of in her little cover up until it hit me like a ton of bricks! She's Maggie Simpson.









Here are the boogie boarders.


I'm running out of time, so I'll have to post more pictures later.

I guess I'm it.

Rules:

A. Post the rules
B. Answer all the questions about yourself
C. After you are done posting, tag 5 people

1. What were you doing 10 years ago:

I was feeling overwhelmed. I had arrived in Taiwan and was working hard at learning Chinese and getting the hang of being a missionary.

2. Five things on your to do list today:

1 - Finish up the Investment Plan for the Field CRT.
2 - Use my feminine guile to get a wire sent out ASAP for a client. ;-)
3 - Go grocery shopping for a side dish for Andy's work party.
4 - Make Pea Salad for said work party.
5 - Lament that working from home precludes me from above-mentioned social distractions. Just kidding. Finalize plans and activities for this weekend's visit with Andrew & Amy and family and Emma.

3. Five snacks I enjoy:

1 - milk chocolate!!!
2 - Fruit (specifically, Mangoes)
3 - Kettle Corn Popcorn
4 - ice cream
5 - brownies (not really a snack, but I do enjoy 'em)

4. What would you do if you suddenly became a millionaire:

How much notice do I have? Assuming I can open an off-shore account first, I'd...
1 - Pay tithing
2 - invest about $300,000 for long term and possibly live off the interest.
3 - Quit the ole jobba-ru and take up ridiculous hobbies that could potentially turn into money makers like online scrap booking, ceramics, recording a CD etc.
4 - TRAVEL or maybe pay for peoples' plane tickets to come visit me.
5 - Pay down the mortgage but not pay it off because of tax benefits of paying a mortgage.

5. Five things people don't know about me:
1 - When I get really upset, I tend to silently fume and feel the need to state my concerns in a way that expresses exactly what I'm feeling without offending other people. I'm very conscientious in that regard.
2 - My favorite candy bar is Butterfinger. But I am an equal-opportunity candy bar eater.
3 - I have veneers.
4 - I am not very competitive. I'd rather make everyone a winner.
5 - When I was a kid, I thought it would be so cool to have an ice cream shop on the beach with an apartment above the ice cream shop where I would live.

* As a bonus, I found out yesterday that we have a gardenia bush in our front yard!! It's big and in a matter of days we will have more blossoms than we will know what to do with. It made my day! I love love love the smell of gardenias. We also planted our fig tree last night and there was a rain/lightening storm. It appears to have survived the trauma just fine.

Mow, Andy! Mow!!!

This is Andy actually making a contribution to the BLOG - although the pictures were added by Jamie. Our TV was cracked during the move so I went out and bought a 47 inch HD Vizio TV in the pictures below. After getting accused of purposely rigging the TV to break so I could get a new one, we decided to give it away for free on Craigslist and someone quickly came to get it and after buying an $11 mirror had it working again.

The riding mower is fun and makes the task more enjoyable. The best part of it is that it is the same lawn mower Forrest Gump has.

More pics

OK, here are a couple more pictures of the house. I've been at the North Carolina Guardianship Association Conference for the last two days, so I have nothing else to blog about. So far, I'm learning that Guardianships out here are handled VERY differently than in California, Arizona and Nevada. Hopefully I will be able to make some good contacts though. Anyway...

Here's our bedroom:


It's a lot larger than our old bedroom and our furniture almost seems small. We love it!

Here are pictures of our back yard. We have a garden. A garden full of weeds. I did, however, call a guy today who calls himself "Johnny Fig Tree" about buying a fig tree. He assured me that the figs are tasty and they grow very well in this climate. I've liked figs ever since I had one at Grandma's house years and years ago. So hopefully that will work out and we will have our first fruit-bearing tree. I did notice this week that we have hydrangea in our back yard. Wouldn't you know, one of the few flowers I really don't enjoy.


Here's a picture of my office. It's not completely organized yet, but it's getting there.

You asked for it...

This is a picture of the front of our house. We really don't know what to do with the flag pole. If we take it down, our neighbors will think we're unpatriotic. If we leave it up, we have to fly the American Flag--which means we will not only have to buy one, but we will have to take it down when it rains and call in the boy scouts to fold it properly. 'Tis a quandary. The other option is to keep our neighbors guessing by flying a variety of flags on occasion...the only flag I own is a Taiwanese flag, we could also fly BYU or UCLA flags on game days, a Hawaiian flag would certainly keep people guessing, or we could come up with our own flag design if we wanted to. The possibilities are endless. All I know is that if we are here long enough to have teenagers...who will have sleepovers...some one's underwear is going up that thing! And it better not be mine!

Before and After

Due to a long, Sunday afternoon nap, I can't sleep. I decided to post some before and after pictures of our place. Please note that we have not decided exactly where everything will go (especially pictures) and have not gotten a few essentials like curtains and area rugs. So maybe this should be more of a "Before and During" post.

Living Room - Before

Living Room - During


Dining Room - Before

Dining Room - During


Guest Room - After


Guest Bath - Before

Guest Bath - After

Pig Pickin'

Today, Andy and I went to our first "Pig Pickin". Our ward had a picnic behind the church building where they have a picnic pavillion and softball field. In North Carolina, the term BBQ refers to shredded pork cooked in a vinegar-based sauce. Honestly, I think it tastes VERY similar to Kalua Pig--just less salty. Oh and the other thing that is very "North Carolina" is to put cole slaw on your BBQ sandwich. I rather like the concept.

The Pig Pickin' gave us a chance to get to know people better. Everyone is very nice. There's a really funny old lady in the ward, Miss Peggy (in the south, all the ladies are a "Miss" something or other), she is the ward greeter and she came over at one point to chat with us and she has the greatest, most bubbly personality. She's always warning us about the Yankies and has let us know that we're ok because we're not really Yankies...just Westerners. I guess that's not as bad.

We met several families...mostly because Andy would just walk right up to people, stick out his hand and say, "Hi. I'm Andy". He caught more than one person off guard. I think one lady thought he was going to sell her insurance or something.

Anyway we rounded out our day by running a ton of errands to pick up a bunch of things we need for the house. I'm having curtain dilemmas for the LR and dining room. But the house is coming together quite nicely. I hope to have pictures up pretty soon. Be patient with me. I'm trying to get Andy to post about his latest purchases as well.

Pictures from our visit with A&A's family

It was really fun to visit the Smith clan in TN. The kids are getting so big!! It will be nice to be a little closer to them. They are planning on coming out for Memorial Day weekend to see our place and go to the beach. So that will be fun!
Arick and Brianna had to go to the dentist while we were there. The dentist's office had some really great toys--including an electric rocking horse. The kids loved it.

We also made a gingerbread choo-choo train. They were pretty excited about that.



Before we left, we blew bubbles with Ty and Ella.

Pictures from our cross-country drive

I wanted to take pictures of our drive across country. I soon learned that everything West of Oklahoma is very desolate and everything east of Oklahoma is rather green. So here are a few random pictures.
This was taken somewhere in Arizona:

This was taken as we entered into New Mexico:

This was where we just so happened to stop and switch drivers. The Continental Divide!! Yay!
These were some windmills converting the wind into power in Texas. I decided that Al Gore or someone ought to set out a ton of solar panels in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas so we could eliminate pollution that comes from converting coal to energy. I don't think anyone would complain at the loss of....nothingness.

This is what we saw as we were leaving Oklahoma...a bunch of students making their way to an FFA Convention!! Napoleon, anyone?

This is the Oklahoma City Bombing memorial. It was really cool.

This was taken in either Arkansas or Tennessee. It was one of the MANY gas stations we stopped at along the way.

This is Andy cleaning the windshield. For someone who hates a dirty windshield (me), driving across country is not an enjoyable activity.

This was taken as we crossed the Mississippi River in Tennessee.

This was where I started to slack off about taking pictures. I think this was in Tennessee. We stopped at a BBQ Pit to have lunch and switch drivers.
Once we made it to North Carolina, we figured we should stop off and see the Duke Univ. Campus. It really is beautiful.