thegoodlife6

Our Annual Trip to DC & the Big Blizzard of 09

noreply@blogger.com (The Good Life) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:45:00 +0000

This past weekend we took our annual trip up to Washington, we left Thursday afternoon and arrived in DC late, we had planned on staying through Sat evening and driving back home late Sat, however the best laid plans are almost always at the mercy of the weather, we knew that DC was expecting snow but we had no idea just how much until late Friday, we debated driving back that night but decided to wait it out!! We were able to get a trip in to the Zoo where we all but froze, it was a chilly but sunny day. Needless to say we took in most of the indoor exhibits.

For dinner Friday night we took David, Jenny and Ryan to "Fogo de Chao" a Brazilian style restaurant, it was wonderful, this was a late celebration for David's birthday.

We also managed to get over to the Temple, enjoy the lights and the programs, we watched Ryan, (great fun) at the visitors center while Jenny and David did a session.

Sat morning we woke up to snow, lots of it, it was beautiful and coming down heavy, so we decided we better get on the road ASAP! The roads were almost deserted and it was almost a complete whiteout by the time we reached Fredericksburg, we left DC at around 10:30am and arrived home 6:30 pm you can do the math, from DC to Fredericksburg we didn't get over 35mph and we were lucky in places to be able to do that.

I think that this is the most snow my car has ever seen!!

OBX Storm Damage

noreply@blogger.com (The Good Life) — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 20:44:00 +0000

Today Charlie and I rode down to the Outer Banks to check on the beach house, it was fine, thankfully! Others were less fortuate then us, most lost their steps going over the dunes to the beach the first is a picture of just that. In places it looked like the dunes had been cut in half, we rode down at low tide and in places we had to drive through waves. The road behind the dunes, this is the main road for the residents of Carova and for the fire station while we were there they were running drainage pipes and pumps to the beach to drain off the water.

This shot is south of our house and the posts you see sticking up are the remains of sand fencing which prior to the storm had been completely covered with dunes. It was weird some areas of the coast were untouched and other sections were totaly devastated. Looking at the picture below there appears to be a lot of beach but this is not so if you consider that prior to the storm this was mostly dunes. with 50 some feet to the ocean

The house is the first house after ours and was just sold for a ridiculous sum of money so the new owner had never used it, now it will be condemed because the septic system was washed out as was the house next to it, about 20 years ago these two houses were behind the dunes.

Below 2 washed out septic tanks.

Exposed sand fencing minus the dunes

View from our driveway looking North

The only damage we had was some trash washed up our driveway and in less then 30 mins we had it cleared, we feel very blessed.

Trunk or Treat

noreply@blogger.com (The Good Life) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 11:47:00 +0000

I think that this is the 3rd year for doing Trunk or Treat at our place, its really alot of fun especially as we no longer have little ones to dress up and get ready for Halloween.

We have soups and of course Trunk or Treat and a haunted hayride through the woods and spooky movies in the barn

Ryan didnt quite know what to make of all the weird costumes, he was a fireman, his Dad, David was fire and Jenny was the firemans mascot...a dalmation!

Indiana Weekend

noreply@blogger.com (The Good Life) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 02:35:00 +0000

Weekend in Indiana with Sarah, Ed and Kids, has been fun and fast, we have picked pumpkins, played at the park made caramel apples, Sarah did a 3-D/4-D ultra sound for leah and while we were there we played around taking prego pics

Fun, fun, fun!

Sunshine dogs and kids

noreply@blogger.com (The Good Life) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 15:04:00 +0000

Getting behind again on my updates, these pics were taken on the 19th after days and days of rain, it was so nice to see the sunshine and have warmer temps back again
a brief respite before the winter comes for good!

Brighton

noreply@blogger.com (The Good Life) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:23:00 +0000

Our Last day or at least part of it was spent at Brighton, the rest of the day we spent driving to be closer to the airport for our departure the next day, I love the seaside in England, there's nothing quite like it.

and what trip would be complete with out a bowl of cockles and mussels. When I was a kid and my Mum you used to get these I would think, gross! Now I love them...I guess its in the blood!

Foxton Locks

noreply@blogger.com (The Good Life) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:11:00 +0000

On Monday Sept 21, we spent the day on a Narrow boat. This is something I have always wanted to do, although it was planned for this trip, I was glad that we were able to go..it was a wonderful relaxing day on the water, very peaceful. For lunch we docked the boat and walked through some cow pastures to a village pub for lunch and then walked back to the boat and resumed our trip. For more info on the locks visit the following link.

http://www.foxtonlocks.com/sections/visit/

For more info on Narrow boats go to the following link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrowboat
This is something I would like to do again maybe for longer, a week would be good! Or maybe a whole month!

Shuttleworth

noreply@blogger.com (The Good Life) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:50:00 +0000

This was a wonderful unexpected day, we didnt have very much planned and Ron suggested we go check out Shuttleworth, I am so glad we did! thier usual exhibts were closed for a special fair, everything from sheep (in this case Geese herding) sheep shearing and steam driven engines, the last was my favourite because it bought back so many memories just from the smells of riding the old steam trains to Robertsbridge when I was a child, we even saw them making jacket potatoes (Baked potatoes) in the steam engines.

Upper Dean

noreply@blogger.com (The Good Life) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:02:00 +0000

Our next stop following Cambridge was Upper Dean and High Street Farm, the home of my cousin Ron and his wife Liz. This was the only family members that we were able to visit on our trip I had hoped to visit some on my Dad's side but we ran out of time, plus we wanted to do as little driving as possible.

Upper Dean is very much rural and we enjoyed more country walks picking blackberries along the way, Charlie even helped Ron put up a gate in one of the horse pastures.

Cambridge

noreply@blogger.com (The Good Life) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:42:00 +0000

we spent almost the whole day here, lots of pictures had a hard time deciding which ones to put up, in after thought we should have done the park and ride thing at Cambridge but found ourselves in Cambridge which was not too bad on arrival, but when we left we found ourselves battling rush hour traffic for a couple of hours of course it would have helped a great deal if we knew our way around Cambridge. Anyway it was a good day

Thaxted

noreply@blogger.com (The Good Life) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:34:00 +0000

A night and a day at Thaxted, Essex, we stayed at a nice little B&B right on the High Street named the Crossways, although not a planned stop on our trip Thaxted turned out to be a nice little Town, we woke up to an outdoor market on our front doorstep the following morning. Before leaving Thaxted we took a stroll through the market and round the town, and discovered this wonderful working windmill

and then it was off to Canterbury

Audley End House

noreply@blogger.com (The Good Life) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:20:00 +0000

On Sept 17 we visited Audley End House, it was beautiful and so much history, I just wish I could have taken photo's on the inside. We arrived there rather late in the day but did have time to take the full inside tour and to take in some of the grounds, the gardens were beautiful

For more info on Audley End Hse check out the link below.

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/nav.12088

Rye

noreply@blogger.com (The Good Life) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:41:00 +0000

After leaving Bodiam we drove down to the coast to Rye, an old Medieval port town, lots of old buildings and the home of several related Ashbee's. Later that evening we returned to Robertsbridge and a great dinner at the Seven Stars Pub

http://www.seven7stars.co.uk/

More tomorrow

Bodiam Castle

noreply@blogger.com (The Good Life) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:27:00 +0000

Our 2nd day at Robertsbridge we visited Bodiam Castle, at first we thought we would walk its about 3 miles, I remember doing this all the time as a kid so it couldn't be too bad, right, wrong we walked for about 5 miles and then decided to head back to the B&B and get the car. It was a nice walk though.

I love Bodiam Castle its my favourite Castle in England lots of good memories there, it used to be free when I was a kid, but probably not very well maintained. Now you have to pay to park and pay to get in. Any way it was a lovely day a little overcast but the temps were near perfect.

Our Getaway to England

noreply@blogger.com (The Good Life) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 14:22:00 +0000

Its probably going to take me several days to get this update done, our trip was kinda last minute, two weeks in the planning! We left for England Monday Sept 14, our first stop in England was Robertsbridge, East Sussex I spent a great deal of my childhood there it was the home of my maternal grandparents, pictured to the left (if this uploads correctly was the first home I remember visiting them in Robertsbridge, later they moved into a larger home right across the street. We did a lot of walking while we were there down through the village and around country lanes, lots of good memories. We spent two nights there before moving on.

Above a modern crop circle, we saw this on one of our walks
High Street, Robertsbridge has lots of old buildings dating back to the 1600s. We also made some friends on our country walks

We dined on blackberries they were in great abundance along the hedgerows.

Fair Lane the street my grandparents lived on.

Will probably make several more posts over the next few days, weeks, months etc about this trip. Unfortunately we did not get to do everything we would have liked to so we will just have to go again!

Crop Duster

noreply@blogger.com (The Good Life) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 23:32:00 +0000

This is the 2nd time this month that the crop duster has been out to spray the Soybean fields in our area...I consider my self luck to be able to capture it on camera. He is quite amazing to watch and I cant help but wonder would it would be like to be flying up there...part of me I think would love it and another part of me would be scared to death!

Night Fishing

noreply@blogger.com (The Good Life) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 11:17:00 +0000

Yesterday we went to the beach with Brian and Nicole, it was hot, hot, hot and both of them got sunburned and we only stayed a couple of hours. Then last night we went night fishing at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel pier, David joined us there later, okay the first photo is of me taking a nap between bites! Nicole made the first catch of the night and then Leah, the girls appeared to be better fisherman then the guys!

Charlie helping Leah with her catch

Looking for the "one that got away"
One of Leah's many catches unfortunatly he wont be dinner tomorrow, too small we threw him back!

Nicole and her big catch a Spot and a keeper! Way to go Nicole!
Waiting, waiting between catches..............................................

You gotta love this mess

noreply@blogger.com (The Good Life) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 03:24:00 +0000

Last Saturday, Ryan spent the afternoon at our house, so Jenny and David could do some car shopping. We had so much fun! I had forgotten how wonderful it is to have toys scattered throughout the house! I had to make cupcakes for my Primary kids and Ryan was a great help .....taste testing them that is! Later he helped grandpa clean out the barn and then they played in the pool, great day!

Triple R Ranch

noreply@blogger.com (The Good Life) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 23:41:00 +0000

A walk down memory lane, our oldest 3 children spent may happy weeks at Triple R Ranch when they were growing up....so when Kandice called and asked if I wanted to go out there with her this evening to pick up Chloe I jumped at the chance...so here's the pics, and by the way Chloe had a great time and the place has not changed much except for the addition of a new lodge air conditioned no less............lucky girl, her dad never had air conditioning when he went!

Our Trip

noreply@blogger.com (The Good Life) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:53:00 +0000

Some photos from our trip to Maine and Vermont and several states in between....
I would have liked to upload more photos but for some reason I have been having problems uploading photos, I keep getting error messages if any one has had this problem and can help me solve it????

First photo Kennebuckport, Maine, which was really nice and would go on my list of places that I would like to live if it was not so expensive

2nd & 3rd photo also taken in Salem
This photo was taken at Sugarbush Farm in Vermont our 2nd visit a first for Brian and Nicole.
I have to say our whole trip we really great the weather was beautiful only rained one night and that was while we were sleeping!

I have more photos on my facebook if you want to check them out.

Fitch goes to K-9 Camp

noreply@blogger.com (The Good Life) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:43:00 +0000

Okay as promised here's Fitch (Drum roll) at camp learning new tricks and fine tuning old ones at camp
along with Jordan

He thinks he is SuperDog!

and one really cool dog! How many dogs run the tunnel with shades on!

Dog Camp

noreply@blogger.com (The Good Life) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:25:00 +0000

Trying to catch up after a week of K-9 Camp for kids and their dogs, so much fun!
It runs Monday -Friday from 8-11 am and then Saturday we have a family picnic
and the kids and dogs get to show off their new skills.
Heres Maggie catching some shade while I taught the photography class

Followed by Jordan, Jill and Maggie at the barn for the craft class

On Tuesday bright and early in the morning we get group photos taken not bad for fifty some kids and their dogs!

Jill posing during the photography class, she pretending shes a big name sufer at the beach!
Fitch went too will post photos of him later.
He gets his own post!
Fun week, fun group of kids and great dogs

Happy Birthday Chloe

noreply@blogger.com (The Good Life) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:43:00 +0000

Chloes Birthday party was at Fuddruckers, it was a small party with parents, siblings and grandparents, great fun, Chloe was certainly the star of the show!

She blow out all the candles with one might puff, way to go Chloe

Kandice made the cake it was beautiful a masterpiece

Happy Birthday Chloe

I cant Believe its Friday already

noreply@blogger.com (The Good Life) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:33:00 +0000

I cannot believe that the weeks is almost over! The weather has been great some rain showers but mostley at night.
These photos are from some of our doings yesterday...

A friend of Charlie's, David Taylor came down for the day to do some fishing and bought Charlie's secretary, Kathy with him

Wild Horse Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (The Good Life) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:03:00 +0000

Visitors for breakfast...the Penny's Hill herd visits us at least once every year. Today was the day. They come up to the front porch and graze and fertilize our front yard.

This is papa
New Baby

Mama was camera shy