Leah's Baby Shower

Leah's baby shower was Jan 9th, so yes I am still way behind...she had a wonderful shower, Grace Schlosser put it on for her and she had between 30 and 35 people there, a great turn out plus she got some much needed baby items. Leah and the cookie basket which was sent by Chris's Mom, the cookies were too pretty to eat!

We played the TP game, Chloe guessed way too much, I guess Leah is not as big around as she looks!

Leah and Courtney, Courtney kept notes for Leah on all the gifts and did a great job.

Kandice made the cake it was awesome, we still have the baby on the top, it was so detailed you could count the fingers and toes on the baby and yes the blanket was removable! It also tasted great! The little star by the bow said, "Its a Boy" Great job Kandice.

I made the diaper cake and even if I say so myself I think it turned out pretty good for my first attempt! Can't wait to make another one!

Isabellas Birthday Party

Celebrating Isabellas Bday was such fun, she is such a sweet little girl, I am so glad she is one of our granddaughters! Her party had a Little Mermaid theme and Kandice made the cake as always it was beautiful!

New Years with the Anderson's

I know I am behind, way behind...but promise I will catch up one of these days! Anyway this is New Years at our house, with family and friends. We played this really neat game that the Schlosser family shared with us, you wrap gifts, small items, things you dont want need anymore and set them in a pile, you then take turns rolling 5 dice, in order to pick a gift you have to have 3 matching dice, 3 fives, 3 twos etc. All gifts are opened at the end, then you take turns rolling the dice to steal a gift from someone else, there is a timer on that 15 mins and the same gift can only be taken once, it was a lot of fun.

Christmas Day

We had a wonderful Christmas Day, seeing family and friends, as I look back it seems like I could have taken more photos to capture the moments.

The Children and Grandchildren are growing up much to fast! We missed those family members who could not be there with us.

At this time of the year my father always comes to mind and how much he loved this season of giving. I could not help but think how much he would have enjoyed all these little ones we have been blessed with.

Christmas Eve

We nearly always spend Christmas Eve with the Price family unless they are out of town or we are, I am not sure how many years we have been doing this for but it seems like forever, we have seen our families change. At the end of the evening we gather everyone around for family photos a fun time shared with family and friends.

Our Annual Trip to DC & the Big Blizzard of 09

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

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.