Merry Christmas to All!

From our family to yours...

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Time's A Comin'

This past Saturday was the annual Ashe County Christmas Parade.  Yes, it's early for one but the Ashe High School Band is in high demand all through December and the town decided to always do the parade in November so the band can be part of it.  We look forward to this all year long!

 Cade boy was a little worried about the volume and decided he wanted to camp out in the back of the car.

 We brought bags for the candy they love to give out.  Unfortunately, Mary Fran wasn't in a festive mood yet.

 Ward was!

 He heard the parade was starting and decided to get ready.

 It's started!!

 Charlie Brown Christmas!

 Mater made an appearance this year...

 ...along with many classic cars!

 Some of the many wonderful veterans in our county

 Tiny racing cars

 Max from "Where the Wild Things Are"

 courtesy of our Ashe County Library.  We LOVE our Library! 

 Ward said, "MONSTER TRUCK!!!"

 Happy Tails Pet Store with tutus on their dogs

 Yes, we have our own wrestling league.  Impressed?  Yes, I know you are.

 The procession of Fire Trucks has started!  Like Drew said, "I don't care how old you are.  There's just something about a row of Fire Trucks with lights going and horns blaring."

 Pumped

 Horses and riders from Happy Trails Church

And, of course, Santa completed it riding on an old fashioned West Jefferson Fire Engine

I tell ya, if you come to the Ashe County Christmas Parade, no other parade will do it for you ever again.  We love where we live!

Toothless

Back in June the Ward boy had an unfortunate accident with Dustin and Daphne's little rock wall.  He was walking on it, one rock slipped, down he went, "chip" went the tooth.  That's right, the poor guy chipped his right front tooth.  The next day we went to the dentist and the X-rays looked fine, so a little sealant went on his tooth and we hoped for the best!  And he's been great until last week when he told us it hurt when he ate.  An appointment last Friday confirmed that the tooth was now dead, a small abscess had formed, and it needed to be pulled.  Well, this big boy was excited and wanted it pulled that day!  However, Dr. Jenkins thought it best to give some antibiotics to clear up the infection so the anesthetic would work better.

Well, this morning was the morning and Wardy boy was pumped!  He couldn't wait to go get his tooth pulled!  The two of us hopped in the car and off we went.  Of course, we had to have a picture before...

 ...and after!

And let me tell you, this boy was super brave!  He even had Dr. Jenkins bragging on him!  He has now informed us that we are to call him "Toothless" (from "How to Train Your Dragon").  He completes that request with a ROAR!

Happy Fall, Y'all!

 



The "All in One" Birthday Party

 This post in two months in the making, I know.  Here's the deal, though, once we got to the park I realized I had left the camera at home.  Thankfully, Aunt Molly told me she'd share her pictures with me.  Unfortunately, I kept forgetting to get her memory card until recently.  Yes, yes.  Excuses, excuses.
Anywho, we decided to have the chil'uns' birthday party at a park we had spied across the lake from our campground back in May.  It had a nice swimming area and playground and what else is there when you're a kid?  Very much unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate and it was chilly, overcast, and threatening to rain.  All things considered the shelter was nice as well as all the assorted play spaces.

Mary Fran and LeeAnne jumped right on the swings that were right at the picnic shelter.  Two peas in a pod!

Showing his cousin, Julee, some lovin'.

Evie and her Granddaddy

While Drew was cooking up the hamburgers all the kiddos and a handful of adults headed down to the big playground.  After some nice, tame playing there was a request for a Shark Attack.  Mommy/Aunt Fran was more than happy to oblige and off they went!

Best Buds!!

After a little rest the shark was back on the prowl.  LeeAnne looked like a tasty morsel!

Fearless, just fearless

I never tire of that smile...

Just checking on things down below!

Love these two girls!

I'm not sure exactly what the conversation was but my guess is that Ward is trying to decide whether or not to believe Uncle Grayson.  Wise one, he is.

Plethora of presents for 4 young 'uns!

The cakes.  Everyone wanted green except for Mary Fran.  Surprised?

Grandmama and some of her girls

Gettin' their eat on!  Wardy was a little down in the mouth because he had recently spilled his drink.  When you rarely get sugary drinks, that's a big deal!

Now Cade with his Granddaddy

Again, I'm not quite sure what happened but it seems the kiddos decided to gang up on Uncle Grayson.

Can somebody help the old boy, please?!?!

We're lighting the candles...

...and blowing them out!  Not sure many ate Cade's cake.



Ward perked up at the prospect of some cake!  All better now!

 Just for posterity's sake!

Thankfully, the rain held off until right when we got into the cars to leave.  What a blessing!

 This one wasn't at the party but I just had to include it.  This about sums up their relationship.  She calls the boys "bothersome brothers."



Trying to Catch Up

Yes, I know that before the post yesterday it had been almost 2 months since my last post.  I apologize and am going to try to rectify that...soon.  "That's all I'm going to say about that."

In the "rectification" vein here is a video of some trampoline shenanigans...

FIELD TRIP!!!!

Oh, how we love a field trip.  The kiddos do, too. :)  Last week we were learning about the different layers of the Earth.  One thing we learned was that under our soil is the crust containing sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous rock.  Here is where living in the mountains is an advantage.  We looked up Linville Caverns on the Internet and had a great time perusing the site and all its pictures and decided a field trip this week would be in order.

Today was the day and we set out after breakfast.  It was a beautiful drive of only about 45 minutes or so watching how the leaves are changing at different stages as we drove up and down in the mountains.  You know, I was reminded how blessed we are to get to live here and not just visit...

And now to our regularly scheduled program, we arrived and got our tickets.  For myself and the kiddos it was only $24 which I thought was very reasonable!  They also give discounts to homeschoolers with your NC DNPE discount card (which I didn't have but will from now on).  Tours start every 15 minutes which is nice so you don't have to wait long and the groups are small.

We went down into the cavern and this is what we saw...

 Trout...that are blind...because they have always lived in total darkness in the cavern.  Actually, that's only partly true.  The way the cavern was discovered was by some fishermen in the early 1800's when they saw fish swimming in and out of what seemed solid rock.  They found a small opening and began exploring and found the underground stream and beautiful rock formations.  It opened for public touring in 1937.

 Of course, the cavern is littered with stalactites and stalagmites and this is one of the largest.  The green stuff is copper.  There is algae growing near the lights because of the heat they put off but this is copper.  They call it the "Guess What" rock because it looks like different things to different people.  Our children thought it looked like a seal.  I won't tell you what I thought it looked like.

 This was one of my favorite parts of the tour.  First, do you see that faint outline above and to the right of the light?  That's a fossilized sand dollar!  Second, and my favorite part, is a line running through the very middle of the picture through the rock in the background.  That would be the Eastern Continental Divide, folks!  A fault line!  Never seen one in person!  (Yes, I'm a science nerd)  Our tour guide said that even though we have had some tremors in the last several years there has been no shifting of the rock at the line and no damage in the cavern.

 It's hard to tell but the stuff on the shelf is called "cave coral."  It looks like coral in person and is a rock formation. 

 In the top middle of the picture is a column.  That would be here a stalactite and stalagmite join up.

It may be hard to see here but over to the left are what I would describe as "slivers."  If you can see them, know that that is called "cave bacon."  Not edible, of course, but very beautiful...as all bacon is.

We had a wonderful day on our field trip and I would highly recommend making the trek to Linville Caverns if you're in the area!