Merry Christmas 2009! I won't be publishing many early morning photos, atleast until I'm sure that the bribes are all paid...but here is a mild version of what I'm offering. My girls "trying on" their new clothes..

*************************************

After the packages under the tree were unwrapped, breakfast was eaten, coffee consumed
and we were all awake and really dressed, we jumped in my new red sleigh and went south.


We had a great time at Mom's, eating way too much food, and opening all of these packages!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

++++++++++++++++++++++

And now we are back home, snug in our beds with new pajamas.

Good Night...

Saturday

Hiking in the park near our house

Horseback riding lessons

smile!

happy happy joy joy!

no more braces!

On Halloween night this evil doctor operated on a helpless girl, replacing her head, both ears and hands, as well as a little meddling in her brain and some dentistry. Why can't they just be princesses?

Later that night Casey really did begin to fall apart. While eating a butterfinger, her tooth fell out. She almost ate it, too.

Halloween 'Boofet'

The girls and I had fun at the Halloween Party and Buffet tonight.

Casey, the beautiful Drama Queen.
Alex, scary Miss Transylvania, and her Date, Skinny Bones.

I am the Wicked Witch!

October

October 3 Girls Night Out! Rhonda, Trudi, Beth and me at the Macaroni Grill at the Mall of Georgia.

Where does the girl stop and the horse begin? Alex is horse crazy!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

October 15, 15 years...

To celebrate our anniversary, Dave and I left the kids at home and went to the races! The horse races at Keeneland in Lexington, Kentucky to be exact. We had a great time and even came away with a little change left in our pockets.

The very first race I put my money on a horse named Magical Prize, #4, my lucky number. She was a long shot, and she won, making me and two or three other people very happy. But that was about the extent of my luck, and Dave didn't have much luck either. A few other horses came in for us, but Magical Prize was the star of our weekend. This is the start of the race, she's near the back with the yellow number 4...

Two more of my horses. Look great, but not winners today.

I made Dave follow this truck until it occurred to me that it might not actually be carrying coffee...a girl can dream, can't she??

Flooding at Brookfield

All of this rain has left a big mess at Dave's golf course. Here you can see the roof of the bathrooms at #14.

The cart path going down to #15

Looking down Oakhaven Dr from the #13 Tee Box

rain, rain and more rain

I emptied the rain gauge this morning at 8am. It only holds 4 inches, and we got that and more over the weekend. At 2:30 this afternoon it was already back up to 3 1/2 inches. In addition to the rain, the pond above ours is running over it's banks and rushing down to us. Ours is supposed to drain down into a creek. Guess it can't keep up!

I don't know where this water is coming from! Didn't know there was another pond back there...

Out in the Garden

Fall is here, and we are loving being out in the garden now that it's not soooo hot! The plants are loving the cooler weather, too...

The toad lilies are opening there tiny petals, and the shasta daisy is threatening to overtake us all.

We have a bumper crop of lettuce started, and with our new guard cat, we hope to scare off anyone thinking of eating it before we get a chance!

The caterpillars have finally arrived to eat the parsley and fennel I planted just for them.

And Casey finally got to dig the sweet potatoes. Wow! hope she's hungry!!

All dressed up...

to go to a wedding. Our cousin Tricia's wedding was beautiful and we had fun visiting with our North Georgia cousins.

The mother of the bride

The bride, and our oh so photogenic little cousin Sophia.

What to do on a Three Day Weekend

We spent our Labor Day Weekend with Nana and Papa Smith! They arrived on Friday night, and we had a full weekend planned.
We had a great time at the Chattahoochee Nature Center. They have brand new trails to wander down and it was a perfect day to spend outdoors

We also went to Stone Mountain.

The mountain was beautiful, but there was a lot more to do there. The girls really wanted to try the ropes course, Sky High, but the line was so long, we decided to try the mini course and come back later in the day to try the ropes.

The girls tried out the zip line and Casey made it all the way to the top of the rock wall. Alex tried it and decided it really wasn't her thing...

We took the Sky Cab to the top of the mountain where the view was awesome. We stayed up there quite a while just enjoying the sights.

Even though it was so nice just lounging around on top of a mountain, what goes up must come down, and so we did.

We stopped in at the 4D movie to get splashed and then finally, finally, finally...the girls got to try the ropes course. Dave went up with them and they all thought it as great fun!

We had celebrated Papa's birthday on Saturday night with steaks on the grill, so for Nana's birthday on Monday we went to the Olive Garden.


Yummm, Nana can't take her eyes off this cake...