Quality Family Time

We had a fabulous time last weekend when our younger son Brian and his adorable girlfriend Alli flew in from Kansas to visit us. It was Kevin's first time meeting Alli and it's unanimous... we ALL love her.
The two of them arrived in Charlotte at about 9:30 Friday evening. It's about a 2 hour drive, so we got home pretty late. The next day, we all slept in a bit and then I made waffles for breakfast. The kids wanted to visit Swan Lake so we hopped in the car and drove over there.
That evening Katie had to babysit, but the rest of us had fun playing games. We taught Alli how to play Pennsylvania Dutch Rummy and Spades!
Sunday morning we woke up and went to church. (Great sermon by the way.) Then we came home, had lunch and drove out to Poinsett State Park for a 3 miles hike. More games for Sunday evening. And then sadly we had to drive back to the airport on Monday afternoon.
It was a great weekend. It just flew by as all good ones do. I kept wishing that Jake and Megan could have been here too. But, I am looking forward to everyone being here for Christmas!!!

Brian posing at Swan Lake.

Brian gives Alli a piggyback ride. Good thing she's tiny!

Katie Alli and Brian at Swan Lake.

Katie and Brian at Poinsett State Park.

The kids making lunch.

(That is bagel bites surrounding a little pizza in case you were wondering.)

Brian and Alli at beautiful Poinsett State Park.

Brian and Alli at the Charlotte Airport as they got ready to go back to cold Kansas!

October Pinkness

I usually try to turn my blog pink for October. Haven't had time yet this month though.
But, I wanted to let you all know that my friend Peg is offering up some goodies at her blog- Webbmania in order to spread the word about Breast Cancer Awareness.
Coincidentally I have a mammogram scheduled!

Poinsett State Park

Yesterday was a gorgeous day and Kevin suggested we check out Poinsett State Park. South Carolina has the prettiest parks! I was excited to find out they rent out cabins at this park. Really cool cabins that were built in the 1930s. I hinted to Kevin that it would be a nice birthday weekend retreat. Hopefully he takes the hint.
We went to the park and walked the Coquina trail which was a little over one and a half miles. They have several trails and I can't wait to go try another. This park is only about 10 miles from our house.
There are alligators at this park. I thought I saw one, but can't be sure. That was scary. The funniest thing happened this morning. Kevin and Katie were on their way out the front door. He was taking her to school. They were surprised to see a hummingbird that seemed to be disoriented and kept bouncing off the ceiling of the porch. Kevin tried getting her to go off the porch, but she wouldn't. He was late leaving and had to go, but before he left he gave me a branch and told me to try and get her to land on it and then move her off the porch that way. So, I tried it and it worked Poor little thing. She probably had a pretty good headache after that. I didn't get any pictures, but here is a some pics of one of our little hummingbirds from this week. We also took a pic last week of these 2 hummingbirds on the back deck. THey were acting quite strange. And kept hitting eachother's beaks. And then one seemed to be sitting on the others' head. Kevin actually snapped a pic of it from the back door.
Not sure what that was about. Silly birds!
Brian and Alli are coming to visit in 2 days! I am beyond excited!!!
Blessings!

A La SWIFT

It's Saturday night. The Nationwide race is on TV. Kevin is trying to clean the carpets in Katie's car (for the 2nd time). And Katie is up in her room. And I've been sitting here looking at the pictures and videos Katie took at the concert last night.
Katie and I drove to Greenville, SC to see Taylor Swift yesterday. Katie had made all of the arrangements for us. She bought the concert tickets and booked us a really nice room at the Holiday Inn not far from the arena.

Katie has been a HUGE Taylor Swift fan since Taylor first came on the country music scene. I was excited for her to be able to actually go see her in person. And we had a great time. The opening acts were "Gloriana"

and

Kellie Pickler.

They were both pretty good too.
And then came Taylor. What a show! She sang all but 2 of the songs from her "Fearless" album and about 5 from her first CD.

She started out in her marching band uniform singing "You Belong with Me" and ended with "Should've Said No" with the rain coming down on her just like she did it at the awards show.
At one point she appeared in the audience and walked down to a small revolving platform and sang my favorite song of the new CD- "Hey Stephen".

Taylor was a great performer and she got emotional a couple of times. She seems to take it all in and not take the applause for granted. She is certainly not a spoiled Diva at this point in her career and I hope she keeps her charming down to earth personality.
Katie and I got up this morning and drove the little over 2 hours back home. Katie says it all feels like a dream.

But I know it's one mother/daughter time neither of us will soon forget.

My Prayer

Our Wildelife...

I've had a couple of pretty cool things happen this week I thought I would share.
On Tuesday morning when I woke up there were 5 deer in the backyard. It's very unusual for us to see them in broad daylight and the sun was already out. I took a few pictures from the picture window in the kitchen. They aren't very good because I didn't want to scare them away, so I didn't get too close to the window. You can see they were watching the house pretty closely.

Then yesterday I heard a thump on the window and went to the deck to see which of the birds had the collision. I was surprised to see a little female hummingbird laying flat on her back. We've had all sorts of birds hit the window and sadly, even had one fatality. But, I've never seen it be a hummingbird that ran into the window. They can stop in midair so I didn't expect that at all. I picked her up and placed her in a shoebox so a cat wouldn't happen upon her for his midday meal. I was surprised at how soft she was!!! She was breathing very heavily, but was conscious. I grabbed my camera for a picture. After a few minutes, I went inside to get her a drink. Katie was holding the box and while I was inside, Fiona (as we fondly call her) found the strength to fly away when another hummingbird flew by.

As you can see, I've really been trying to update more lately.
I want to thank you so much for visiting.

Parallel Parking

When Kevin got home from work last night, he helped Katie practice parallel parking. I toook advantage of the photo op and grabbed my camera and took a few pictures. I love Mondays cuz Kevin wears his BLUES.
Thank you for visiting me.

Blessings to YOU!

ETA- I found this great website with Parallel Parking advice!!!
Here you go!