Christmas with Dad!

Dad's visit was great! We ate (oh the cheese!), laughed, and apparently (according to Mike) burped, all with reckless abandon :D

merry Christmas....and best wishes to all of us for a happy and healthy new year!

2 days and a wake-up!

Are you all packed up yet, Dad? Make sure you pack your Christmas stocking and your camera. We need to be better about pictures this time than we were last time! Make sure you leave enough room in your bag to bring presents home :)

Bummy, thanks for sharing the photos from the Christmas party! Why don't I see any pictures of you on the dance floor! It was great talking to you the other night. It sounds like you had a lot of fun at Disney!

PS: I think it was Cincinnati where there was the Gap inside the airport. That sounds about right because I've only been through that airport once. Plus, it couldn't be Philadelphia because I'd remember bathroom stalls like that!

it might be the philadelphia airport you are thinking of Kristin. I think it also has these great bathrooms. Instead of little stalls each one is a good size and has it's own sink. Never saw public restrooms like it before or since. I agree with your observation about the shopping versus annoying delays.
Does everbody have their tree up? Mine looks so pretty! I also put one up in my office at work. Everybody comes in there to get a shot of Christmas spirit. We had our Christmas party last week and one of the girls posted the pictures she took...if you would like to see them the address is:
www.plymouthhomedepotxmasparty2008.shutterfly.com
I won a digital photo album.

O'Hare

I don't Know that you two have ever been through ORD that I remember. Cincinnati, Atlanta, Charlotte, Philadelphia....Don't know about one with a mall. But yeah, I think that is the difference between men and women. Good observation!

Five days and a wake-up!!!!!!!

Shopping?

Isn't O'Hare the airport that has the mini mall inside? I feel like I remember Kate and I laying over in that airport and going shopping at a Gap! ....And this is the inherent difference between women and men. Men see an airport that is known for delays and just know it'll be bad, whereas women see an airport with a shopping opportunity and call it a good day! :)

Ho, Ho, Ho....

The year is flying by! I can't believe that Christmas is upon us all ready. I just came back from the Post Office, wow! They were happy to see me, I think I am keeping them afloat this quarter!

I am looking forward to my trip to Virginia. Not the flight, but getting to see Kristin and Kate will be great. Flying through O'HAre this trip. Not a fun thought, too many delays, etc. Flight times should be at the slowest part of the day to travel so keep your fingers crossed.

More to come soon.......

Christmas is coming!

It's hard to believe that we've already enjoyed Thanksgiving and Christmas is in just a few weeks! I hope I can get my shopping done in time!! I am really looking forward to having Dad come out and spend some time in VA. Hopefully we won't wear him out as badly as we did on Labor Day Weekend....though it was totally worth it!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING....Sure enjoyed that little story Kristin.
Hope everyone has a happy day and no indigestion. I am looking forward to my dinner and plan on overeating!
This is the year that Jons' birthday falls on Thanksgiving. If anyone would like to send him a happy birthday message his email address is jonnynan@gmail.com
I wrote that off the top of my head so if it is not correct I will let you know.
Once again "HAPPY THANKSGIVING"
love, Mom/Bummy

Thanksgiving

A young man named John received a parrot as a gift. The parrot had a bad attitude and an even worse vocabulary. Every word out of the bird's mouth was rude, obnoxious and laced with profanity.

John tried and tried to change the bird's attitude by consistently saying only polite words, playing soft music and anything else he could think of to "clean up" the bird's vocabulary.

Finally, John was fed up and he yelled at the parrot. The parrot yelled back. John shook the parrot and the parrot got angrier and even ruder. John, in desperation, threw up his hand, grabbed the bird and put him in the freezer. For a few minutes the parrot squawked and
kicked and screamed. Then suddenly there was total quiet.

Not a peep was heard for over a minute. Fearing that he'd hurt the parrot, John quickly opened the door to the freezer.

The parrot calmly stepped out onto John's outstretched arms and said "I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions. I'm sincerely remorseful for my inappropriate transgressions and I fully intend to do everything I can to correct my rude and unforgivable behavior."

John was stunned at the change in the bird's attitude. As he was about to ask the parrot what had made such a dramatic change in his behavior, the bird continued, "May I ask what the turkey did?"

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Thanksgiving Plans

Lisa and I are working Thanksgiving. Lisa was scheduled a shift at 7 a.m., Bob at 1 p.m. Lisa was able to swap to a 1 shift also. Now we can have dinner together, although it will be more of a brunch! Other than that, all is well. Mom, no worry about the deer, they are still safe!

hi everyone...we sure aren't doing very much blogging! How did your babysitting go the other nite Kristin? Have nothing interesting to tell anyone, but wanted to say hello.
Wondering what everyone is doing for Thanksgiving. Wishing you all a happy day.
Love, Mom/Bummy

TGIF!

Hello All! I'm glad to see that everyone is enjoying the blog! When Grampy gets back from his hunting trip we'll have to see if we can at least get him reading it :) I hope he and Woody have a good time.

S0 yesterday, I agreed to my first babysitting job since probably freshman year of college! Aunt Jenny (Rick's wife) sent me a message asking if I'd be interested and I thought, what the heck! Christmas is coming, so some extra income for gift buying seems like a good idea. I will be watching a two month old and a twenty month old next Friday. Kate, that's where you come in...what do I charge for babysitting? I never really used to have a standard rate because it was always people from church or families like Julie and Jerry that I really liked and knew well. But since I've never met this family, I think it'd be best that I tell them my "rate" upfront. What do you think is appropriate?

In other news, I'm really looking forward to seeing Kate's last home football game of the season! Mike and I will be attending the "family tailgate" for the dance team before hand and then cheering on the Captains and watching Kate dance! I'll try to get video of the halftime dance to post here.

Have a good weekend, everyone!!

Happy Veterans Day

Happy Veterans Day all. Thank you for all your thoughts this day. I proudly served and would do again in a heartbeat. Thanksgiving will be here soon. Lisa and I managed to to swap to the same shift. We will be working 2-10 EST. So dinner will be very early.

hi everyone, Hope you all had a nice veterans' day. I didn't go to any services or parades. Only what I saw on tv.
I did have the day off tho...only because it happens to be one of my regular days off. Anyway I was watching Regis and Kelly this morning and they had her at Madison Square Garden learning a dance routine with eight of the N Y Knickerbocker dance team girls. They are going to have them on the show tomorrow doing the dance they taught Kelly. It made me wish I was watching your dance team Kate.
Did you all know that Grampy is off on his annual hunting trip? He left last Friday for two weeks. He and Woody hunt pheasant and they have a big dinner at the Nantucket Admiralty Club, so at least they get eaten. I do not like hunting and wish he didn't do it. You too Bobby.
Love you all
Mom/Bummy

Veterans Day

Happy Veterans Day! Thanks, Dad and Grampy, for serving our country!

No Luck

I tried to follow your instructions, Kristin, but still couldn't get it. You know my facebook info if you want to try it (if you have time that is).
It was homecoming today and the coldest, wettest game yet! No pictures because I let Paul borrow my camera for his trip to the beach. When some of the girls post them on facebook I can put some up. We didn't get to do our dance because homecoming events took up all the half-time time =( we will perform the dance next week and KRB and Mike are coming!!!

Good job on posting Bummy!

Lots of love to everyone

Our very own techno-geek.....

Kristin, I never took you for a techno-geek! I guess working on a computer all the time has really paid off. One of these days we need to make a conference call, get all of us on the phone and on-line at the same time and figure this thing out. That way we can hear instructions and see results a the same time. I was happy to figure the picture thing out. Now I need to figure out if I can post from my phone. That would be nice, take a picture and immediately post it. Standby for more......

Hi Bummy!

I'm so impressed! I think if you've managed one post already, then you've probably got the hang of it :) How are things going in Mass? Have you gotten any snow yet? It's finally starting to get cooler here and I'm loving it!

new sign on

hi everyone... finally managed to get myself signed on and I read all of the previous blogs.
What a great idea! Really enjoyed all the pictures. You are all way ahead of me with your computer knowledge so don't know how much of a contributor I will be, but I will do my best.

Kate-I think to save the video you should try this:

1. Go to the video in facebook and right click it to get to the save option
2. Save it as a .wmv or quicktime movie, whichever is available
3. In the post window on the blog, click the "filmstrip" icon (to the right of the picture icon)
4. Browse to the video file you have saved
5. and voila! (I hope)

Can you tell I started out my career as a technical writer or what?!!? Granted, this is not written in proper tech-speak, but I can't seem to get away from numbered lists now when I'm giving computer directions!

Wow!! Great pictures and stories. Kate, the Silver Storm picture is great. Being in the back doesn't hurt, you shine right through. Kristin, your camera takes great pictures. It looks like Wintergreen was a lot of fun.

HI!

it took me way to long to figure this out. i kept getting to the dashboard and being entirely confused about how the heck this was helping us communicate, because the onlything i could get to was my own email.

...if i only had a brain.

the pic above is from the second game, i'm in the back row (oh the joys of being the tallest on the team...) the fourth in from the right.

There's a video on my facebook profile wall if the boys will let you log on to theirs to see it. I tried to figure out how to save it somewhere else and post it here, but don't know how. any ideas?

much love to everyone!

Wintergreen Trip

The trip to Wintergreen was absolutely beautiful, though we missed Kate! Mike and I left Richmond around 2 on Friday, after stopping at Chipotle for our free "BOO"-rritos....if you wore an article of 'clothing' made of tin foil, you got a free burrito!! We got a couple of burritos, drinks, chips, and extra guacamole for only $6.45! Once we got to the cabin, we basically took it easy for the night. On Saturday, we decided to go out into the woods to see what we could see. We chose two short hikes (very short, less than 1 mile each) of moderate difficulty. That way, those who didn't want to hike all day could still get out there and actually enjoy themselves. First, we went to the Shenandoah Overlook via the Raven's Roost trail. The views were incredible!!!


Then, we went on the Upper Shomokin to hike to some waterfalls. Granny and I both fell while we were out there. I didn't see Granny go down, but apparently she lost her footing since there was a thick blanket of leaves on the ground. She decided to wait for us because she was uncomfortable that she might lose her footing again....we only hiked another 30 feet or so on before I fell. I had been so careful on the steep scramble because I had a hard time seeing the ground beneath the leaves, but of course, I fell on the flat section! Bruised my knees up pretty well and sat the rest of the hike out with Granny.



Once we were done hiking, we went to a cute little art gallery that featured works of many local artists. Next stop was the Wintergreen Winery for a wine tasting followed by a picnic on the stream that flowed by out back.




That was our big expedition for the weekend. On Sunday we just took it easy with the exception of Mom and I walking around the resort to see what there was to see and to peer down the ski slopes :)

A work in progress......

We worked hard for a week. Door added, wiring, service panel installed. It is slowly becoming a home. "Brickville Lodge." On the grounds of the "Brickville Manor."

The Cabin in the Beginning

The "Cabin" as it began.

Then he ate my sunglasses to show me he was a badass. But my eyes were alot redder than his......Hung him up!

And that's when I first saw the bear

He was a Kodiak lookin' fella 'bout 19 feet tall...and he rambled up over the hill. He expected me to do one of two things, flip or fly. But I didn't do neither...hung him up!

Actually, this bear was considerably smaller. Jenn and I saw him at Maymont over the summer!

Lighthouse Background

So is the lighthouse background any more island-y?

We need to look at the other formats and see if we like the others. Maybe something with an island feel?

What do you think Kristin. Pretty wild huh?

Hi all

Thanks to everyone for signing in.

Kate on the Silver Storm

In October, Kate danced with the Silver Storm for the first home game of the 2008 season. CNU stomped the opposing team! Granny and Granddaddy (and Kristin) came to cheer Kate on! She was great!

Testing...

Testing 1-2-3

Welcome all....

Welcome everyone to our new blog.

This is an area to post your thoughts, or activities for our family to read. This will be a good way to keep up with all our activities.

Welcome

Welcome Brickleys!