Still in LSUiana

Some thoughts for today...

LSU - in case you have been living under a rock (if you live in this state at least) LSU is playing for the national title in a few days. Purple and Gold everywhere!!! Hank is about to throw up - but he'll just have to get over it I guess. Yes - we did get Jacob a t-shirt (I insisted) to support the home state :)

My parent's house - yes it's on piers - but most houses around here are. We plan to take some pics tomorrow of the swamp that surrounds it when it rains. There are crawfish/rice fields all around it and the ground in these parts is mostly swampy so houses built like this are quite common, especially in the farm areas. Stay tuned for more pics.

Jacob - he's been having a blast running around with his Elmo slippers that he got for Christmas. Today, however, he puked twice. No fever - we just realized that the milk was on it's way to "bad" and I think he got some of it. So -he smells real nice and so does his room. PB&J I'm sure you can relate to the "smell"! He's better tonight and we hope it was just the milk and not some illness coming on.

Strawberry Date Cookies - not sure what "the big deal" is - all I know is they are yucky to me. Don't like dates and cloves!! that's my opinon on them. But, my dad, and two uncles (and now Jacob) seem to enjoy them. And yes, they eat 3 or 4 smushed together - Hank says that's how you should eat em :)

Me - having fun being lazy and cooking in mom's new kitchen. Love all the NEW appliances and gadgets she has gotten lately. We did some after-Christmas shopping last night and went out for steak. It was a good day :) I've enjoyed seeing my cousins and family here. hmmm. what else. oh - it was interesting to watch dad's old trailer get hauled off yesterday. Hank made a video for him of it all - that was the excitement for yesterday.

Cajun people - All I can say is that I so enjoy watching Hank try to understand when people talk around here. I know he's not getting 1/2 of what they say :) It's pretty funny to hear him try to immitate the accent - he's not so good with accents :) I translate daily for him.

Hank - Hank and my dad sang 2 songs last Sunday and Hank is singing a solo tomorrow.

Stay tuned for a blog from Hank later today I guess. That's it from me!

Mom & Dad Spell's New House

Mom and Dad just moved into their new dream house a few weeks ago. Dad designed it and supervised the construction every day. Their gift shop "Between Friends Gifts" sits behind the house. The trailer they lived in for the past 3 years was moved off today. I just LOVE the front porch, don't you? :)

Safe arrival in Louisiana

After a night on the road, we arrived safely at Tammy's parents' house this morning a little before 10 a.m. local time. We left a little later than we intended -- about 1 a.m. -- but we made good time once we got rolling. Stay tuned to the blog for pictures!

Reindeer Cookies

Since the Turkey cookies were such a hit, I decided to make these for Christmas. I think they came out real cute :) We're off to Louisiana tomorrow to visit my parents. Today is laundry and packing day - ugg.

Awesome Birthday Present

On Friday, I got another great birthday present. This one is special because about 20 band members pooled their funds together. They bought me an XBox 360!!!!! Oh yeah, and they gave me Guitar Hero II to go with it! How cool is that???!?!!

Here's how it happened: Last year, I was talking to one of my band members; his name is Matt. We weren't talking about anything important, just shooting the breeze. We got to talking about video games, and I told him I had been asking for an XBox for Christmas for the past few years. I never really expected to get one, though, because I knew if I had one I'd never get any work done at home!

Then, at band camp back in July, one of the "fun night" activities we did was a Guitar Hero tournament. Well, it was supposed to be a tournament, but it ended up being just a bunch of people playing Guitar Hero. It was great, and everyone had a lot of fun - including me!

So, fast forward to Friday. With about 10 minutes left in the school day, our principal came on the intercom and asked for some students to report to the front office. It was a long list, but after about 5 or 6 names I noticed that ALL of them were in band! The band room is right across the hall from the front office, and I was suspicious, so I headed to the hall. I was quickly redirected back to the band room! A few minutes later, they came in and asked me to come out into the hall. When I got there, all the kids were in an arc (which looked really good - definitely marching band kids). At the apex (?) of the arc was a present. Matt came up and told me that everyone here had contributed to the gift. I opened it -- it was Guitar Hero II for XBox! I thought, "Wow, this is great ... too bad I don't have an XBox." But I tried not to let on.

I started to thank them when Matt said, "You have an XBox, right?"

"Uh....no."

"Oh, really? Hang on a sec..." Matt walked over to a door to a nearby room and knocked on it. Another student came out with ANOTHER wrapped box. It looked like it was about the right size for an XBox. Sure enough, it was!

I was speechless. I think I said "wow" a few times. This is easily the coolest birthday or Christmas gift I have gotten from students. We brought everything into the band room and set it up right away using the projector in the band room. Everyone got a chance to play. It was awesome!

So, for those of you who aren't sure what to get me for Christmas, let me suggest NCAA Football '08 for XBox!!!!!! :)

ooops!

Since tomorrow is Hank's birthday - I thought I'd better get his cake made. I was so excited. Had this great from scratch chocolate cake recipe with chocolate icing - just as requested. I have never made a 3 layer cake before, so it was a challenge baking all three layers in our oven. They came out very uneven. But - I watch enough Food Network to know that you should "level" your cake. Tried to level the bottom layer and it was a disaster - so I decided it would be fun to just leave it all lumpy and hilly. Well........After I was done, I headed for the couch to relax. Came back into the kitchen some time later to find this.....

but then I "fixed" it with wooden skewers

Hey... it's tastes great!!!!! Hank calls it the earthquake cake
Happy Birthday to Hank tomorrow!!

Friday night in Wal-Mart

We had an interesting evening that included a visit to Wal-Mart. For more, check this out:
http://lchstrojanband.blogspot.com/2007/12/penny-wars.html

Mary & Joseph??

Hotel chain offers free rooms for Marys and Josephs at Christmas

Need some new Christmas music?

As you might guess, I am VERY PICKY when it comes to Christmas music. So, when I recommend some Christmas music, you KNOW it must be good. We heard a special concert tonight by the Annie Moses Band. I'm not a big bluegrass/southern Gospel fan, but these guys are simply AMAZING, and they blend all kinds of styles - bluegrass, jazz, rock, and classical - into their music. If you get a chance to see them, you should definitely go! (They're in Indiana this week!)

the tree is up!

We got a little tree this year. Putting it up on a table might not be the smartest idea we've had - but we'll just have to see. It was cheaper though :) Jacob is helping daddy water the tree. We had a high of 86 degrees yesterday!!!! so the poor tree needed all the help it could get.

the finished tree
here's a pic of our decorations. Umpah gave us a box of old decorations he used to put on their tree. They are so cool!!! Lots of wooden ones, hand made ones and some from around the world too. It really makes for a special tree.

crafty night

I wanted to get Jacob a cute Christmas T-shirt. Jenni told me about some cute ones at Wal-Mart. Went today only to find out that they did have them, but sold out in 2 days! Geezz. So I got inspired by this shirt on the clearance rack. Got some felt and heat-n-bond; sewed on some buttons and a jingle bell and there you have it - instant cute original shirt for Jacob. It took a while - but it was a fun project. Merry Christmas everybody!

The Collection

I started digging into the Christmas stuff today. I discovered that I have quite the collection of "Sally Carter Originals" :) Just thought I'd show them off to you. I look forward to new things from Sally all through the year. We have a small collection of Halloween/Fall items as well. And of course, Jacob has many personalized things on the walls of his room :) Merry Christmas!

The tin can has been with me a while - but I always love it. One side shows a winter scene and the other a summer.

Happy B-Day to Hank - early

WE GOT A NEW CAMERA!!!! Thanks mom and dad. We got it last night since it was on sale through yesterday. We got a Cannon Powershot Digital Elf SD750 (if anyone cares). Very similar to Laura's camera. It's a 7.1. Our old one was 2.0 so it was time to upgrade (it was 6 years old) Oh yeah, and it was held together by duct tape and rubber bands and used up 2 batteries every 5 pictures or so!! The new one has a rechargable battery back so no more buying batteries - we buy enough batteries for all of Jacob's toys! Oh... and I can also take black/white pics, short movies and it has tons of other features. Can you tell I'm excited (yes I know it's Hank's present)!

Scrapbooking

Last night I did my Thanksgiving scrapbook pages. Just thought I'd share with you. I had fun making the "2 little turkeys" page :) Indeed Jacob and Ben are turkeys!

Taking the plunge

If you read our blog regularly, you know that we have been regular attenders at Sherwood Baptist Church down the road in Albany. We love our Sunday School class, Jacob has a great time in the nursery, Tammy serves as a babysitter for the movie we're working on, and I play tuba (and sometimes trombone) in the church orchestra/band/whatever you want to call us. So, we decided we should probably join the church. They accepted Tammy on a statement of faith, but I wasn't allowed to do that. You see, it's a Southern Baptist church and, as the name implies, they are kind of picky on baptism. Tammy was baptized by immersion at age 9, but my baptism by sprinkling didn't count.

They told me a few months ago that if I wanted to join the church, I would have to be baptized by immersion. So, I had to decide what to do. Tammy didn't want to join without me, so that made it a little more interesting. I took my time and put a lot of thought and study into it, and I thought some of you might be interested to read about that process.

First of all, it is important to point out that baptism does not equal salvation. In other words, just because you're baptized, that doesn't mean you are saved. Likewise, no baptism does NOT mean no salvation.

Growing up, I rarely (if ever) saw an adult baptism. I witnessed dozens (if not hundreds) of infant baptisms. But many of those infants were brought in by parents who were almost complete strangers to the church. They came for their baby's baptism, and then we would never see them in church again, except maybe at Easter. They probably claimed to be "C&E Christians" (Christmas & Easter), which I would argue means they weren't Christians at all.

And so I had to look at a comparison between infant baptism and believer's baptism. Infant baptism is exactly what it says -- you are baptized as an infant. Believer's baptism occurs when you are old enough to make your own decision for Christ. A quick Google-ing of "baptism" reveals that this topic is not an easy one to decide. Here's the arguments that were made to me, and how I dealt with each one as I made my decision:

1. All the baptisms described in the Bible are by immersion in a body of water.
-> When we lived in Rincon, we attended (but never joined) Grace Community Church. It was a great place, and we learned a lot while we were there. When we first started there, we attended a class that introduced us to the church, its history, structure, and beliefs. In that class, Pastor Wesley said something that made a lot of sense to me at the time. He said that when the Bible wasn't clear on something, he'd rather lean towards the conservative side. His example was that there are no examples of women leading churches in the New Testament. He said that doesn't mean it's wrong for women to be elders or pastors. But, since we are uncertain based on the Biblical example, Grace Community Church only allowed men to serve as elders "just to be on the safe side." I'm sure that's not a popular thing to say, but it makes sense. In the same way, since there is no Biblical example of infant baptism or of baptism by sprinkling, believer's baptism (by immersion) seems to be the right thing.

Ephesians 1:4-6 says that we were predestined for salvation before the creation of the world. So, shouldn't infant baptism be allowed as a celebration of God's love for all of us, even when we were too young to make our own decision of faith? Maybe. But there are no Biblical examples of such baptisms.

2. The word "baptism" is a transliteration from the Greek "baptizo," which means "to dip; to immerse."
-> This argument wasn't very convincing for me, mostly because there are as many arguments for it as there are against it. I'm not enough of a Greek scholar or historian to really understand this and make my own decision about it.

3. Baptism is an act of obedience.
-> This is based on the Great Commission, Matthew 28:19. I thought I had this covered, since I was baptized. And let's not forget that I did make a public proclamation of faith as a teenager through Confirmation. So by itself, this didn't convince me. But what if, by denying the opportunity to be baptized as an adult, I was being disobedient? That bothered me (based on the logic described in #1).

And so after several weeks of study and thought, I decided I needed to be baptized as an adult - to publicly proclaim my faith in Jesus. But I was waiting for the right moment. It didn't feel right. But when I heard the argument below, I knew I couldn't wait any longer.

4. Salvation and repentence are decisions. They are not feelings. They are choices.
-> We had a Sunday School lesson several weeks ago on Luke 13. In that passage, Jesus says we must repent or perish. It struck me during that lesson that repentance is a choice. Ever since then, it seems that every time I opened my Bible, went to Sunday School, or listened to a sermon, I heard something about making a conscious choice. (Maybe God was trying to get through to me???) We must choose to honor God in our daily lives -- at work, in our marriages, and at church. When I examined myself, I found that I was often making the choice to honor myself. It wasn't on purpose, because I wanted to be a good Christian, set a good example at school, etc., but truthfully, I was only doing that when it was convenient. When I felt like it, I would honor God; the rest of the time, it was all about me. So I chose to change my behavior and to start honoring God in everything.

And so, as a part of that choice, I decided to go ahead with baptism and to join the church. Our Associate Pastor, John Spencer, baptized me at the evening service. Tammy and Jacob were up there with me. After the service, we were presented as new members.

If you made it this far into the blog, you're probably wondering why I went into all this detail. I guess this is my way of describing a difficult decision process. I don't want to discount my baptism as an infant. Not to mention that growing up in the church is an important part of my Christian experience as an adult. At the same time, I believe that I have to be obedient to God, and this was the right way to do that. Trust me, I did not take it lightly! I did a lot of reading and a lot of studying.

By the way, for those of you who may be wondering, Jacob has not been baptized. We're going to let him make a decision for himself when he's old enough. But you can bet we'll be teaching him and leading him towards his own relationship with Jesus (Proverbs 22:6).

the turkeys are on their way

Tonight Hank and I made these cute turkey cookies. They were a lot of fun to make. I figured we should take a picture in case they don't survive the road trip to KY tomorrow night.

UK sux

Well, looks like UK isn't going to get it done for us today against Georgia, thanks to a second-half offensive meltdown.

Meanwhile, the LCHS Trojans lost last night. I honestly don't remember the score. I'm told we had the furthest distance to travel of any team in the state. It sure felt like it, especially on the way home.

Can't wait to see everyone in a few days!!!

We're big Kentucky fans (for two weeks)

Queep, this is just for you, from my favorite Gator website:

By ARNOLD FELICIANO
Sun sports editor
12:24 am, November 12, 2007

While Florida awaits its fate in the SEC East division race, the Gators will be involved in another race — for the Heisman Trophy.

No. 14 Florida (7-3, 5-3 in SEC) needs a loss by both Georgia and Tennessee to force a three-way tie, which would put the Gators in the SEC title game. Georgia closes its SEC schedule Saturday against visiting Kentucky. Tennessee hosts Vanderbilt on Saturday before closing its regular season Nov. 24 at Kentucky.

"We're big Kentucky fans," Florida coach Urban Meyer said Sunday.
-----

Yep, we're big Kentucky fans!
The interesting part is that if Tennessee somehow manages to lose to both Vanderbilt AND Kentucky, then Georgia wins the SEC East. So, GOOOOOOO CATS!! (But I'd still like to see Vandy make it to a bowl game.)

In other news: Our football team ACTUALLY WON on Friday night! So we're off to Augusta this Friday for a playoff game. 4 1/2 hours on a school bus just to get there ... I can hardly wait.

great weekend!

We had a fun weekend. Friday night I took Jacob to the last home game and we had a great time. Then, Saturday morning I got up early and drove to a friend's house and had a yard sale. Made $25 - not great - but better than nothing. Saturday night Hank and I went on a date!! It's been so long - I really don't remember the last time we went out without Jacob. Our friend Amanda came over to hang out with Jacob and we went to Red Lobster and ate till we hurt - then went to Theater Albany to see "And Then There Were None" - Agatha Christie. It was a fun murder mysterie. 3 hours long!! After eating all the food, I did have trouble in Act 2 staying awake - but somehow I still managed to follow it all :) The weather this weekend was beautiful as well. It's finally cooling off and feeling like fall. One more week of school and then we're off to "Turkentucky"

Speaking of KY -Laura I stumbled on another cheerleading show. We are getting free channels this weekend and the network is called "Fuse" - they have a show called "Cheerleader U" and it follows the KY Wildcat cheerleaders. They had a marathon on so I watched several.

That's about it. Our church is 50% completed in it's filming of our next movie. Sadly though, tonight one of the crew passed away. A guy from Orlando was one of our film crew and he was traveling back up here. He had a car accident and died several hours later. His wife is expecting their first child. Very sad news. Pray for the Monk family this night.

Until the next blog....

T

Weekend

41-0 is not much fun to watch, let me tell you. I realized at the end of the game that we had not played the fight song AT ALL. When we're not scoring, we try to play the fight song (or at least part of it) for first downs, big plays, etc. But there weren't many of those, either.

So, our football team is now 1-8 for the season, 0-2 in region play. Fortunately, the band had a great show at halftime and did a nice job in the stands. But I feel for the football team. They're very frustrated right now. I really hope they win next week. It will be our last home game of the season, and it's senior night.

So that was Friday for me. Tammy spent the evening at a marriage retreat hosted by our Sunday School class. The evening included a prime rib dinner and cheesecake for dessert. I had hamburgers from the school cafeteria. Who got the better deal there????

This morning we got up and went to the second session of the marriage retreat. Then we came home and watched the GATORS absolutely destroy Vanderbilt. Then we went to the fair (see Jacob's blog for details). That's a pretty busy day for us, yet it was relaxing.

Tomorrow's plans: Church, football, nap....not necessarily in that order.

Hope everyone's having a great weekend!

Today's project

Today I made Jacob something to collect all that candy in! Yummmm - mommy and daddy will have to help him eat it all.

Band Stuff

Saturday we all went to Warner Robins to hear Hank's band perform at competition. Hank rode the bus with the kids and Jacob and I followed in a big caravan for the 2 hour trek. It was a beautiful day and we really had fun. This is the only picture I took. After the performance the kids "circle up" around until they are all in a spiral around Hank. It's pretty fun to watch and they have fun doing it. As you can see, little man Jacob was right there with his daddy having a great time :) The band got a "2" but they did improve from their last competition a few weeks earlier. There was disappointment but it gave Hank an opportunity to teach them about doing your best and dealing with disappointment I think it was hard on the kids because the crowd LOVED the show. Since this was the last competition, Hank gets to wind down his schedule. We only have 2 or 3 more football games. YAY!

Jen, you have inspired me.....

So, I really don't like Halloween. It's my least favorite holiday and I just assume skip it. But, I do think it's cute to see little ones in costume and I really wanted Jacob to be a fireman this year. I put off buying a costume and really wasn't going to mess with it until I chatted with Jen (my sister-in-law) today. Sooooo ... despite the fact that I can't sew and don't have a sewing machine anyway, I decided to use good ole duct tape and see what I could do. So - here's the start of it. I need to make a badge and pick up a hat. Don't have black shoes - but I will work on that too. The pants were given to me by a friend so I don't feel too bad that I cut a hole in them when I was trimming the tape. Oh well... So, hopefully it will be a cool night for Jacob to wear this heavy fleece and lined pants.

Our church has an annual festival called "Candyfest" and Hank and I are working in one of the booths for an hour and then we'll take Jacob around. Should be fun :)

Not something you see every day...

Some of you might know that our church makes Christian movies (Flywheel, Facing the Giants). We are now working on our third movie, called Fireproof. It's partially about firefighters, so today at church they were shooting some scenes. I am babysitting for the cast/crew kids on Monday mornings, and today we got to go watch them do some filming. They invited all the kids who were in our daycare today to come out and they did a little fire safety demo. They also showed the kids the trucks and equipment. I tried to get Jacob to sit still in a few group scenes, but he just wanted to roam around and give me a fit. I think I might have gotten him in for a few minutes as they did some filming of him just wandering around. Not sure if they'll use it - but it's fun to think that he might be in a small part of the movie. The movie won't be out til next fall so it will be a while before I know if my little man made his film debut yet. That's about it for a Monday. Just wanted to pass on what's going on in the Carter household.

45-37, 21 in a row!

I DVR'd College GameDay, but the recording cut off right before Corso's prediction!!! (We went to the South Georgia Peanut Festival in nearby Sylvester ... see Jacob's blog for all the details.) Which way did he go?

Anyway, with or without Corso, it's official - Florida has beaten Kentucky 21 times in a row.
For a little perspective on this, there's a great story on my favorite website.

There have been some memorable ones -- Danny Wuerffel throws a TD to Chris Doering on 3rd down with 8 seconds left for a come-from-behind win in Lexington in 1993, the close win in the Swamp in 2002 when the massive Jared Lorenzen was the UK quarterback. This one featured two solid offenses and two REALLY BAD defenses.

This Gator win was very important for several reasons:
1. Thanks to Vandy and Alabama, we can win the SEC East if we win out.
2. It avoids what could have been Urban Meyer's first-ever 3-game losing streak.
3. And most important, NO TURKENTUCKY GLOATING from Queep!

So, to Laura and Pete: Sorry your CFGD appearance was in vain. Better luck next year, when your QB will be gone and we'll have a better, more experienced team! Now, do us all a favor and beat the crap out of Tennessee!!

GameDay

So, it's the day of the big game, and ESPN's College Football GameDay is in Lexington. Laura and Pete said they're going to be there, so of course we're watching. And I have a couple of observations:
- Today is the first time GameDay highlights a UK game. It is the record 26th time highlighting a Florida game.
- Lee Corso said, "I love Kentucky fans. You know why? Because they BELIEVE!" Of course they believe now! But Lee, have you been to a Kentucky game before this year? I have. It looked a lot like the pictures Laura took at a high school game last night.

Here's hoping Corso picks UK......GO GATORS!!!

busy busy...

I'm making a box to send to my mom's shop. This week I've been busy making Christmas cards and more jewlery. I think I am enjoying the card-making more than the beading now. Making cards is just like scrapbooking and that is relaxing to me. Not much else new. Hank is at an away game and Jacob is in bed for the night. Watching another train wreck on TV - "American Band" - so far it's not too good. Oh well - FNL will come on soon so I can switch tracks to that train (and you too Jenni - I know). Have fun watching football tomorrow. Go Gators!! (I hope) :/

Camping!

Well, Queep, I'm sorry we missed the big upset. Don't worry, we'll be glued to the tube next weekend! Funny, though, how you beat a team and they still end up ranked higher than you. That's not right.

Anyway, we missed the game because of camping. Jacob was great. If you missed out on his fun, well, why in the world are you reading this blog before reading his? DUH.

It was warm during the day and cold at night - perfect weather if you ask me. As it got colder at night, we added layers. Here's how it worked:
- Tammy is wearing jeans, a long-sleeve shirt, and a sweatshirt. I am wearing a tshirt and shorts.
- Later, Tammy adds a light jacket. I'm still wearing a tshirt and shorts.
- Later, Tammy wraps herself in blanket. I'm still wearing a tshirt and shorts.
- Tammy digs the hood from her sweatshirt out from under the blanket and puts it over her head. I finally decide it might be getting cold. I put on a fleece, but I'm still wearing shorts.
- Time to go to bed. Tammy replaces the jeans with PJ pants, and the blanket is now covering her sleeping bag. She wishes she had a hat. I remove my fleece, replace my shorts with PJ pants, and unzip the side of the sleeping bag so my feet can cool off.

This proves that women are (as my father-in-law would say) COLD-BLOODED. ;)

Competition

I think I am finally starting to recover from a long competition day on Saturday. We began the day at 7:30 a.m. with a quick warm-up, brief rehearsal, and a run-through of the show. We planned to do that in our stadium, but the sprinklers were on (despite the recent rain), so we moved to our practice field. No chance of water there -- that field hasn't seen a sprinkler in decades!

At 9ish we rolled out in 4 school buses, our equipment truck (pulling our trailer) and another truck hauling a trailer with the flying rig and the backdrop. At 11:15 we stopped at a rest area and handed out hot dogs (kept warm in a cooler -- ironic, I know), fruit, cookies, and lemonade. Back on the bus, and we arrived in Carrollton at 1:15 p.m., just in time to unload, put our uniforms on, and head to the warm-up area.

We had the best performance of the year (so far), which was enough to give us 3rd place in Class AAA. Our drum majors got second place, as did the drumline. So, it was a successful day.

Oh, and I should mention that one of our judges was none other than Ken Bodiford -- my (and Pete's) high school band director in Hampton, VA! He is now the Director of Bands at Jacksonville State University and Executive Director of Spirit of JSU Drum and Bugle Corps. (Pete and I marched with Spirit in 1993, back when they were Spirit of Georgia.) JSU's band was there for an exhibition performance, which was phenomenal. They marched THIRTY tubas, playing bell-front concert tubas with a strap. Pretty impressive. The band was HUGE, but they were clean and sounded amazing. I now have 100 kids who want to go to JSU. :) Probably the coolest part was when the trumpet section "arched up" in front of us and played the theme from Phantom Menace, complete with ridiculously high notes.

Anyway, I got to talk to Mr. Bodiford (still feels weird to call him "Ken" - I know, Pete was calling him that before graduation) for a few minutes during one of the breaks. He didn't know I had a band there (we had already performed). Last I saw him I was at a drum corps show in Orlando while I was still in Florida. He asked about Pete and Mom and Dad. He rolled his eyes when I told him that both of us had little ones running around. :)

So, back on the bus at midnight, and we arrived at school at 3:45 a.m. Sunday. I got home a little before 5 a.m. No church for me on Sunday morning! It was a long day. But we brought home 11 trophies in all, so that's pretty good. We placed in every caption - overall band, drum majors, color guard, danceline, and percussion.

For those keeping score, yes, Effingham was there, competing in the same class as us. Their drum majors won first place in class (we were 2nd), as did their percussion (we were 2nd). But our overall band score was better. :)

As for video -- I have an MPEG, but Google video doesn't seem to like it. You can't see Elphaba flying anyway -- it's a wide angle shot from the press box, so all you see is a little black dot, and only if you're paying attention. Still, I'll keep trying to post it.

The good thing about being at a band competition all day is that it distracted me from Florida's meltdown against LSU. But I did notice that Pete Crawford is a little less vocal about his Wildkitties since they lost last week. I have to say, it's pretty strange looking up at Kentucky in the SEC East standings. Don't worry; we'll correct that in two weeks in Lexington!

Football: AAAAAA!!!

Another Friday night, another Lee County loss. It was homecoming, and the band had the blahs in the stands. BUT, they did a nice job on the field with the homecoming court. We played "I'll Be There" (Jackson 5, Mariah Carey) TEN TIMES while they introduced the homecoming court!

Meanwhile, the Gators lost. Stupid Auburn.

We have our first real competition coming up this Saturday. I should get some good video either Friday night or Saturday of Elphaba flying. So, check back here in a week!

Back from our little trip

Jacob and me made it back from Savannah yesterday. We had a great time. I just put a ton of new pictures on his website. Not much new this week. Gonna try and get some more pieces done to ship to mom's shop. People are gearing up for Christmas already. I'm up to 2 miles, 4-times a week on the treadmill and I've upped the incline too. When I'm done I really feel my age :( But it seems to be helping the hipline so it's all good. We're planning a camping trip in a few weeks. Must buy a new tent first though. The old one is finally "done". Jacob should enjoy camping now that he's walking around. I think we'll get him a little camp chair. So - after that trip - we will bombard you with more cute pictures of our boy - so get ready!

Friday Night Footblah

Tonight's special: Lee County loses to Dougherty County 21-3, and it wasn't that close. We're now 1-3 for the season!

Worse is that we couldn't march our halftime show because it rained all day until about 6:00 (kickoff was at 7:30), and we might mess up the field. So there we are in perfectly good weather, nice breeze blowing, no rain, and we had to play a standstill performance from the track.

But, the good news: We're performing at an early-season exhibition tomorrow in Tifton (about an hour east of here), and Elphaba is finally going to fly! It will be the first time this season. I'll try to get some video. I saw it in rehearsal for the first time on Thursday, and it's a neat effect, even though we haven't added the fog/smoke effects yet. Our first competitive performance is in two weeks!

A question for Queep

The greatest part about Saturday's victory over Tennessee was not the 59 points we put up on them, nor was it the fact that it boosted us to #3 in the polls. The greatest part was not the fact that now we are recognized as a force to be recognized in the SEC. No, the greatest part was the fact that I was sitting in church orchestra rehearsal during most of the game (and recording it on DVR to watch later). Let me explain. (I'll get to the question for Uncle Pete in a minute.)

The orchestra leader, Jim, is a huge Tennessee fan. (In Savannah, everyone was a UGAly Bulldog fan. Here, we have fans of Florida, Tennessee, UGA, Auburn, Alabama, FSU, and even a few who admit to pulling for GA Tech. It makes football season a lot more fun -- although shaming the UGAly fans never gets old. But I digress. Back to Jim and the orchestra.) Jim was sitting next to me, playing trombone. He kept getting text messages during rehearsal, and I kept telling him, "Don't tell me." He didn't. But he had this smug look on his face, and I kept thinking, "Man, we didn't look too good in the 1st quarter, then I had to leave. I hope they're not beating the mess out of us."

Then I went home. Tammy had watched the game, but she is great about showing NO EMOTION in her face until after I get to watch. (What a great woman she is!) So I watched the game, cheered as if it were live (only I got to FF through the commercials), etc. It was great.

So, Sunday morning came, and I came in and sat down next to Jim. He flinched and said, "Oh, sorry...I thought you were going to keep beating up on me!" Now, that was GREAT! I didn't even have to say anything! Only problem was I had to wear RED (blech) because that was the color of the day for "platform volunteers," which includes those of us in the "orchestra." (It's really a band - the only strings come from a synthesizer. But "orchestra" sounds a lot more proper.)

Yep....gotta love college football. Let the gloating continue!!!

OK, so, on to my question for Pete Crawford.
Q: What is the deal with THIS guy?

Not much new

Hello all!

Just sitting here blogging while Hank is at the football game (probably in the pouring rain). Didn't want to risk getting caught in the storm that's supposedly heading our way. I made some brownies and ate 3 of them. Not cool. Watching my fav. Friday night show "What Not To Wear". So, it's been another crazy week with yet another funeral. A man from our church committed suicide on Tuesday. Very sad. He had a wife and 3 kids. We didn't know the family, but alot of our friends did so it's been pretty sad around our church. Let's see.......not much else... guess I'll get to beading. Mom called and said she sold some of my stuff today. I'm going to make scrap Christmas cards this year. I've been doing cards for several months and they sell pretty well. Well guess that's the update. Hope all your teams win tomorrow.... Last week we had 3 on the tv and one going on the computer streaming. It makes for an interesting Saturday :)

Jacob's B-Day Cake

Reading Karen's blog and looking at all her favorite links made me think of something.... She had a link for cool handmade cakes. I remembered that when I made Jacob's Noah's Ark Cake, I sent the picture and description to the website that gave me the idea in the first place. It is posted at http://www.coolest-birthday-cakes.com/child-birthday-cakes.html#c7

I think that's pretty cool! Jenni - send in Ben's cakes and I bet they'll put them on. The lady who runs the site emailed me and was very nice. She says it takes a few weeks to post pictures as she gets tons. And you too Laura - the scrabble "cookie" rocks!

A crafty night

Tonight I felt like doing some beading. My mom said that the store is going to be getting busy with Christmas shoppers. Yes, it's 93 degrees outside and people are thinking about Christmas... But hey- if they buy my stuff - I don't mind! So, here's a few sets I made tonight. I did the best I could with the picture taking. The photos do not do the beads justice. The colors are so pretty :) I love using glass beads. I sometimes use stones to mix with them - but mainly use glass. While I beaded, Hank sat on the couch watching "The Biggest Loser" while eating a piece of cake with a side of whole milk. That was just funny to me.

YAY Friday's almost here!

What a week...Jacob's had a stomach virus since last Tuesday and still has it. Took him to the dr. yesterday just to make sure that's all it was. I was right. He is also cutting about 10 new teeth in that head of his so I think that's part of the fussiness......A young man in our Sunday School class passed away last Sunday. He was just 29 and died of cancer. He left a wife of 5 years. Very sad. So yesterday Jacob and I went to the funeral......Today we went to Crapmart and got some groceries. woo hoo... Jacob likes flirting with everyone though so he had fun at least. Then back home to more fussy-butt..... tonight watching some football and chatting online and blogging.....tomorrow we'll go to Hank's football game.....If you don't know, my parents are building their house so mom called to day very excited that they had bought some new furniture. It should be ready by Thanksgiving. We're going there for Christmas. I can't wait to see it!.....Speaking of houses, we are signing another lease for this apartment. Hope to get our own house next summer....then I can have a yard and grow veggies :)....Guess that's about it... stay tuned for more excitement from us....Hopefully I'll get inspired and make some more jewlery for my mom's store and put a pic or two on the blog...

T

It's about us - not just Jacob!

Hello all and welcome to our blog! I'm writing this one to let everyone know what's going on with Hank and me (in addition to Jacob's world). I may have to put a pic of him on here every now and then (can't help myself - my boy is cute!) - but will try to limit the pictures to other stuff.


Take for instance, the picture below of the veggies. Laura, Jenni and now Karen all have pictures of wonderful freshly grown veggies on their blog. Apparently there is a rule about using vegetables on your blog so here's mine. They last a really long time too :)

A few weeks back for our anniversary (August 4th), my mom sent me money to get a new pot as I am trying to replace a few old ones. This is a pretty cool Rachael Ray 5 qt. that I love. Hank got me a 10" skillett of hers a while back and I really like it, so I'm hopeing to get a few more later on.

Our church had a fun concert Sunday night. Hank plays in the orchestra and the guys formed a Dixieland Band. He brought a sousaphone from school and played. He usually plays his tuba but for Dixieland, this was appropriate. There he was puffing away on the big screen. Too funny. He had a blast.