Family Fun Night at Sherwood Forest

Last night was the big Halloween party at Lily's school. All four of us went for the first little bit before Emily had to leave to work a volleyball game. Me and the girls ran around until they started kicking everyone out. It was a lot of fun, I really enjoyed having Lily show me around her school and explain the school rules to me (in particular, when I was violating them). There were games, candy, food, moon bounces and a pony....what else could you ask for!?!?!

CJ sharing some of her pizza with Lily.

C-L-E-M-S-O-.....huh?

The Demon Deacons hosted the Clemson Tigers for the big Thursday night game on ESPN. The girls and I picked up a pie at Burke Street Pizza for our pre-game tailgate. It was a real deal, greasy, huge, authentic New York style pizza. We will definitely be going back to visit them :) We made it through the first quarter before deciding to cruise on home for bed. But before we left, we had enough time to enjoy the pre-game fesitivites and be proud of our boys playing hard in a tough matchup.

CJ with her game face.....We Must Protect This House!

Wake commemorated breast cancer awareness month at this game, with the players wearing the now familiar hot pink towels, gloves and wrist bands. Also, the former volleyball coach at Wake, who is a breast cancer survivor, led the team into the stadium riding on the back of the Demon Deacon's motorcycle!

I didn't have the super-zoom lens for this game, but we can still play a game of where's Dr. Em....can you spot her?

How about now?

We visited the large Demon Deacon statue on the way out of the stadium.

Lady Deacs give early Christmas present to Lady Hokies

The Lady Hokies came to town on Wednesday to receive their early Christmas present from the Lady Deacons. As best I can figure, we were feeling sorry for the Hokies and decided to give them a pick-me-up right before the ACC Tournament begins. Though the game did not go well for the Deacons, we still had fun. The girls had a big time, and as usual, we enjoyed watching that Deacon clown around!

Homegrown Popcorn

One of our bumper crops from the garden this year was popcorn. During the last couple of months, Emily has been extraordinarily patient with me as I have been drying the popcorn through out the house. Fotunately, it is decorative for the season. I have been working slowly through it by working the kernels off the cobbs and storing them in Mason jars. As with anything done in this family, CJ is not happy until she is doing it as well (fortunately, she hasn't picked up Thatcher's foot licking passion yet)

Here she is helping me get the kernels off a cobb of the mini-popcorn. She focuses very intently and knocks one kernel off at a time.

And of course Lily was there too, showing off her big girl smile :)

Lady Deacs at UNC

The Lady Deacons (women's soccer team) traveled to UNC for an afternoon game on Sunday. It was a beautiful afternoon, and while Emily and I enjoyed the game, the girls found a shade tree and some of its leaves to entertain themselves.

The Demon Deacons ended up with the victory 2-1 which was very exciting (you should always be excited when your team beats UNC in soccer or basketball).

Caroline's First BGBM

So you may be wondering what "BGBM" refers to.....big girl bowel movement! I brought back the Elmo potty for Caroline to begin her potty training, and she loves it! It doesn't matter that Elmo is stuck speaking in Espanol.....she thinks its great. She was so excited that she was just hanging out on it earlier this week. I kept checking on her but nothing was happening so I went on with my househusband-dom chores. Then I heard a hollar from the bathroom....Daddy!....PP! Well, it was more than PP....and she was soooo proud. She practically begged me to take this picture, and I had to beg Emily to allow me to post it on the blog. Naturally, part of the terms of this agreement were some edits :)

As you may have noticed from the placement of the road signs....she got so excited that she got up before everything had finished running its course....what did people do before Clorex wipes!?!

Hopefully CJ's enthusiasm for this potty bodes well for potty training in the coming months.

Mustangs Win!!

Congratulations to the Parkland Mustangs on their first win of the season! Its been a long road for the Mustang Nation this fall.....its a team you want to love, scrappy at times and unlucky at others. We were beginning to fear that the boys wouldn't be able to pull one out until last night. Parkland beat Smithville 18 to 14 on the strength of 3 TD's (and 3 missed extra points). It was a great game....hard fought the whole way. Parkland was able to move the ball well between the 20's by running out of a 4 WR spread offense. It bogged down in the red zone, but was able to use that formation to launch a couple of touchdown passes that would be worthy of any ESPN highlight reel. Just in case you need to see it to believe it, here is the final score on the scoreboard (its actually 18 for home, there are a couple of bulbs out on the board).

In addition to the great football game, there was a battle of the bands that featured our band in their actual uniforms (up till now, they have worn either khakis/white with white tshirts or track suits). The other band came to play as well, and the fans were treated to a back and forth for the whole game.

And then there was our sweet girls. They danced and played in the first half....then Lily slept through the second half, joined midway through the 4th quarter by CJ.

 

This was the last home game for Parkland this season, so it was also senior night.  The seniors were honored at half time.  I enjoyed listening to the various colleges and programs that these young folks that will be attending next year.....(didn't hear Milligan though.....)

The Harvest

This year I had to plan a garden that would do ok without everyday maintenance. So I picked a three sisters layout that included popcorn, gourds and pumpkins, and beans. There is a picture below of what the garden looked like in late summer....as our house guess Yolanda put it to me "Dr. Campbell, you've got a jungle out there!"

 Fortunately, the jungle was loaded down with popcorn and gourds! We had an incredible harvest this year, witnessed by the popcorn that is hanging up to dry in two houses! We also had a bunch of gourds and two medium sized pumpkins come out of the garden. I think our favorite so far are the "wooly bear gourds." They are the small, green, furry gourds that you can see in the pile of gourds on the kitchen table. We also planted some sunflowers because they are rumored to help the corn....though I think that the 9 foot corn stalks mostly crowded out the sunflowers. We did have a couple on the end of the garden where they could get sunlight, and they were pretty....especially the "big bird" variety.

All of the gourds and corn in this picture were grown in our garden.  In the background you can see the first of what is likely to be many jars of popcorn that will be made in the next few weeks (again, all grown in our garden :)  You can also see Lily's Halloween black cat!

 

Big bird is in our garden!

A box of shucked popcorn that I brought back from the JC....all home grown :)

"The Jungle"

A few ears of popcorn laid out in the JC

The Demon Deacons visit ETSU!

The men's soccer team traveled to ETSU last night, and we just couldn't resist the temptation to take a family trip to our old stomping grounds. It was a fairly exciting game, with ETSU going up early 1-nil. The Deacs answered and then scored what seemed to be the go ahead goal to take the lead 2-1. Then....with 3 seconds left....ETSU scored the equalizer! The 20 minute overtime period did not produce any more goals, and the game ended a 2-2 draw.

Foturnately, for me and the girls, there was plenty of entertainment for them which allowed me to watch some of the game.  First we got to meet the new mascot for ETSU.....Buccy (sp?).  All CJ could say for the whole first half was "where pie-tat go?".....or translated, where'd the pirate go?

Buccy was a good sport and tried to make friends with the girls several times.....Lily was brave and shook his hand.....CJ, despite her desire to keep an eye on him, was not about to get too close!  So, even though Buccy tried really hard, CJ kept her slightly terrified distance every time he came over.  What makes this story a little funnier is that it turns out it was new ETSU President Dr. Brian Noland dressed up as Buccy!  Yep, the girls got to meet and harrass the new ETSU President....who was an incredibly good sport about the whole affair :)

CJ found a quite place under a tree to munch some tortilla chips.

The soccer game in progress.

A big nod to ETSU for having a bounce house at the soccer game!  How nice for the girls to be able to jump and have a big time while I could watch the game!  And of course.....somehow CJ manages to come up with a new crazy face to amuse the camera.....its kind of becoming her stock in trade.

The doc on the sidelines.  Emily also got to run into one of the doctors that she rotated with while in residency....Dr. Mills is the team physician for ETSU.  He was at the game with his wife and kids, and they came over to meet us and let the kids all play with Buccy.