What the.....

Who are these crazy kids?!?!  Hopefully this picture was taken at Halloween!

Lily's First Race

Lily ran in her first official race today!  It was a kid's 1.1 mile race to support the Children's Hospital in town.  Lily had been training with the run club at St. Mary's for a few weeks.  She ran the race, giving CJ and I a hard time trying to keep up with her!  Its kind of a cool event because the school with the most participants gets a $1,500 grant.  I'm not sure if St. Mary's will get it or not, but it sure seemed like there were a lot of kids there!

Back to Bearcat Country

Once there was a girl on rocky top, 

Half bear the other half cat. 
Wild as a mink, sweet as soda pop, 
I still dream about that. 

Doctor Emily is back to her high school football team here in east TN....the Virginia Bearcats.  Ironically enough, the mascot seems to come from the words to Rocky Top.  And it was Tennessee High that visited the Bearcats last night and throttled them 50 something to 20 something.  That didn't damper the spirits of Doctor Em's family though, we hung out in the back of the endzone and enjoyed our salt that was sprinkled with popcorn.

Miscellaneous pics to keep Papa happy

Here is Lily helping me with a home improvement project.  She is applying a magnetic primer to a "home made" chalk board.  After the primer, we coated it in chalk board paint.  The finished product was neither magnetic nor very attractive.  Be warned about the magnetic primer....

 Modeling our new school book bags for the year

 A trip to the drive in movie theater

 Some butterflys from the butterfly bush in the backyard.

Garden Harvest

This year's garden has been a little bit off because of the late start and early season neglect it received from us still being in Winston-Salem through the end of June.  However, all things considered, it came around eventually.  Most things are dying back at the moment and I have done much of the fall harvesting already.  Here are some pictures of the fall squash and popcorn from the garden this year.  The popcorn did not perform nearly as well as it did last year, perhaps because it is a heavy feeder and I planted it in the same spot that it was last year.

Couple of butternut squash and the popcorn set up to dry.

These are mostly gourds sitting on the front porch to cure.  There is also another butternut squash in the back row.  There are two large, orange squash standing upright in the back row....can you guess what kind of squash they are?

Also, Lily brought home a lima bean plant that is currently hiding behind one of those big orange squash....I'll till up the garden in the next couple of weeks and we will give it a go for a fall lima bean crop!

This Year's Garden

The first trellis ended up with tomatoes and spaghetti squash growing up it. Several jalepenos and an okra plant are growing in front of the trellised plants.

 A gourd volunteer from last year....I let it grow and has been one of the most productive plants in the garden.  The three gourds here will add to the three I've already harvested!

Talking to the Academic Dean at Milligan one day (who is an avid gardener), he mentioned a fall crop of carrots.  I thought that sounded awesome so Lily and I made this raised bed and planted carrot seeds in it this week.  If you look closely, you may be able to see some of the plants emerging!  Here's to fresh carrots for Thanksgiving dinner!

 The Red Noodle!  These took a while to get going, but have been prolific in the past couple of weeks.  In the bottom right, there is an eggplant.  This is a "trap crop" whose purpose in my garden was to draw all the flea beetles onto it instead of the other plants.....it has worked fairly well.

 The area behind the trellis row....popcorn, melon, squash (spaghetti and butternut), and a rosemary bush that has been growing for about 3 years.

 A couple of spaghetti squash actually growing on the ground.

 Lily's cherry tomato plants.....including the "sun sugar" variety on the right (an orange tomato said to be "sweet as candy"....though Lily disagrees).

 Some of the new gourds on the far end of the trellis.

 Another variety of this year's gourds (harrowsmith).

 Brussel sprouts....maybe on the menu for Thanksgiving as well?!?

 The whole garden.

 Inside the first trellis...jalepenos to the left, tomatoes to the right, and a giant spaghetti squash in the upper right.  Lily and I finally had to tie it to the trellis because it kept slipping and knocking the tomato plants over.

A close-up of the trellised spaghetti squash....I guess there's a reason these are usually grown on the ground.

Fried Okra!

One of the fun new vegetables I grew up in the garden this year is okra!  If you've ever been around me at the buffet in the Milligan Cafeteria, you know that fried okra is near and dear to my stomach....so I thought I'd take this year's first pieces of okra and give it a try.  Here I've got my first three okra from the harvest.  Unfortunately, I talked to my good friend Commodore Bob about harvesting okra a bit too late and let the one on the far left get far too big....and it turned out to be hard, stringy and useless.  But the other two were great so I used them.....

 ....to do some improvising with an online fried okra recipe and came up with this....not bad for an off the cuff attempt!  It could have used a bit more salt, but other than that, it was delicious.

First day of school for 2013-14!!!

Today was the first day of school back in the JC....its been a more exciting year than any that have preceded it.  We took a long journey in finding the right fit for Lily after leaving Sherwood Forest, and we think we found it in St. Mary's.  It is a Catholic school, and to my great satisfaction, requires students to wear uniforms (I'm just thinking morning wardrobe choices will go a little easier :)

 

 

CJ started school at ETSU's Child Study Center.  This is where Lily spent a year right before leaving for Winston-Salem.  We are thrilled to be back at the CSC because of the amazing job they do there.  There will be one change for CJ, instead of being a Ladybug like Lily was, CJ will be a Cricket!

 



 

 

A Trip to the Aquarium in Gatlinburg

For the second leg of our big summer vacation this year, we went to Gatlinburg with Gran and Jonathan for a few days.  We started out with a trip to the aquarium!

 

Captain Shmee J!

 Penguins love each other :)

10th Anniversary Trip

The last time we went to the Caribbean it was for our honeymoon almost 10 years ago.  We've had 10 amazing years since that trip....I have no idea how I lucked out marrying Emily, but I love her a little more each day.  So to celebrate these years together (and hopefully many more to come) we booked a room at an "all-inclusive!" resort named the Sanctuary at Cap Cana.  It was located within a plantation-like area called Cap Cana on the outskirts of Punta Cana, DR. 

 

Back for the honeymoon, we decided to go "Jimmy Buffett style" and steer clear of the big resort on St. John.  Instead, we stayed at a bed and breakfast, shopped at the local grocery store and walked around a lot.  Not this time....we did the resort thing and loved every moment of relaxation.  (Speaking of relaxation, we did a couples massage the first day there and it was pretty cool....I know you're dying to see a picture of me standing the lobby in the white bath robe, but fortunately there weren't any cameras around to catch that particular scene.)

 

The view from our hotel room....no, we have no idea what the large black thing is in the center of the courtyard....but it seems to give it a bit of a colonial feel for some reason.  The pool area was to the right and there were more beautiful palm trees and ocean on the horizon to the left. 

 An anniversary surprise for Emily :)

Our first night, we ate at a restaurant that on the pier overlooking the Caribbean ocean.  We were treated to watching the moon rise right out over the water.  It was really beautiful, but we didn't have the camera, so here is a pic from the front of our hotel room.



 

The beach



 

The passion fruit margarita....which unseated the "Mary-rita" as the number one margarita in the world....time to step up your game Nana if you want to regain the top seat!



The pool

 One of the fun parts of our stay was that our periods of total relaxation by the pool were interrupted by the social coordinators who encouraged us to play bacci ball, horse shoes and beach volleyball.  Emily won one of the games called "put it in".....it is basically cornhole but instead of bean bags you throw wooden disks.

 The palm tree next to our room

 

 Flash back to our prior visit to the Caribbean