Happy Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year, we drove up to Albertville to spend it with my family.  Drew's brother, Adam, also drove up to spend the day with us.  We always enjoy getting to spend time with Uncle Adam, so we're glad he came.  

Thanksgiving Day was very busy, as I'm sure is the norm for most of us.  Inside, Mom was roasting a turkey, while outside Drew and Adam worked on frying one.  

 In she goes.

 Nice and slow

 Five minutes in, the propane take stopped working.  Drew and Adam ran to find another one while Dad maintained the temperature with his welding torch!  (The rednecks always come through!)   :)   Luckily the boys found another propane tank and we were back in business. 

 45 glorious minutes later, we had this delicious bird!

 With all our food loaded in the car, we headed over to my Aunt and Uncle's house.  Granny Nita wasn't feeling up to hosting this year, so we moved locations.  I didn't take any pictures once we got there...probably because I was too busy stuffing my face!  It was quite the spread.  We had a great time.  
We took Granny some leftovers.  She was feeling so good that we drove her next door to show her all the improvements on the old green house.   (She would KILL ME dead for posting this picture on my blog, but since she refuses to get the internet, I guess I'm safe.  That is, unless my family members choose to tell her.....DON'T!)  She can't get around very well these days, so we wheeled her onto the back of the truck and drove through the front yard.  It was pretty funny and yet very functional.  lol   She was very impressed with our improvements.  

 After the food settled, it was time to tackle BLACK FRIDAY!  Drew and I were troopers.  We had a very productive night.  Drew actually started standing in line for a hot ticket item at 8 pm.  I dropped him off at the door and returned around 9:30 for the 10pm sale.  I had to park next door at Belk because Walmart's parking lot was FULL.

It was great and all that walmart started their sale at 10, however there was quite a gap in the shopping hours.  Belk didn't open until 3 am so we went home, unloaded the car, let Drew shower, and hit up Waffle House around 12:30.  Then it was Belk at 4, Sears at 4, and Kmart at 5.  We got home at 6:15 am with over 2/3 of our Christmas shopping DONE!  Then...we slept!
So, how was your black friday experience?

Vintage Fashion Show

Mom helped my Grandmother clean out some of her drawers in an effort to give my Granddaddy more room to put his clothes.  (Men, you know how it is...your wife takes over multiple closets and drawers because she has way more stuff than you.)
Well, Mom came home with some treasures and I just had to try them on.  
*Disclaimer: I apologize for the cheesiness of playing dress up...especially when my hair is in a ponytail with no makeup, but that's not the point....these dresses are awesome!*

My Mom's Jr. Prom dress (1975)

 Mom and Dad's first Coronation Ball in 9th grade (1973)

 This one was my Grandmothers!  This dress is from the 40's.  She worked at the telephone company as an operator until the phones switched to "dial" and the operators were no longer needed.  Apparently, the company had a big "GO DIAL" party and this was the dress she wore.  I love it!

 This was a dress that Mom bought but never wore.

 It still had the tag!  (Rutenburg's is a store I have never heard of!) $44 back in the day was a lot!

 Mom's Sr. Prom (1976)

 It also came with a modesty shrug!

 This was Mom's "casual wear" in some pageant.

 I call this the school marm dress.  Mom's picture in this dress was featured at Olan Mills.

This one is my absolute favorite.  It was my Grandmothers.  The shrug comes off to reveal some sparkly broach type things on both straps.  It was a satin dress; very comfy.  I told Granny that I tried it on and she informed me that this was her WEDDING DRESS!  How awesome is that?!  Maybe I'll have it cleaned and wear it to the Marine Corps Ball next year!

I had fun taking a trip back in time.  I went back to Granny's the next day and found a few more.  There were even some of Mom's dresses when she was a little girl.  If I ever have a little girl of my own, I can't wait to put her in those cute vintage dresses!

LEAVES!

Andrew and I rode up to Albertville with Mom and Dad on Saturday to get a head start on Thanksgiving.  Drew will be driving up today!  Yesterday, Andrew went to Gracie's house to "play."  She sent me these pictures from her phone.

 What fun!  I love playing in the leaves!

Dead Dog In The Middle of the Road

It was a dark and rainy drive on the backroads from Milton, Fl to I-65.  The fog had rolled in and visibility wasn't the greatest...especially when Granna is driving!   There was a somewhat impatient car behind us and an oncoming car approaching in the next lane.  Up ahead we could see a dog wandering into the street. (You can see where this is going, right?)  He was sniffing something in the middle of our lane.  There was no time....He looked up at us and FROZE right there in the middle of the road.  We all knew what was about to happen.  With wet roads, being surrounded by cars, Mom braced for impact.  I buried my face in my pillow just in time to hear that poor dog go bumpity bump under the truck.  Oh, it was SO BAD!  The largest animal I've ever smooshed was an opossum, which was still pretty gross.  This poor dog!  He just stood there and didn't get out of the way.  About 30 minutes later, we stopped for gas, expecting to see evidence of our accident.  Instead, we saw this.....

...a brown bat!  Who knows how this little critter got there.  Perhaps that's what the dog was after in the middle of the road or perhaps we hit him at another time.  Nonetheless, it was pretty funny after it was all said and done.  Especially when we stopped at cracker barrel over an hour later and out of the blue, Andrew said, "Poor dog."
Needless to say, I drove the rest of the way home....luckily no more Animals were harmed!

A New Post?! FINALLY

Yes, I know...it's embarrassing how long it has been since my last post.  I apologize!  We've been incredibly busy getting into the house, among other things.  I've been meaning to sit down and post several times, but something always comes up or else I'm way too tired at the end of the day.  But tonight we finished dinner a little early, so the kitchen is clean, and there's a peanut butter pie chilling in the freezer.  Drew has Andrew up in the toy room, so it's just me and the dog, lounging in the chair.  I thought this would be a perfect time to play catch up.  So, even though it is now November 15th, I'm going to post date all the coming posts, so scroll on down to see what all you've missed!


And since I don't like posts with no pictures, here are a few shots of Andrew at the beach.  These were taken the weekend before we moved into the house when Kellye was in town.

Happy Veterans Day

This is my Granddaddy.  He fought in the Battle of the Bulge, where he was shot off of a tank and lost an eye, earning him the Purple Heart.  He has an amazing story that we hope to have written out so we never forget.  So Happy Veterans Day to all those who fought and are still fighting for our freedom! 

Marine Corps Birthday Ball

The Marine Corps Ball is one of my favorite nights of the year!  I love getting dressed up and going to a big fancy party where there's dinner and dancing.  Since we missed out last year (Drew was in Afghanistan), we went all out.  I had my hair and makeup done.  And even though the powder was a little too white, it was worth it.  I had choir practice that morning and went straight from practice to the salon.  At 4 pm, Ashley, our sitter from church (great girl...LOVE HER) arrived at the house and we were out the door.
The night started in Seville Quarter at one of the restaurants there. The name escapes me right now.  We had dinner there and it was lovely...freezing in there, but lovely.  You'll notice martini glasses below.  Check it out...they're filled with mashed potatoes!

 We saw Drew's old flight school roommate, Andy Rice.  I hadn't seen him in over 4 years!

Roomies

After dinner, we drove over to the Naval Aviation Museum for the actual ceremony.  There were so many people there....a couple of thousand...if not more.  They were there to hear our guest speaker. I had never been to a ball at the museum.  It's a great atmosphere with all the planes hanging from the ceiling and set up everywhere.  It was neat.

We thought about having professional pictures made since the last time we did that was at our first ball together in AUBURN, but we're on a budget these days so we decided to save money and just asked folks to take pictures of us all night in hopes that we'd get a good one.  It's kind of funny now because Drew and I don't get very many chances to have pictures of just the two of us, and tonight there were TONS of them!

Our guest speaker for the evening was THE COMMANDANT of the Marine Corps!  He's the first pilot to be commandant. It was amazing to hear him speak.  He spoke of the history of the corps and all the challenges of past generations.  He concluded by saying, "And yes, we still make 'em as good as we used to!"  Ooh-Rah!

The guys

Ginny worked at our apartment!

Look Hawaii friends...we found Alan and Sherree!  That handsome older gentlemen in the photo with us is the oldest marine present....He was born in 1914!  Yes, he's 97 years old!

One last shot...

We had fun even though we didn't stay for the dancing portion.  The ceremony wasn't over until 10:30 and we had a 45 minute drive home.  We were feeling a little sorry for the babysitter since she had been at the house sine 4 pm.  Besides there's always next year!


*A little shout out to the Hawaii gang:  It just wasn't the same without you! (or Karaoke at the Shorebird afterwards!)  Love you gals :)