A fun weekend (in February)!

Last November or December we decided to go snow skiing over President's Day weekend with some friends at Sugar Mountain NC.  By the time the planned weekend arrived our lives were crazy and I almost thought about canceling. Dennis was in Huntsville, Preston was in Auburn, there was a varsity baseball game scheduled for Monday afternoon and then the basketball team kept winning and had a game on Thursday night.  Dennis decided to come home on Thursday night to see the game and we WON.  I again thought about canceling but Ryan was so excited that I just could not do it.  The boys would not play until Monday night but would practice all weekend.  That meant poor Grant could not go with us.  We ended up leaving Friday morning after Dennis took hay to the cows and sheep.  We picked Preston up in Auburn and made it to the mountain just in time for supper!  It was an easy and uneventful drive.  

Tucker, Dalton, Carolyn, Ryan and Preston...missing Mia, Juliana and Tori

Me and Dennis before skiing

Mini family picture (without Grant :()

1st view of Sugar Mountain

unloading at the cabin,,,big building through trees is on top of mountain.  There were 9 kids and 6 adults

men getting fire started

Ryan and Dennis relaxing 

Ryan ready to get on the slopes

Mia and Juliana

Ryan

Preston and Dalton after rescuing one of Dalton's poles that fell from the chair lift!

I could sit and people watch inside and out on the slope

boots, boots and more boots

Ryan's black hat and jacket after walking down the mountain (and back up) to ice skate

They were frozen!!

playing fishbowl and charades (about the same game)

driving down the mountain to pick up the skiers on Sunday

We skied on Saturday.  The temperature was 25 when we started and in the 30s when we left for the evening.  I did ok during the morning but later in the day the slopes were a little icy and people were skiing out of control.  After I fell three times trying to get from top to bottom AND got smashed by a snowboarder out of control, I decided to sit in the lounge and rest!  Dennis found the kids and skied with them the rest of the day. We had a nice night in our "mountain cabin" playing trivia crack and watching the kids play charades.  Four of the kids wanted to go ice skating in blizzard winds and sideways snow.  We told them to walk and thought they would turn around.  They made it down the mountain easy but said the walk back up was hard and freezing!! The next day it was going to be 1 degree in the morning so they decided to start skiing at 12:30 (when it warmed up to 4).  I stayed back with a headache and to visit with the ladies!  We sat by the fire, watched movies, read books and relaxed!  
I picked them up at 4:30 and we were on the road by 6ish.  We dropped Preston off in Auburn around 11:30 pm and were home by 1:10 am.  We slept and then made it to Grant's basketball game that evening.  We lost that game and are now into baseball season!  It was a quick trip but we all had a good time.  I left with three bruises (still have one) but no one got hurt and everyone enjoyed skiing.  Not bad for only going once every 4 years!  We will hopefully make this an annual trip!

Side note.....this is the last of several posts I finally got around to tonight so look back for the others!  

A nice weekend (in January!)

It may sound strange but one of the best weekends in January was the weekend of Dennis's Aunt Faye's funeral.  She was a great woman and had fought a long battle with Alzheimer's.  When we first moved to New Brockton, long before I dated Dennis, she was my bus driver!  We had a pretty rough route and she was very strict.  Several years later she became "my aunt" and I learned how much she loved her family and church.  She will be missed but I am sure she is much happier now in Heaven!!  
We saw so many friends and family at the visitation and the funeral was a wonderfully sweet celebration of her life.  Dennis did a great job speaking as did Alexa, her granddaughter who shared some memories of the grandchildren.  We also got to visit with an old pastor, Bro. Sam.
After the visitation, I went to dinner with friends, some I had not seen in awhile, and two sweet girls.  We had such a fun time that we went back to my house for fun dip and fingernail painting!  Yes FUN DIP...we are a WILD bunch.  We did have two pastors' wives with us!!!

Fun with Fun Dip!!

Emily Grace feeding Swaggy

Ansley fed him too.  So sweet

Then it was time to paint our nails.   Kelly and I only have boys so this was a treat for us.  We also found out that we needed a little more practice!!

I glittered my nails too and boy is that stuff hard to get off!!

At the time I wanted to do this blog there were several other things I wanted to share.  I had even "written" it in my head and now that it is only a month later I cannot remember what else I wanted to say.  I guess I can just say that....It was a really nice weekend with old and new friends and family.  We miss you Aunt Faye.

Grant

I am going to jump around (time wise) a bit and do a blog about Grant first.  He has had a busy year so far.  He went to his first dance with a family friend.  "Girls Club" is a huge deal in Enterprise and Grant was asked to go by a sweet girl, Carolyn.  I told her he might say no and then we decided not to tell him it was a masquerade ball until group picture time!!  They met at her house for pictures, then went to another house for group pictures before boarding a "party bus" for dinner in Panama City Beach Florida!  The bus was late for dinner so they were late eating and late getting back.  Not too bad for Grant though because that meant less dancing haha.  They both looked great and had a great time!!

gotta take a SELFIE!!

The one picture with his mask.  He made her mom promise not to put it on facebook.  I did not promise and he did not mention the blog!!

Our varsity basketball team was 2nd in area which meant we made the playoffs but had to travel.  We played in Mobile and WON.  They had a little send off at school for the team.

Playing St. Luke in Mobile.  Grant had a nice game and has been one of the leading scorers in last several games

We moved to Regionals in Dothan...here is Grant being introduced as starting line up

Playing Houston Academy...we won again!!

Happy Boys!  On to Elite 8 (grant does not wear glasses...just being silly)

we had a great student section both nights in Dothan.  We always have a great crowd.

Pep talk but it wasn't enough to beat our county rival Elba.  Lost by 7!!

Grant was selected for the All Tournament team.  Just recognition for great play during tournament.

He and Payton from our team, two from Elba and two other boys (not pictured) from other teams in the tournament!

Grant had a great season.  Played great on both offense and defense.  His name was in the paper quite a bit.  Very proud of his dedication.  Poor guy had to miss our weekend ski trip to be ready for the 2nd game in regionals.  He has also been battling a nagging cold and cough!  Hope the rest of 2015 is as fun and exciting for him (and us)!!

one more photo...could not resist.  This is how you change a light bulb in the Griffin household!

Computer Problems

Oh how I HATE technology sometimes!!!  Our laptop got a virus (or several), my program for writing my blog posts "upgraded" and now does not recognize my Windows Vista , the battle over internet explorer and Google chrome is driving me crazy and then when I tried to log into the blog without the program, it would not recognize me and wanted me to start a new blog!!!! UGH!! 
All of this happened when I have so much to "blog about".  This will be a "test" blog and if all goes well, I will follow with January highlights and move onto our fun February (so far).  Keep your fingers crossed!!!!