griffinx5

Happy New Year!

2012! Wow. This year has been very busy and exciting. Dennis returned from deployment and we started building the house. Preston started driving! We took a nice trip to Maryland stopping at many neat places on the way up and back. We MOVED into our house and went on a ski trip all at the same time! The boys continued keeping us busy with many sporting events as well as Ryan’s acting “gigs”.

After getting home at 2 am on New years eve and working on the house and dog pen all day. We decided to spend a quiet night at “home”. Auburn played in the Chick fil a bowl so I tried to make nuggets with a “chick fil a” recipe. I did not think they tasted like chick fil a but they were good. We enjoyed cheering Auburn onto VICTORY and then went across the road to our land to shoot some fireworks. Later we had ice cream sundaes and toasted the new year. We spent New Year’s Day working like “dogs” fixing the old backyard. We filled in holes, pressure washed the porch and took up all the fencing we had to keep around the perimeter to keep our crazy dogs in. While we worked we al were telling the dogs that this new house is a no dig zone!

Ready for the Chick Fil a bowl with our Auburn stuff, nuggets and waffle fries!

a “little” box of fireworks

we burned empty boxes and some wood to make a small bon fire (Preston texting!)

picking out fireworks to try. I could never get a good picture of our mini fireworks and most just went POP anyway. The boys enjoyed it…especially Ryan who has been begging for years!!!

Even the cat was tired by midnight!

Wishing you all the best: Love, health and happiness in 2012!

Ski Trip

Dennis and I helped chaperone a church youth ski trip to West Virginia. It was not the best year to go because of the move but they don’t do it every year and we all needed a break. There were 53 of us…30+ were youth and kids. We left at midnight on the 27th and drove all night and most of the day, getting to our manor house by supper time. The 28th was a day full of skiing, day and night! It took a little while for the boys to remember how to get going but once they did, they were going down every slope!

Corbin all bundled up and ready while Preston eats breakfast

Waiting for ski rentals

Grant and Dennis

I did not see Preston much either day! He skied a bit out of my league

Corbin and Ryan skiing at night

They were making new snow with snow blowers

Ryan ended up “giving” lessons

on the way home the bus broke down and we spent 5 hours at a wonderful Chick Fil A in South Carolina and even later had to stop again for a break….the return trip took 18+ hours and we were all ready to get off the bus and go home!

We did have a great time and it was fun helping some of the youth learn to ski. Looking forward to the next trip but I now understand why we do not plan one every year!

Christmas 2011

Well we survived another Christmas and our 1st one in our new home. There are still boxes everywhere and the tree is still up but…..it will all get done one day! We did have a wonderful Christmas. We had one on the 22nd with my brother and Janet and then Christmas with Dennis’s family on the 24th. It was so nice that his dad was out of the hospital and able to enjoy the meal and presents.

Grandmama tricked Grant with a pack of “tighty whities” instead of money!

Autumn broke her leg roller skating…here she is doing leg lifts to work the other leg

I got all the boys duffle bags big enough for Corbin to fit it!

The grandkids: Ryan, Grant, Lauren, Autumn, Christa, Preston ,Caleb and Corbin

The whole family

Christmas Day started bright and early since we do not have curtains or blinds yet Smile My parents came over to see the boys open gifts before we all went to church.