The Real Thing--Mt. Magazine

Today was a beautiful day--still a little cool, but no wind...so the perfect day to take a chance on seeing the last of the fall leaves from atop Mt. Magazine. For those who don't know this mountain, it is the highest peak in Arkansas at 2,753 feet. It runs east to west for 6 miles, and up to 1 mile across. You can get lots of information by going to http://www.mountmagazinestatepark.com/. So, we set off on our excursion with the 3 girls in the back of the car. We stopped in Branch for pie from Sula Mae's...then on to Shirley's Outback for burgers (where I saw the names "Karen, Pam, Debbie, Idella" in the guest book from earlier this year--I believe I know those girls!). Having all we needed for our picnic, we headed up hwy. 309 to our destination. We enjoyed our meal then drove to the scenic overlooks....and there are several. It was a bright clear day, so we were able to enjoy the vistas every direction we looked. To the east we could see the steam tower from Nuclear 1 in London. To the south we could see Blue Mountain Lake. It was just a lovely day. After the views, walking around the lodge, and a short hike on Benefield Trail, we loaded up for the drive home. The girls all fell asleep quickly, and Jerry and I both had a hard time keeping our eyes open for the ride home. The brightest leaf color has passed, and the winds from this past week cleaned many trees off, but we still enjoyed the colors, the views, and the cool, crisp air. We'll continue to make this trip an annual fall pilgrimage.

Not Even Close to Mt. Magazine

What a mess!

Making progress.....

Soooo much better!

All week long, Jerry and I have talked about it being time for our fall pilgrimage to Mt. Magazine, with "the girls", of course. You see, earlier in the week it was 75-80 degrees, calm, and sunny. Then the front came through...the cold front. We had storms Thursday night, and crystal clear skys on Friday....with killer wind and a high of 55---in the sun with no wind blowing! Being a fair weather picnic-er and mountian vista enjoying kind-of-girl, a repeat of Friday's weather today left me wanting to stay warm and cozy inside. So, on to plan B. "B" for bubble bath, and the crazy notion that it was time to clean out and reorganize the kitchen pantry. What on earth was I thinking? I had a good thing going with the bubble bath, and I could have just snuggled in for a day of movies and snoozing. But I did it, I opened the pantry door, couldn't step in because of all the debris, and started unloading it. There was nothing to do but completely empty a few shelves and come up with a new plan. Jerry graciously made a run to Wal Mart and Lowe's in search of some kind of shelving for all my cookbooks. He couldn't find exactly what we wanted, but brought home an alternative that is going to work just fine. So, here are pictures of the during and after....sorry, but I didn't think about "before" shots until it was too late, and I wasn't about to put all that stuff back in for a picture....

First Day of November

I find it hard to believe that we are now in the 11th month of this year. I also find it hard to believe that in all our years of visiting my mom and sisters in Clarksville, I have never walked the Spadra Nature Trail. It parallels Spadra Creek, and from Main Street, is 1.3 miles. The entire trail is 1.7 miles, one way. Usually Jerry takes one of both of our Westies for their morning walks here, or he does his Saturday morning marathon training run, and incorporates the trail into his run. Needless to say, I never participate in these! However, this 1st day of November was different. We didn't have anything on the schedule early Saturday morning, so we took Emmee, our oldest Westie, for a walk. Our other 2 canine children stayed at home under the care of our neighbor this trip. Well, let me tell you, it is a beautiful and well planned trail! The asphalt jogger/cyclist-walker trail is well maintained, well lit (you could safely walk at night), and beautiful. If you live in C'ville, this is the perfect place to unwind from any day of work with a nice walk, ride, or run!

Halloween Night 2008

Great fun on Aunt Janice's front porch during Trick-or-Treating!

"Sarah Palin" even made a campaign stop...there were certainly enough voters present to warrant the time and effort! Joe the Plumber also showed up, but he was camera shy!

"Greatest" and Little Ride Riding Hood!

Pirate Paige, or is that a syrup icon from years gone by???

Mom and sister Susan in Janice and Bruce's newly remodeled kitchen.

Apparently, for the past several years, there has been quite a gathering at my sister and brother-in-law's house in C'ville on Halloween night. I guess we just never knew it was such a well attended and fun event, and had never gone....until this year. Well, let me tell you, I think every trick-or-treater in Johnson County came by their house, and half of them came in to join in our "Soup Supper". I've never seen such a line of ghosts, goblins, princesses, and the like. We had a blast! The candy trail lasted from about 5:30 until 9:00...and could have kept going if someone had been willing to make another "candy run"! We'll definately participate in this again next year!

Catching Up!

Since I failed to post any blogs most of the month of October, I have lots of catching up to do. I'll start with Tyler's birthday. Tyler, Casey, Asher, and Leila came over the night before Tyler's 29th birthday. We had a nice meal, lots of fun playing with Asher and Leila, and the highlight of the night was Asher singing "Happy Birthday" to his dad. I will attempt to post my first video clip of the serenade...we'll see how that goes! We enjoyed celebrating Tyler's 29th year...we think he's an extraordinary son, husband, dad, and man. We pray God continues to richly bless you, Tyler! Happy Birthday!

CommUnity Group

Jerry and I are hosts/facilitators for our CommUnity Group. We're a close group of friends, but more that, we have established an authentic relationship with each other through our common faith in Jesus Christ. We meet every-other Sunday in one of our member homes, do Bible study, a book study, or have in-depth discussion from the sermon notes from that morning. We've been doing this for about 3 years now, and I will tell you that there is nothing like having brothers-and sisters-in-Christ to spend time with, to study with, to pray with, and to share all the good and bad, happy and sad, easy and tough stuff in this life. We have such a level of trust within our group, each of us know we are "safe" with our friends. Later on today, 3 of our members will be leaving with a team of 7 others for a medical misson trip to Senegal, West Africa. They will be gone a total of 9 days, with 4 of those days being travel time. It's not an easy or quick place to get to! Last month, our church hosted a special Wednesday night dinner to raise money for the medicines, supplies, and additional costs due to "over the limit" luggage for this trip. Our group members served the meal, and fully participated in the silent auction of baked goods that followed. To say we have fun together would be a huge understatement. To say that we shy away from food, especially desserts, would just be untrue! These are pictures from that night. You can see that our table was not hurting for something sweet to eat! In all, the night brought in over $3500!!!! With 7 people going, and medicine and supplies for 5 days of medical treatment in the villages of west Africa, the money will be put to excellent use. We had such a good time, and now, as our friends are leaving today, we are prayerfully sending them on with anticipation and excitement for what the Holy Spirit will do because of their faithfulness to go.

It's Been Such a Long Time

So, to get back in the swing of blogging, I thought I'd share some garden shots. Jerry and I spend a lot of time in our yard, and we enjoy it immensely. For me, it is therapy after dealing with school issues, and it has probably saved us a ton of money in therapy over the years---but then, we've probably spent that and more in plants, trees, shrubs, mulch, urns, and so on! I was wanting to see just how well our camera would do taking very close shots and getting the details of flowers, and here is the result. Soon after taking these pictures, all the flowers were pulled up for the upcoming cold weather...and just in time....we had hard freeze warnings earlier this week, and many of these flowers and plants would not have survived the frost. Enjoy!

Our Favorite Saturday Morning

Saturday is one of our favorite days of the week---especially now that we are back in school and our weekdays are busy and long. Jerry typically gets up early (he's an early riser anyway) to leave for his "long run"--anywhere from 6-20 miles--by 5:30 am. Depending on the length of his run, he may be home by 8am, or as late as 10. It was so pleasant this morning, that while I was doing my 3 mile walk, I decided we needed to have breakfast on the patio. And then I started thinking about the menu, and thought grilled breakfast chops would be tasty. So, after a quick run to the store, I started preparing our patio breakfast: special scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, grilled pork chops with grilled peaches, biscuits with chocolate gravy, and a mimosa! Well, it was quite yummy! Jerry thinks I'm silly for taking pictures of food, but it really was a pretty plate. After breakfast, I even put a roast on the grill for about an hour, now it is slow cooking for the rest of the afternoon and it will be ready for supper!

Last night we took pizza and brownies over to my neice and her husband's home in Van Buren. Another yummy meal! Their new house is adorable and so nice for newleyweds! Then we went to Alma to the football game against VB. Leslie took some pictures, and when she sends them to me I'll add them to the blog. We had a fun evening, a great Saturday morning, and now I'm going outside for some much needed therapy in the yard--pulling weeds, trimming--anything to be outside on this beautiful day! I'll be at school all tomorrow afternoon--yuk!

Run For a Child

We did something different with our Labor Day Holiday this year. After church yesterday morning, we drove to Rogers and spent the night at Embassy Suites. Today we participated in "Run for a Child" 5 and 10K. Jerry ran the 10K, I walked/ran the 5K...and we finished within 6 minutes of each other! Remember that he is a runner, I'm just a walker who can run about 50 yards at a time! We each beat our goal by not being the last one on the course! Add eating out, shopping, and stopping at the new Lake Fort Smith State Park on the way home, and you have our very enjoyable and relaxing Labor Day Weekend! Oh--something we've never had to think about before today--when both of us participate in the same event, there's only before and after pictures!

9-5-08 Jerry just found my official results on the web. My time was 44:33, which gives an average pace of 14:32 per mile. Considering no training or walking since early July, that's not too bad!

More Birthday Party Pictures

We made a book, "Going to the Beach", a "Pink Flamingo Publication", for Asher and Leila. Using pictures from our trips to Navarre, the story tells all the reasons we love going to the beach. We hope they will enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it for them. In her pink grass skirt, I really think Leila has aspirations of one day becoming a "pink flamingo queen" like Lala! She definately has queenly qualities; and at such a young age!