Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Pilot Mountain 2017

I almost messed up our annual tradition of hiking at Pilot Mountain this year! I had it in my calendar, but forgot to actually coordinate with Andrew about taking the day off. D'oh! Thankfully, he was able to switch things around at work and take the day off to spend with us while the kids had a teacher workday off of school. Yay!

We headed up fairly early in the morning and stopped at the hospital to visit a friend from church, Laura Jones, who was ill. When we got to her room, she was asleep, so we didn't even get to visit. Darn.

Then we grabbed some lunch at Wendy's and went to the movies to watch Lego Ninjago. It was pretty good, but not as good as the previous two Lego movies. We loved the theater, though, with leather recliners for seats! Andrew and Brandon may have snuck in some Zzzzz's while we were there...

Then it was time to head to the mountain.



As usual, I packed my tripod and we snapped some 
family pics while we were up there.
This one's my favorite. 











Instead of doing our traditional hike around the knob,
we took some new trails that had bouldering routes.

The climbers brought their shoes
and were able to do a little climbing.





Andrew even gave it a little try.

We would've liked to have stayed a little longer,
but the sun was starting to set and I didn't want
to get stranded down there.

Beautiful Whitney,
who humored the climbers. :)



We thought it was cool how the light and shadows 
made a bright #1 right there.

Oh, how I love having adventures with my family.

We stopped at Sheetz on the way home to get a treat.
It was WAAAAAY off the freeway exit, which was annoying.

We were treated to a cool view of the Winston-Salem skyline as we drove home.
Love my family and the traditions we share.

Saturday, November 18, 2017

What September Looked Like

These were the first two items on my grocery list.
Do you get my NBA joke? :)


Time for the Folk Festival!
This was Greensboro's last year of hosting this event.
We LOVE it and were so happy we could go again this year.





It has been a ROUGH hurricane season.
Someone expressed their hate for hurricane Irma 
through sidewalk art.


Andrew and I took the girls on Fri night, 
then went back on a date on Saturday.
We got to do a little dancing.

And watched a little bit of a B-boy competition.








Caroline is competing in Battle of the Books at school this year.
They have to read these fifteen books by Jan, do a little
book report on them, and pass an AR test.
She's off to a great start!

I moved up to play on Div 2 for Gate City this year.
We are doing awesome!
We're in third place and BEAT the first place team 4-1!
Woo hoo!

Tennis and Qdoba date night.
My favorite.




September was THE month for bouldering competitions.



First, both Caroline and B competed at Triangle Rock Club in Durham.
It was a huge competition.

Caroline took fifth place!


Their coach, Matt, and some of their teammates.

It's also marching band season!


It's funner for the girls when they can bring
friends to the game!


Another weekend, both climbers competed at the US National Whitewater Center.
I had never been there.
That place is amazing.





It was a smaller comp overall,
 but their team was well represented!

And both kids took FIRST in their age group.
Woo hoo!


General Women's meeting.
LOVE it.


I've spent MANY hours over the last couple of weeks looking for a third car for our family to buy. I wanted to spend less than $3000, was hoping for a Toyota or Honda, and wanted it to have 150k miles or less. After test driving a few beaters, we came across this Toyota Solara and took it! It is SOOOOO nice to have a third driver with a third car around.
(Our new insurance bill is NOT so nice....)


My softball team made it to the tournament this year!
After taking an early lead, our opponents broke out
their big bats and beat us badly by the end.
I had a great time playing and hope to play again next year.



Annual Lakefield Ward Talent Show!
Whit and Andrew played a duet of Canon in D.
It was so great!


Whit also did a BEAUTIFUL ballet solo with some help from Miss Shelley.
She has been working HARD on her dancing this year and it shows!


This rice cooker was a wedding gift.
Our family loves rice and I use it often.
But after twenty years, it bit the dust this month.
Sad.

Andrew took Brandon down to CliffHangers in Charlotte 
for his THIRD competition this month.
He climbed well, but didn't place this time.
He's looking forward to competing in Regionals in December.