4th of July

Panasonic asked the LiHD families to share our 4th of July traditions, so here's my version.

First of all, I hear there is a move to start calling this holiday "Independence Day" again, and I have to agree that it's a more meaningful designation. After all, we call it "Christmas," not the "25th of December."

My idea of a 4th of July celebration involves a cookout with extended family which includes homemade ice cream for dessert. It also involves some purchased fireworks like firecrackers, bottle rockets and sparklers and a trip to see the town's fireworks show.

Anyway, our idea of what this holiday should be has had to be modified a bit because we don't always have extended family around and there are some unique opportunities to celebrate where we live. So this is what our celebration weekend looks like now: We attend an annual parade and 1940's USO show in nearby Jonesborough, Tennessee. This year we also participated in a kid's revolutionary war battle reenactment at Sycamore Shoals State Park. We have great fireworks right in our neighborhood (on a vacant lakefront lot), so we don't have to battle any traffic or crowds to see a great show. This year we added a new tradition after stuffing ourselves in a backyard cookout - we read aloud the entire Declaration of Independence!

Here are some shots from the parade:

From July 4th weekend

From July 4th weekend

From July 4th weekend

From July 4th weekend

From July 4th weekend

From July 4th weekend

From July 4th weekend

not exactly 76 trombones, but at least several

From July 4th weekend

representing the "Overmountain Men" who mustered in this area to fight for Independence at the Battle of King's Mountain

From July 4th weekend

notice no Union Soldiers, for in the south the Civil War has never actually ended

From July 4th weekend

a reluctant participant

From July 4th weekend

friends Josh and Laura O'Bryan, cast members of the USO show - which was the best ever this year!

From July 4th weekend

getting candy thrown on the parade route


And now for the Battle of King's Mountain:

From July 4th weekend

kids sworn in

From July 4th weekend

This gal looked too pretty to fight!

From July 4th weekend

storming the "mountain"

From July 4th weekend

an unfortunate prisoner

Afternoon on the Lake

Believe it or not, this is the first time this summer that we have spent time as a family on the lake. The kids went tubing and Terry and I skiied. Now Terry is sore and is getting one of Rebecca's famous backrubs.

Happy Birthday, Nathan!

Nathan had a party today with his friends. Speaking as someone with a November birthday, it must be great to have a birthday in the summer! All you have to do is take some friends and add water - and there you have it, a party!

They played at the neighborhood pool, ate burgers, took some crazy tube rides and then had some cookie cake!

Happy Father's Day

Well, in my quest for a cheap but thoughtful gift, I have decided to follow-up my mother's day blog with one on father's day.

Unfortunately, this is not quite as easy. I don't like to do blog entries without a photo (in fact, I don't think I ever have!), and it was impossible for me to find a picture taken of just me and my Dad in the first several years of my life. Let that be a lesson to all of you "one-photographer" families. The person behind the camera deserves to be in a few photos, too!

Anyway, though I didn't find a photo of me and Dad, I did find some photos that brought back memories of Dad.

This first one is of me in my Daddy's darkroom:

From Dad

It looks a little bit like a doctor's office, but this is where he developed his black and white photographs. I remember getting to sit on the stool and not being allowed to leave during the process. This may have been a little bit of a challenge for a little girl in training pants. I remember being fascinating watches the pictures appear when Dad put them in solution. It was magical!

From Dad

The photo above was taken on a fishing trip with Dad. I have vague memories of this trip. You can see that we brought along plenty of moon pies in case we didn't end up catching much fish. I remember going fishing with Dad - usually when we were out camping at Gunner Pool - and there again I watched the process but didn't actually participate. I just couldn't bait a live cricket OR clean a fish, either! But Dad seemed to enjoy just having some company.

Thanks, Dad for spending time with me. Thanks for sitting through all those music recitals (band, choir and piano) and managing to stay awake. Thanks for letting me play the piano loud and sing in the car with my sisters for hours without complaining. Thanks for taking us camping all over the USA.

Hope you have a great day!

Family Celebration

We just returned from another trip out of town. This time we were celebrating Terry's mother's 70th birthday. Here's the birthday gal:

From Liz's 70th

I don't think she really looks 70! Anyway, we (Terry's parents, his brothers and their families) all rented a large house on Lake Barkley in Kentucky and just hung out together for a few days. On the last night that we were there, we all got in a circle and read letters to Liz telling her what she meant to us. Then the next morning we all went to Madison, Kentucky, where she was born and spent her first 14 years. We went back to the street she lived on, and she took all 17 of us on a walking tour! I'm not sure what the neighbors thought. We videoed most of it as seeing all the old sites made her keep thinking of stories that none of us had ever heard before.

After leaving Madison, we headed in a convoy down to Tullahoma, Tennessee - where Liz's father's family - The Jennings - have their annual reunion at Rutledge Falls. I think it's pretty cool to have your reunion near a huge waterfall that's actually owned by family members. Turns out this waterfall is featured in the recent Hannah Montana movie.

From Liz's 70th

Anyway, like most reunions there was lots of good food! We also enjoyed singing, playing horseshoes and swimming at the falls. Here's a slide show of our weekend. I didn't take many pics at the reunion because . . .well, I somehow thought Rebecca was going to. Anyway, Miley Cyrus was NOT at the reunion, but I saved the picture in the same file, so it ended up in my slide show.



Now we have returned home and will not travel much the rest of the summer. Three of our four kids were just cast in Cheaper by the Dozen at a local theater, and they will be rehearsing six days a week for the next six weeks! Rebecca got cast in a major role as Ernestine, one of the older daughters, and her younger brothers Nathan and Noah were cast as . . .her younger brothers Fred and Jackie!

Visit to Fayetteville

Well, I'm going to blog about our trip to Fayetteville even though it's possible that the only people who read this blog regularly live there and participated in these same events. I'm pretty sure I will scoop them with this blog content since they are too busy to blog. Does this mean I need to get a life?

First of all, we went to Arkansas partly to see my niece, Lisa, graduate from Fayetteville High School (still my Alma Mater true).

From Arkansas

There's Lisa in the back. Carol and I got so bored watching all 500+ graduates walk in that we accidentally got to talking about something else and missed seeing Lisa walk in. But we did manage to see her walk across the stage!

Another fun thing we did was visit Wilson Park. There's a cool castle there, and Rebecca enjoyed taking lots of photos there. There are lots of cool sculptures and details that I never noticed before. Rebecca got a chance to take LOTS of photos because the van ran out of gas when we were there and I had to hitch a ride back to my parent's house.

From Arkansas

From Arkansas

From Arkansas

From Arkansas

One thing that has become a tradition during our visits to Fayetteville is meeting Carol and her kids at Rick's Bakery to eat breakfast. They have an incredible selection of goodies and some really neat creative cakes and baked goods on display. The kids (and adults) also enjoy watching the decorators at work. We decided to make a photo by the colorful van outside and out walked Rick - owner of the bakery - and he posed with the kids.

From Arkansas

One of the highlights of this trip was a talent show at the Covingtons on Sunday evening. Katie and Jeremy organized the event. Their act involved Katie "driving a car" and putting on make-up, drinking water, etc.

From Arkansas

Caleb told jokes . . .

From Arkansas

Noah did sign language . . .

From Arkansas

Terry and David were the judges (which effectively got them out of the competition):

From Arkansas

There were also mandolin, violin,singing, lip-syncing and dancing acts! I may require ransom money to keep from posting the Sister Sledge act on a later date.

Besides visiting with family, we also saw some old friends. Terry and I visited with Jeff and Lisa Gaddy in Fayetteville. Jeff and I have known each other since grade school and were in choir and band together in high school and college. Jeff had recently put our old choir music on MP3s, and I am having fun singing the old music. Caleb says he feels like he's had enough "music appreciation" to last a lifetime now. I also enjoyed seeing Jeff demonstrate his "harmonizer" that can harmonize your own voice in up to 8-part harmony.

We also stopped in Memphis on our trip back and spent a few hours at a local Chic-Fil-A with our friends Andy and Jennifer Pierce (and their five kids).

It was a great trip, and we are only home a week before we hit the road again - this time for a trip with Terry's family.

Happy Mother's Day

From

Today is Mother's Day, and I wanted to tell my Mom how much I love her. I'm not so good at remembering to send cards or gifts, and one thing I like about Mom is that she seems to understand that. She has always done a great job of loving us just as we are!

Mom, I really appreciate all you did for me when I was growing up. You were a great example of working hard and always having a cheerful attitude. You are always quick to smile (like in this picture). I miss you and look forward to seeing you soon!

Love,

Susan

Daddy's Little Girl

Our homeschool group had their Spring Formal this past weekend. Rebecca took her Dad as her date, and here they are dressed up for the event. At the actual dance, Rebecca was too busy dancing to take any photos! And Terry was too busy talking to one of the other Dads. So I am going next year!

Our Easter

From Easter Sunday

We had a great Easter weekend. The weather was gorgeous! Terry's brother's family came up on Saturday. We had a Passover Seder together on Friday night and attended church together on Sunday morning. We had lots of great food and conversation, and the kids had a great time together.

We are blessed to have an extended family that it's so fun to be with, and it's fun seeing our kids build relationships. They can't wait for "Cousin Camp" this summer.
Noah even made a blurb book with the photos from last year's camp, and he gave a copy to his cousins this weekend. Here's a peek if you're interested:

Cousin Camp

By NOah Seaman

Book Preview

An Odd Day

Tuesday, April 7th, was a very odd day for us. Snows showers fell off and on all day. In between the snow showers, the sun would come out. It's always strange to see snow on the blooming spring flowers, and Rebecca got some neat shots.

From Corel Auto-Preserve

It was also a strange day because we were having lots of interior painting done at our house, so the furniture and everything was pulled to the middle of the rooms, and the painters were coming in and out.

But by far the strangest thing was when Terry called me at about 11 am to tell me that he had been laid off from Eastman where he has worked as a mechanical engineer for 22 years. We knew the lay-offs were coming, but we honestly did not think it would affect him. He works in R&D which took a bigger hit than the rest of the company.

We thank the Lord that His word has led us to be very careful with our money. We have no debt (including our house) and a good emergency fund. Terry's severance pay will continue until January, so we have a lot of time to think about what comes next in our lives. It is exciting in many ways!

Terry is excited about having the time to pursue several business/ministry ideas that he was already looking into. He had actually thought about requesting to be laid off but didn't. He is upbeat now, but I know he will really miss his friends and his routine. Plus it's just plain hurtful to be escorted out of a place without even a chance to collect your thoughts, much less your stuff!

The kids and I will be getting used to having him around the house during the day for awhile. He's a little bit like Major Dad, so there will be no more loafing!

The verse that came to our minds immediately was "Count it all joy when you encounter various trials." Then on Wednesday, my reading in the One Year Bible "coincidentally" happened to open with this same verse. I'll quote it here in The Message" version:

"Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenge come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors."

So we are looking at this as a gift - a strange gift for a strange day! We will keep you posted as we unwrap the future.

Great Minds Think Alike

I've been meaning to blog about pizza night for awhile, but the Pelletiers and the Calandros beat me to it!

I used to make homemade pizza quite often. We would make one pizza for the adults and another for the kids. Then it got to where the kids couldn't agree on what toppings they wanted. I got a little frustrated and we just quit doing "pizza night" (which led to "quesadilla night" so it wasn't all bad!).

Now "pizza night" has returned! To get around the topping arguments, each kid gets their own "personal pan" pizza. Rebecca usually has just garlic and cheese, the older two boys like just tomato sauce and cheese, and Noah is a meat lover! Terry and I have tried all kinds of creative toppings.

I start with a homemade crust. Here are the ingredients:

From Pizza Night

And no, I don't use quite that much garlic and salt! That would really be over the top. Here is the recipe I use:

6 c. flour (I sometimes use a little whole wheat)
2 T. sugar
1 t. salt
2 t. minced garlic
1/2 c. oil
2 c.water
2 T. yeast

Mix. Knead a few minutes and let rise one hour before rolling out for crust.This makes enough for two very large pizzas or an assortment of sizes. I usually make 4 pie-size pizzas for the kids and two more large pizzas.

The crust is really quite easy and very good. I love the garlic!

From Pizza Night

Here's a finished pineapple and peppered-bacon pizza. It got a little overdone. The stones work best for pizza, but I haven't found them in the "personal pan" size, so the kids just stick with pie pans.

Terry and I have some favorites:

Thai Chicken pizza (peanut sauce or just a little peanut butter spread on the crust as a base, Thai BBQ chicken, bacon, green pepper, onion, and extra red pepper flakes)
Chicken & Spinach Alfredo (alfredo sauce, leftover grilled chicken, spinach, onion and mushroom)
Sausage & Spinach Alfredo (same as above but with sausage)
Pineapple and Ham or Bacon

When I have to make a little alfredo sauce for a pizza, I make what I call 3-2-1-1 sauce:

3 T. butter, melted
2 T. flour
1 c. milk
1 c. parmesan cheese

Incidentally, this is the same sauce I use for mac&cheese - I just use Velveeta in place of the parmesan.

Our pizza night isn't always on the same night of the week - but the kids always love to hear "pizza night!" because they know it means good food and usually a movie or cool sporting event watched in HD.

Happy Anniversary!

Terry and I were married nineteen years ago today!

I decided to celebrate by finally get our VHS wedding video transferred to DVD! I've got our old Panasonic (wouldn't you know?) VHS player hooked up to our computer with a "Dazzle" attachment. It's working great, and I'm looking forward to transferring all our old movies now. I can even bring them in to Pinnacle and edit them if I wish.

Carol - just to let you know: When going through our home movies, I found that I have footage from your wedding made with my camera. So hopefully all is not lost!
The only problem would be if I taped over it for some reason.

We are celebrating tonight by having steak on the grill with the kids and then subjecting our kids to watching our wedding video!

Thursday night Terry is taking me out to dinner and the Barter Theatre.

Blurb Books

We've been having lots of fun doing books on blurb. We have eight so far. Three are just family books, five are books we've done as part of our new business - Funfolios! Rebecca is meeting tonight with a local theatre company to discuss doing a book for the cast of their latest production - "The Phantom Tollbooth."

The Jonesborou...

The Lion The Witch...

By Dramatized by Jose...

Book Preview

This book featured above is one Rebecca put together for the production of "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" that she and Nathan were in last spring. It contains lots of collages of characters and scenes, program information, a short bio of C.S. Lewis, information about the local theatre and even a recipe for Turkish Delight!

All the kids tried out for "Alice in Wonderland" at Theatre Bristol this week. None of them were cast - which may be a good thing as the boys had to read for the parts of the rose and the daisies in the Queen of Heart's garden. I don't think they would have been too thrilled with those parts.

I am considering letting Noah try out to be a flying monkey or lollipop guild member at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon. They need kids between 4'2" and 4'7". If not, the next production they're hoping for parts in is "Cheaper by the Dozen."

Sweet Sixteen

From 16th b-day with family

Rebecca turned Sweet Sixteen last Sunday! Of course, a car might seem like the obvious gift, but besides the fact that we're a practical and frugal family who would rather just give her the keys to the family car, we also wanted to make our gifts a bit more sentimental. So we asked her Papa to make her a hope chest. It's made of cherry wood, and he's doing an incredible job on it (it's not quite finished yet, but we all went to the shop to take a look). Rebecca was really surprised. She has always enjoyed keeping her treasures in a box, so I thought she'd really appreciate something like this. My Mom and Terry's mom gave her some heirloom gifts to go in it. She now has a quilt and an afghan made by two great-grandmothers that she never got to meet. She has a sterling silver tea set that was a wedding gift to my mother. I told her that the sterling represented the beauty and preciousness of her character. All the gifts together represent the legacy that her family is blessing her with. Thanks to all of you who wrote letters for her birthday! Papa is making a lift-out drawer for her hope chest where she can keep things like these letters.

I told Rebecca that if she had gotten a car, it would be out-of-date in the near future, but she'll probably still have this hope chest when she is an old woman.

We thank God every day for the blessing He gave us sixteen years ago!

Here are some more pictures from the family birthday party.



Rebecca will still have a party with her friends in a few weeks. She's going to do a Murder Mystery party (The Last Train from Paris), and Terry and I are going to cook and serve the dinner for her and her friends.

Hanging Around

From Swinging

I love this shot that Rebecca took of Noah swinging. She got lots of great pictures of the boys goofing around. We had some wonderful weather this week and were all glad to spend some time outside.

From Swinging

From Swinging

From Swinging

From Swinging

From Swinging

From Swinging

Who is that Masked Girl?

From Winter Formal

From Winter Formal

Here are some pictures of Rebecca when she attended a Masquerade Ball last weekend. She's both beautiful and practical as she bought this dress at Goodwill for $10!