Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everybody. We sure have a lot to be thankful for. God sure is good and there has been blessings all around.

Johnny and Laura got to come up this year to celebrate with us! Sean and Asia were beside themselves, Asia especially about their arrival. They got here yesterday evening. Scott had a big fire out back and they hung out at the pit for a bit while I finished up in the kitchen with my prep work.

We had appetizers at 11 for about an hour. I put them away at noon so we wouldn't be too full for dinner. And we did save some for Kim and JJ to enjoy before we ate. And yes there are five pies on the counter. I ended up making 2 cherry, an apple, sweet potato and a chocolate pecan pie. And I made 2 cherry pies because I feared I had messed the first one up so I made another just to be sure.

JJ and Kim got here one after the other, Kim near 1 and JJ about 1:30. It was really good seeing both of them. So while I finished cooking we hung out and chatted and everybody got to catch up with the two of them.


After we ate, JJ passed out on the couch but he didn't get to sleep long. We sat down for pie and coffee. But J opened one eye, saw where we all were and opted to get more shut eye instead. I guess he figures he knows where to find them (pies) when he needed them.


So Kim had to head out since she was doing Thanksgiving with Kendle's family too. So we got the basket out and we all decorated the tree together. Now the house is festive, like it wasn't before. But now it's all done, sans the lights on the roof of the house. I didn't crawl up on the roof this year. But that's okay. It means less work for me.

Anyway, everybody is asleep now. I'm still up, dead tired but happy. And tomorrow will be a new day.

Spring Rollout Celebration


We had a celebration at work. It was actually at the Legacy Theater in Tyrone GA and it was a semi-formal affair. Most of us wore business atire. But the execs that were part of the "show" were dressed to the nine.

The presentaion was formated like the Oscars which was pretty funny. We had "Joan Rivers and Kojo" there on the Red Carpet. The Ocar nominees were presented and the execs presented the statues to the award winners. It was a fun way to see how all of our work together produced such a successful rollout of new and improved products.

After the ceremony, the "after party" was held and we had desserts and punch and pictures galore. Anyone who had a part of the rollout was there, even vendors as far away as New York came to be part of it.



If you start at me and go in an "M", the people are Angela Canada -senior developer, Stephanie Smith-contractor, Lisa Emily-contractor, Maria Mateu-contrator at top,Tammy Baker-contractor and Shona's sister, Shona Jonson-senior developer and my boss. And then Carrie is at the bottom directly in front in the middle of the group.

In the upper picture, the other people are Emily Wise in the green, Christy Cook in the black and white dress, Jason Cannon who runs the Tech Center kitchen is in the gold blazer and Derrick is in the back and he runs the FRL training kitchen at work.

At the end of it, some of my coworkers and I went to Upscale, a new establishment that Truett Cathy, our founder, created. And once we sat down, he actually came in. He hadn't been into the restaurant for awhile so we came at the perfect time. His assistant recongnized all of us and brought Truett to our table. We got to speak to him briefly and got our picture taken with him.


I can hardly wait for the Christams celebration. It's only a couple weeks away and it's going to be held in the Egyptian Ballroom at the Fox. I'm so excited since I've never been to the Fox before. And this one is a formal so Scott will have to wear a suit for this one. You know I'll be taking some pictures that night. :) But this one will be great since spouses are allowed to attend.

Rock Eagle


Sean's 3rd grade class had an overnight field trip to Rock Eagle 4H camp. We left on a Tuesday morning and came back home Wednesday afternoon. When we arrived, we checked into the cabins, ate lunch and then the classes broke off into core groups for the activities. The boy Sean is sitting next to in the white tee is Michael Bell. He's a boy in his class and football team.

Rock Eagle is actually and old pioneer site that used be an Indian stomping ground. But when pioneers settled there and had their farms etc. they preserved the Rock Eagle that the Indians had created long ago. It was pretty intersting.



But the kids learned herpetology, and got to see some really neat snakes and amphibians. They learned about pioneer tools and got to use some of the tools that were used long ago.



And then the funnest part of the trip in my opionion was when the kids learned how to canoe. Sean and I were on the lake for a good hour and we went on a scavenger hunt while out there. We saw some pretty cool wildlife like a Silver Herring, different ducks and some vegitation. We never did see the turtles though.





It was a bit painful (literally) eating the camp food. At one point, Sean said, "Mama, I can't eat this anymore." But hey, what can you say? It's camp food. I did however did escape with one of the mothers and we ate out on Tuesday night for dinner. We were back in time for the trading post for the boys to get a couple things.

But Sean and I had a great time going. It was great for me since I never really get a chance to do stuff with just the two of us. Scott is usually the one who gets to do all of the fun stuff. So I was really excited when Sean said that he wanted me to go with him this time. It was pretty special.

Halloween was a lot of fun. Sean dressed up as the incredible hulk and Asia was a Barbie cheerleader.

We met up with the Tucker boys and we went trick or treating in a neighborhood near their home. I remembered how much candy we used to get when we were kids so I was prepared. I grabbed on of my chick-fil-a bags to dump the candy into as we went from house to house.


Well we got started and 30 minutes later all the kids but Kyle were ready to go home! Kim and I tried to talk them into walking a bit longer but they weren't interested in getting any more exercise than they already had. So the kids got the candy that they wanted but we definitely put them to shame when we were kids.

But we had a lot of fun, stayed up late, and then the boys came and spent the weekend with us.

We had a parade of nations at school on Friday, Halloween day. First thing in the morning the entire elementary went on parade through the school.



Sean's class studied Germany and Asia was an American farmer. Both of them had fun activities at school during the week. And Sean got to eat some German food at school. A parent came and cooked for the student.



Once the parade was finished, we all went into the auditorium to hear a chorus group from Korea. The children were between 8 to 13. The very first song was Ari Rung. I was amazed that I remembered some of the words that Sung Yung Back had written out for me long ago at RF. The girls did a beautiful fan dance. Then after that, the chorus group came out and sang traditional hymns. It was pretty special.

PVR

We had a taste panel focus group for work up in Atlanta. We got up there on Monday, set up, did some testing with some product and then called it a day. We got started at 9:30 that morning and it was 6 before we left for the day. Even though you're on your feet all day, the day goes really fast and it's always moving so you really don't feel tired until you're done for the day.

Laura (works with Young Life) is in the blue shirt. Angela, development team head is in the brown shirt. Tammy, Shona's sister is trying to hide. And then Maria.




Shona is in the pink shirt. She's my boss, a wonderul, godly woman. It's been great working under her and learning so much. Lisa is the blond lady. She'a really nice too. And then Maria again. Tammy is in the background. Good thing she didn't see me with my camera. She would've high tailed it and ran before I could get the shot in. I really am blessed to be working with such a wonderful group of ladies.

This is part of the facility that we use for the taste panels and focus groups. The people that run it are wonderful, very helpful and are always looking to serve us while we are serving our consumers. They're a wonderful group of ladies that take care of us while we work.

We checked into out hotel, Hyatt, took a walk around the complex and then headed off to dinner. Maria, peaking out behind the wall was my roomie for the night. She and I acutally knew eachother because school before we started working together. She's from Venezuela and has been working with me at work with my spanish. She's a lot of fun to work with.


We went to this family style Italian place which was great. I would go back in a heartbeat. The food was excellent and the decor was quite entertaining. :) We ended up staying out a bit later than expected but we managed to get in bed by 11.


So today was the big day. We got to the PVR testing facility at 6:30 and got started and prepped. The first session started at 8:30 and the second session started at 12. It was pretty crazy in the kitchen so I couldn't take pictures today but I got a few yesterday when it was a bit more relaxed.

It sure was high paced and confusing at times but we got great feedback from the panels and all in all we had a great time. The day flew by pretty fast. I'm worn out and can't wait to get to bed since I have an early start tomorrow too. But I do have Thurday off so I'm looking forward to that, getting some rest, cleaning and organizing done and putting my feet up if I can.

Wilkerson Wedding!

Jeff Wilkerson got married this Saturday to a beautiful girl. Her name is Courtney and we're looking forward to getting to know the one who stole Jeff's heart.




The wedding was really pretty and took place by the lake on the Wilkerson property. It was an intimate wedding with just close friends and family. It was good being able to see people we hadn't seen in years too.

The theme was a perfect pair and they had pears as the theme of the decor to favors (pear relish).



The two of them, Jeff and Courtney shared tears during the ceremony as Jeff sang to her, exchanged rings and choked through vows. Pretty much half of those in attendance was in tears. It was really sweet.




The reception followed immediately with food and dancing and no Scott did not dance with me but Sean and Asia danced. They had a great time.



The evening culminated with fireworks over the lake. It was beautiful seeing the works over the water. Once they said goodbye we packed up and headed home. All in all it was a wonderful day.

I did do the wedding cake for them as a gift. The one with the grapes was my creation but they didn't like it since grapes are not part of the theme. So the grapes were replaced with daisys which worked just fine.

Here are a couple pics from the camping trip that we took a couple weekends ago. And if you look closely you'll see the fish Asia caught too. She was so excited.

We went camping on the spur this past weekend. It was a quick trip to High Falls State park and we had a great time.

At first, Scott said that Darren and the boys were going camping and Scott was going to take Sean and Asia. But I wanted to go too and ends up that Kim was going as well. So we had both families on one site and had a lot of fun.

Scott had a ball game on Friday so after I got my work done, the kids and I loaded up and headed down and set up camp. We had a snack, the kids ran around and played and ended up going to bed around 1 in the morning.

Scott didn't end up coming until about 1 because he had to go home after the game, change and then when he got on the road and got about 15 minutes from us, he realized that he needed gas. Well you know how it is with gas now so nobody had any. He drove around for awhile and almost went back home but found some at QT I think. So he made it after all. So once he got to the site, Sean settled down since daddy was there and went to bed. (Sean had planned on staying up all night.) :)

The kids went down some small falls on inflatable pool mats and swam, played in the water, roasted mallows, ate way too much sugar, caught fish and let them go, stayed up late and got up early. In other words, they had a great time.

I'll have to post the pictures tommorrow when I have a little more time after work. We got home a bit too late for me to do all of that.

Until then.

Holy Cobweb Batman!

Scott found this spider, I know cheesy. But I couldn't help myself. :)



But Scott found this spider outside our house yesterday and showed all of us today. He thinks it's a Banana Spider. It's roughly the size of a silver dollar, pretty big I think. But it sure is happy just hanging around outside the downstairs bedroom window.

Pretty cool looking I think. I've never seen one of these around the house before until now.

Family Visit

Carter and Christy brought Sean and Asia home yesterday. Johnny and Laura took them home with them after our Disney vacation. So it was great that they got to stay down in FL for a bit.



So we had a full house for 24 hours. It's always a quick trip when the Grants come up becuase Carter has all of his animals that he needs to take care of. So they never get to stay for very long.



But we had a great time. The kids had fun with each other. The house was really loud for pretty much the entire time. They played wii, jumped on the trampoline, ran around and Camryn even did a little cooking too.



It was sad saying goodbye. Jace cried because he didn't want to go and he wanted Asia to come home with him. It was really sweet. The kids don't get to see thier cousins very much so when they do get that time they really enjoy each other.

Fun Pictures







We had so much fun. I really could go on and on about it. Asia wants to go again next year. Hopefully we'll be able to. It really was the perfect time to go. There was hardly anybody there when you think about how crowded the parks are normally.









But the kids got to eat some fun foods. They got tons of souvenirs. And we got to do a lot of magical stuff. We're home now tired but happy and looking forward to next time.