Mother's Day 2009

I had a great Mother's Day weekend. :) Theron had ordered flowers for me for Mother's Day and they were waiting for me when I got back from our trip to get the girls and drop Theron off at his hotel where he is staying on his business trip. On Saturday, I received a really sweet card from him in the mail. He is always very thoughtful, and goes out of his way to make sure I know how much he loves me. He's the best! Theron is a wonderful example to our girls of the kind of man to look for in a husband and for TJ to emulate when he is a husband someday...in the veryyyyy distant future!!Mary loves to cook. For my Mother's Day breakfast, she made me sourdough French Toast. It was awesome!! She is a very good chef.

Here are a couple of pictures of the kids and me taken at church. I had the setting wrong, so they are a little dark.

Mary, Samantha, Nancy, Chrissy, TJ

I love my kids! They are the best!

On the way home from church it occured to me that the camera settings were incorrect, so I set the timer and took a couple of us sitting by the fireplace.


This one is my favorite, because we are all laughing very hard. I set the timer, then ran to sit down and bumped my head on the fireplace screen. It made a loud noise, and I said, "OW!". Then we laughed and it snapped our pic.


Mary cooked a GREAT lunch. She made Chicken Marsala with mashed potatoes and seasoned fresh vegies. Oh my goodness, it was so yummy!! Afterwards, they gave me my presents.

The tradition for years has been that Theron takes them all shopping the day before Mother's Day. When they were little, it was a double blessing...not only was I getting presents, but he took them ALL out of the house, so I had the evening by myself to do whatever I wanted. Usually, it was a bubblebath and reading in a quite house while listening to music. :) This year, Theron is out of town for awhile, so the kids did the shopping. They got just the right stuff; he trained them well! I do have two legs...I was sitting on one in this picture. haha




Mary told me to look more excited. I don't think this is the look she was going for. haha

This is me holding my HUGE double stuff cookie. It was SO good and full of calories upon calories, but worth each and every one!
Here's a close up. Theron ordered one for me about 20 years ago, and the girl in NM told him they "don't do that". He had to explain to her what he wanted her to do and she still said that they didn't make those. He finally convinced her to mash two cookies together with icing in between, decorate the top one, and charge him for 2 cookies. Now, you can get these at any Great American Cookie Company store. He should have patented that idea!

Thanks, kids (and Theron), for making my Mother's Day extra special. Love you much!!

Mother's Day Fellowship

Our church had our annual Mother/Daughter dinner on Saturday, May 9th. It was a lot of fun, and we had some yummy food, too!! :)

Mary, Chrissy, Nancy, Samantha

Nicole, Lori and Virginia

Nicole, Silly Virginia, & Lori

Chrissy

We played a Mother/Daughter game much like the Newlywed Game. Sam and I tied with another mom/daughter for first. If I had put the correct flower down for my favorite flower, we would have been first all the way. :) TJ took it when we got home and did as well as Sam. Theron did almost as well as they did...he missed 3, instead of 2.

Horrible pic of me, but oh, well. :) That's my friend, Carole, beside me.

Sam with some of the other daughters.


Andre, Johnny, Joey and TJ. Andre and Joey serenaded us during dinner. They both play saxophones, and were awesome! TJ & Johnny were our servers, along with Pastor Mike and Pastor Reid. They did a super job!!

On the Way Home

Theron took us to a great Chinese restaurant in GA. It is called Chef Lee's. Great food. They had a big pond out front with goldfish, etc. Pretty decor inside, too.

There were big storms coming through our first night there. After they passed through, the sunset was gorgeous. This is the view outside our hotel.

Pensacola Beach

We arrived in Pensacola on Monday evening. We met the girls at the condo. We usually stay on Perdido Key, but couldn't find anywhere that would let us just stay 2 nights. So, anyway, we stayed in Tristan Towers on Pensacola Beach.

I walked on the beach a few times with the girls. On our last morning there, Theron went to get breakfast for us while I went to the beach, read a book and relaxed. It was great!

Theron and I drove around Pensacola Beach our last night there. This is a house near the beach. Weird, huh?

A barnacled log in the surf.

These weird things were everywhere on the beach. They would lose all their color once they were out of the water for awhile. Then, they'd just be clear and plastic like. I looked them up on the internet, and they are a type of jelly fish. It's called "By the Wind Sailor".
There were literally hundreds of them on the shore and in the surf.

Mary and Chrissy posing the PCC way.

They had these signs on their sidewalks. Hmmm, wonder why?

The Pensacola Beach Ball

Theron and I took Mary and Chrissy to a great seafood restaurant on the beach. It's called Flounders and had great music to go along with the great food! :) Theron and I went back for dinner the 2nd night we were there, too. I love seafood and eat it whenever I can when we are in Florida. It is my favorite food, right up there with Mexican, but I am pretty picky about "fresh" seafood. I guess being raised in FL spoiled me for the real stuff.

Theron and I love golf, and even enjoy playing goofy golf. We played a round while waiting for the girls the day we left PCC for GA.


I always love this tree, so took one of my sweetie in front of it. He beat me by 3 points, by the way!

Here we are posing with yet another timer shot. This one is angled funny so we look stranger than we really do! haha


My hair was in my eyes, so we retook it, and that was the one above this one. I think I look like a sheepdog in this one. haha

Just Us

This is a chapel they have by the road in the tourist part of the area...Pigeon Forge, etc. This part is the drive-thru. You can't see the sign very well, but it really is a drive thru chapel. It also says on another sign that you can renew your vows. I told Theron we could tell everyone that we renewed our vows in the drive thru, since we are so busy. haha NOT!

I set the timer on the camera and would run and sit by Theron on the couch in our cabin, trying to get just the right shot. So, here they are, and they make me laugh because we were laughing in between the takes as I ran back and forth.

These were taken by the roadside on the way up to our cabin. I love waterfalls, so Theron pulled over so we could check it out. I set the timer and took these.

Tennessee

Theron and I left on May 2nd to spend a few days alone before going to PCC to get the girls. We rented a cabin in the mountains near Gatlinburg for two nights. It was absolutely wonderful!! Theron's phone didn't have coverage there, so we were truly alone, no calls from work!! It was perfect! Oh, and our cabin's name was Restful Haven, and it lived up to that name! We played games, watched TV, read on the deck, explored, played pool, relaxed in the hot tub and just had a great time the whole time we were there. It was a much needed respite from the daily grind of work. We had so much fun, just being together. I love you, Theron!! Thanks for the getaway!

The hot tub on the deck right outside our bedroom.

The other side of the lower deck.

Our room

Our room had a pool table, and we played quite a few games. Theron always won, but it was like old times, as we used to play pool a lot when we dated. I had a regulation sized pool table growing up, but my skills have really fallen over the years. It was still a blast, though!

The spiral staircase going to our room.

Our living room.

The other part of the main floor...

The deck outside of the living room.

The other end of the upper deck

Theron grilled steaks and potatoes our first night there! Yum Yum!!

We drove to the National Forest and drove/walked through Cade's Cove. It was awesome! We saw tons of deer and turkeys. I was so wanting to see a bear, but we didn't get to see any. Maybe next time! There are 6 or 7 deer in this pic!

Some wild turkeys.

Part of the road through the Cove....absolutely beautiful, even though it was raining pretty much the whole time we were there.


This is another part of the mountain we stayed on. This is further up from our cabin.



I got out of the car to take this picture and was surprised I wasn't scared of the height. Well, I got back in the van, and Theron pulled back onto the road. It was on the top of a hill, and all you could see was the clouds like these. It looked like the road was gone! It was so scary. I told him we had to turn around, as it wasn't fun any more. haha So much for my bravery!