Trip South - Part 1

We left early Wednesday morning to drive down to North Carolina to be with Johanna's family for the Holidays. It took just over 14 hours to go the 800 miles. The kids both did great considering they were confined to the car for that long. Thursday we had dinner with everyone. Jack H. came thursday afternoon through saturday evening. Friday Jack, Paxton and I went to a park for a couple of hours to burn off some energy while some of the ladies went shopping. Friday night some folks came over and we had fun doing some karaoke and visiting. On Saturday some of us went to Old Salem which is a historical town not to far from Johanna's folks. It was neat to walk around and check that out. Paxton has had a lot of fun playing Wii every chance he gets since we have been here. We will be down here until Saturday when it will be time to head back home and get back in the groove of work again.

Grandpa in his chair

Ready for dinner

Paxton playing Wii

Tama and Shannon

Jack H.

Nikki

Johanna and Lorraine

Wiped out after a busy day

Snuggling with Grandpa

Playing at the park

Swinging with Jack

The karaoke crew

Ready to tour Old Salem

Nikki and Karra

Neat covered bridge

Main St. of Old Salem

Neat barn

Walking the street

Paxton on some boxes outside of one of the shops

Street scene

The three sisters with Paxton

Paxton and Tama

Another barn

Another building

Horse and buggy

Snowy Sunday

We had our winter special meeting this morning and then lunch afterwards. It snowed all day today on top of the snow that we got yesterday. Brody came home with us this afternoon. Late in the afternoon I took the boys outside to play in the snow. They went snow shoeing around the yard and had a great time in the DEEP snow. Jobe and Mamie and the girls brought pizza over for supper. It has finally stopped snowing for now but the wind has started blowing. It is definately Winter now.

Brody and Paxton snow shoeing

The snow out back

Let it SNOW!!

It started snowing early yesterday afternoon and continued to snow all day today. Paxton and I did a little bit of sledding and snow shoeing this afternoon. Sounds like we are supposed to get more snow tomorrow too.

A little wrestling match yesterday afternoon.

Fresh snow this morning on the deck

Ready to go sledding

Taking a break

Snow shoeing in the back yard

POWER IS BACK!!!

We finally got our power back today about 5:30 this afternoon. Thank you Mr. Honda Generator for all your hard work these last six days. Now you get to go back in the garage and rest for a while. Hopefully for a loooooong while!! I guess we are supposed to get some snow tomorrow afternoon/evening.

Ice Storm 2008

We finally got our cable internet back today, although we still do not have power. Thought I would put some pictures up of the aftermath of the Ice Storm.

Looking down the driveway towards Brad & Shelley's house

Looking down the road that goes to our house

Some limbs on the neighbor's car

The road going to our house again

This is actually the beginning of a dead end street right near our house

Just before you get to our driveway

The ice encrusted deck

One of the trees behind our house

Lots of ICE!!

The trees looked really cool when the sun came out

"Camping out" in the living room

Drying sheets and blankets in front of the fire

Hangin' In There.....

We have been without power since last friday early morning. We do have a generator, so we have been getting by just fine. It is still a mess around us and could be a while till we get power back. Oh well, makes for fun times!! Anyway, just wanted to give a little update and I will post pictures and stuff when we do get our power back. Until then........

Cool Christmas Lights Video

Music Box Dancer - Holdman Christmas Display 2007 from Richard Holdman on Vimeo.
They have more cool ones here

Self Decorating

Today Paxton decided to "decorate" himself with markers. Lucky it all cleaned off in the bath tonight with a little scrubbing!!!

I think his mother contributed to the artwork on his back

Had to add a little more

The Deck

We had a deck put on the back of our house this fall. It is almost done, just a few more screws to put in the decking. There is still painting to do to the trim pieces in the spring and some more landscaping to do, but at least we can use the deck now that it is getting COLD!! Here are a few pictures of its current state:

Behind the garage. Still need to finish leveling this out and adding a planting bed along wall on left and stone drip edge at garage and then mulch.

View from new deck

Need to loam and seed this area in the spring and finish up stone retaining wall.