Unexpected Blessing

We had a wonderful surprise last week when both Jason & Jeremy were with us for a few days. We had known for a few weeks that Jason was coming -- the meeting that he came for was scheduled back in October, and since it was at WinShape, he was able to stay with us for almost a week. Three days after Jason arrived, Jeremy called to say that he was coming to the States for the funeral of a colleague's father, and his flight schedule allowed him to spend several days with us. Their visits overlapped for only two nights & one day, but we made the most of that time. Allison has just moved back home from Chicago, and Amanda lives here in Rome, so Larry & I had the rare opportunity to spend an evening with all four of our children.



Many of you know that if you come to visit us, Larry will put you to work! So, of course, he made good use of that one day that he had the boys here together to get some work done on the barn.



Since Jason, Jeremy and their families live so far away, we just don't expect to see them very often. That's why we're so grateful when the Lord surprises us with an unexpected blessing like this!

Sunday afternoon Larry finally used his birthday gift from last year -- a hang-gliding experience. We drove over to Lookout Mountain, and after completing a lot of paper work (if you read it all and think about it much, it'll scare you out of going through with it!), Larry suited up and was soon airborne. He didn't have to jump off a cliff -- this experience (actually a flying lesson) was with a licensed instructor, and they were pulled up from the airstrip by an ultra-lite plane.


A camera on the wing of the glider took these photos. Notice that in the 2nd & 3rd pictures, Larry is actually flying the glider. The instructor had a parachute, but they didn't give Larry one. If the worst happened, I guess he'd just have to hang on to the other guy!





Larry loved it and said he would do it again. Next time he wants to make it a group experience -- anyone interested?
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It's hard to believe that summer is over. The garden is finished, but there's lots of peas and okra in the freezer and pickles and jelly in the pantry. We really enjoyed our daylilies this year. We thought the last ones had bloomed several weeks ago, but this late bloomer came out just this week.

There are 8 ducklings left from the 12 that hatched, and they follow Larry around all over the farm. When he's not here, they're devoted to me -- when I have a bucket of feed in my hands!



It took a while, but Millie & Boss no longer chase Viola (aka Miss Kitty) up the tree. As you can see, they have become good friends.

JKSDE Pictures

More catching up

Caleb turned two before we went to Florida, but we never had time to celebrate, so we had a little "party" for him.
Collin is 8 years old today, so we went to their house this afternoon to give him some presents.


Pop really liked Larry's "new" pickup. He said if he had one like this, "it would make my tail laugh!" Whatever that means????

Catching up

Amanda and Jeff and family and Jeremy and Kimberly and family and AJ and us all went to Florida last week on vacation in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. We returned Saturday in time to greet Jason who is passing through for a couple days on his way to a m conference in NC. Mimi and Pop came on Sunday to visit for a couple days.

Pop, Jason and Jeremy and Papa worked on some projects around the farm. Jason and Jeremy and the kids enjoyed some fishing. Cheryl did a lot of good cooking. Mimi cleaned out the flower beds and everybody had a great time.

Farm Update

When Pop was here visiting he helped me get the goat shed started, and he has been asking for a photo of it. We have two calves and are expecting one more.

Visit with Nancy

We had a good visit with Nancy Strickland in Brunswick, GA a couple weeks ago. We were celebrating our anniversary in Savannah and drove down to go to church with her and have lunch afterwards. We had a great time visiting.

Fog on the mountain