Come Fly With Me!

The day after Christmas, Larry & I drove Granny back to Memphis, and then went down to Greenwood for a couple of days. Our nephew, Cayson, came home with us on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, Larry had a special surprise for the family. He had arranged for our friend Ryan, who is a commercial pilot, to take us up in a small plane from the Rome airport. The plane is a 4-seater, so we took turns, 3 at a time, flying over Rome & the surrounding area. It was fun to see our farm, WinShape, Berry College, and Amanda & Jeff's house from the air.

Collin, the co-pilot.

Ton Tenga (our land)








Cayson with Ryan, our pilot.

Nana elected to stay on the ground. Been there, done that, got sick (in West Africa)!

Christmas at Ton Tenga

We had a wonderful Christmas! On Christmas Eve, Amanda, Jeff & the kids joined us (Nana, Papa, Allison & Granny) for dinner and spent the night. Since Jeff was on duty at the fire station on Christmas Day, we woke the kids up early so that he could watch them enjoy their gifts from Santa before he had to leave at 6am! We had our traditional cinnamon rolls and stockings and enjoyed talking with Jason, Kelli, Abbey, Maddie, & Naomi and Jeremy, Kimberly, Shelby, Darby & Emma via Skype.

Jenna's Birthday

On December 17, all the Rome family gathered at Papa & Nana's house to celebrate Jenna's first birthday. Granny came from Memphis to spend Christmas with us, so she was here for the party.




Jenna opening gifts with a little help from AJ.



Jenna didn't hesitate to get both hands into her teddy bear cake.


Proud parents!

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