It snowed pretty hard here in Raleigh last night–two or three inches in our neighborhood. A couple more inches are expected during the day here. My office put an inclement weather, delayed opening message. i expect the office will be closed for the day. Kelly is not feeling so well. She says she has a cold, but we are a little bit suspicious that it might have something to do with the fact that she stayed up until two or three in the morning talking during the three days we were in Pigeon ForgeWe had a fabulous good time in Pigeon Forge. I was out of my league when it came to taking photos. Joel and Ron both had really great Canon SLR digital cameras and knew how to use them.
I usually get one good photo out of every ten that I take. Joel put up a bunch of photos on his Picasa website. None of them were bad and there were a lot of them. I will put some photos of our stay there up when I get a chance to download them both from Joel’s site and from our camera.
The weekend was very, very good for us. We met with three wonderful homeschool families. We spent a lot of time talking about life, eating, and just having a good time. We went for a drive through a protected forest area on Saturday. We saw lots of deer, but the most interesting thing for me was that I saw wild turkey for the first time. We had a great meeting Sunday morning. The kids drove go-karts, swam in the pool, played games, and talked. It is so encouraging to meet new families like the ones we meet in Pigeon Forge. The people were not only nice, it was obvious they were trying to do the best they could to raise their children right. It was actually pretty humbling.
Pictures to follow.
Update: 10:45 AM and still snowing hard.
Update: 3:15 PM and still snowing.
Update: 3:25 PM and snow stopped.
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Hunter
Hey, glad you guys had a good trip! The snow falling fast and hard here. I can barely see when there is a gust of wind, because so much gets in my eyes! I think I might go out again when I am warmed up……
Thanks Hunter! The kids are out playing in the snow with the new neighbor kids right now. They are having a great time. It sounds like you guys have already got into it. What fun.
Karen
Glad you had a good weekend and hope you did not forget your mother’s b-day in the midst of it! 🙂 Love the pics – glad you posted them!! We miss you all!
We want pictures! Glad to hear you had a great time. Our friends (new and old) make our lives rich. Hope you are enjoying the snow too.
Thanks Youngin! We will take some pictures!
Karen! Did you see Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah at Salem Special Meeting!! We got Jay’s call and started laughing. It would have been fun to have gotten the kids all together on a big snow day like this.
It sounds like you all had a wonderful time! I am happy to hear it. School, of course, goes out the window — in a way — on a day like this. I had planned lessons, but there was just NO WAY I was going to try to compete with the snow. It’s a snow day!
Lynn
SAME, Lynn. The neighbor kids (homeschooled, too) played with ours all day. They are sitting in front of the fireplace now playing board games.
Catherine
Love the snow fort! How did you make the “bricks”? I couldn’t get the snow to roll into a ball much less make bricks. I did make a snowman but using an unconventional method. Thanks for sharing all the photos!
They cheated and used buckets. It was VERY cool, but I will let Christian and Kelly tell you about. Some mean guy and his kid knocked over the snowman and stole the head while all the kids were standing there. Great guy, huh?
Love the pic of the igloo-type structure. My kids do the same thing. We have a group of homeschool friends (4 families, 18 kids), and you should see some of the stuff these kids have built on our camping trips and other outings. One of my favorite ones was a teepee they built at the beach with driftwood. The oldest kids were about 10 at the time (4th grade – we were studying CA history together and had gone on a CA Missions trip with all the kids). I just love the way homeschool kid’s minds work.
Are you kidding, or are you serious about the mean guy and his kid knocking over the snowman and stealing the head? There are some parents who just don’t think about the bad examples they set up for their kids when they do this type of stuff. My youngest, Peyton, is on a Jr. NBA basketball league. Last year his team was not very good and they got creamed most of their games. Peyton never minded and just did his best to help his team. Driving away from another loss, we met up at the light with a kid and his dad from the other team (the team who had won). The kid flashed an ‘L’ for Loser at Peyton through the window and his dad was just laughing his head off. Peyton’s head sunk. We prayed for the man and his jeering boy on the way home.
Thanks Ruthie! We had a ton of fun making it. We used tupperware for the bricks. That teepee sounds so cool! Did you take any pictures?
We’re serious about the snowman. We saw him take it. We half-heartedly yelled in protest, but I don’t know if they heard. Ah well. I don’t understand why anyone would do something like steal a snowman head or be rude to another kid like you said. There are people like that everywhere I guess. 😛
Isn’t it is amazing what even the littlest kids can do when they put their minds to it. Your group sounds really great. Those kinds of things seem to be especially good when they can have an extended time together like on a camping trip or something. I was pretty amazed about the whole thing with the snowman. The thing that was really good about it is that all the homeschool kids just shrugged and went on with what they were doing. When all was said and done, we had a great opportunity to talk about what a great response it is to let a higher power deal with those kinds of things. I congratulate you on your response in praying for the bad sports. It is absolutely the best example possible–good for them and good for you!