We Gather Together

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love fall colors and all of the foods of autumn. Lots of family, friends, great food and children singing one of my favorite hymns. It doesn't get much better than this! I have so much to be thankful for. I love the end of this little video. I didn't get any good pictures on Thanksgiving Day-too much else going on.

A Day in the Country

Last Sunday was a beautiful perfect fall afternoon and we had a wonderful time spending the day at Serenbe. Serenbe is one of our favorite places around Atlanta. Ellie, Selena, Trevor and Lachlan went with us. Poor Annie was home sick. They were having a fund raiser for Les Dames d'Escoffier so there was tons of great food from lots of yummy Atlanta restaurants, food from local organic farmers and lots of beer and wine. And a great band! We grownups had a great time while the kids went on hayrides, petted the farm animals and played in the barn. Serenbe is the kind of place where you can let your kids run wild. K and I often talk about how we wish we could live in the country.

Sweet Trouble

K is home from school with a fever today. When I went into check on her Trouble (my oldest cat) was watching over her. Trouble usually avoids K. As Liza, one of our little neighbors put it "Trouble is a fragile little guy"-K is a little rough for poor Trouble. I call him my little nurse cat because he always comes to the rescue when someone needs to be cared for. Last year when our wonderful old lab C.A.T was very sick Trouble moved all of her toys (some as big as he is!) upstairs for her every night and brought them downstairs for her every morning. He also groomed her paws for her every morning. When Kimmie (another one of my labs) was sick he groomed her paws and ears every morning. Little Trouble will be 14 years old in January-we have been through a lot together!

I had never wanted a cat and got Trouble quite by mistake. I was working with a wonderful organization CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocacy) that works with children who are in the foster care system. I was working with a little girl who had to be moved back into foster care. While she had been living with a relative she had gotten Trouble. She called me in tears because she had a leave Trouble at home and did not know what was going to happen to him. And not to mention that they had moved her with just the clothes on her back. I picked her up and took her to get her clothes and I put Trouble in my car. He had ringworm, roundworm, mange, mites, fleas, etc.... So I got him all spruced up and he has been with me ever since. Too bad things are not that simple for kids in the foster care system. Please check out CASA if you are not familiar with this organization-it is a fabulous volunteer organization that does so much for children.

En garde!

K has been taking fencing this fall and absolutely loves it. It could be that she is the only girl in the class or that there is a cool outfit involved. What girl wouldn't love that?!

Happy Halloween

K and I had a great Halloween. She was a witch again this year. She wore the same costume that she wore last year-the picture of her is from last year because I didn't get a good picture of her this year. I love the ghost like effects of my trick or treating photos.

All Dressed Up!

It's not often that K and I are all dressed up. Especially me-I am usually in flip flops. But we went to a wedding last weekend so we were all dressed up and Winston took some pictures before he drove us downtown to the wedding. The wedding was a ton of fun-Chrissy and Tommy are such a sweet couple!

Trip to Portofino

K and I were so excited that Eileen had a conference in Orlando. So we flew down to hang out with the Noah and Sonia (both from the same town K is from) while Eileen was in her meetings. While Eileen was working, here is what we were up to........

We started the day watching cartoons

Spent a lot of time in the pool

Ate ice cream


Loved the waterslide at the hotel

Sonia was just tall enough (36") to go on the slide!

Noah won the canonball contest!



We all spent an evening playing mini golf

K got hit in the face by the squirting snowman

We spent a day at Disney's Wild Animal Park

The goats weren't so wild-but so cute

K and Noah did some drumming

We had a little time after Eileen and the kids left so we went back to Blizzard Beach and played the South Pole Course. K got a hole in one!

The hotel looked just like Portofino. After a glass of wine I could almost pretend I was in Portofino-one of my favorite places in the world. Think I could use a trip to the REAL Portofino. As a friend of mine says, practice the 3 P's as often as possible. Paris, Provence, Portofino!