Up goes the new Christmas Tree

The tree and the mantel turned out beautiful!!!!

Tony putting up the star....

And Cooper putting on ornaments..

After football was mostly over, we had a decorating party at Tina and Tony's. They had purchased a new tree this afternoon, and it filled up the living room just perfectly.

Clemson beat up on Carolina pretty badly, we'll see what bowl they wind up getting invited to, but I don't think they'll be playing on Jan. 1st anywhere.

Breakfast at Hardees

Cooper decked out in his finest Carolina gear. He's a total fan. Today, Carolina is playing Clemson and hoping to win. They've won 7 games this year, and a win here will get them to a higher bowl game.

Brandon going after his monster biscuit.

After Hardees, we went to Lowes and Tina and Tony bought a new Christmas tree, and then we stopped by the Cultured Cowboy to see about some new boots for Cooper, but they weren't open.

Rainy Saturday

As mentioned last post, the rains came in late last night, and are all over us. Should at least help out with the drought conditions. Sadly, it won't help the Clemson-Carolina game, which is today up at Clemson.

James Bond #22

Brandon and I went to the movies today, and saw Quantum of Solace, the 22nd version of the James Bond Series. I'd give it a C.... The plot wasn't very believable, and they are trying to get to cutesy with the special effects and his movement into new age electronics. It also was an obvious product placement movie- just a big commercial for lots of brands. Cooper and nana went to see 4 Christmases. Big news, the cinema raised their prices again, up to $8.00 now, or 6.25 for us old folks. Think the next movie we'll see is Valkrie, although I'm in no way a fan of Tom Cruise.

2 Grands on a Thanksgiving Holiday

With time on their hands, our two guys can make up games to keep them busy for hours, it seems. If not making a fort in piled up leaves, a good old-fashioned leaf fight will do. At least you can't get hurt too badly in this game. Today started out beautifully weather wise, and the high got up to about 65, but then in the afternoon it clouded over and by now, about 5, its positively gloomy. Think we have lots of rain on the way. Tina and Tony spent most of the day down in Columbia doing some Santa shopping.

Happy Thanksgiving to all

Thanksgiving dinner at Tina's house! We had a choice of turkey or ham, several veggies, and lots of desserts. It was yummy!
Talked to Zona, Bill, and Judy Williamson, and sent Sherry an email. The weather was nice today, high near 60, won't be so cold tonight. 1 week until we head on down to Florida via Big Water!!!! Tina and Tony are headed down to Columbia tomorrow for holiday shopping, so we'll head out for breakfast, I reckon with the boys.

Not a blown motor, whew!

Update on the heating/airconditioning breakdown: The nice man from Rush's Heating and Cooling came out right on time this morning, and determined we had a bad capacitor on the HVAC unit, and that the motor was not in fact burned out. Big savings.... $20 for the part, $69 for the service call. Wonder how he arrived at the $69 figure..... Anyway, we were up and running after just 20 minutes or so.

Headed out to McDonalds with the boys and their buddies, that turned out to be a couple of hours of babysitting, while I read the USA today and had my morning coffee.

Bette headed over to the grocery store to pick up some things for our annual Thanksgiving feast with Tina and the family.

Weather warmed up some, so the boys can at least play outside for the day, which they have off from school.

CALL 911!!!!

The boys were made to sit in the garage, so they wouldn't be underfoot.

Checking out the access to the fan motor.. and the truck that responded, along with an ambulance and about 7 POV's and a police unit.

A quiet afternoon at home was disrupted by my noticing that the HVAC fan was running, which is just outside the door of the bedroom, but no air was moving. I called Bette in to check it out, and then we smelled the odor of burning something. Wouldn't you know, the access to the fan motor is in a sort of inaccessable place up the stairway to the upstairs room... While Bette and Tony feverishly worked to unscrew the access door, 911 was called, and the Promised Land FD came out, actually responding in about 5 minutes. A couple of locals also showed up, in advance of the fire truck. After checking things out fairly thoroughly, it was determined that the motor to the fan unit upstairs had frozen up. The fireguys disconnected the unit, and it will sit until an HVAC crew will be out to probably replace the motor. There was never any actual fire.

Glad we were here when it happened, and that it happened during the day. Thank goodness for the quick response of the volunteers from the fire department.

We fall short, 40-32.

Tonight was the coldest night of the year to play football, with the temperature about 35 degrees at game time, and man, you could feel it! The Hornets truly gave it their all, but came up short tonight, 40-32. We were tied 20-20 at the half, and traded scores during the second half, but came up on the loosing end.

Sadly, the guys won't be making the trip to the State Championships in Orangeburg next weekend, but they had a season to remember. Thanks to the local paper for the photo.

With the end of football, that means we're two weeks away from heading on down to Florida for our December visit. We are totally looking forward to that trip.

Next round of the playoffs Friday night....

Been a busy week- subbed at Ware Shoals on Wednesday, and they called me today to go again tomorrow for a teacher with a very sick child. We are finishing up at Lander, just two more classes after Thanksgivingn break, and we're done. I had 52 term papers turned in today, so I'll be busy for the next week or so looking them over.

Bette and I went to Cracker Barrel this morning for breakfast, and I had one of their new skillet meals, the ham and cheese.... it was totally yummy.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner tonight at Lander with Bev and Dave Joosten. Just about every student and community member was there it seemed.

The photo on the left shows me on the left! It was in the Greenwood Index-Journal today, and shows Boomer Richardson scoring a touchdown, but his hand and football are covering my face...... maybe this week I'll have a better shot.

Bette talked to Dan and Kippy today, and we were sad to learn that Kippy is a little under the weather.. get well soon, Kippy! We'll see you down at Big Water on December 5th.

Another shrine today

This was another shrine we passed on the way to the Mall of Georgia today. The inscription reads simply:

"We miss you daddy."

An unusual shrine on the way to the Mall of Georgia

One of the things I look for on my travels is what I call "shrines," which are roadside memorials that have been constructed in honor and memory of those who have perished alongside the roadways. They represent a true slice of Americana, and each is unique and tells its own story in a special way. Most are a simple cross, with a message or name on them. This one, which was alongside Highway 29 between Athens and Buford, Ga. caught Tina's and my eye. It was alongside an entrance to the major 4 lane, which is a common site for shrines. Can't tell you too much about the story here, other than it appeared the victim was 18 years old. There wasn't a name to discern, and the flowers were a bit weathered. We noticed a total of 6 during our 160 mile trip today.

We march on to Upper State!

The Ware Shoals Hornets won Saturday night, beating visiting Great Falls, 32-21. This means we will be playing next Friday night vs. Williston-Elko for the Upper State Championship. If we win that game, we're in the State Championship game the day after Thanksgiving down at Orangeburg. The last time we got this far in the playoffs was 8 years ago. Cooper did his usual great job at waterboy. We're excited about next week!

Getting drenched, Playoffs rescheduled

We're getting drenched with a pretty fair rain just now, and they've postponed the playoff game with Great Falls until tomorrow night. That's a good thing, since I hate to stand in the rain during games. Cooper will be disappointed.

Had a slow week since returning from North Carolina, taught my classes at Lander, then got called into Ware Shoals to sub for the Senior English IV teacher on Wednesday.

Tina and I and maybe Bette are going for our annual Christmas shopping tour down to Commerce Georgia to the outlet stores, then to the huge jockey lot at Pendergrast Ga. We may even head on over to Buford Ga, where the Mall of Georgia is, which is supposedly the second largest mall in America. The boys have provided us with a mighty list of Santa wants this year.

Brandon is taking a big field trip in May up to Virginia to see Jamestown and Williamsburg. Glad we decided not to go there on our way home this summer.

Had a nice phone visit with Mom Zona on Tuesday, which was the 4th anniversary of my Dad's passing. She sounds well, and we are anxious to see her when we visit California in April as planned. We mentioned maybe even being able to run up to Yosemite to see her daughter- She takes the train, which would be neat for us to do. Think she takes it up to Modesto, and then gets picked up, or maybe we'll just rent a car. Bette has never seen Yosemite, and I haven't been there since I was maybe 8 years old. I hear its full up now almost year round. That will be a major bucket list accomplishment if we get that done!

I'll post photos and a summary of the Georgia trip....

Safely home, New trip planned!

We got home safely by about 3 this afternoon, after a stop back in Blacksburg at the Flying J for brunch, which was very tasty. It was a beautiful drive down. We sure got the best of fall color this trip.

Thanks, Dan and Kippy for another great week of fellowship, shopping and eating! Thanks especially dan, for my new kicks. I am not worthy of such fine footwear!

The boys and their pals piled in the car at 5 and off we went to the cinema and saw the new animated film Madagascar 2. It was a pleasant film, predictable, but still I laughed out loud more than a couple of times. I'm sure we'll see Madagascar 3 soon.

On the way home, Bette brought up that we should head on down to Florida while we have time, and I thought that was a wizard idea, so I've got a nifty 14 day trip all planned up after my teaching job stops on 4 December.

We'll head on down to Big Water to join up with Dan and Kippy for three days, then to Woodbine, then to New Port Richey for our annual holiday visit with Bette's relatives and a visit to see her brother, then we lucked into room at the Orlando Thousand Trails for 3 days, so we booked that, then a stop at Woodbine on the way back, then 3 days at Point South in Beaufort to visit Savannah and friends in Beaufort, then home by December 19th. A nice compact visit- can't wait! I'm anxious to finally see what TT Orlando is all about and scout around that area.

Looking forward to visiting Scott and Sheila as we always do and staying at Suncoast RV again, and I hope to get in a Gulf fishing trip, and of course watching the sun sink into the Gulf, which is always a highlight of our Florida visits- I'll be sure to take photos this time.

So now, we've got Florida, then Christmas break, then Missouri to see Sherry and Fred over New Year's. Plate is getting full, and I can't wait to be on the road!!!!

Dare I say it, but Bette is getting the hots for the 40 foot version of our motor home. I managed to find one in of all places Winston Salem, NC, where we just were for the weekend.... Dan and Kippy, we may be on our way back up next weekend to Advance to trade out, you never know, if I know my wife, we'll be in one soon. Oh well, you can't take it with you..... Just hope they are willing to trade for ours. Stay tuned.

Starting home

Yesterday was a great day of shopping and fooling around. We headed up to Winston Salem again and stopped by Cook's which is a fairly large flea market, and Bette managed to find a couple of things, a magnetic retriever and some over the door hanger racks. A sweet lady left us a nice note on the car after she felt that we had "stolen" her parking space on the way in. Thankfully she didn't key the car!!!! We all noshed on delicious flea market hot dogs.

After that, we stopped at a Burger King for shakes and coffee, then headed over to Wal-Mart and the Dollar store for fill-ins, then by then it was early dinner time, so we stopped at a nice seafood place for dinner. I had popcorn shrimp and fish, Bette had a nice steak.

By then it was dark, so we headed back home and crashed. The last thing I remember is watching Clemson loosing to Fla State. Carolina and Newberry both won yesterday.

It turned of pretty chilly this morning, about in the lower 30's I would say, and there is a layer of light frost on the Saturn. It's 0830 as I write this, and we've already had coffee and cereal, and Bette is madly puttering on get away chores, as she always does.

We're going to go wheels up at about 0930 or so, as Kippy and Dan will be heading up the road a piece to go to Sunday services. We've had a wonderful visit, and have made plans to meet up again down at Santee after I finish up at Lander, which will be December 4th.

Looking forward to seeing the boys this afternoon, we may head on over to the movie house and take in Madagascar II when we get back.

Ware Shoals 36, McBee 8, Great Falls is next

We got a big win in the first round of the state playoffs last night, beating the McBee SC team 36-8. Ladarius Hawthorne had a terrific game.
We've got Great Falls next- then probably Southside Christian for Upper State title. Go Hornets! Today looks like it will be a beautiful day, and we are waiting for Dan and Kippy to have some mobil repairs made and then perhaps head up to Winston to a big flea market, then dinner out.

More fall color

This was a Bette shot, of a beautiful example of the fall leaf colors we've been seeing this week. The leaves were a deep orange color- not sure what kind of tree it was, but it was sure beautiful. It was on the main street of the Old Salem Village.

Winston Cup Racing Center

After a bit of searching, and having to stop at a Citgo for directions, we managed to find the Winston Cup Racing Museum. The R.J. Reynolds Tobacco company sponsored the Winston Cup Series for several years, and awarded big money to winning drivers. The photo on the right is the actual museum, and the photo on the left is for Cooper, since its the Hooters car. There were about 20 cars on display, along with lots of interesting artifacts. We got a cheesy pin for the wall, thinking we would have done better. Still in all, a good place to visit.

Fabulous day at Winston Salem, NC.

This is Salem college, a very quaint small women's school in the heart of the city. We parked here while we visited the Old Salem village. Stopped at the bookstore to find a pin, but no luck.


Old Salem visitor center. We stopped here briefly, then decided not to do the tour, since it had a $21.00 per person price tag. Got a pin, anyway.

What a perfect day! We started out with breakfast at IHOP, all of us had the special, which was yummy. Then we drove over to Old Salem Village, and as I mentioned above, we decided to not take the formal tour, but opted to do the informal walking tour. We visited a few of the shops, then headed out to find the Winston Cup racing museum. It was a nice visit, then headed out to go to Wal Mart, but wound up going to a strip mall and visiting Michael's, Target, and the Dollar Tree, before deciding to visit Golden Corral for the early bird special... it was totally yummy!

Got home around 5, then watched the evening news and Jeopardy before coming back home to crash. I'll make seperate posts with other photos, but Blogger is not cooperating with uploading photos, but I'll try.

It was a gorgeous sunny day today, and supposed to be the same tomorrow. We've got a rest day scheduled for tomorrow, with dinner at our house.