Chili cook off, bonfires, falling leaves and Notre Dame football

Isn't fall the best season ever! We have had such a great time this fall, so much has been going on.

First right after Labor day we took a family trip to watch our beloved fighting Irish play in South Bend against the Purdue Boilermakers. It was a close, exciting game


Notre Dame student section

Jim and Eric enjoy some pregame activities

Eric demonstrates the Fighting Irish receiver gloves

family photo on the Irish practice field

Leah and Jessica

. It special  because it was the  first time Eric was with us on campus for a game. Leah flew to Chicago and spent time with her college roommate Jessica and then they both took the train to join us . We also spent time with our great friends the Stabile family.
We continue to spend our weekends in Lagrange at our lake house. The drought has led to an early dry bed at our dock so the boat has been out of the water since September. We still enjoy the quiet of our home and small town life in Lagrange. We joined a chili cook off in the town square and tasted some great chili.

Town square chili cook off

 Eric came for a weekend and Jim put him to work building a large fire pit in the yard. What a nice place to relax and enjoy the fall weather.

At the start, just a lot of grass

Almost done!


 They also put in an area to play horse shoes, but they still need to work on some leveling and sand pits. We could still play a game or two.

We also took time to brew our first Riverpoint Brewing home brew, with Eric's help.  We are calling it the Five o'clock.

Our yard has been so beautiful this fall, the colors very vibrant. We have really enjoyed the warm days and the cool nights.

 Hope you enjoy the video, It's the view from our porch!

Visitors for Labor Day

We had a nice surprise for labor day. My sister Lisa and three kids came from Phoenix.

Lisa and I in my backyard.

 

We took the jet ski out, it was a big hit. Every one enjoyed a turn "driving" The weather was great and the water was warm.




Vance driving with Eric and Ellie

 

Eric and Matt



Motorboatin'

We also toured the lake on the pontoon. It was fun to stop for a jump in the lake. All the kids enjoyed showing off their diving skills by jumping off the back of the pontoon


Eden enjoys a float on the water

AHHH, the sun feels great!!

We enjoyed their quick visit and I think they did too! We look forward to having them come back for more lake fun!!  We hope you can come soon too!

Our New Home!

We bought a home!!
As I mentioned at Easter we were looking at a property and at the end of April we bought a house. It is actually near Lagrange GA - southwest Georgia near the Alabama border.
We were looking for a lake home, everything close to Atlanta was too crowded, had low water levels and was over priced. We drove to check out West Point lake and fell in love with the area.



 

So we found a house, it's on the lake with a nice dock. It has 3 bedrooms, 2 baths and is is only 5 years old.

Spring dogwoods and azaleas in bloom

Sunrise over from our dock

Sunset on the lake



Enjoying an evening beer on the dock

 

We live seven miles out of town in the county, our property is a woodsy acre. Much of it was not cleared and we have spent the summer working on that. I got a nice case of poison ivy while getting rid of some brush. We hope to build a garage, have a fire pit and a garden.

With the color of the cabinets the kitchen reminds me a lot of our AZ kitchen. They are actually a ivory color. It's more of a great room concept, open to the living areas and we have nice wood flooring in there.







Part of the kitchen



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We love being at the lake and spend most weekends there.  This summer has been busy working on the property, having guest and getting out on the water



Leah loves the jet ski

So does Eric and his friend Matt

Jim and Matt floating off the dock

Jim and Marv enjoy the back porch

Taking a tour of the lake with Marv and Pat

Cathy takes a dip

Marv, Pat and Cathy came over the 4th of July. Leah visited for 2 weeks in July and Eric has been up from Florida twice since he returned from Afghanistan.

We hope you can come visit soon!!

Lagrange square
Memorial Day 2012

Family Time at Easter (Sorry, I thought I posted this a couple of months ago!)!

We had a great Easter with both Eric and Leah visiting us in GA. It's difficult to get all of us together now with Leah teaching in Phoenix and Eric having the schedules and deployments of the Air Force. It was a good family time.
Leah came in on Thursday and on Friday morning we drove to Lagrange GA.  We were looking at buying a property there and wanted to show her the area. (More on the house and Lagrange later!)
We spent the day in the small town, went to St. Peters for Good Friday Stations of the Cross and enjoyed the views of West Point Lake.

Leah looks out at West Point Lake

Jim and Leah walk along the shoreline

It was a nice day but a little cool for water sports.

Leah thought this mailbox we saw at Highland Marina would be perfect.



That night Eric drove in from Florida, about 3 1/2hours and we spent the night. In the morning we went to Callaway Gardens, about 20 miles away. Callaway gardens is a family getaway with hiking, biking and lake activities. We walked through the garden,

fed the turtles,

 and checked our wing span.
We also visited the butterfly exhibit.

ready to go!

But the most fun was the tree top adventure. It was a zip line along with several rope climbs.



one of the rope walks, high in the woods

Yikes! But nice view of the park!

After the tree top adventure we rented some bikes. We were looking for a place to eat. We were all tired and hungry. After riding around for too long, we ended up back at the bike rental and ate there. It was definitely not as fun as the zip line but we saw a lot of the park.

We returned to Atlanta to celebrate Easter with our traditional ham dinner.




We also had an early morning visit from the Easter Bunny!! Both Eric and Leah found the "hidden" eggs.

Overall the time was great to be together, especially with Eric being deployed to Afghanistan the following week