My Mother & Papa Dory

  Here's Papa Dory, my mother's husband. Ann had all types of activities planned for us and one of them was croquet. Dory was a pilot in the Korean War and in WWII !!! He was also an air-traffic controller at one point. When I first met him, his passions were fishing and restoring old cars. Now his passion is his dog, Daisy.
  Mom and Dory pose before taking my sister and I out to dinner. They pamper me big time when I visit.
  Mom and sister Annie- mom said she was always known for her stellar gams.
  Brother Kelly can be a pooh-bah sometimes but Annie coaxed him out of his shell by crafting a game of guessing the answers to "Do you remember when...?" questions. My sister has a photographic memory, I'm hopeless and brother Kelly is in the mid-range. Annie handed out Lotto tickets for the correct answers. I actually got a few right. Questions revolved around our childhood. She is the party hostess with the mostest.

Just to clarify: November is THE birthday month in our family. Dory, Annie, Melissa, Kyle, Katie and Ann's father-in-law, Alfred, all have birthdays in Nov.

Nieces & Nephews

  Courtney, Hannah and Jeremy - three of my brother's five kids.
  Twins - Katie & Kyle celebrate their 21st birthday. Older sister Melissa is taking them out on the town. They are my sister, Annie's kids.
  Melissa, Annie's oldest daughter, and her boyfriend, Eric (with a 'C' - my Erik is with a 'K')

Forgive Me- I had to do this comparison.

Ann, Kelly and Susan. Or is it Susan, Kelly and Ann...The years show on our faces and bodies but the years have also been good to us.
 
 
 
 

Erik - my oldest.

  On our tour of the old neighborhood we also stopped off at old schools. Here, I get a moment with my oldest son, Erik who lives and works in Miami.
  He is soon to graduate and become a paramedic, following in his dad and grandad's footsteps. He also has an uncle, brother and cousin in the department.
  My sister Annie thought of everything and since they had a cold snap, she'd planned to roast marshmallows. Here, Erik, who was an Eagle Scout, sees if he still has the touch.
 / Erik has to go home and get ready to pull a fourteen-hour day the next day. He's just such a wonderful person and we all love his company so much. Try as I do, I can't get him to consider moving out of Miami though - his only fault.

Susan Goes Home for Annie's 50th

  The whole lot of us: This isn't everyone but it's definately the 'A-List'.
  Some of the cousins goofing off. Yes, it's unflattering. That's the point.
  Sisters: Susan - L, Annie - R.
  We went back to the old neighborhood one day and who did we find living there but our old, next-door neighbors from the 60's. We spent many a day in the Solar's house, playing with their girls and just being spoiled. They are still as sweet as ever and are proud to be in their eighties.

Annual Big House Thanksgiving Day Football

Well, this was the least cold Thanksgiving I can remember which made for a large crowd of onlookers and cheerleaders. Here are a few exerpts:
Pile Up: Tim Wander emerges from the bottom of the pile as the one truly holding the ball. This was a five-minute free-for-all with little oxygen at the bottom.

 

Dispute: They weren't buying Jake's story on this one.

 

Lily Makes A Touchdown: Lily Clarke completes a touchdown for her team and Jake and David Hamilton celebrate.

 

Walker Throws A Long Ball: Walker continues to be a lean, muscle machine who sacrifices his body for any play, regardless. An art teacher who was visiting said he was the spitting image of a painting she uses in her class that was something like The Rising Gaul" - a warrior who is near death but won't give up but rises to fight even one more minute.

 

Thanksgiving 2008

For the first time that I can remember, the four of us had Thanksgiving by ourselves. Because EVERYTHING revolves around Big House football on this day, we prepared most of the meal ahead of time. Here, Jake and Franklin cover each other's back while working on scalloped potatoes.

 

Walker's also on KP - peeling apples. We had two pumpkin and one apple pie.

 

I now realize that the pies look less than appealing next to a raw turkey but we're proud of this bird. It's part of Walker's perks to bring home an organic, pasture-raised bird on Thanksgiving - otherwise way out of our price range.
We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and we wish you all a great holiday season.

 

My Little Sister Turns 50

Recently I traveled to Florida to celebrate my sister, Annie's, Big 5-0. She has daughters and one in particular, Melissa, made sure we celebrated in style. She's a nurse at a local hospital and every day she brought a new armful of LARGE, helium balloons, not to mention the table and wall decorations. My sister had no chance of letting the day (or the week) slip by quietly. I'll post more when I get my camera disk back which I left in her computer. This first photo is of the three of us, from L-R: Annie, Kelly (our brother), and myself.

 

Much older and 'wiser', Annie is in the middle.

 

Annie's second and third children were fraternal twins. On this visit, I decided to use pillows to commiserate with her.

 

Annie and family are posing in a tent she bought JUST so my guys would have a fun place to stay when we all crashed her house some years ago. Annie's on the right, my mom is on the left. Husband Tom is with Annie and the 'kids' are Kyle and Katie (twins) and Melissa (first daughter). More to come. Promise.

 

A Hike to Maycherry

To give us energy for the hike, Cameron started last night and finished this morning, making sticky buns/ cinnamon pecan rolls. She even claims they're somewhat healthy so on her word, we dug in. Here she is posing with Hannah, our guest for the weekend. Hannah graduated from UNC and now works in Chapel Hill.

 

Today, Walker, Cameron, Hannah, Tim and I took a hike to Maycherry. You can see almost 360 from the top knoll. You can hike there from our house without getting into a car but we did drive up part of the way. It was the perfect cool-clear-blue-sky-sweater-weather day. Here's Hannah, Tim and Walker sitting on the long picnic bench that's been there forever.

 

Eighteen or so years ago a large group in our community came up here for a picnic supper. Some rode horse, some walked and a few drove. I remember one friend was very pregnant and we thought the bumpy road would encourage the baby to come on. As I told my fellow hikers today, I remember standing on top of the knoll with most of the others and watching Doug Clarke hold back his Arabian mare, Annie Mae, until the other riders were all at the picnic area. Then he let her loose and flew down the road below us and pulled her to a stop at the top. We spontaneously sang after supper and the view then was as breathtaking as it was today.

 

Our community calls it Maycherry Orchard (others call it just the side of Little Pisgah). They say Maycherry Orchard is on the other side of the mountain. But today we saw several apple trees that looked like this one. It was like seeing a carpet of red and yellow flowers under each tree. I'm curious to find out if these are old or wild varieties. Next year, we said we should come earlier and harvest them before they drop.

 

UNCA Soccer Photos

A parent on the team took some action shots during a game and here are a few of Jake.

 

We told Jake his face here looks like the photo they took in the nursery just after he was born. I guess going up against this guy was a lot like the effort it takes to be born. The elbow to the throat was a no-no unseen by the ref.