Bow Season

Dwayne has got two deer with his bow so far this season. He hopes to get another on his trip to Montana.

The guys target practice as often as they get a chance on the deer target in our backyard.

Leonard Look-a-Like

This is the real Leonard playing tourist. Now see below for my version.

I dressed up as a tourist for Halloween. When the boys saw me, they did a double take. They thought Grandpa Leonard was in the house.

Tea Party

We celebrated a co-worker's birthday by going out for tea. Besides tea, we had soup, quiche & scones. The scones were served with clotted cream & lemon curd. Mmmm!

Our party group consisted of Cindy, Kris, Carla, Laurie & Ayree. Ayree was the birthday girl.

Gina

Derrik & Gina met in Pennsylvania this summer. He went to visit her once in September. In October, she & her mom came down to see us.

Gina's sister got sick a few days before her visit. While she was at our house she started coming down with the bug herself.

Before she got to feeling bad, they enjoyed some fun outdoors.

White Oak Canyon Hike

We did a two hour round trip hike to the lower falls after leaving the apple festival. It was a wonderful way to spend the afternoon.

Graves Mountain Apple Festival

We brought Barry & Trey with us to the apple festival this year. The boys had a great time.

We brought home a couple of boxes of apples. One for us and one for Auntie Frances.

Farley, Margaret Ann & Dwayne were with us for the morning only. We took a hayride together. They were laughing at me in the picture because the tractor took off while I was squatted down to take the photo and I just about fell over.

The sun was out for the morning and then it clouded up. It rained at home the whole day, so we were glad to be where the weather was more pleasant.

Julia Child Dinner Party

My friend, Lynn Hockaday, threw a Julia Child dinner party. We all had to come dressed from the late 40s, wear Julia's signature pearls and prepare a recipe from Julia's cookbook. Lynn made a pork entree and tomato aspic with chicken salad.

We had appetizers followed by french onion soup. This is my plate with the main course items. We then had dessert. It was absolutely delicious.

I was requested to make the asparagus with hollandaise sauce. For those of you unfamiliar with Julia's cookbook, the recipe I was assigned was seven pages of the cookbook. For the guests who made more complex dishes, I can only imagine how many instructions/steps they had to follow!

Renee with the french onion soup she made.

The main course is about to be served.

Wesley, Lynn's son, took our picture. He made the boeuf bourguignon. I think we made a charming group in our lovely hats..

Biking

Devin really enjoys bicycling. He & Dwayne ride 10 miles pretty much every day. If Dwayne stands him up to go bowhunting or something, then Devin goes by himself.

Camping

We had a reunion with some of Dwayne's friends that we used to camp with every summer. It was about eight years ago the last time we camped together.

The weather was cool and not conducive to swimming or sunbathing. We had fun playing ladder ball, talking around the fire and just relaxing.

We all brought our dogs. Our Rocky weighs 12 lbs. This is Jeff and his Great Dane, Logan, who weighs 150 lbs. He thought Rocky was a squirrel and wanted to get him, so we kept them separated.

The kids played lots of card games and got reacquanted.

Devin, Derrik, Ricky, Lauren, Ashley & Lynn

The cooks making breakfast. That is our tent in the background.

Skateboarding

Derrik has been released from treatment on his knee. He is back to skateboarding and loving it. It was a long year, but with good results.

Scrapbooking

Kay, Margaret Ann and I joined my friend (and Creative Memories consultant) Kari at the Fredericksburg Expo Center for a scrapbooking event. There were over 900 scrapbookers there. Margaret Ann is taping up an injury from her day of intensive cropping.

Senior Spirit

Derrik is standing in the back on the left. Can you feel the excitement?

Fred (a classmate) and Derrik being goofy.