Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Posted by Michelle on Dec 29, 2012 in Hayley, Jeff, Michelle
Jeff’s parents on the local NBC news
Posted by Michelle on Sep 13, 2012 in Jeff, More Family
Jeff’s folks run the AARP Health Fair up in Blacksburg and it’s really huge so their local NBC had them on today to talk about the event. They are awfully cute.
Summer and start of school
Posted by Michelle on Aug 14, 2012 in Hayley, Jeff, Michelle, More Family
Since Hayley is in a year-round school, our summer was short and she’s been back at Salem for two weeks now – her last year there! This year Mason from next door has joined her.
First day!
With Mason
It was a good summer though. Hayley was at moviemaking camp again and we await their premiere on the big screen later this month. She’s been doing great at riding, we love this barn and she’s got a new saddle now. I need to bring the good camera out and shoot her jumping, even if watching her jump terrifies me.
We took a fabulous cooking class with our dear friend Sara at the always amazing Southern Season. Their store gets bigger every time I’m there, it’s 60,000 square feet now! The cooking school was state of the art and fantastic. I’m so stoked she is old enough to take the adult stuff with me!
Amazing setup – the flat screens could show you what was inside the mixing bowl
With Sara
We went up to Blacksburg VA for the 4th again to spend it with Jeff’s family. I’ll post more photos from that later but I never have my camera out there, I’ve got to do better. Jeff did the 5k again and shaved a bunch of time off – he’s awesome.
Hayley took a ton of photos at the art museum there – looks like Grandma Sharen posed in one with some interesting stuff!
We stopped at Pilot Mountain on the way back and went up to the top.
Right before she went back to school, we got to see Rachel and her family, I’ll post more photos from that later too.
John Ford Coley & Byron Hill
Posted by Michelle on Jun 23, 2012 in Hayley, Jeff, Michelle
I am unabashed fan of 70s music and Friday night we headed out to Winston-Salem to see one of my all-time favorites – John Ford Coley. Coley along with England Dan had a ton of hits including Love Is The Answer, I’d Really Love To See You Tonight, Never Have To Say Goodbye Again, Nights Are Forever Without You and Sad To Belong to name a few. Love Is The Answer is my favorite song of all time so I was just thrilled to get to hear him live, even Jeff and Hayley were excited because they’ve listened to his stuff so much they love it too.
It was fantastic. Small intimate venue with John Ford Coley and an amazing country songwriter named Byron Hill alternating songs and stories – they were a great combo. We were 10 feet from the stage, got to talk to them, get autographs and take photos. As fun as hearing songs I loved from Coley, we were totally charmed by Hill who evidently has written something like 600 songs recorded by others, including 30 top-ten country songs. I’m not a country fan so he was new to me but he sang a number of his songs that went to #1 and I was downloading them by the end of the night.
Jeff’s Grandma turns 89
Posted by Michelle on Jun 3, 2012 in Jeff, More Family
How cute is Jeff’s Grandma Faye with her birthday cake?
Christmas and Gingerbread Demo Derby, 2011
Posted by Michelle on Feb 11, 2012 in Hayley, Jeff, Michelle, More Family
We had another great holiday season!
We co-hosted a Christmas Eve party with our next door neighbors Wes & Jenn that turned out to be a huge success. We usually hang with them on Christmas Eve and we decided to ask a few more friends to come on over. We figured most people wouldn’t be around but they were! And they wanted to come so it got big right quick. It was lots of fun and hopefully we’ll do it again next year. We hang out with them on New Year’s Eve too and thank goodness that was a lot lower key even if Hayley had friends over.
We did the tree downstairs in the library this year for the first time.
I’m so bad about taking photos on Christmas day… I’m just so busy doing other stuff and then sleeping that afternoon. My mother-in-law luckily took some cute ones and shared so we can thank her for most of these!
One of her favorite gifts – a little pink papasan chair for her room.
The best thing in the world – my grandmother’s recipe for monkeybread. I have to make two batches each holiday.
And this was our sixth Gingerbread Demo Derby! We made a bunch of houses and had neighbors join us to smash them up! Super fun Christmas afternoon.
More photos from this set:
>>Christmas (slideshow view) (detailed view)
>>Gingerbread Demolition Derby (slideshow view) (detailed view)
Our brush with fame – aka tweeting with Raising Hope’s creator!
Posted by Michelle on Sep 30, 2011 in Hayley, Jeff, Michelle
So last week Jeff figured out a mistake in the show Raising Hope – something in an episode conflicted with another episode.
On a whim, I tweeted Greg Garcia, the guy who created the show to ask him about it. Amazingly he tweeted me back and confirmed they screwed up. I told him that made our night, how much we loved the show and how my daughter was excited b/c Greyson Chance will play young Jimmy. He tweeted back that we’d love the next ones and that Shannon says hi, sending us this photo:
A photo of Shannon Woodward (aka Sabrina on the show) waving hello to us!
We were so excited. This was the night before their season premiere and the show creator is tweeting with us, taking photos for us! So Hayley took the iPad and sent a message to Shannon via Greg.
Greg went even further and took a photo of Shannon and Kate Micucci (aka Shelley who runs the crazy dog, pet, baby daycare on the show) holding up the babies that PLAY HOPE and sending a message back to Hayley!
HOW COOL WAS THAT? I love the internet. This is the guy who not only created Raising Hope but also My Name is Earl and Yes, Dear… messing around online with some fans.
border=”0″> Greg’s tweets.
Getting older wasn’t too awful
Posted by Michelle on Sep 20, 2011 in Hayley, Jeff, Michelle
It’s hard to dislike birthdays when you have these two loves to celebrate with.
Fourth of July
Posted by Michelle on Jul 5, 2011 in Hayley, Jeff, Michelle, More Family
We went up to Blacksburg for a Fourth of July vacation. Blacksburg is so lovely in the summer when it is just sweltering down here. I know Jeff was happy to visit Virginia Tech’s campus as well since it had been a few years.
The big news was that Jeff and his folks ran the Shawsville 5K. Jeff did great for his first race, his mom was first in her age group and his dad was third – the rest of us just slept in and then drove around in the Jeep cheering for them. Just for the record, Grandma Sharen crushed everyone in croquet twice. She was on the winning girls team for games with me and Hayley as well. I think that means Grandma Sharen wins the Fourth of July.
Jeff nearly done
The athletes
Everyone after the race
Hayley about to whack away at a ball she hit
See more photos from this set:
Regular view (easiest to find one in particular or print)
Slideshow view (easiest to see them all)
