50th Anniversary Party

This weekend we celebrated 50 years of marriage for Fran and Clancy. For the party, a chef from Huntsville/Nashville came in and cooked a five course meal.

 

 

We started with a fruit plate

 

Rowan really enjoyed watching her prepare the food.

Visiting



Uh-oh...not the finger! Don't mess with her cheese plate.

 

 

 

Decorations

The Beef Wellington before it went into the oven

 



Calamari



Candle light dining

Beef Wellington after, and it was delicious!

 

 

 

Baked Alaska was for dessert.

 

We were all thrilled when it was confirmed that a blow-torch would be involved...and that we could "help" with that part.

 

 

Rowan wanted to pose with the guests of honor.

 

Many tales were told about their young marriage together, their time in Spain. It was so nice to hear the stories.

 

Lydia took this picture. :)

 

Happy Anniversary!! We love you.

Christmas Week 2014, Part I

This Christmas, our little family of four ended up coming down with the flu. This little one was the first to get it.

We had a very nice day Friday, Dec 19. Rowan got off school early that day, and we had some lunch, went to get his hair cut, and then came home and baked some delicious chocolate chip cookies. It was a great day.

But by Saturday morning, Lydia was feverish and her flu and strep tests both came back positive! Poor thing wasn't feeling well at all. And then we all went down like dominos after that, and Clarence and I were fairly ill all week long. We (the kids) had to think of lots of ways to entertain ourselves. One big hit was this cardboard box that was transformed into a puppet theater, complete with curtains and doors that opened and closed by pulling the strings on the side. Rowan worked long and hard on this project, and they did lots of "puppet" shows with their stuffed animals.

One day, we made and painted salt dough ornaments.

Christmas Eve

 Reindeer food was ready to go.

And Emily was brave enough to come over. In her mask, glasses, and shower cap! Rowan thought this was hysterical, but she never did come down with the flu!!

More puppet shows.

Santa came by our house this year on the fire truck!

The kids got to open one gift, and because we were not going to be traveling to see Great-Grandmother Lucy, they opened their gifts from her.

Here is Emily's annual gift of Christmas PJ's that we do on Christmas Eve.

And here Rowan is sprinkling the reindeer food onto our front porch.