Basically November
First off, CONGRATS REID! You did it, IRONMAN. Your journey was a lot longer than 140.6 miles - Thank you for letting me be a part of your journey to Arizona - I am super proud of you. Triabetes rocked the house again, 2009 - the documentary premiered and was amazing, I hear. The triabuddies (diabetic kids who paired up with Triabetics) had an amazing coastal trip. More on all that stuff in a later blog.
Now back to normal family blog stuff. November and December kind of went by in an instant. Somewhere around the end of October, we all went up to Whitetop mountain to do a little hike from Elk Garden to Whitetop. This is on a rather beautiful stretch of the AT.
Elk Garden looking away from Whitetop - Mount Rogers and Grayson Highlands are that way.
Ash on Whitetop overlooking the transition from Blue Ridge (left) to Ridge and Valley (parallel ridges in distance). This whole area is pretty amazing - we are standing on an ancient volcano and off in the distance is old ocean floor limestone. On the way home from this trip we stopped to pick up some rock made from glacial deposits. On down the trail is Buzzard Rock. 
Buzzard Rock - that stuff was lava... not magma... lava. 
So Halloween came next, and my camera did not want to behave. So I pretty much don't have any pictures of the Adia and Zoe in their amazing costumes that Ashley made!
You know what they say - "If you can't have fun with pumpkin guts...." actually, I don't know what they say...
We walked downtown Damascus and had a blast even though it was raining. Many churches had fun things to do and main street kind of had that halloween feel that I remember... before trick or treeting was done in malls.
Here is the only shot of Adia on halloween - she is pretty enthralled with the popcorn maker
Mid November, Zoe came with me and the Environmental Awareness club to do some trail clean up in Alvaredo.
Then we had Zoe's 6th birthday. We had some beautiful weather and did our little party outside with MawMaw and a wonderful local family that we have become good friends with. It was fun all around - I think I hooked a few of the kids on unicycling. One daughter tried to get convince me that jumping rope on a pogo stick was where it was at - I will let her keep that talent. It was rather amazing, however. And yes, the cake was a Steve Ahn special... and that's supposed to be a horse even though it looks a little like Nessie (of the Loch).
Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you...
Zoe's gift was a new bike. First off, I have a problem when it comes to bikes... I love them. But I justified it because she rides with us to town all the time. Its a neat little Specialized Hotrock - they make the best kids bikes... and I don't mean bells and whistles - they are aluminum where most are cr-mo (which means they don't weigh a ton) and the parts are just quality. Since we will be passing the bikes down the line, quality really matters. This is the second one we have bought and I would recommend them to anyone.... and they sponsor amazing groups like Triabetes.
Just a good picture. I think we were picking pears next door.
Same day. Smile.
We went to Greenville over Thanksgiving and took a hike at Paris Mtn with Morgan. Thanksgiving was good - we went to Rock Hill (where I took no pictures) for turkey day and then went to Greenwood on Friday - where the only pics I took were all bleached out. Ah well, Thanksgiving week was filled with seeing family and that was really wonderful.
So it rains for a couple of days and then the whole system blew out suddenly leaving us with an amazing double rainbow (the picture does not do it justice)...
And an amazing sunset in the other direction. Jon is pointing to the Rainbow.
The skies here have been amazing - I thought we were giving up interesting weather when we left Boone, but the opposite has been true. Every day, new show.
Then today it snows - really pretty day. You can see the limestone cliff behind the river here.
Zoe had her first sleepover this day as well. Dang, its all happening rather fast.
Adia says, "till next time, happy trails."
Now back to normal family blog stuff. November and December kind of went by in an instant. Somewhere around the end of October, we all went up to Whitetop mountain to do a little hike from Elk Garden to Whitetop. This is on a rather beautiful stretch of the AT.
Ash on Whitetop overlooking the transition from Blue Ridge (left) to Ridge and Valley (parallel ridges in distance). This whole area is pretty amazing - we are standing on an ancient volcano and off in the distance is old ocean floor limestone. On the way home from this trip we stopped to pick up some rock made from glacial deposits. On down the trail is Buzzard Rock.
Buzzard Rock - that stuff was lava... not magma... lava.
So Halloween came next, and my camera did not want to behave. So I pretty much don't have any pictures of the Adia and Zoe in their amazing costumes that Ashley made!
You know what they say - "If you can't have fun with pumpkin guts...." actually, I don't know what they say...
We walked downtown Damascus and had a blast even though it was raining. Many churches had fun things to do and main street kind of had that halloween feel that I remember... before trick or treeting was done in malls.Here is the only shot of Adia on halloween - she is pretty enthralled with the popcorn maker
Mid November, Zoe came with me and the Environmental Awareness club to do some trail clean up in Alvaredo.
Then we had Zoe's 6th birthday. We had some beautiful weather and did our little party outside with MawMaw and a wonderful local family that we have become good friends with. It was fun all around - I think I hooked a few of the kids on unicycling. One daughter tried to get convince me that jumping rope on a pogo stick was where it was at - I will let her keep that talent. It was rather amazing, however. And yes, the cake was a Steve Ahn special... and that's supposed to be a horse even though it looks a little like Nessie (of the Loch).
Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you...Zoe's gift was a new bike. First off, I have a problem when it comes to bikes... I love them. But I justified it because she rides with us to town all the time. Its a neat little Specialized Hotrock - they make the best kids bikes... and I don't mean bells and whistles - they are aluminum where most are cr-mo (which means they don't weigh a ton) and the parts are just quality. Since we will be passing the bikes down the line, quality really matters. This is the second one we have bought and I would recommend them to anyone.... and they sponsor amazing groups like Triabetes.
Just a good picture. I think we were picking pears next door.
Same day. Smile.
We went to Greenville over Thanksgiving and took a hike at Paris Mtn with Morgan. Thanksgiving was good - we went to Rock Hill (where I took no pictures) for turkey day and then went to Greenwood on Friday - where the only pics I took were all bleached out. Ah well, Thanksgiving week was filled with seeing family and that was really wonderful.
So it rains for a couple of days and then the whole system blew out suddenly leaving us with an amazing double rainbow (the picture does not do it justice)...
And an amazing sunset in the other direction. Jon is pointing to the Rainbow.
The skies here have been amazing - I thought we were giving up interesting weather when we left Boone, but the opposite has been true. Every day, new show.
Then today it snows - really pretty day. You can see the limestone cliff behind the river here.
Zoe had her first sleepover this day as well. Dang, its all happening rather fast.
Adia says, "till next time, happy trails."