40 Years

October 19, 1973

 

And Then - - -

Jason Michael

Jaclyn Diane

Rachel Hope

Emily Caroline

Laura Christine

Hannah Grace

 

 

And Then - - -

Jason and Jennifer Robinson

Jaclyn and Daniel Frankenberger

Rachel and Jimmy Isbill

Emily and Jon Thomasson

Laura and Michael Henshaw

 

 

And Then - - -

Caleb Frankenberger

Jack Frankenberger

Lilly Isbill

Sam Frankenberger

Lucy Isbill

Jonas Robinson

 

 

And Now - - -

October, 2013

What's Next?

 

We don't know, but we trust God that the next ?? years will be as exciting and blessed as the past 40 have been.

Lake Lure Flowering Bridge

Phillip took a vacation day on Friday and we went to the mountains.  We found this delightful place in Lake Lure, the Lake Lure Flowering Bridge.  When a new bridge was built, the community got together and turned the old bridge into a garden.  It was a wonderful place to explore, exactly the kind of garden I'd plant if I had the expertise and creativity.  We couldn't figure out how we didn't notice this when we were there in March for Laura's wedding.  When we read the literature, we realized that it wasn't planted until April so the plantings are very recent. 

 

Notice the mirror in this picture.  

This planter was in the tropical garden.  It's made from an old tire cut and painted to look like a parrot.

Every garden had its own "gardener," characters made of pumpkins and gourds.  

This guy was our favorite.

 

This one is for Lilly, who loves fairies.  I doubt if this kind of fairy has visited her fairy garden at home, but she seems happy in her Lake Lure fairy garden.

September

September at our house -

 Lilly lost another tooth.  She pulled it herself with some coaching from her Pom-Pom.

My great-nephew Devin picked roses for me.  He was really proud of them.

We celebrated Hannah's 19th birthday with Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

 Lucy took our pictures.

We visited Jaclyn and Emily in Virginia.  This is Phillip and Sam.  The older boys had a busy weekend and we didn't get any pictures of them, but we did get to see them.  Emily had to work but we got a brief visit with her, too.  No pictures, though.

 Jaclyn and Daniel

Sam sent some of his toys for Jonas to have.  We kept some of them at our house so he would have more boy stuff to play with.  You are witnessing a battle between Woody and Batman. It wasn't nearly as vicious as the Barbie battles he used to mastermind.

 

 

August

Jonas helped his grandpa pick watermelons.  There was a small misunderstanding, though. Immediately after I snapped this picture, he threw the watermelon on the floor.  It didn't bounce the way he thought it would, but that's okay.  We ate it anyway.

 Lilly and I had fun putting morning glories on our noses.  Lucy is allergic to them so she couldn't join in the flowery fun.

Phillip hung a tire swing for the kids.  They run to it every time they come over.  It looks like so much fun. 

 I found a chalkboard at the thrift store.  We put it on the carport, and drawing on it is one of  Jonas's favorite things to do.

 Our neighbor has given us bags and bags of apples and one of the things we've done is dehydrate some of them.  Jars of dried apples always remind me of my Grandma Brown.  When I was a little girl, she caught me sneaking slices of her dried apples.  She told me that if I kept eating them, they'd swell up in my stomach and I'd die.  I still feel a little uneasy about eating dried apples, but they're really good in oatmeal.

Phillip used a cutting board to make a stand for my Kindle.  I use it in the kitchen a lot, and this is really handy.  He's an all-round handy guy to have around.

July Highlights

Since I've been making my laundry soap for a while, I decided to try making dishwasher detergent.  The first batch was supposed to be powder but it hardened to cement.  I had to chop it out of the jar piece by piece with an ice pick.  Before making the second batch, I did a little more internet research and found a hint to mold it in ice cube trays.  It worked better, but it took 3 days to dry, the cubes were a little too big for my dishwasher dispenser cup, and it seems that the glassware is looking cloudy.  I'm back to commercial dishwasher detergent.

We grew watermelons!  We are usually successful with green beans and such but not watermelons.  This year has been the year of the watermelon.  

Caleb, Jack, Sam, and Jaclyn came to visit.  Of course we made our grandsons pick beans.  What you can't see from this picture is that it was raining.  We earned extra grandparent points for making them pick beans in the rain!  We canned the beans they picked so at least they get to eat the fruit of their labors.

Jack and Michael cooked supper for us.  It was delicious!  Jack also baked his famous, best in the world brownies.  There's no picture of the brownies because when Jack bakes brownies, nobody is thinking about taking a picture of them.  We're only thinking about eating them.

Caleb and I proved to be an unbeatable team at Taboo.  Hannah and Jack never stood a chance against us. There were some accusations of cheating, but Caleb and I didn't need to cheat to beat.

We made ice cream every day they were here.  Sam is watching the ice cream maker at work.  Each of the boys chose a flavor.  On Sam's night I did something wrong and we ended up with more of a Frosty texture instead, so Sam got two ice cream nights.  There were no complaints. 

A Really Big Book

Emily gave her dad an Amazon gift card for his birthday/Father's Day.  He used it to buy a book, a really big book, Encyclopedia of North Carolina. It is 1,314 pages of random facts about North Carolina.  He loves it.  He keeps it on the table beside his chair and regularly shares interesting North Carolina trivia with us.  A lot of his sentences now begin with, "Listen to this ..."

So, listen to this:

Wampus is the name of a semimythical creature believed to inhabit Iredell County and adjacent counties.

North Carolina reportedly has the highest incidence of kidney stones in the nation.

Saluda Grade is the steepest standard-gauge main line railway grade in the United States.  

Scuppernong Grape was named the state fruit of North Carolina in 2001.

Tweetsie Railroad, the central attraction of a "Wild West" theme park in Watauga County, dates back to 1866, when the Tennessee legislature granted the East Tennessee & Western North Carolina Railroad permission to construct a 34-mile line through the rugged Blue Ridge chain from Johnson City, TN to the iron mines in Cranberry, SC.  

Wilmington-born Anna Mathilda McNeill Whistler was the mother of artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler and the subject of his most famous painting.

Windmills were so common along the North Carolina coast at the time of the Civil War that Charles F. Johnson, a Union soldier stationed on Hatteras Island, wrote that there were "a greater number than I supposed were in existence in the whole country."