Turkey Day

We had a great Thanksgiving which included traveling to see lots of family. We started out with the Carter side of the family in Black Mountain for a couple of days and then down to AL to see David's family. The Carter clan was crazy as usual, this year capping off the excitement by roasting Cindy and Gary for their 50th birthdays. We wrote a variety of skits and limericks to commemorate the event and remind them of the stories we retell every year. Fun times!
our turkey plates which were thoroughly stuffed with Gary's good cooking

Dad's reinterpretation of Mosquito Alley golfing

David's Ric Flair impersonation - sorry for blurriness, but he was moving quickly due to his blonde wig and bicep balloons

the 50th party pictures

the big meal

beginning of the limericks

the Jalapa skit - hilarious!!

the whole Carter clan

So slack...

Apologies for being away from the blog world for so long! I've been checking others and not posting myself - shame, shame. Here's a little catch up from November - can't believe the month already flew by. It started out perfectly with a little weekend retreat with my old girlfriends, Carly and Megan. We got away to a mountain retreat in NC and had loads of fun doing NOTHING at all!


NC trees

the only other friends we saw that weekend

cozy kitchen - lots of laughter around that table!

comfy den - plenty of warm blankets to nap under

the road to the cabin

our weekend retreat

Meg and Carly

me and Carly

Fall Festival

Our church had an amazing fall festival this past week, so David and I took some of the Burmese refugee children I have gotten to know over the past year. It was their first experience with fair rides, cotton candy, ponies, costumes, McDonald's, and Halloween, in general. Sensory overload, I'm sure, but they seemed to have a great time.

Forgive our costumes - eclectic at best. I let them pull from masks I have at school, make-up, mardi gras beads, and fairy skirts. One child even put it all over camouflage. Who cares, right??

Zaey on the pony ride


All 3 girls on the ponies - they were very confused why we didn't just call them "horse"

All of the kids: the little boy was a bit overwhelmed and freezing, but he started to cheer up once he got some cotton candy. He fell asleep as soon as I put him in the car to go home.

Trick or Treat

Lucy and I both received some fun treats this Halloween! This is a cute cookie that my assistant principal gave all of the second grade teachers. Isn't it cute? A lady at our school has a side bakery business, and she makes the greatest cookies and cakes.


Lucy received a new Auburn Tigers collar and a candy corn cookie treat from our friends, Chris and Chez and their dog, Scout last week. We hoped wearing the collar would bring good luck to the Tigers, but no such luck! But, she sure did beg for the cookie! Thanks, Chris, Chez, and Scout!

Election Day Pumpkins???

A couple of Fridays ago, we had our dear friends, Jake and Erin, over for our annual carving time. We always try to carve with friends to make it a little more fun - especially for David, since I usually think carving is really great until about 10 minutes into it when I quit. Generally, when we have a gathering of people, there will be a few who will stick with him to the end. This year, we tried for an Election theme! Each couple had to carve McCain and Obama. Unfortunately, for Sen. McCain, I was in charge of his..um, not such a great job, on my part. I ended up carving his eyebrow and hair in the same piece and things never turned around after that. I turned it around and made it a cat. But, David's Obama turned out pretty well and Jake and Erin did a nice job too!


Obama and the spooky cat

Jake's McCain and Erin's Obama

when things were looking more optimistic for my Sen. McCain

Wicked Weekend

This has been a fun weekend. Our sweet college friends, Chris and Chez, were in town for a wedding so they stayed with us. We also got tickets to see Wicked, which is a great show! If it comes to your town, be sure to see it. It's the "true" story of the Wicked Witch of the West - so creative and fabulous music!

After the show

All lit up
Chris and Chez

Pumpkin Picking

We headed out to a roadside pumpkin stand to pick out our pumpkins this year, but found more than we bargained for. The pumpkins were extremely overpriced, so we bought ours at Trader Joe's instead, but there was definitely some entertainment. Pumpkin jump houses, pony rides, bunny petting zoo, and even pumpkin port-o-potties. Probably the reason for the expensive pumpkins...



"Haunted House"

So many choices!

the pony rides

He's grown!
Funky snake-like squash

Pie pumpkin overload
fun ghost pumpkins
the little bunnies for sale
David checking out the attraction

Nash-vegas

We've had some fun fall weekends recently. We went to Nashville to see one of my best friends from college, Amy, and her husband, Matt. Amy is a die-hard Vandy fan (she has something to cheer about this year!), so we went to the Auburn-Vandy game with them. David was a little sad after the game, but Amy was a happy girl.



Before the game in our Vandy attire.

Auburn takes the field.

Their adorable dog, Gus. He helps us know that there are calm dogs in the world, they just aren't our dog...

David and Gus.

Cash Money, Baby!

These are exciting times in the King household!! David was just paid his first paycheck for a published piece of writing!! Wo hoo!!! The check came all the way from London, but all we were concerned about were the letters USD - congrats to him!

Life with Lucy

Ahhh-life with Lucy...some of you know about the adventures of life with our dog because you have visited with us and experienced it yourself. I thought the rest of you might want some sharing about our little mutt's crazy habits and challenging behaviors.

Let's take it by topics:

Toys: When we first brought Lucy home from the shelter, we felt so sorry for her that we bought her about 15 toys - squeaky ones, stuffed ones, rubber ones, etc. Then, we stopped feeling sorry for her about an hour in when we realized her favorite thing to do was destroy the toys. Got a squeak? Find it and pull it out; got stuffing - pull it out by piece by piece until thoroughly misshaken and strewn across the floor. Even those ones they call "indestructible" - they haven't met Lucy. She can even destroy a Kong toy, which is supposed to be the best on the market. We've finally just given over to 1 rubber ball, some tennis balls found in the neighborhood, and the plastic flower pots that plants come in from Home Depot - she drags them around the yard until they're thoroughly destroyed and then, we toss them. Fun times.


One of her first toys - a stuffed squeaky duck from one of my students - gone in 2 minutes. Sorry, duck.


Shoes - her next favorite victim. She pulls them out of the basket by the door one by one, as if you can't see her. She then hides quickly under the nearest table without pulling in her tail behind her. When you take them from her, she just looks at you as if you're nuts - why not eat your shoes???

Training - Yes, we've watched the Dog Whisperer - I got the whole season from the library TWICE and no go. When I try that little "CHH" thing on the neck like Caesar, she thinks I am playing a game. David gets a bit more of a response - she pauses but as soon as he lets her go, she's back at it. We went through PetSmart training. Unfortunately, we had a new trainer on her first class, so she read through the binder with us. We say Lucy was a strong C/D student, since we tend to rank everything by academic grades. No honor roll here.

Ahh, but we love her. Even though her toenails leave red trails on my legs because she refuses to let me cut them, even though she's torn up every tissue in our bathroom trash can, even though she barks her head and wakes up the neighborhood when I go to work... I still love when she gives little kisses and runs like the wind after the ball. I love when she lays her head on my lap and sighs. Yep - we're keeping her...




a pic from when she first got home from the shelter - before she started chewing the casings around the laundry room door :)

Lucifer - the devil reindeer at Christmas time

Rangling her into our Christmas shot for our card - took 6 people and 15 tries.

Football Time!

We were fortunate to be able to get tickets to Saturday's Chick-Fil-A game between Clemson and Alabama this past weekend. Unfortunately, things didn't go as we had hoped for Clemson, but we still had a good time. Let me tell you something - those AL fans are LOUD! Good grief, David told me they were serious, but I don't think I quite knew how serious!
We were also able to meet and sit with some Atlanta Falcons players - pretty exciting! Of course, when I heard their names I didn't really know who they were but David gave me a little education. We met Matt Ryan, Chris Redman, and D.J. Shockley. The next morning David read in the paper that Ryan just signed a 5 year $78 million contract - I guess that's 78 million reasons why everyone wanted to shake his hand and be his best friend when he walked through the door - crazy! Anyway, exciting times. I didn't have my camera, unfortunately, and as David says, "We never have our camera for moments most worthy of your blog." Oh well - I figure mostly girls read this anyway and probably have no clue who these guys are either! I will post their pics below, in case you're clueless like I was!



Chris Redman

DJ Shockley

Matt Ryan

St. Simons and Savannah Trip

Trip to Tybee and Savannah


Tybee lighthouse

Our Bed and Breakfast at Tybee
The dolphin tour - this is a shrimp boat near us - we saw about 12 dolphins! A highlight of our trip!
on the dolphin tour

Tybee Lighthouse

Me and Paula - it's a cardboard cutout, y'all!

David's favorite game - Putt-putt!

Lining up the perfect shot!

Jekyll Island shops and homes

Pretty Savannah homes


Fountain from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

St. Simon's church

St. Simon's lighthouse

Jekyll home