greybirdplace: January 2009

workday at miss bell's house.

this saturday, jeff and I went to athens to help josh and clare clean out miss bell's house. she is an elderly lady (in the hospital now for hypothermia) who lives alone in some pretty dire conditions. her house was in need of a major clean up and clean out so about 10 or so people showed up to help. here's some pictures i swiped from clare's blog. you can read the whole story at www.thegreengate.blogspot.com.

Clare made sandwiches and the best healthy rice crispy treats ever for us to eat before we started. notice the empty dump truck in the back.

getting started. we got rid of a lot of old broken stuff. included this table....

...and this old hospital bed.

we found lot of old pictures. and wondered who they were.

we found lots of roaches...and wished we hadn't.

we took a break.

we went back to work. check out clare tackling the bathroom. glad you finally put gloves on clare!

we laughed real hard.

we FILLED UP the dump truck. still can't believe all that stuff. (who's that big dork?)

and then we went back to the adams' place and ate delicious lasagna made by clare and brownies and ice cream and had tea and at around and talked and talked and rested and got all cozy by the fire.

and all the boys snuggled and wrestled on the floor. and the girls rolled their eyes and laughed at them.

the end.

a hunting we will go.

After Christmas traveling was over, we got geared up to go on the hunting trip (Be warned, there are pictures of dead deer as you scroll down). well, Jeff did. I dropped him off at the Wild Cat Creek Hunting Lodge and then I headed on to Pensacola to hang out with the girls. Krista, Sally, Aunt Kathy and Grandma. We had fun...but I don't have any pictures of that. Here's what I do have pictures of:

The pretty view from the Wiley House back porch.

The blue heeler puppy that was the sweetest thing, 9 months old and full of pep.

My dad, Jeff (behind him), cousin in laws Tim and Zach, and Grandpa Stullken sitting down.

If you can zoom in on Grandpa Stullkens face here...hrrrumph.

this is Albert Cravey, owner of the hunting lodge. His 2,700 acres is next to my grandpas land (the GAP, Get Away Place). So, that's how they know eachother. Albert likes to pretend he is feeding hungry giants for dinner. check out the size of those steaks!!!

and, i got a WHOLE one to eat all by myself. good thing dad was on one side of me and jeff was on the other.

Dad, and facing us is Mike, T's fiance.

Jeff wraps up his first hunting lesson with Dad and Bill.

Donald shot a coyote, here's it's outards.

Dad's 8-pt. is on the right. lots of venison in everyone's future!

Bill and his doe. That's Pirate Mike on the left, Uncle Bill in the middle and cousin Donald on the right.

going through alabama...

I spotted this

truck.

and couldn't resist snapping a picture.

really?

a hike.

while we were in orlando, we went to a big park with trails and a half swimming pool/half lake (which tom is contently looking out on below). we saw ancient cyprus trees and had a grande ole time. actually, i was cranky because i was hungry. but it was a very nice day.

Christmas in Orlando.

After North Carolina, Jeff and I drove w/ the dogs to Orlando to visit with the Cravens. We had so much fun! Here's us playing wii baseball.

Here's Jeff and Tom getting ready to go to their traditional Christmas Eve breakfast.

Here's Jeff and Tom with invisible Kath and Kim. Dad and all three kids would go have breakfast while Sharon got stuff done around the house. But, it was only Jeff this year because Kim lives in Texas and Kath was in AFRICA! (working on a documentary film--how cool is that?)

the homeplace.

a few artistic shots of the farmhouse by jeff.

Christmas Time!

Jeff and I drove to North Carolina for Christmas, but alas, i don't have very many pictures because I came down with the flu right after we arrived! Here's Uncle Bill drowning in Christmas wrappings.