Charleston Get Away

We spent this past weekend in Charleston SC at the Lodge Alley Inn.  We go here every winter as a quick get away and to do some Christmas shopping done without the kids being with us.  We left Saturday after leaving the kids with Brandon's mom and came back late Monday night.  We always enjoy going to Pearlz (oyster bar) and Toast (a restaurant that has amazing breakfast).  We walk and eat and then walk some more and then eat some more when we are in Charleston.  Saturday when we got there we walked down to the market and looked at all the locals trying to sell their goods and we walked out to the Waterside Park to look at the Port area.  We watched a Carnival cruise ship leave out of the port that evening and we wished we were on it!  I need to get with the program and schedule us our next cruise.  Sunday we went out to Sullivans Island and walked the beach .  We had a nice long walk and enjoyed the 70 degree weather.  We saw ships coming in and out and when even saw several groups of dolphins playing out from where we were.  It was a beautiful day for exploring.  We also walked the Cooper River Bridge this time we were there and it was an experience.  Brandon is afraid of heights which made it funny. It is a great workout because it is a huge long up and then long hill down coming back.  People were running it and biking it with way too much seriousness if you ask me.  Professionals I would say.  It is a nice experience, but I wouldn't want to make it part of my daily routine because the exhaust coming from all the traffic is horrible and can't be good for your lungs and the noise is extremely loud also.  I took pictures against Brandon's will.  He said Homeland Security was going to come get me for taking pictures of a bridge structure.  This bridge was just opened in 2005 and it is quite impressive.  It's neat that they constructed a pedestrian pathway on one side so that you could actually walk it and enjoy the views from that high up. 
Monday morning we walked for 30 minutes to try to find a restaurant open.  Our 1st two choices were closed and we ended up going back to Toast for a second morning in a row, but it is always good so we didn't mind.  We headed out towards home and hit Sam's, Wal-Mart, Target, Hobby Town, and a few other favorites on the way.  We picked up a few Christmas presents, but we are no where near being done.  I love Christmas, but I really hate shopping for people too.  So here it is Monday night and I have to get geared up for work tomorrow and a busy couple of weeks coming up.  I have a work Christmas party to make something for this week, we are going to sale some goats Wednesday night, and we are killing a pig Friday to put in the freezer.  Saturday I have a women's Christmas dinner to go to and the list goes on and on until the end of the year.  We are slammed packed with plans, but that is always fun to look forward to something coming up.    

Brandon at his best on vacation



Us on our balcony at Lodge Alley Inn

Enjoying a walk along the Battery

Our cute little bedroom

Our cute little living room

Me watching Brandon watch TV

Me contemplating all the important things in life

Brandon beside one of the cables on Cooper River Bridge

Me after an evening out

Lobby of the Lodge Alley Inn

Resting and watching dolphins

Me at our favorite restaurant Pearlz



Brandon enjoying his steamed oysters



Busy Weekend

We have had another marathon weekend.  Friday I was off work so I was off to go to the kids' school for cafeteria lunches.  Two of them.  I made a Wendy's run so they would have something different for lunch.  Abigail was first and we sat with 2 of her friends Colby and Danny.  Second lunch was with Emily and 2 of her friends, but we were quarantined to the opposite side of the cafeteria because we had "outside" food so we only got to sit with her friends the second half of lunch.  Haha! 
Friday night we had supper with Brandon's mom and the kids spent the night with her because Brandon and I both had to work Saturday.  Saturday after Brandon got home we turned around and went back to Charlotte for the Auto Show.  And no, I didn't take the camera there, so no pictures.  We left there and walked around downtown Charlotte and came across a Buffalo Wild Wings.  We stopped in for a late night supper.  We had seats right where Abigail could watch Ultimate fighting, a football game, and a Saw movie.  She somehow kept up with all 3 of the shows and would tell us when something exciting would happen.  She also informed me that the city had more tornadoes than out in the country where we live.  I have no idea where she heard this or even if it is true.  She was hoot that night for her adventure to the city.  It was like taking Ma Furr to the city, you get to see things in a different perspective. 

Sunday morning we went to church and left there and went to the Renaissance Festival.  The kids love it, but Brandon and I aren't really into it anymore.  We won tickets and that is really the only reason we made it this year.  Both of our girls "dressed" for the occasion and had fun.  I am always amazed at the stuff that can be purchased there.  This year for $20-30  you could have latex elf ears put onto the tops of your own ears and they would paint over to blend them in.  They looked awesome. but $20-30 bucks?!?  I mean really!!!  They also had a table of notepads and journals that had pieces of paper sewed into them.  Wow.  You could also pay $10 for a pint mason jar and put colored sand in it.   Nice.  I guess the camel ride for a family of 4 for $20 was a bargain, I don't know.  We did buy Abigail a belly dancer head piece with flowers on it and Emily got a huge feather ink pen.  We bought our normal Renaissance food-roasted corn, turkey leg, and pickle, but that was just about all we unloaded our money on.  Brandon made the comment that Denton Thresher's Reunion was his Renaissance Festival and there was something to actually look at there.  I am not big on that either.  I don't know what my "thing" is.  I guess I would rather someone give me a few hours for a Target, Kohls, and JCPenney trip...  Just think was those neat elf ears could buy me when I stacked my Penney's discount on my "Gold" Card!  I could get an entire outfit! 

Well I guess now we are going to gear up for Thanksgiving week.  There is so much to be thankful for.  We are healthy and have a roof over our heads.  We are so lucky to have a supportive family that helps us keep things moving forward.  Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Abigail fixing to take the jump



Their knight in shining armour. 
Isn't that cool-they had Chuck Taylor's during the Renaissance era? 



Abigail with her upside down headpiece...

Me and my 2 favorite "ladies"

Abigail at home in her belly dancer costume...

My Renaissance girl

Emily's 1st Concert-Thompson Square and Eli Young Band at the Fillmore

Here are a few pictures from last night show.  It was a wonderful acoustical performance by all of them.  Casey James, James Wesley, Eli Young Band, and Thompson Square. 

James Wesley

Thompson Square

Emily's 10th Birthday

We had a blast of a 3 day Holiday/Birthday weekend!  The kids were out of school Friday so I took off work. We scheduled her party for Saturday and had a few kids stay overnight.  I think we had about 35 people at the party and 6 girls spent the night with us. 3 of the girls are in Emily's class at school and the other 3 were siblings of one of the girls in her class.  Which ironically made 10 people overnight in the house for her 10th birthday!  We had BBQ and hotdogs and thankfully the weather was warm enough to send all the kids out on front porch for eating and all the guys seemed to stay out in the yard at the fire.  Even so we had a crowd of people stuffed in the house but it was worth it.   It made it hard to get around to spending time with everyone, but that is always the case when you have that many people around. 

The after party didn't end until 2 am when we finally got the 8 girls (ranging from 1st to 7th grade) to get calmed down enough to go to bed.  Brandon had told them that the Sasquach was outside and they had this thing where they kept running to the basement and screaming as they looked out into the blackness of the back yard.  The 7th grader got a creative idea to talk Julia into letting her borrow her camera phone to  take a picture so she tricked the younger ones and went and took a picture off the internet to use for scaring them.  So here it was 1 am and all these girls thought this thing was in the back yard.  I was thinking "this is just great-I'm trying to get them calmed down and Brandon is getting them riled up"  The 4 Bisson family girls are all about horror and scary stuff and mine are ok too, but I was worried about the other 2 girls and I eventually had to let them in on the internet picture part of the story.  So we all went to bed by 2 am or so and they were up between 8 and 8:30 am. YAY!  Haha!  But here again thank goodness the weather was good because by 10 am they were ready to go outside.  We went outside and did face painting and color hair spraying and they wanted to go see the animals so we walked over to the shop.  We fed the animals about 20 loaves of old bread and the kids got to see and feed the turkeys, goats, pigs, chickens, and horse.  Brandon ended up taking them down in the pasture to see a goat skeleton, he took them to the hay barn to gather grubs to go take to the chickens and then he went on a nature walk in the woods down by the creek.  It was like watching a teacher with his students-too cute!  They followed him around and listened to what he had to say.  Parents don't realize when they send there kids here that you will get science and nature lessons! 

All the parent were here by 12:30 to pick up their girls and by 1:30 we all were asleep here at the Burnette house.  The kids had a good 3 hour nap, I got 2 hours, and Brandon nodded off watching TV.  We decided it would be better to go get naps than to go out and go to Morrow Mountain or Dan Nicholas Park since we were all exhausted.  When we got our naps in we took Emily to her favorite restaurant, Sogos.  Then we took her to Wal-Mart and to Target to find some accessories for her Kindle that she got for her birthday.  Tomorrow is a big day too.  I am taking her to the Thompson Square and Eli Young Band concert tomorrow night and Brandon had to plan a movie night with Abigail.  They are going to go see Puss in Boots together that way she won't fill left out.  I had told Emily it was a standing room only concert (not a seated ticket venue) and Abigail kept telling Emily that she was going to a movie theater that had seats and Emily was going to have to stand all night.  It was too funny!  I have to say it has been one great weekend around here!  I am so thankful to have friends that took time to come celebrate with us. 

The Bisson sisters-what a handful!

Curtis Mountain 2011

We went to the mountains over the weekend with our friends.  Here are a few pictures from the weekend.  Weather was cold but we didn't let that stop us!

You can tell it is Fall...



...when you have to wear several layers of clothes to play softball




...when the cotton is done bloomin'



...when Miss Priss thinks she is Taylor Swift of the forest

...when you can go to the county fair and get some roasted corn

Poor Poor Pitiful Me!

HaHa!  Are ya'll familiar with that song?  "I laid my head on the railroad track, waiting for the Double E, Train don't come through here no more poor poor pitiful me..."  That is the way I started to feel last week.  It all started on Monday when I was on my way to work and my car started "whistling".  It overheated and I had to leave it in a Food Lion parking lot for my dad to come get and take back home for me.  I had to call Brandon and have him come pick me up and take me on to work.  To make matters worse Brandon's truck was in his shop waiting on a clutch to be shipped so he could put it back together.  So our one extra vehicle was down already.  My old truck is running, but had an oil leak, no tag, no registration, no inspection, and no insurance.  Brandon has off on Fridays so he thought he was going to take have to take the engine back out and replace a seal that he thought he may have pinched when he put the new engine back in it recently.  So we were still short a vehicle so I borrowed my moms 4-Runner on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  Tuesday morning I got lucky and won a $50 gas card, 2 tickets to the race in Charlotte, and a chance to win a new 2012 Camry!  WOO HOO Right??  Wrong, I will keep it short and go ahead and tell you that I didn't win that drawing... Anyway, Friday morning I decided I would just drive Brandon's Mustang and let mom have her 4-wheeler back for the weekend.  Well what do you know, I hit a freakin' deer with his car on the way to work!!  Talk about luck!  I had a terrible day and then things turned around a little.  Dad put some stuff in the radiator that seemed to seal off the head gasket leak and Brandon found that it was something very simple that was causing the oil leak in my truck.  We drove my car around all weekend and it was fine.  Brandon drove it to work on Monday and it was fine.  He drove it Tuesday to take kids to school to get on the bus and what do you know, it won't start.  So he got back home (call me for a funny story about this trip-I can't report it on the world wide web) and took his truck to work.  SIDENOTE:  He had finished with the clutch, but had moved onto the catalytic converter, which he cut off over the weekend and ordered a new one-so he had no exhaust and his truck sounded like a tractor pull tractor going down the road.  Anyway he had to drive it (illegally) into Charlotte and back sounding like a Saturday night tractor pull.  He bought a new starter for my car and put it on Wednesday night and Thursday morning the head gasket blew again and he had to "limp" back home with it steaming and get his car to go to work.  Meanwhile this week I have been racing around getting an inspection and a tag for my truck and driving it again.  I feel 16 again!  HaHa!  It literally cramps my style though when you have 2 kids crammed in there with you and there is no room for a pocket book, jackets, or grocery bags.  BUT I feel very fortunate to even have it to drive.  The only peculiar thing with it though is that when you first crank it and go the speedometer doesn't work and it may or may not go to working after you get down the road.  This happens every time you stop and turn the truck off somewhere.  Oh well, I guess that's not all that necessary.  Like I said I am fortunate to have something to get me from A to B!  Next week Brandon's car is going into the body shop for Bambi repairs and we will both being driving our trucks-thank God for the gas cards since we will be driving the guzzling beasts! 
I was at the end of my rope by last weekend and the darndest thing happened.  When I tied the knot to prepare to hang on, the knot slipped out and I was holding onto a thread.  I went around to the DMV office, inspection station, insurance office all in a frazzle.  A couple of times the thought crossed my mind to reach either for a Valium that I have secretly stashed away for times like this or for the Captain Morgan, but when it came down to that I fell over and crashed on my own from pure emotional exhaustion! 
I do want to say that in the grand scheme of things I don't have it all that bad.  I am very lucky that when it is my turn for drama that it's something we can handle and move on with.  I though I would just share my crazy week with whoever wanted to read about it.  Stay tuned for I fear it may not be over...

Big Canoe 2011

We just got back from our vacation to Georgia.  We went to Petit Crest Villas in Big Canoe GA.  We went there in the summer of 2009 with our friends (the Johnson family) and we decided for a repeat this year.  We left on Friday which happened to be Alyssa's 6th birthday and Brian and Amy's 11th anniversary.  We celebrated that night at Fuego's Mexican restaurant which is right outside the gates of Big Canoe.  Saturday we started the day with getting a pass to the waterpark area and it gave us access to the canoes, paddleboats, pools, and rock slides.  All 4 kids love the rock slide which is an overflow area from the lake there in the community.  We did the rock slide thing Saturday and Sunday because that was the only time that lifeguards were there since there schools had already started back and it is officially off season there.   

Monday we went up to Tennessee near Lookout Mountain and then we drove up to See Rock City and Ruby Falls where Abigail took over the binoculars and loved looking around at what they did for her!  We got lots of cute pictures in the rock garden and the caves leading to Ruby Falls.  We got a late start and didn't get back to the cabin till around midnight.  When we got back we saw a raccoon running off from the trash can and a bunch of our chicken wings were laid out on the railing where he had stripped what meat had been left on the bone.  We had to clean up the trash and put the lids back on the cans.  We thought about when in 2009 the crows tore through our ziplocs and stole our leftovers we had left at the picnic table.  Animals seem to always be after our food around there!

Tuesday we went to a nearby river and let the kids play in the river.  Jordan walked up on a water snake and it took them a little while to get back in after the thought of being in the water with snakes crossed their minds.  They played for several hours and then we made a grocery store run before we went  back to the cabin to grill some supper.  We went to the park area and grilled zucchini and porkchops.  The kids played ball in the park and we had our laid back picnic.

Wednesday we went to Helen GA and went tubing down the Chattahoochee River.  What we didn't know was that the water level was really low and we had to walk the Chattahoochee at lots of places.  Brian lost his wedding band while he was pushing his tube across a shallow area and by crazy luck Amy was able to find it resting on the bottom of the river.  You could say that Amy saved the marriage!  HaHa!  Then we had dinner on the river at "The Troll Tavern" and we headed back to the cabin.  When we got there something had tore out the trash again and there was one trash bag that had been half pulled through the banister of the walkway.  Trash was everywhere and Brandon and Brian picked up all the trash and put it back in the can.  What was weird was whatever it was did not like watermelon-they left that laying.

Thursday morning the neighbors told us they watched as 2 bears went through our trash the night before and drug off what they wanted.  We were upset we hadn't been there to witness that!  We didn't do much of anything on Thursday because a day trip would have been  a bit much driving because of the anticipation of following day driving home.  We did go out for a 3-4 hour hike around the lake that day and hung around the cabin to watch a movie.  Late that evening we went to the park to grill our leftovers and let the kids play in the park.  When it was almost dark a little old lady was doing her daily exercise when she asked Brandon and Brian to hang around till she was finished walking because there had been a bear sighting the night before.  The guys had to tell her about our trash and they were at our cabin.

Friday we headed home around 10 am.  While we were packing the cars our neighbors told us the bears had been back the night before and someone from the villas had picked up our trash already.  While we were making trips back and forth to the cars (all the while with the cabin door wide open) we heard Brian calling "Come here! Come here!" in a low, distressed voice.  Brandon ran out to find out what was going on and a bear had just ran under the cabin and Brian saw it fleeing.  I ran back through the house and hollered something's outside!  and the kids followed me to the front deck and we were able to see the bear below the deck out from the cabin.  One of the kids squealed and the bear ran a little further and stopped and someone squealed again and it ran on off into the woods.  We were all so excited to have the bear for company.  We have seen bears off the side of the road in the Gatlinburg area, but we had never had one visit our home!  On the way home we stopped in Commerce GA at some outlet mall to pick up a quick gift for a friends' little girl.  We ended up finding some awesome end of the season sales and we shopped for several hours.  We didn't get home till 6:30 and I didn't get everything unpacked and put up till 8:30. 

Our little villa 611

Outside Fuego's on Alyssa's birthday

Abigail preparing for rock slide

Abigail preparing for landing at bottom of slide

Emily and Jordan waiting there turn at rock slide

Everyone but Alyssa meditating

See Rock City Girls!

Me and Abigail posing for picture in Rock City

Outside of Ruby Falls

Walking back up for another turn on the rock slide

Abigail and Alyssa in the Rock Garden path

Girls at the Mushroom Rock

See Rock City BABY!

Rock City Flower Princesses

Swinging Bridge across Rock City

Sitting on the porch of souvenir shop

3 of our little birdies!

Fat Man Squeeze-Yes we were able to walk through there!

Me and Brandon near Lover's Leap

Emily and Jordan outside Fairyland

Ruby Falls

From here you could see Seven States

Me and Brandon posing in Helen GA

Abi in Helen GA

Abigail resting after an afternoon of playing in the Amicalola River

Amicalola River Explorers

Me and Amy and our 2 little mermaids

Helen GA

Helen GA

Abigails flowers of interest

Girls posing in Rock City

Emily had ball practice Saturday morning and we had a birthday party to go to Saturday evening and here it is Sunday afternoon and I am exhausted!  I am so ready to go back to work so I can rest!  The kids start school this coming Thursday and I am kind of ready for us to get back into a regular schedule.