Counting Our Blessings

So, so, so THANKFUL today! Yesterday our Country had the MOST TORNADOES EVER in a single day since 1974.  There were more than 170 tornadoes and as of tonight more than 300 people were killed! One of the tornadoes touched down at Pickwick Lake. It was pretty bad, thankfully no one was killed. There was some major damage though. The tornado was centered less than 1/4 of a mile from our house. The hardware store was totally wiped out, Pickwick Pizza suffered major damage, cabins behind pizza place were totally destroyed, the Greens also had some major damage.  Pop was there and luckily he wasn't in the middle of it all!

Like my title says, we are all counting our blessings today. Not only are we okay (alive and well), but so are our homes and businesses. See the picture of our house at the Lake as it looked today.

It is remarkable to think that a tornado was so close. We just have some minor cleaning up to do in the yard with trees, etc. Tonight I am thinking about the poor people in Tuscaloosa Alabama, one of the hardest hit towns. I am so thankful...I do not deserve all of the blessings I have had in my life but I sure am thankful for every one of them.

Another Rainy, Stormy Day

Although you can't tell from this picture, we have had nonstop storms around here for days. There was a brief break in the storms this afternoon. Guess what Oney and his friend Addey did??? Yep, they headed straight for the muddy water! I couldn't resist sharing this picture...it makes me smile:)

Happy Easter from the LAKE

Our first time to be at Pickwick in quite sometime. We had GREAT weather and got LOTS of Spring cleaning and house maintenance done this weekend. The picture above is of our "first boat cruise" of the year. We have our boat in our new slip on the water and I am really looking forward to that added convenience this year. We took our battery charger to the boat planning on having to charge it before we went on the water...a pleasant surprise...it cranked right up!!! GREAT feeling! We took a quick spin around the lake and went to Grand Harbor for Dippin'Dots!



Then we went went back to work at the house. Jud worked on the outside and me and the girls concentrated on the inside...Oney floated back and forth! We FINALLY got the girls bedroom painted-this was the last room with the original paint from 10 years ago when we built the house. It feels so clean now! Here is a sort of before picture-I forgot to take an after picture. I will do that next time we are there.

After we finished painting, we went to dinner at Pickwick's newest restaurant, Cactus Jack's.  We LOVED it...great atmosphere, live music, good food!  After dinner we ALL crashed from exhaustion. Today we worked on some Easter crafts for fun. We saw this idea from a friend and we sort of improvised. Her idea was to make wreaths and we made candle holders.

We got home around 3:00 and started working on Student Council Campaigns. Ally is running for President and Abby is running for Secretary. They had to have their 5 posters ready for school tomorrow. WHEW....we are ALL completely worn out tonight. But, I think they did a superb job!

So, a BUSY, PRODUCTIVE, weekend for ALL 5 of us.  We are now on the countdown to Summer and boy are we ready! Happy Easter to everyone!

Old Memories...New Traditions

What a BUSY, CRAZY, but FUN week! We have had a nice long break from school this week.  After the major windstorm Tuesday night, our school was cancelled Wednesday because we didn't have power. We had Thursday and today out because of Easter. So we have had another mini Spring Break!

Last night our family had the "Last Coon Supper".  This was a tradition that Oney Naifeh, the kids' great grandfather, started after World War II.  It has been carried on for many years by Joe, Judson and Jimmy.  The picture above is of our family before everyone got to the Country Club.  The kids always love seeing their Nashville cousins anytime they come to town. This is a tradition that has been enjoyed for many years. But, there has come a time where things have changed and this tradition is coming to an end.  It has been fun and many great memories have been made. We will tell stories about it for many years to come.

As you can see, Oney's great grandson's are ALL full of life and personality!  They all managed to avoid mud puddles which was pretty amazing considering we have had major spring thunderstorms all week.  After our company cancelled, we were a little disappointed. But, never fear Aunt Jan was here. She stayed with us-which was a real treat because she always stays with Sittie and Jidi (they want her at their house:)). She made it fun for us and we always love spending time with her.

Well, my favorite Bible verse is Ecclesiastes 3. That verse pretty much sums up my outlook on life these days.

Ecclesiastes 3

 ¹To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
 ²A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
 ³A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
 ⁴A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
 ⁵A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
 ⁶A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
 ⁷A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
 ⁸A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

The Naifeh Families at the Naifeh Coon Supper, Thursday, April 21, 2011 

Company Canceled

You read it correctly...my company CANCELED. I have been organizing, cleaning, decorating, repairing, etc for a MONTH. Well, I guess it is bittersweet. At least Aunt Jan is going to come and stay with us!

I am so exhausted from preparing for my company (haha)...I am heading to bed early tonight.  It is going to be a short school week this week-only three days! So, I have to cram a weeks worth of work in 6 hours tomorrow. Wish me luck!

"Feeling Good"

Well, the title of my post tonight is sort of contradictory. I am feeling good, mentally, not so good physically.  I have been on a mission for the past month to try to get my house in order.  We are having the LAST Naifeh Coon Supper this Thursday and are having out of town guests.  So, this has "lit a candle" under me and forced me to do some MAJOR housework.  Everything I have done to prepare needed to be done anyway, I have just avoided it for the past year. So after about 4 loads to goodwill, 6 loads to the dump, hours of organizing, tons of Rubbermaid containers, etc I am ecstatic-mentally. Now physically, I feel like I can hardly put one foot in front of the other. So, I feel good but not really:)

Needless to say, our weekend was pretty uneventful. Just a whole list of chores and honey do's.  Tonight as the kids and I were working on a project, I grabbed the camera and thought it would be a great "photo opportunity" for my new blog.  We were making shadowboxes from Abby's first Pat Summitt Camp and Oney's Tennessee Titans Kid Captain experience.  Yes, those were long, long, ago! Anyway, I took a picture and I was so excited to have something to post tonight.  Guess what, as I sat down to download the picture tonight...there wasn't a memory card in the camera. So no picture to post-just visualize us working at the kitchen counter with a sea of Tennessee Orange and Blue!

Looking forward to the week with family...Aunt Jan is coming!

I Did It

I am so excited...I finally have my blog up and running! I want to give a shout out to Becky Lee Burke, of http://adoptafrica.blogspot.com/, for helping me get everything looking so wonderful! She was a pleasure to work with and so reasonably priced. Be sure to read about her and her good works she does for children. 

Okay, this is a new beginning for me. I used to scrapbook for my children until our schedules started getting so crazy. Scrap booking is so cumbersome and requires lots of "sit down time"-which is so limited these days.  After following Kate Krull's blog to stay updated on Lucy, I decided that this would be a perfect way to "scrapbook" for the kids. I can do it from anywhere, at anytime, and hopefully print it out every so often for them to have a book. 

So, here's to a NEW beginning! I am looking forward to many days of blogging "On The Go"!