Hanging Bed Finally

Tori saw a hanging bed in at a parade of homes a year or so ago. Since then that is all she wants. We have been telling her that Rod would build her one but it just had not make it to the top of the list. They finally started working on the bed in July. Tori did a lot of the work and was there as Rod's helper every step of the way. Now she has a bed that truly hangs from the rafters!

The Big Double 1

So Tina's official birthday was August 7th and she turned the big double 1... We had her birthday party the week earlier and it was just a small get together on her actual birthday. However, Rod and I did not give her any presents at her party and waited until her actual birthday. We took her outside and she had to find her presents. The first one she found was a red life jacket. After that, she knew she was looking for something to do with the water. Finally she found the red kayak that we bought her.





Then they test drove it in the pond!

Tina's Birthday Party

Hard to believe... Tina turned 11. Where has the time went? Seems like just the other day she was at my work banging her head on the floor. (When she was young she wanted to be like her father at a young age - a head banger)

We had her birthday party the week before her birthday at the old skating rink that I went to when I was in elementary school - Hendersonville Skate Center. Tina worked all day on Friday to make her own cake - a huge Dolly cake. She made the body out of cake and drew the legs on - notice the tail it is a curly tail that says "Dolly"!



Everyone doing the Cha-Cha-Slide - obviously some took their skates off...



Rod still has it... skating (in line skates) and still able to talk on that stupid phone :-)



And here are a few other random pictures from the party

Tori and Tina

Makes you think they love each other in these pictures :-)

Tori Pictures

A couple pictures of Tori





Tori and Zac (Rod's right hand man)

Tina Pictures

Here are a few of Tina

Family pictures

I have been wanting to have some family pictures done up here on the land. A lady was recommended to me through a friend. She agreed to come take pictures up here and give me the rights to the pictures. Here are some of my favorites:

Welcome, Abbie

Just shoot me? Maybe that would be easier on some days. I am such a pushover and that being said, we have a new addition - Abbie. Tori has a friend whose dog had puppies. The dad is full blooded great pyraneses and she is going to grow quick! So we have now added her to Sadie and Sugar and they are all learning to get along!

Horse Flip Flops

ok, have you read our other posts before??? You know that we certainly don't do everything conventional around here. Our farrier came out and Tina's house, Willow, had a bruise on the bottom of her foot. He was trimming her foot and he said the best thing we could do was to watch it and give her some cushion. I truly thought he was joking when he asked if we had a men's flip flop. Nope, no joke. He told me to take the flip flop and duct tape it to her foot. Aiden just happened to break one of his so I just happen to have a flip flop. So we went down there and did just that. It only took her about 2 days to get it off, but that was enough time to help the bruise to heal and she is totally fine now. The picture is a little dark because it was getting late.

Aiden comes to visit

Last summer Rod's cousin Nicole let her son Aiden come to visit for 2 weeks. We really enjoyed him coming and we wanted him to come back this year. So from July 19th - July 30th we had a house guest. Almost every night he was here someone else spent the night as well. Aiden is real close to Tori's age and they all had fun. Nearing the end of the visit he was missing his younger brother because he really started picking on Tina :-)

While here they did some shooting, riding the mini bikes, and fishing. One one of the trips down Sycamore Creek he caught 18 fish (to Rod's 14).

Pay Day for Tori

I know you know that I am proud of my kids. We have great kids (even if I am biased). The last weekend in June while Rod and I were gone camping Tori went to a church to say her monologue. They asked her to do it for all 3 services and paid her $50!

Tina's egg Business

This week has been hard on the egg business.... First on one of the hot days - Tina had went down to show the baby chicks to her great grandparents. They were all fine and moving around and fluffy. 2 hours later she went back to feed and water them for the evening and 1/2 were dead. We think that they got overheated from the excitement of when she was showing them to Mrs. Maynard. They were NOT in the sun at all any that day but it was a very hot and humid day. Tina was extremely upset.... Now fast foward about 4 days and Tina is out of town in FL. We are taking care of the baby chicks (they have a new coop and I have order replacement babies for her). Tori and I were going out to check on one of the adult hens that I thought seemed to be under the weather. She has been just laying in the coop for a couple of days. I had made her get out of it on Sunday but she was right back. Now I know why. She has been guarding the egss. When we went over there, she was out and about so I told Tori - see must be ok, let's go ahead and get the eggs.... Look at what we found (not one egg was left)

4th July Party

Party - We had a group of friends come over for the 4th of July. We wanted to celebrate with all the people that helped us in this building process. We have 4 wheelers, mini bikes, horse shoes, fireworks, and most important - good times with friends and family.

The attendees were:
My family - Rod, Tori, Tina, and I; Mom and Dad; Mike and Christy; Rick and Christy; Joy and Chris; Shelli, Zac, and Hayley; Darrin and Heather; Bobbie, Scott, Wyatt, Seth, Brittany, Andrew; Ken and April; Kevin; Charles, Austin, Brooke, and two friends.

Horse Camp

This week Tori held a horse camp for the first time. Her camper was Sarah who is 5 years old and goes to her church. Each day Tori had it planned out that they went down to feed the horses, came back up while the horses ate and did a craft, went back down and walked the horses up and then Sarah would ride. A couple of days she rode bareback and some with the saddle. After they rode, they ate their lunch (sometimes it was a picnic in the woods) and then sweat scraped the horses. This was Sarah's favorite part - getting the horse (and herself) wet! On Thursday Nicole, Tori's normal babysitting job, was here and they used both horses. Sarah rode Tina's horse Willow and Nicole was on Kaylee. I think they all had a lot of fun. I also had them shirts made that say TnT Acres on them!

Rec Room Tile

We originally wanted to stain the concrete in the rec room. Once we got the room cleaned up from construction debris it was obvious that the floor in that room needed attention. We had our contractor come back out and "patch" the low spot. You could clearly see that the slab was not level. When I put a 4' level on the floor it was unlevel by 1 3/4". So they came out and put a leveling compound on the floor. This meant that we could no longer stain the concrete and had to decide on another flooring. We ended up going with tile. The installer said the floor was still very unlevel and he did the best he could to use thinset to level it out. In the end I can still see some of the highs and lows, but I am happy with the finished product. It is after all just a Rec Room....