Not a Great Start

Saturday morning we drove to Birmingham to catch a plane for Houston. Along the way, we came upon a caravan of 12 ambulances that were obviously heading to the Gulf Coast when Hurricane Gustav hits. There were from Mass. and some had FEMA signs on them.

After we got into Houston, we had a Whataburger and then drove to College Station where we met Kelly, Jon, Payne and Jackson and we enjoyed the pregame activities at A&M.

As they Corps was marching in, there was a company of young people who have already served our country; all of them had served at least one tour of duty in Irag, Afganistan or Kosovo and are at A&M getting their degrees and commissions. The company stopped where we were standing and Jon and Jackson talked to the guidon barrier. ( While "at ease", they can talk.)

Payne and Jack spun wheels, played games, threw footballs and collected "stuff." It was hot and we went inside to enjoy the cool air...along with most of the other 78,000 people!

The game was a real disappointment for all who were there. We all drove back to Houston and the boys stayed in the room with us. This morning we went our separate ways.


We flew back to Birmingham and had another Whataburger for lunch before driving back home. All the way from Birmingham to Chattanooga we saw car after car after car with Louisiana license plates. They were leaving the areas threatened by Gustav. This car said it best!

It's Football Time...

I can't believe that it's time for football! This is a big week end around our house. Last night my Baylor Bears played on national TV and lost to Wake Forest (a ranked team). Tonight the Cleveland Blue Raiders go across town to play their arch rival the Bradley Bears. (We should win handily.)
In the morning, Mike and I will fly to Texas where we will see his Texas Aggies play Arkansas State. We're anxious to see how the team is going to do under the new head football coach, Mike Sherman. We'll get to see our Texas children this week end. We'll fly home Sunday and will be able to watch some college games in the afternoon and evening.
On Monday night, the Tennessee Vols will be in California to play UCLA.
This is a great start to the football season!
I would have provided links to these teams, but I don't know how to do that!

Sunday

This morning we got everyone up, dressed, fed and to church by 8:30a.m. Mimi and Granddaddy picked up Rheagan and Tripp after Sunday School. Mike and I ate lunch before going to the CCC to play with Karen and Mack in the Rally for a Cure...a cancer tournament. Karen got blisters on her feet from her $5.00 golf shoes.

We didn't place in the tournament but all 4 of us won door prizes and I also won a microwave oven...compliments of Karen and Mack who gave me their winning ticket...they just got a new microwave.

We will now watch the closing ceremonies of the Summer Olympics and finally be able to get something done and not be glued to the tube!

Playing Parents Again

We only had one for breakfast and he wanted French toast sticks, so he got want he wanted! Rheagan and Caroline came and invited us to a puppet show. They went around in the neighborhood and invited "everyone"...which means Mimi and Granddaddy and Wes and Amy, Ben and Reed. We all gathered in the Gregory's basement for the performance!


Even some of the audience got to participate!

Sorry about the poor quality of the pictures...I had the camera on the wrong setting.

Rheagan had been working on her loose tooth all afternoon and as she was going to bed...out it came! She wants her parents to see it before she puts it under her pillow for the tooth fairy to get it.

They're Off to the Race...

We met at The Barrel this morning for breakfast before they left for Bristol and the activities and races that are being held today, tonight and tomorrow.

On our way home, we saw this interesting lady on her "Jazzy". She seemed to be on a mission!

Mike and I played 9 holes of golf before we picked up Rheagan from school and Tripp from the babysitter. We had a fun afternoon and evening and then Rheagan went next door to play with Caroline who was visiting her Nana. After baking cookies, they came back to see if Rheagan could spend the night over there. We'll watch more Olympics...16 days of glory!

Exciting Thursday

Today was the first day of classes for Mike who will be teaching 6 classes at Lee University in the Business Department. The first day of school is always exciting no matter what your age or grade.

The highlight of the afternoon was the arrival of Kelly and Jon. They are here to go with Mack and Karen to the Bristol NASCAR race. After a bite of supper at Jenkin's, we went to watch Rheagan at soccer practice.

Kelly was able to visit with Vanessa and meet her daughter Lia. Vanessa's boys were practicing soccer on an adjoining field.

Home and New Beginnings

These are the pictures from the back seat. What a view we had of Nova Scotia!

We flew home from Nova Scotia yesterday via Boston. The drive home from Atlanta got us in bed at 1:00a.m.

After church today, there was a Ground Breaking ceremony at the property where First Baptist Church, Cleveland will relocate in about 22 months. It was certainly a memorable day for our church.

Cape Breton, Day 2

We woke to a gorgeous morning, a slight breeze with clear blue skies. We had an ordinary breakfast at the hotel before we went to the Alexander Graham Bell Museum. It was very informative, but the best part was meeting the wife of the great-grandson of Bell. She was here for a meeting ; we saw a quilt in the meeting room and asked her if we could look at the quilt before the meeting started. She was so interesting and told us about the quilt, which she had designed. It wasn't until we were talking with one of the museum guides that we learned who she was. This is a picture of them looking a the Bell house, which we could not go and see.

We then started to drive The Cabot Trail. The scenery changed from sea level to mountainous terrain with cliff that fell from the roadside down to the ocean. We stopped along the way to look for birds and whales...we saw the former but not the latter. We ate lunch at a bar in a restaurant since there was no room in the dining room ...a bus load of people had taken over all of the tables. We were able to have a great conversation with the bartender who was a very informative Acadian.

We continued to have breath-taking scenery with blue waters of the North Atlantic and great vistas that sometimes had us rising into the fog. We would go from sun to clouds to fog in a matter of minutes. We stopped at 2 different walking trails that took us on boardwalks over bogs and marshes. A waterfall was another of our stops along the Trail.

Our last stop was at Neils Harbour that is a small fishing village on the east side of the Cabot

Trail. We saw crab traps for the first time along with another lighthouse.

We ate supper at the Chowder House...this was a recommendation from Gail and Bill Martin. Another great meal. The owners had seen whales earlier in the afternoon, but we didn't see any.

On the drive back to Baddeck, we rode on a ferry and enjoyed the full moon.

Cape Breton, Day 1

We were able to order breakfast this morning...choices of eggs, French toast, waffles, meat and any combination of those. Muffins, fruit and cereals were available to get as well as juices.
We drove from Antingoish toward Cape Breton stopping at a visitors center as we entered the island. we learned about a quilt show in a nearby church so we stopped by for a quick look. There were many beautiful quilts on display there...many of them for sale. We saw ladies quilting for mental health patients, a Tennessee Waltz quilt, and a quilt made for the closing of United Churches. That was so sad for us to hear that when churches close, they have a ceremony to commemorate the occasion and they have this quilt on display and they close the doors on the quilt as well as the church.


























After the quilts. it was on to Fort Louisbourg which was about 2 hours away. We arrived at Fort Louisbourg in time to make a walking tour that was led by a very entertaining guide. The fort was built by the French in 1713. It remained under French control until 1745 when the British captured it after a 6 week siege. The British gave the control of the fort back to the French in 1749 as a result of a treaty. In 1758 British forces again captured the fort and France cedes New France (Canada) to the British by the Treaty of Paris. Historians say that if the French had not lost Fort Louisbourg in 1758, Canada would still be French.










The costumed workers in the various houses and around the fort spoke only as if they were in the period. All of them could speak English and French. We learned so much from them about life during that time. We also saw them shooting the canon as they would have done to protect the fort.










Near the end of our time at the Fort, it began raining and we made our way back to he bus that took us back to the visitor's center and our car. We drove to the modern town of Louisbourg where we ate supper at the Grubstake Cafe...great food. The trip to Baddeck took about 1 1 /2 hours to get here. After checking into the hotel, we went for ice cream before calling it a night.

Digby and Beyond

Our breakfast at the B&B was good; we actually ate in the kitchen...felt so at home. After going to the Information Center, we walked to an Anglican Church and its cemetery. A young man in the church told us the history of the church ,which was founded in the late 1700s. The congregation outgrew the facility and it was rebuilt several years later.

The guide was very informative and knew much about the church even though he was a Baptist. The conversation got around to today being Payne's 12th birthday and he let us ring the church bell 12 times! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PAYNE
We left Digby and started our 240 mile drive toward Antiganoish, our destination for the evening. Along the way we found an abandoned lighthouse that was down a one-lane dirt trail...not only did we find the lighthouse, but we found(and ate) cherries on a tree and blackberries on bushes--both were delicious.

We had to stop for gas and cleaned the windows while we were there. We ate lunch in Middleton at a Mom and Pop restaurant that served delicious food and even better dessert! We drove by a festival celebrating the Loyalist arrival in the area. Many of the attendees were dressed in post-Revolutionary costumes. We continued on the Antigonish and checked into our B&B for the evening before going across the street for a light supper.