Christmas, Work Stress and Bye Bye 2016

Boy that Christmas came and went pretty fast.

On Christmas Eve we went to my brother Don's house where the food was excellent and the company even better! It was a slight sadness in the air, though, being the first Christmas without my dad.

On Christmas Day we went first to Shauna and Brad's as they were hosting Brad's family Christmas. We stayed for a hour or so and then headed over to Chris and Marissa's for dinner and visiting with Marissa's dad and family! Marissa's dad has 6 brothers and sisters so there was lots of people there!

Then on the Monday after Christmas we had all the kids over for brunch and to exchange gifts. It was fun and also wonderful to see them 3 days in a row!

Work has been particularly stressful this past few weeks. Without going into a whole lot of boring details I had to sacrifice my desk so they could renovate my area to accommodate a group of people who can't seem to get along and have to be closer to the manager so she can keep an eye on them!

So my desk went from this:

To this:

A lot less space!  That is the managers office right across from me and the lovely ladies that can't get along are at five workstations to my left.

I did move that drawer cabinet you see on the right of my chair over to the left and left it sticking out so I have a little more counter space!

All because grown women can't act like grown women!!

It's hard enough to go into work everyday and this just  makes it that much harder. Oh well. Supposedly it's only for a year and a half and then the whole department is moving off site to a facility a few miles away from the hospital. Well see! We will be moving but the way they do things there it probably won't be until after I retire!

Well, Shauna is 34 weeks along and I am getting so excited! We ordered her rocker as a gift from me and Rich and they are busy getting the nursery set up, clothes washed and everything ready!

Won't be long now!

I got the privileged of buying them their first package of diapers!

Until the next time......

A Blog Milestone and A Baby Shower

Well, I certainly have been neglecting this blog this year! I always have good intentions and then when it comes down to actually sitting down and posting, well...I have no excuse really!

Even so I managed to hit 700 posts! I can hardly believe it's that many!

So anyway, the exciting news is we had Shauna and Brad's baby shower last Sunday.

The not so exciting news is we had the first big snow storm of the season on that very day!

(Michigan..girl...you did me wrong that day and if  I didn't love you so much.....)

I was actually very please with how many people still ventured out to celebrate with us! Some came from quite a distance, too!

So let me just share some pictures with you all.

They got a lot of wonderful stuff! Suprisingly a lot of the big ticket stuff but very little clothes and no sleepers at all!

Guess Nonnie better get shopping!

Yep, that's me! I've decided I would like to be Nonnie,  which is what I called my grandmother growing up so it sounds right to me!

Two more months to go!

Until the next time!

Ransom Stuff to Share

So Thanksgiving this year will be at my nephew Mike and Sarah's house. This was just decided a few days ago, one week before to be exact! Last year no one stepped up to volunteer to host so I did for the second year in a row. This year I absolutely did not want to so thank goodness! However, talk about waiting until the last minute! Sheesh!

 Loving the beautiful sunrises on my way to work in the morning!

My constant companion wherever I am!

Rich filled the bird bath after it was empty for a few days. Apparently the birds were waiting because they flocked to it like crazy! The picture is blurry but there is a least 6 birds in there! Shortly after this picture was taken our resident hawk made an appearance and they all scattered!

I love DSW as you can see! I don't have that many shoes but I do have a hoarding problem and haven't gotten rid of the bags in a few years!

This is the best picture I could get of the super moon last week! This was with my phone because my camera batteries were dead, but it like the way it just lit up everything!

Last but not least, were planning Shauna's baby shower in a few weeks! February will be here before we know it! I'm beyond excited!!

That's all that's going on right now....hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving filled with family and love!

Biltmore House

When we originally planned our vacation to the South I checked into visiting the  Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC and decided against going. First it was kind of out of our way to go to Asheville and also, it's kind of expensive and I am kind of cheap when it comes to that kind of stuff.

However, quite a few people highly recommended it, and when we were in Mauldin, my SIL and her family also highly recommended it. They bought a yearly pass last year and loved going there.  So I bit the bullet and planned a route to hit Asheville on our way back home. It ended up working out good because we were able to meet with our friends like I said in my previous post.

Here's a very brief history: Built between 1889 and 1895 by George Washington Vanderbilt, it's the largest, privately owned house at 178,926 square feet. It took over six years to build. To this day it is still owned by George's great-grandson William A.V. Cecil, Jr.

 Anyway, when you first get to the entrance into the Estate , and after you buy your tickets, you drive a 4 mile long driveway to one of the parking lots.

We opted to park and walk the 8 minutes to the house along a path.

This is the view from when you first get to the house off of the path.

You are kind of up on a hill and there is a paved driveway going down on either side. 

-

I took this picture from the bottom.

We thought it was interesting how the driveway was smooth on both sides and stepped in the middle. One of the workers told us after we got down that it was built for horse-drawn carriages. The steps in the middle to make it easier for the horses to walk the incline and the smooth part for the carriage wheels.

I didn't take that many pictures so I'll just show you the best of the ones I did take. It was pretty crowded and hard to get a good look at some of the rooms.

As a side note, our friend Mike told us that whenever they start to get complaints about the crowds there they jack the price of admission up and that thins out the crowd! I'm glad that we went when we did because from the size of the crowd (and this was on a Thursday) the price is going up any time!

Anyway. here's what pictures I did take.

The conservatory when you first enter the house. There was scaffolding all over the place because they were decorating for Christmas.

One of the many, many Christmas trees they were putting up! This one was right inside the entrance.

The chandelier over the main staircase.

The main dining room has a triple fireplace!

This was a smaller dining room. I believe it was for the ladies, with a table that was beautifully set!

This is Edith Vanderbuilt's bedroom. It was beautiful!  She was only 25 when she married George Vanderbilt and came to live in this house. Can you imagine?

This cute little tree under glass was on her nightstand. I loved it! I wanted to steal it but alas, I'm not a thief so I left it!

This is the upper part of the staircase. There is over a hundred steps leading to the guest rooms! Those poor servants!

This is one of the guest room fireplaces! So gorgeous!

Down in the basement there is a bowling alley!

And a pool! Because they did not have any kind of filtration system or chemicals to keep the water clean, they would only fill it when they wanted to use it for a few days. The steam from the boilers was used to keep the water warm. The ropes you see hanging on the left were for people to rest on while swimming. After about three days the water was "a biology experiment" and they would drain it! Yuck!

This was the main kitchen also in the basement! Loved all the copper pots and pans hanging there!

Back outside again. This is the only close up picture I took.

I would have liked to have lingered in the house a little longer but the crowds get to me after a while. I think someday we may go back.

I put a link at the top of this post to their website. Check it out and read all about it! There is lots of interesting information. And if you get a chance, definitely go visit it! You'll love it!

Until the next time......

Vacation Recap

I normally do vacation recaps in two or three posts but this vacation was not jam packed with activities so I'm going to recap everything and then do a separate post about Biltmore House.

The whole point of this particular vacation was to spend time with Rich's sister Judy and her family, who live in Mauldin, South Carolina.

We left Michigan last Saturday about noon and drove for 5 hours to Lexington, Kentucky. We stopped there because 5 hours is our driving limit time! We checked in our hotel and had dinner at Bob Evans (because Cracker Barrel was too crowded). Stopped in a store to buy some drinks to take back to the room and stood in line with a lady from Michigan, who happened to be a huge U of M fan and she was pumped because apparently they won the game that day! She was duly impressed that I was a employee of the great institution!

The next day after driving a few hours to Knoxville, Tennessee, we had the pleasure of meeting and having lunch with Donna Martin, fellow blogger (Cottage Days and Journeys), Facebook friend and photographer extraordinaire! She was just as sweet as I knew she would be and we had a nice conversation which included some great photography tips!

After leaving the lunch we continued on to the Great Smoky Mountains and Cherokee, North Carolina. We planned to stay the night and meet up with Judy and her daughter Ann at the casino resort there. Now I will put some pictures of the beautiful Smoky Mountains here but really, pictures absolutely do not show how majestic and beautiful they are!

The resort we stayed at was on beautiful grounds.

On Monday we drove to Mauldin SC and spent the next 3 days hanging out with family. One day we went to downtown Greenville, SC to have do a little shopping and see the nice park and waterfall they have there.

Look at the crazy roots of this tree!

This is the waterfall. Due to the dry summer we all had it's less than 1/3 of what it normally is!

Here's Rich and Judy. He was so happy to spend time with his sister.

We left Mauldin on Thursday morning and only drove as far as Asheville, NC. We wanted to go to the Biltmore Estate. which I will tell you about in my next post. We also wanted to meet up with old friends of ours, Mike and Sharon, who live in Brevard, NC which is close to there.

On Friday we left Asheville and on the advice of our friend Mike we took the long way and drove through Cumberland Gap on a beautiful winding road through the mountains with stunning views! A little nerve wracking for Rich but I enjoyed it!

I do want to show you this interesting cemetery going up the mountain we saw in Cumberland Gap.
If you look on the left under the blue tent there was a service going on,

We drove as far as Dayton Ohio on Friday, pushing it a little longer than we like to drive because we wanted to be closer to home on Saturday and get home early.

Our hotel was the nicest of the trip and we took advantage of this pool, which felt so good after a long day of driving.

There was a lot more than I wanted to see and do, like spending some time at Great Smoky Mountain National Park but that will have to wait until the next time!

Next up Biltmore House.

Nada

Not much going on lately so let me just post some random stuff here.

The weather remains humid even though the temps are a little lower. I hate the humidity and so does my hair!

Friday I took the day off of work to go to a GYN appointment, get a mammogram and have this plumbers truck parked in my driveway for two hours. Guess which one was the most painful?

Shauna is doing good. Getting a little belly now, too. We booked her baby shower for Dec 11th. Yesterday we ordered the invitations.


OK this post is boring so I'll spare you any more...


Work this week and then on vacation next week!


Heading South this time.!


I'll have plenty to talk about then!

New 25 Year Old Furniture

We have spent the last 3 weeks cleaning out my dads apartment. As of Friday we are done and the keys have been turned in. It's sad but he only lived there for 4 months so there wasn't much of an attachment to the place. 

After much discussion Rich and I took his bedroom set to replace our old one that we bought when we got married almost 40 years ago. 

We hauled the old set down the stairs and later put it in front of the house. 

After a few hours someone stopped to pick it up. 

That's Rich helping them load it into the truck. They are retired and restore furniture to sell. 

And our wonderful son-in-law Brad helped us get the newer set from the apartment and haul it upstairs. 

Not brand new but nicer than what we had. I love it and am glad we decided to take it! 

Until the next time....