Fall in Tennesee

I can't decide which season is my favorite. As soon as I think I know which season is "The Favorite" along comes the next one with some type of scenary, annual event or other annual favorites that knocks my socks off. Some of my favorite things about fall are hot apple cider (or anything with apples), festivals and flea markets, pumpkin pie, the crisp air during the mornings and, of course, the fall foliage. Here are some pics snapped around our neighborhood.

Olympic Tradition

Team Lee has a tradition they carry out for every Olympic Games. It started when the kids were young and I had seen an idea for this in a magazine. Basically, it is creating a pizza and cake with the Olympic rings and also vegetables in ramekins that are diplayed like the Olympic rings. (If having trouble picturing the vegetables part, that's OK, as we did too and bagged that part of the project a long time ago.) The nice thing is that this year, for the summer olympics, the kids were able to create the pizza and cake by themselves. Check out the end results.

Sis Visits (August 2008)

My sis' Shantel came to visit in August with her new boyfriend, Joe. She brought him to Tennesee to meet us - they had already been to visit our folks in Iowa earlier in the summer. While in town, I took them to the Carnton plantation in Franklin, one of my favorite places to visit. I like the Civil war stories about the family and property that are woven into the tour of the house. We really enjoyed their visit and hope to see more of the two of them!

Orange Blossom Special

One of the kids' accomplishments this summer was in mastering the Orange Blossom Special song on their violins. So, a big highlight for them was the opportunity to play the song at the CBC Radio Hour (August 16, 2008) with a few other people from their violin studio (including a friend from church) that had also mastered the song. And, their violin teacher played as well. They thought it was such a treat to play the song with the backing of the great musicians within our church. The CBC Radio Hour is a great outreach event that our church puts on at the end of each summer; with lots of fried chicken, side dishes and then music and the Word under the stars outside. It worked out this year that my sister Shantel and her boyfriend, Joe, were able to attend with us; along with some of the family members of the other violin students.

The kids and their teacher before playing.

On stage playing Orange Blossom with the band.

Remiss :(

So.....here I sign up to regularly update a blog and then fall through on it. I could say a platitude like "I'll do better" but, honestly, there are no guarantees. It is just very busy around our house when school in session and the kids have had much more schoolwork, projects, etc. than we anticipated. It has been a great year (school year) so far and already have so many memories; some from school activities and others from visits with relatives and friends and events around Nashville. What I can do today is post a couple of "late postings" and then we'll see how it goes from here on out.