Trainman's Graduation

We think he had a good experience here and he certainly enjoyed himself. I don't think he really was ready to come home.
I forget how much taller he is than us until I see it in pictures.

Trainman with his two bio-sisters and his niece.

Here he is with one of his best friends. Saying good bye was hard for both of them. She'll be there for another three months or so.

Trainman with some of his friends.

Our youngest son, Trainman, is Autistic and has been away at a Vocational Training facility in our home state for the past year. He recently graduated and I thought you'd like to see a few pictures from his special day. He's adjusting to being home again but he really misses his friends and the independence he had there.

He had several good job experiences and training spots while he was there. He also had driver's ed and was able to get his driver's license while he was there. We hoping that he will soon be able to get a job and be able to drive himself to work each day.

FMCA RV Rally

This is the FMCA 81st International Convention sign..the Great GA Getaway in Perry, GA

The official FMCA seal.

Yep, here we are....some of the YOUNGEST attendees!! People using things from "The Scooter Store" were everywhere, along with Segways, electric 2 wheel scooters, golf carts and bikes. Buddy and I relied on our feet....or we caught the tram.

Note that we're wearing our official nametags. The brown ribbon on the bottom let everyone know that we were first timers and was their clue to welcome us and offer any help or directions that we might need. The yellow ribbon below it said that we were volunteers.

The rally was held at the agricultural center and fair grounds in Perry....that's why the statue of the mule was there. Although mules probably did pull some of the first "RVs" or was that a covered wagon?

This is one of the trams.....and what I volunteered to ride in as a guide or aide. My first tour of duty was Sunday afternoon. It was very cold and rained the entire time. Water would pool up on the top until it became too heavy or we hit a bump and then it would pour off and the wind would blow it in all over you. I called our friends to bring me another poncho which was big and really helped. Buddy's phone was in his pocket and never worked again...it got too wet. The trams were really necessary to get people that were parked in the very back up to the convention areas.

I know this picture isn't very good but it shows some of the rows and rows of RVs.

Here is another row of RVs....somehow I never got a picture made of where we parked but it looked just like this one. The tow cars went up and down the aisles ....mud was everywere.

These three pictures were emailed to us by our friends that attended too. This is a view of our row of RVs. Ours is the tan and white one that is second from the left. I always thought it was huge but looking at it parked next to the others I realized it was actually much smaller. Our friends were parked to our right.

It rained the first 4 days that we were there. This is a large puddle of water we had to wade though near our coach. We were so thankful when the sun came out on Tuesday and things began to dry out.

Being a kindergarten teacher I've really learned how to tie shoes well.


I wish you could see these fans....they were in the cattle barns where some of the seminars were held. They had 10 blades and were called "BIG ASS" fans.

Buddy and I recently went on a trip in our RV to an International FMCA RV rally. It's something that he's always wanted to do and I was happy to travel along with him. FMCA means Family Motor Coach Association and to be a member you have to have to have a vehicle that is "self-contained" to camp in. In other words, you have to be able to drive the thing. So, no pop-ups, trailers or fifth wheels. Buddy's parents owned several RVs over the years and attended quite a few of these rallys. Actually, this one ended up with a somewhat smaller attendance...there were only around 3000 RVs there...down from the 5000 or so that they usually have in attendance. But, since this was my first exerience, I was pretty impressed at the number of coaches there. We belong to FMCA National but we don't belong or camp with a local club in our home state.

We caravaned down with friends who had been before. They had talked us in to being volunteers....assured us that we'd have more fun being involved! And they were right. The four of us were assigned to "Tram duty". We had 2 assigned 4 hour shifts of riding on the trams.

Ok, I guess you're wondering why anyone would want to go to one of these rallys. Well, lots of the folks travel with their local FMCA chapters so there were groups of RVs that entered together and camped near each other and were friends. There were seminars you could attend teaching you everything you might want to know about RVing...from being full timers to caring for your electrical systems. There were craft activities too....bead making, painting, basket making, quilting to name a few. Then there were several buildings full of venders selling just about anything you might need...and a few you probably never thought of. Have you ever seen "sticky feet" shoes?? It's sort of like Post-it note glue on a shoe sole that you just step on and it sticks to the bottom of your feet...over and over again. No, I didn't buy any but I know where you can get some if you're interested! There were also RV dealers that brought in lots of the newest RV coach models from the very small to some that were worth over 2 million dollars.

We had a lot of fun...and I'd probably do it again. But I enjoy camping with our regular camping club the best. We typically camp with a group of people that are from another camping club about once a month during the nice months. They are called FCRVers....which means Family Campers and RVers. They are more family friendly and kids and grandkids are welcomed. And you can camp in anything from a tent, a trailer, fifth wheel, pop-up or RV. We've made a lot of good friends there.

Family Quilts

This mahogany bedroom suit belonged to one of my Mother's sisters. This quilt I believe is a newer one, possibly made by my husband's mother or grandmother for his room when he was a child. Each quilt square has 48 small red and white individual triangles surrounding the blue square in the middle. Each triangle and square are hand stitched around. A lot of love when into this quilt.

This church bench belonged to my Aunt and her husband. When I was growing up it always sat outside on their carport. We used it to sit on and take off work boots after gardening or as a place to relax and cool off. We enjoy it now inside along the wall filled with grandchildren pictures. The pretty red background quilt shows up nicely against the white bench.

This quilt hangs in our den and is one of my favorites. A family friend made the quilt rack for us. I love the way I can also display family photographs on top. The picture on the left is of my parents about the time they married. My Mother always HATED that picture. The picture was made by putting two separate shots of them together. The other pictures are of mother as a young woman and two of her brothers.

I love that the quilts have such bright colors. The bedroom suit here was the one my parents bought when they began "keeping house". It's mahagony and I'm thinking was probable bought in the early 1940's.

This quilt hangs on our sunporch. It's got a great design. Mom's Snow Village houses run along the shelf at the ceiling and stay up all year long.


Here are the pillows that I made from the old quilt top. It was nice to get something that turned out so pretty out of that old stained and ripped top.

I have always loved family history. I've always admired quilting although it's not anything that I've ever tried to do myself. We do have quite a few quilts from my husband's family and use them as bed coverings and wall hangings.

Recently I found several old quilt tops that had been pieced but never made into quilts. One was in particularly bad shape. I'd love to know the history of it...I can't imagine why anyone would go to the trouble of piecing it when the material was so stained and old. The fabric that they used was so thin that they even backed it with another layer of fabric. Some parts of it were done by machine and some by hand. Maybe the quilt top is older than I think. Anyway, I decided to make throw pillows from salvageable sections of the quilt top. I got 5 throw pillows that are finished at 18 inches square using muslin as a back. There are two other smaller pillows for the girls room...they had pink in them. I also added some buttons as decoration from a jar I found full of them at my husband's mom's house. There are several smaller sections that I cut out and saved to work on another day.

I think the pillows turned out beautiful and we'll enjoy them alot.

Snow down South

The dogwoods at our mailbox look like they're covered in ice. The daffodils and plums are already blooming around here and the Bradford pears were budding out. Looks like they are a little too early this year.

A birdfeeder brought over from Grandma Margaret's house.

Here is our Siberian Husky, Tug. I think this is about the third time he's seen snow in his nine years....Summer sports are his favorite anyway...swimming and riding in a boat or jetski rank high on his list of things to do.

It's hard to believe it but there's a big mountain straight though those trees. In the winter it's usually easy to see it through there.

Not even the birds have ventured out today.....

Can you see how the snow was actually in clumps?

This was during one of the really heavy snow periods from our deck.

Through the sunporch window.

Our wood supply....wish most of it was nice and dry today.

The truck shows up how quickly it started covering things.

A bush outside our backdoor.

We're seeing something down south today that I haven't seen in a long time. We went into church this morning with a cold rain and came out to beautiful, huge flakes...no, I don't think you'd call them flakes...they were clumps of stunningly white snow. I've made a few pictures to show you what a March 1st snow looks like in the south. School tomorrow?? I don't know. It's very slushy now on the roads and expected to drop into the 20's tonight. I'm thinking we may be walking on ice in the morning.

It's been snowing steadily with very big flakes for about 4 hours. We're even hearing some thunder every now and then. Tug doesn't like that much. Patches is asleep in a box. He wasn't interested in venturing out either.