Chronicles of The Willi

A Whirlwind of a Weekend!

July 31st, 2008

Ah – such a splendid nine days these last have been with Joy and Katelyn! As promised, posts and pictures are on the way for you all to see. But first, our weekend:

Last Thursday 7 of us packed a few suitcases, overnight bags and games into Homer, and were off to Virginia to visit Jason and the gang – Dad was to join us on the following day. We stayed for three nights, leaving in the afternoon on Sunday, and let me assure you that our weekend was filled with lots of activities, relaxation, games (of course!), conversation and sweet fellowship!

Angie and I had much to anticipate for Friday since our dear friend Emily was to sleepover that night and remain with us until the following afternoon (upon which she went with Jason and Karlyn to a wedding). We had an absolute blast! After a half viewing of the Princess Bride (no time for the rest!) and a few rounds of “Apples to Apples”, Nate joined the three of us downstairs before we went to bed, and there we played many games of Catch Phrase, laughed ourselves silly, and in the end were a very hyper group indeed! (but perhaps I should only speak for Nate and myself:-) Us girls talked late into the night before we finally went to sleep at about 2 A.M. It was great!

Karlyn and I share the same birthday, so we held a double celebration on Saturday evening – cakes, ice cream and all! It’s been many years since we’ve been together to enjoy our special day together, so it was lots of fun.

There were of course, a variety of many games going on during the weekend. At the request of our nieces and nephews we brought along with us “Settlers of Catan” and “Killer Bunnies,” and played rounds and hands of Hearts, Spades and O’heck. We love card games! (just in case you haven’t noticed yet)

On Sunday we all joined Jason and Karlyn at their church and enjoyed a lovely morning of worship and teaching, as well as catching up with friends we had made during our stay in Virginia. It was great to see them again! And after a lunch and many goodbyes and hugs, we traveled back home in time for dinner, and a warm bonfire that night. We had a simply splendid time!

[Show as slideshow]

-Kasie

Tags: birthdays, Church, Emily, family, friends, fun, funny, games, Jason, Joy, Karlyn, Katelyn, sleepover, Virginia, weekend, whirlwind
Posted in fun, Photos | 11 Comments »

Happy Birthday Kasie!

July 30th, 2008

16
Years
Old

Posted in Uncategorized | 31 Comments »

A Wonderful Week!

July 28th, 2008

Wondering why our posts have slowed down a bit? That’s because our sister Joy and niece Katelyn are visiting us from Colorado!

More pictures and stories will follow soon….

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

Just In Case You Thought We Were Making It Up

July 26th, 2008

Tags: history, placques, story of the land
Posted in story of the land | 3 Comments »

A Swimming Hole!

July 21st, 2008

The Swimming Hole
We finally found a swimming hole!

Sure, it’s not the wide expanse of water that we’re used to at White Pond – but it is more than sufficient for a good, cool wetting. Although the water was deathly cold, it was fun to be swimming again! I dare say that’s the one feature of our old house that we really miss – the pool.

It’s really beautiful in the Cherokee National Forest, so enjoy the photos! This is definitely a place that we’ll be coming back too.

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Tags: creek, fun, swimming, water
Posted in fun | 9 Comments »

One Hundred Pushups, Anyone?

July 20th, 2008

Anyone want to join me? ‘Cause I’m going for it! (I know there are some buff young men out there…) Hit the link:

One Hundred Pushups

- Walter

Tags: arms, excercise, pushup
Posted in Micro Blog | 3 Comments »

Granola

July 19th, 2008

This is our all-time favorite recipe I made of granola that I thought I’d share with y’all. We eat it for practically everything! snacks, breakfast, or something to hold you until dinner.

6 cups old fashioned oats

2 cups quick cooking oats

1 cup wheat bran

1 cup whole wheat pastry or all purpose flour

2 tsp. salt

2 Tbsp. ground cinnamon

1 cup earth balance or butter

1 Tbps. vanilla extract

2 cups sugar

1 3/4 cups water

In a large bowl, combine all dry ingredients together (oats, flour, bran, salt, cinnamon). Melt butter in a small saucepan and pour into a small bowl; mix in vanilla and sugar and add to dry ingredients. Pour water and stir well. Divide granola onto two baking pans, no grease (I use round pizza pans); use a spoon to flatten and even out the batter. Preheat the oven while the granola is inside at 350 degrees; bake for 32 minutes, turn oven off and let granola sit for 4 – 6 hours. (do not open oven door!) When ready, remove granola from oven and with a hard spatula (sometimes also a butter knife), break into pieces and store in a container. Enjoy as a breakfast cereal, snack, or whatever else you can think of!

I can’t tell you exactly how much this recipe makes, but it makes a pretty large batch, and in our family lasts about 3 days, depending on how many of us are in a mood to eat it for breakfast. If this if your first time making granola (and depending on the size of your family) you may want to “half” this recipe until you determine how much of it you need to make. Also if you like your granola sweet you may need to add more sugar (and a little more water).

*You can also make this an hour or so before going to bed; after the 32 minutes are up, let the granola sit in the oven all night and enjoy in the morning!

Tags: baking, breakfast, cereal, food, granola, ingredients, recipe, snacks
Posted in Odds and Ends | 3 Comments »

A Deck!

July 15th, 2008

It’s so exciting to see the progress being made on our back porch/deck! We’ve been blessed with some gorgeous weather the last few days, so the contractors were able to get a lot done

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Tags: deck, house, land, wood
Posted in Family News | 16 Comments »

A New Arrival

July 14th, 2008

“Doctor, why are you late?”

“I had to handle a delivery.”

(joyously) “Oh! Is it a boy or a girl?”

“No actually it’s my new Steinway grand piano; they only deliver in between 3 and 5 o’clock, so… But enough with the chit chat…”

-an excerpt from one of Jordan’s movies, “The Young and Restless Days of All My Children’s Lives”

No folks, our new arrival is not a new Steinway grand piano, neither is it a baby boy or a girl. Can you guess what it is? (no scrolling down just yet! guess first, peak afterward)

It’s…

…A…

NEW CAR!!!

-well, a 2004 used car is pretty new to us!

Ladies and gentlemen, introducing the Willi’s newest arrival, the classy looking, handy dandy, cute little Dodge Neon!

After our Willie, aka Candycane, left us last year we knew that (although we could never find a replacement for him – dear Willie!) in the near future we would need another vehicle. And for the past 8 months or so, we’ve lived with our one faithful mini van, Homer, our Honda Odyssey (pun intended). However, now that we’re somewhat settled here in Tennessee and Dad has a steady job, we knew it was time to welcome a new vehicle into the family.

“So what will you guys name your new car?” I hear our readers asking,

Well…that isn’t exactly settled just yet. As you can see from the pictures, the Dodge is a dark, steely grey, so I thought of dubbing it a boy and calling it “Remmington.” (if any of you have heard of the old T.V. show Remmington Steele you’ll see my line of thinking) But Dad on the other hand, likes the idea of dubbing it a girl and naming it after the beautiful tree that blooms around the time we bought it, “Magnolia,” using “Maggie” for short.

So all-in-all, we’re still undecided. Remmington and Maggie are two, completely different names (not to mention genders), but they’re both nice; I wonder which one we’ll end up calling it!

What do our readers think? Do you like Maggie or Remmington best? Do you have any new suggestions for the name of our car? We have owned it for two and a half weeks now, and I believe he’s/she’s feeling a bit left out of when referred to as “the Dodge,” or simply “it.”

~me and our new car, chilling together:-)

-Kasie

Tags: delivery, Ford Neon, Jordan's movies, Maggie, Magnolia, names, new car, Remmington, Remmington Steele, Willie
Posted in Family News | 15 Comments »

Our First Fireworks

July 8th, 2008

No worry folks; the title doesn’t mean that we’ve never seen fireworks in our lives, only that we’ve never set them off before!

Ever since we bought our our land, Providence Glen, we’ve been planning and looking forward to shooting off our own fireworks. We have the room, the freedom (being outside of city limits has its privileges!), and it’s something we’ve never tried, so why not!

On the day before the 4th we made a little trip out to the nearest fireworks shop to have ourselves a look around. All I can say at this point is, “Oh my!” One could get lost in a place like that! There were packages and packages of every kind of fireworks, all stamped with terms like “cake,” and “morter”. If you’re an adventurous type of person, it was like being a kid in a candy store…just keep in mind that the amount of candy you can buy depends on how many pennies you have. We had a budget however, and were able to get a little taste of everything and transport our treasures safely back home.

And on the next night…that was when the fun began!

We started off with few firecrackers; you know, simple child’s play, minuscule in the big scheme of things. And as the night grew darker the boys got to work putting on our first fireworks show; us ladies sitting at a distance of course!

The whole thing was great! No major incidents, although we did have a rocket fire off in a horizontal direction, but seeing as we didn’t burn down our entire property, I think that’s proof that everything went quite well.

Check out the pictures! They didn’t turn out as perfect as I would wish for, but after a while I only wanted to lay my head back and enjoy the show, rather than keeping my fingers on standby all the time!

[Show as slideshow]