Mom's Happy Thanksgiving

My siblings and I had great fun surprising my mother this year. My brother decided to go visit my parents for Thanksgiving, taking his girlfriend and their 6-month-old baby. My sister decided to visit as well. The thing is, we all kept it from mom. My sister talked to Dad to make sure it was okay and that he would be able to pick her up from the airport. Then she talked to my brother about what time her flight would arrive. My brother then sent mom an email claiming that as the time of HIS arrival. (He actually flew in about 2 hours later, which of course Dad knew.) Mom was so completely surprised and overwhelmed when my sister walked out of customs and said hello, and it was fabulous.

Mom often wants things that either she can’t get or are simply too expensive over there, but overseas shipping costs are prohibitive for just sending things on a whim, so we usually end up loading our luggage when we travel. To keep the secret of my sister’s flight but still find out what Mom wanted, I emailed her to say I had picked up a job that required me to send something overseas. Since the postage was not an issue, did she have anything she was especially wanting right now?  She had a list of things, so my sister and I went shopping for them, and I mailed them up to her to take over. 

We also decided to include presents since in our family, “Christmas” occurs whenever it is convenient. So on actual Thanksgiving, mom had two of her three children celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas in her house. I finally learned how to use Skype, and my dad hooked it up to their TV so Alex & I there via webcam, and it was really like having the entire family there together.

It was a lot of time and effort to get it all organized, but as far as I am concerned, it was totally worth it. I doubt any of us will forget this Thanksgiving any time soon.

Recent Activities

I keep thinking of things that would be fun to post, but have been so busy that by the time I get to it, I've forgotten what I wanted to share. I'm sure I'll regret that later, since it is fun to look back over some of the previous posts to see what we were up to.

I've been really busy with my contract work. It's not great gobs of money, but it is enough to keep the bills paid. Thank you, Lord! It also means a lot of driving to get from job to job. That means a lot of time away from computer, email, etc, so my communication habits have deteriorated. Sorry. It's not that I don't think of my friends, just that I don't think typing and driving are a good mix.

The "road warrior" lifestyle is not conducive to good exercise habits, so my weight loss hit a plateau six weeks ago and had firmly stayed there. I really need to find more time to work on it. The first 25 pounds were wonderful to lose, but I really want to lose at least 30 more.

With school being out, I've dragged Alex along with me on a few of these trips. Thankfully, I've been able to find hotel evaluations to accompany some of my jobs, so we've done overnight trips that allowed us to do some sightseeing along the way.

• We went to Panama City Beach, FL. We mostly just enjoyed the beach and some fantastic waves, although we found a few touristy things we would like to do if I can swing another trip over there.
  
  
• I dragged him to Albany, GA to visit the Flint Riverquarium. Alex didn't think he wanted to go to this, but then I think he ended up enjoying it more than I did. I did get a few great photos from it that I'll try to post later. We also learned a bit of history of the area. It turns out Mr. Tift started the city, and he was the uncle of the Tift that founded the city of Tifton, which is in Tift county. They were shippers from Connecticut, moved to the Florida Keys, then went back up into Georgia to pursue agricultural interests.
  
  
• Tifton, GA provided some historical education at the Georgia Museum of Agriculture, also known as Agrirama. They have recovered all sorts of old buildings and stores from places throughout Georgia and have moved them all to create a little village. There's the home of the Tifts, the subsistence farmer, the progressive farmer, the drugstore, the general store, the doctor's office, the schoolhouse, the Mason's lodge, a sawmill, a printing press, a turpentine still, a miller's workhouse, a blacksmith, etc. That would have been a lot more fun if it hadn't been upper 90's and really high humidity. I did buy some grits that I watched being milled. They don't get much fresher than that!

Anyway, that's what we've been up to. Hope you are all enjoying your summers, and I certainly hope your temperatures are a lot lower than what we are enduring. I truly do not know how people existed in this weather prior to air conditioning.

Beautiful Ice

On our way home from my parents' house, our flight plan took us across the tip of Canada. As far as we could tell, these are just small icebergs floating in the northern Atlantic. Our neighbors in the aisle seats were leaning over our shoulders to watch the view for a while. Isn't it gorgeous?

   

   

40th anniversary

The reason for our trip to France was to celebrate my parents' 40th anniversary. I'm posting a recap from my mother for your enjoyment.
________________________________________________

A CELEBRATION OF 40 YEARS OF MARRIAGE
June 6, 2009


I’d like to thank those who shared their photos with me or used my own camera for me during our anniversary party so that I can have a wonderful pictorial memory. Unfortunately, we only got photos of half the crew working; we don’t seem to have anything showing the hard work Diana and Chip ended up doing, which is too bad as the driveway looked really nice.

Although the day started out beautiful, thunderstorms were called for all day, which was distressing for trying to prepare and decorate. We did get just one small storm in the late afternoon, but the rest of the evening stayed completely dry.

One of the first things we did was move our tables around. Romea, the cat, has a habit of sleeping under a particular table, and she wasn’t perturbed in the slightest when her table got moved. She simply rode the whole way up. Here you can see 14-year old Alex moving the table with his Papy Craig, while his mother Sandi is trying to decorate the gazebo.

Our colors were ruby for the American 40th (apparently the French use emerald) and turquoise, as that’s been our main color since our actual wedding (my favorite color, of course). The girls brought over red tulle and some turquoise "40" items (napkins, plates, and metallic decorations. Sandi, Diana, and Alex got quite creative trying to fulfill their decorating ideas. Our previous neighbors from Paris came early to visit with the kids, but as the weather had put us behind, they very artistically helped us to decorate our food tent. They did a fantastic job!

We’d managed to make our party clothes match our 25th anniversary colors really nicely, so we tried to recreate that effect this time. What we came up with wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind, but I couldn’t find what I had in mind, so we did the best we could. I designed my own outfit, and Craig got a new shirt out of the deal. He also got a new red item to wear for every red occasion (Christmas, for example) to replace the red socks he’s previously worn. It was time to replace them with something else to make the kids groan in future photos.

We started the party with a new cooler for cold water and a red punch for those who didn’t want wine. Several guests brought flowers.

We took a gastronomic tour of four Mediterranean countries. I set up a table with cookbooks and artifacts from each of those countries. For the centerpiece, I used the wine bottle we’d been given and then served at our 25th, which we’ve since turned into a lamp.

As our property is on multiple levels, with each level not being very large, it was often easier to take pictures from up above. The first picture really shows our party tent. To prevent it being too cramped for the 40 guests we were having, I made a canopy with the end flap, thus opening up the end without just exposing everything. I rigged up an umbrella to cover the beverage table and yet keep it out of the way. We set up a reception/gift table in the passageway behind the house from one side yard to the other, using an old drape for a table cover (just happened to be the right color!) and Diana hooked up old curtains for a backdrop. I think the ambiance was pretty classy for such an unclassy area!

Not only is the primary seating area not all that big, but there’s a 300 year old olive tree right smack in the middle of it. I’ve never been able to get grass to grow there, so last year I put down patio blocks. We managed to fit everybody in, just barely! You can see the effect of the Provençal tablecloths. We borrowed tables and chairs from the town hall, and a friend loaned us her party dishes and silverware, avoiding the need for plastic and paper products. You can see the main seating area from the upper level, which leads to the gazebo.

I could seat everybody below except our family, so we just created a special area for us. A bit strange, but you do what you have to do. As we’d run out of tablecloths and dishes used below, we ended up capitalizing on the red and turquoise theme here and used our own dishes. This was all actually set up by the kids, so I didn’t even see it until I sat down to eat. Didn’t they do a really classy job?

This the best I ended up with of my sister and me. She came all the way from CA, this is the first time she’s been able to visit me, so I hope she felt like the end result of our party was worth it. I know she had a great vacation trip otherwise, and the weather was ideal her whole visit.

Ambiance photos: These represent how blessed I am to have had so many friends able to come share our special event. The number I had was quite hectic enough, but there were probably double that number who weren’t able to come. Most of these new friends down here are French, as we haven’t gotten involved with expat groups like we did in Paris. I discovered is that somehow it’s a whole lot easier throwing a large party in a rented hall with lots of space than it is at your own home if said home only contains lots of little spaces. It doesn’t look like anybody minded that, though.

As the theme of the party was foods from multiple countries, I created a complete menu for each one, from soup to nuts (actually, from aperitifs to dessert). We decorated the serving area into four sections with the appropriate colors, and an artistic friend made me some beautiful menu boards. I’ve been to three of the countries represented, so I had some clue as to what was authentic. Many guests brought a dish, having been told exactly what I wanted. I asked for each dish to serve about ten. I think they felt they needed to feed an army single-handedly. We certainly had no fear of running out of anything to eat! A Moroccan friend offered to provide the entire menu for her country, which was the one I hadn’t ever been to personally. Whatever you see is just one course being served at that moment!

Despite not having been together for three years, this is going to be the best family photo we ended up with on this visit. It’s actually quite nice of everybody, just not what one would typically frame up for posterity. Oh, well, my family all prefers candid stuff anyway. This completely represents what we Fearings have created in 40 years. It’s been a good life.

Although I found the main seating area really pretty by day, I think it’s just beautiful by night. I’ve never seen it look like this before (all my dinner parties have been during the day, even in this area). This type of evening is what I envisioned having when we first bought this house seven years ago, but it’s taken this long to actually achieve the dream.

One of the things we did at our 25th anniversary party was to present a large gift bottle of wine and personally serve it with the cheese course. As we also had another large gift bottle (even already red-ribboned) this time around, we thought we’d continue the tradition.

I think the reception area looked really pretty at night. We had some family-through-the-years photos, plus our original wedding pictures and old anniversary photos from back when I used to pose in my wedding dress each year (for the first 30 years). The French seemed to have really gotten a kick out of looking through everything.

This is one of our largest olive trees lighted up for the first time. We definitely plan permanent uplights when we get the area more refined!

When one has a party for oneself, one has to pose. So I made a token cake for a centerpiece, then we did the wedding tradition of cutting the cake and serving it and the champagne toast to each other. It’s a romantic thing at a wedding, it’s a riot forty years later! But the whole idea was to have fun with all our friends, and I think we managed to pull that off. Both the flowers on the cake and the one in my hair came from my own garden, while the 40 topper is leftover scraps from our party clothes.

The next day, we finally had a moment to appreciate the various gifts we’d gotten. They included several flower bouquets, a couple potted plants, special wine and champagne, various miscellaneous items, money from my family for a tree for our property, and our first iPods each from our kids (mine is even turquoise). We were very touched to be so remembered.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my little recap of a wonderful event. Perhaps you’ll be able to join us in ten years when we celebrate the big 5-0. Gold will abound!

Barbara & Craig

Safe Arrival

After quite a long day of travel, we are safely here in Nice. My parents are having their 40th wedding anniversary on Saturday, so we are here for the big party. We flew to Atlanta, then to JFK in New York, then to France. We were blessed with safe, mostly uneventful travel the whole way. Unlike my sister, who was delayed 2 hours due to bad weather, and thus missed her connecting flight.

I did feel quite sorry for the girl next to me on the trip to NY, who was incredibly airsick. Three times.

And the overhead "bong" that malfunctioned and kept bonging excessively during the overseas flight to Nice was rather annoying. Especially since it started during the middle of the night when we were trying to sleep. When Alex asked our attendant what it was, he replied that it was the "mysterious cowbell" and they didn't know what was causing it. "More cowbell" was NOT our opinion!

But there were only a couple of crying babies. Miraculously, all our flights left on time. And we were on them at the time! We had friendly people at the check-in, nice flight attendants, not too much turbulence, and our luggage arrived with us. Good trip!

beach photos

After promising pictures, I was then quite remiss in not actually posting them. Sorry!

Here comes the storm...

Best.Jumping.Waves.Ever.

Rain bouncing off neighbor's roof:

After the storm:

Starfish found by Morgan and Valerie:

Full moon reflected off the water:

We found this jellyfish on the beach when someone accidentally stepped on it (and was thankfully not stung). It was too dark to even see it so I literally "took a shot in the dark". It came out pretty nicely, I think.

Generators finally powered the island:

unbelievable trip

Remember I said it was raining? That apparently turned into some horrific galestorm that tore up the island but good. We went out to the beach to ride the crazy waves (I kept looking for that hurricane tracker guy to show up with his TV crew to record the stupid people out in the ridiculous weather) and when we came back in, we discovered the power was out. Ok, no big deal, this can be fun for a little while. After a few hours, it got dark, and then it was not quite so fun. Board games by candle light can be amusing. After 2 days of having no dry towels, half our clothes filthy, and cooking all our food on the itty bitty charcoal grill downstairs, the "fun" had definitely passed. This morning, we finally got some power back, and we are so excited. The laptops, the cameras, our cell phones, and the handheld video games - everything is plugged in to recharge. The things you take for granted... I was thanking God for giving me the foresight to bring some candles and flashlights to the beach! Those were our saving grace at night.

After the fix-it crews showed up, I asked them what was going on. Apparently the transmitter lines that connect us to the substations came crashing down into the ocean. They brought crews from Pensacola and somewhere down S Fl to come rebuild the lines to connect us to generators. I don't know how long it will take them to correctly fix the situation, but for now the island is running on several humongous generators.

I did manage to pick up some fun photos of the situation before the camera battery ran out. I wish I'd gotten one of me cooking tacos in a frying pan on the grill, but I didn't think about it in time and the bugs were just feasting on me and I couldn't take it any more. I'll post them later. Meanwhile, it's sunny now so we are going out to the beach!

on vacation

I think I told most people that I was on vacation this week. (if I missed you, then sorry) School starts next week, so we are at the beach this week. Like last year, we rented a house that we are sharing with some friends for the week. My friend couldn't come down on Sunday, so I brought her kids down with me. The first day had the kids trying to do this:

I got to rain on their parade by insisting that they get off the computers and go outside to go swimming with me. They complained the whole time until they actually got in the water. The next 2 hours flew by as we had fun with the noodles and water fights and wave jumping. Amazing, it really is possible to have fun without a power outlet around!

Valerie arrived Monday afternoon, so around 5pm we all went back out again. The waves were much calmer, so we just lazed around. Valerie's dogs also came down. (mine get carsick, so it's just easier to leave them at home) This was the first time the black dog had ever experienced the beach, so it was fun watching the dog adjust. It didn't take her long!

and then today.... it's pouring down rain. yippee. :)