Truth Arrives

I was up in Kelly's room with Jack the Schnauzer when the band practice suddenly ceased. I thought the silence meant they were working out a part, but then Himself came upstairs and said, "The drums are here!"



Tyler had done research on custom drums for a couple of years. Truth Custom Drums is the company he has admired the most for several reasons, but their prices were way out of reach for a (then) 17 year old with a part time job.



For his 18th birthday, Himself and I wanted to honor our son with a gift. We thought of a used car to replace his that isn't running as well, but we realized custom drums were something he would treasure long after a used car came and went. Plus, and I'm going to speak like the mom I am, Ty's an incredible drummer. He. Just. Is. The snare arrived first, and the owners of the company had each signed the inside of the drum and included a scripture verse.

Himself came running in with the box. He questioned the Fed Ex guy on the fact that there was only ONE box, but they were all nestled inside each other. This is the stage the unpacking was at when I ran down the stairs. Tyler was so excited, and it meant so much that his band mates were here when they arrived.

These guys are packing pros! I don't know HOW they got the drums, drum heads, and all the packing paper on the right of the picture into ONE box! To the left of the picture is Tyler's bass amp, fondly known as "The Beast." Jeremy uses it when they practice and play.

Those who know Zach will agree that this is his "Pretty Darn Sweet" smile. He uses it when something cool is happening.

Some assembly required! It's all right. He likes it.

Guys always try to act so cool. Here I finally caught the smile that had been playing around the corners of his mouth. He has slight swelling along the jawline from his wisdom teeth, but he was feeling no pain at this point!

Himself was a total kid at this during the unpacking. His phone kept ringing and he would run into his office to take care of it, then run back out to see how it was progressing. Jack the Schnauzer pretty much got in the way.

As with most drummers, Ty's very precise with the placement of each drum. He has sped up this process by marking the specific spot for the pedals on his mat with tape. It's amazing how he can be playing away and yet hear the slightest rattle or tapping that's out of place, stop, make the adjustment, then continue.

Each head is carefully tuned when he puts them on, but with this new set it will probably take a few months to get the exact heads and tunings for the sound he wants. Trust me, friends. This boy protects his ears when he plays (we all do!). He doesn't want to do anything to jeopardize any possible career in music.

A few more adjustments here and there, then. . . . .

A sore jaw doesn't stop the smile after the first hit on the tom. He loves the resonance that goes on and on.

See the cases in the right of the picture? Those arrived on Monday. He got a really good deal on them from Geoff at Truth. However, the kick drum case (not pictured) is so large, it doesn't fit in the door opening to the upstairs! He offered to let us use it for a coffee table downstairs. :-)

For those who know Jeremy, you'll recognize his "Whoa!" face.

Himself again. The kick is completely suspended off the ground for full resonance. He of course had to check it out personally. This is the same guy who has to touch an electric fence to "see what it feels like."

Here's the full band "giving it a ride." This is where and how they practice every week, right in the living room. I love when they're here. I love feeding them chili dogs. I wish everyone could hear how hard they work on their music.




A boy and his drum. A drum and his boy.

IT. . . . .

. . . . IS HERE.

But all the pictures are on the camera. The camera is with Himself. Himself is out of town.

Tune in tomorrow!

Recovering Ty

Ty's wisdom teeth removal went amazingly well yesterday. He was finished within 40 minutes and didn't even need stitches! We kept him doped up and kept up with the ice on, ice off regimen. If he's going to have complications, it will happen today or tomorrow.

His friends (Zach, Jeremy, and Jess) are the best friends in the world. They came over and brought him ice cream, sweet tea, and baby food. ;-) Then Stephen came over later and brought him MORE sweet tea (we call it "happy juice"). He's in heaven.

So, today he's insisting on band practice! The band is here now, even. Crazy kid.

Beef Sammys

My family LOVES these sandwiches, and some things are just too good not to be shared. I can't take pictures of recipes like the Pioneer Woman does on her site (did I mention you can donate to my camera fund?), but picture this--your family members at the table with their eyes rolled back in their head with happiness, enough food to feed your family and a rock band, and warm leftovers to get through dinner so you don't have to cook that night. Sound good?





I got this recipe years ago from The Freezer Cooking Manual from 30 Day Gourmet. I did this 30 Day cooking for over a year and loved it. Then I did the Menu Mailer at Saving Dinner for over two years, and now I'm signed up with Menus4Moms. I kind of rotate between the three.





This recipe is so EASY and yummy! Yummy enough to have a teen ask how I made it, and yummy enough to have Himself reacting with hostility to the rest of us when he discovered most of the leftovers were gone. "WHO ate some of this? Huh?"



"Uh, we did dear. It's leftover night, and those are leftovers."



"Grrrr. . . . . "



Ingredients:

2.5 lbs beef roast, chuck roast, or thick chuck steak, fat trimmed and discarded

2 pkgs. dry Ranch salad dressing mix

1 c. Water



Throw the meat in the crock pot. Sprinkle the dry Ranch dressing over the top, pour the water over all. (I then turned the meat over once and back over to coat.) Can be cooked overnight on low, or 6 hours on high heat until it shreds easily with a fork. I recommend cooking it on low, though not necessarily overnight. It might cause you to wake up periodically during the night because of the heavenly aroma and invade your dreams.



Serve on buns or hoagie rolls with fresh fruit on the side. We also add a slice of Provolone, because we like it like that. :-)



Caution: Crock pots cook differently! This weekend I started this on high while I was getting ready for church (so, from 7:30 to 8:55) then turned it on low as I headed out the door. It was perfect when we got home. You may want to try this on a day when you're home all day so you'll know how long to make it.



Variations:

Use dry Italian dressing, or Onion soup mix instead of the Ranch. We've tried them all, and Ranch is our favorite.



This can easily be doubled or tripled. I've made it with 5lbs of roast, 4 pkgs dry Ranch, and 2 c. water. This is the volume that fed the family and the rock band with some to spare.



Let me know if you try it!

All Things Tyler

Here's me and my man-child. Is it possible I ever carried him on my hip, gave him piggy-back rides, or held him on my lap as we read books together? I'm so thankful he's finished with school, so we can enjoy each other again!

Tyler hates to have his picture taken. It's not like a teen girl, who pretends to hate to have her picture taken but secretly loves it; he really, really hates it. Here he's looking at his Dad in exasperation because he's taking his picture yet again. Frankly, I was with Ty on this one! Please note my way cool walking stick. It's the one thing that saved me on this hike!

We were on the top side of Rainbow Falls here. Tyler grabbed my hand and made me look at the view (he convinced me it was worth it, and it was). Here, he's pointing out the trail he went on last year, following ML and JS, because he thought that was what they were supposed to do (not knowing they were going to jump off the rock face). Ty's experience last year was not only not great, it was downright horrible.

We posed for this picture just before the final descent into the Rainbow Falls pool. I love the look on his face, because unbeknownst to us, it means, "I am not going one step further, and there's nothing you can do about it."

See, last year he followed ML and JS up the "trail." He was far enough behind them that he didn't hear ML warn about the wasp nest in one spot on the trail. Everyone else would take a deep breath, then scramble/run past the spot as quickly as they could.

Tyler climbed casually behind them, taking his time. He didn't stand a chance.

Himself was at the bottom near the pool area when he looked up to see Ty leaping and scrambling down the hill, bounding from rock to rock, waving his hands around his head, and trying not to break a leg in the process. It was so alarming!

He was stung not once, but six times.

There was no way he was going anywhere near that spot again. He stayed at the top of the trail the entire time we were there.

Himself says I light up when Ty enters the room. I can't help it. He's so much more than I ever dreamed a son would be! I know it's his destiny to leave us eventually, whereas a daughter is always with her mom and dad. There's such a delicate balance with a son . . . holding on while letting go. I guess this is why I give him as much room as possible, but grab on to each and every "moment" I can.

And Ty, because he's a great kid, lets me.

All Things Kelly

Here we are, watching crazy people slide down Turtle Rock. Right at the crook of my elbow you can see the rope used to climb up, then (as you'll see later) you slide down the waterfall into the pool below. I use "you" in the "everyone but me" sense, of course. And not Kelly. Or BA. Or Himself. Or Ty, Glenna, and Rachel. Everyone else, though.

Kelly is the one in our family who keeps us all moving. When she's with friends, our house is extremely quiet and we can easily just lie around, take naps, and let the world of excitement pass us by. Since Kelly was a tiny tot, though, she's wanted to be where people are and things are happening! She kindly offers to plan out my days for me, and it usually involves driving her somewhere, or picking up her friends, or heading to every store she can think of for that PERFECT _____________ (fill in the blank). Don't tell her, but I love it. I love it when it's not the last minute, that is. You know, not, "We're leaving at 3 am for five days of camp and I need a swimsuit." That can be exhausting.

It's a rare thing when you'll see this girl without a smile. She's always singing, humming, and smiling. Once, her Dad and brother were moving a heavy bookcase for me. As they did their, "One, two, three, go!" efforts, Kelly couldn't help but scream along with them. She has done that all her life! It's her way of helping.

Here, she was making her way over to her Dad at Rainbow Falls. Mind you, she was swimming against the current produced by the waterfall, so it was quite an effort! She gives you an idea of how big that log was, though. There are spots in the picture because the falls were making this constant mist. It felt sooooo goood!

This picture gives you an idea of the "easy" part of the trail. It was so green, shady, and pretty! I found all kinds of flowers, and I even found wild raspberries (not ripe, very sour). Anyway, Kelly was walking next to ML here. I'm sure they were having some deep theological discussion, but knowing ML, he was probably asking her who she thought the hot guys at church were. He likes to embarrass her like that.

Lord, thank you for giving me this girl. God is my Rock, and Kelly is my rock with "skin." She keeps me sane, she keeps me moving, she is my constant helper . . . .she is pure joy to her Daddy and me!

All Things Glenna

There are many reasons why I don't have a lot of pictures of Glenna. First of all, she's the third born and soft spoken (unlike her mother, who is third born and LOUD). Secondly, she's usually off doing her own thing. Lastly, she likes to be behind the camera herself, and everyone knows there's rarely pictures of the photographer! I thought today's blog would focus on my wee bairn.

Here she is with her friend, Rachel (of the BA and ML clan). I was so happy to see her climbing all over these rocks! Where I grew up in California, we played on rocks like these all the time. Here in FL, all rocks are IMPORTED. That's right, imported. If you want a rock like this, you'll pay BIG bucks! It took a 9 hour drive and an hour hike to get to these!

This girl's a pretty brave soul when it comes to exploring, though not as brave when it comes to things like roller coasters. She likes them well enough, but I think when she has some age and weight on her, she'll like them more. Here she's delicately making her way down to the water at the other falls, Turtle Rock. Her Dad's waiting to help Rachel down.

How fun was it as a little kid to hitch a ride on your Dad? Here she's at Rainbow Falls, and they're trying to see how close they can get to the bottom of the actual falls. Josh (Rachel's favorite brother) is tagging along behind, but none of them got very close!

The water is brown because all the rocks are brown. Make sense? It's white and pretty when it comes over the falls. Here's Glenna in the background, swimming up to Rachel. Kelly's in the foreground, barely missed by the "loogie" one of the boys in the Scared Kids post had hawked earlier. Look at those rocks! I so envied the natural landscaping, or the homes with these great rock walls or rock formations. I miss rocks.

My happy girl, swimming around at Rainbow Falls. If she's swimming, she's smiling. Her lips might be a little blue, but she's smiling!

I think she enjoyed her trip up the Blueridge Parkway. She loves being squished in a vehicle with her entire family. She loves being with her family, period, and we all love being with HER! Yep, she's my favorite 10 year old in the world.

Something Dead

This is our cabin! Glenna took most of these pictures. I think she did a pretty good job. The upper level had the kitchen, living room, a bedroom, and a bathroom. The lower level had a laundry room, a bathroom, and two bedrooms. Both levels had their own balcony, as you can see in the picture below (kinda).

This is the upstairs balcony where we threw the kids out most of the time. The little noisemakers. Who would have thought "Apples to Apples" could be such a loud game?

Here's Ty in the kitchen, eating the main staple that kept him alive our entire vacation . . . Pop Tarts.

Right next to the kitchen is the stairway to head to our quarters. The BA and ML clan stayed upstairs, though Glenna was kind of a renegade, going back and forth between the two floors.

Ty and Kelly shared this room. We decided they'd want a place to sleep 'til noon and not be disturbed. Ty said he couldn't hear anything or even smell breakfast cooking. We fixed that by making sure the smoke alarm went off each time we made English muffins. :-)

Here's Kelly heading back upstairs, ready for a day of hiking and waterfall viewing. Isn't she lovely?

This is the room Himself and I shared. It looks cute enough. It looks charming what with the canopy and the handmade quilt. One would think this room had nothing but appeal, but this room's closet is where I found something dead.

What IS it? How long has it been there? Worst of all, how did it GET there? It was all dried up and nasty, just waiting for my bare foot to land on it.

Ok, so it's not THAT big. Still, it was something. And it was dead.

Daring Friends

This is me and my friend, BA. I guess someone could have told me I didn't need to hunch down in this photo (ML). Anyway, just look at the expression of victory and triumph on her face. She's probably had that expressions only four other times in her life. . . . once when she nabbed ML to be her hubby, and three other times when she gave birth. I assure you, what she did here needed just as much bravery and courage!





Remember the Scared Kids? Evidently, BA realized this was probably her last hike to Rainbow Falls. Much to my horror and the chagrin of Himself (who did not want to do this until BA started climbing, but held back anyway so as not to steal her thunder), BA decided she wanted to jump off the cliff.

It all starts with this climb on a "trail" that doesn't really exist. I thought this picture was funny because you can see BA's purple top on and shorts on one side of the tree, then ML coming out the other side of the tree. It looks like she's morphing into ML.

She's gone from our sight for a while, then we can see her climbing down the vines near the rock face. See her? See her purple shirt?

Here, I circled it to make her more visible.

And here's ML, proud as can be, showing the entire world that his wife did indeed make it to the rock face. Hey, it was a proud moment for all of us, really!

Here, she's casually examining her toenail polish. At least, that's the story she told me. If you ask me, though, I think that after she climbed down the vines and took one look over the side, she got a serious case of the "scardies" and had to catch her breath!

ML jumped first, but he kind of slipped and my camera wasn't ready to catch the majesty of it. All I had was him splashing into the water. Yes ladies, you read that correctly. He took her up on a rock face and LEFT. HER. THERE. If you know him and ask him about it, he'll try to say he went first to show her how it's done and to be ready to receive her in the water below. Yep. I bet that's just what he'll tell you.

And here it is! A most magnificent leap! What style! What form! What poise and grace! All of us waiting on the rocks could only gasp at the wonder of it all!

What? You can't see her? Please feel free to contribute to my new camera fund so we can avoid this travesty in the future. In the meantime, Good 'Ole Paint Shop will help us out yet again:

And here she is, still alive, frolicking merrily in the water with ML, drinking in the mad applause of her observers. I think I was clapping the loudest! It's so much safer to live vicariously through friends, wouldn't you agree?

Now she's back to "Mom" mode, casually sunning herself on a rock with all the kids, basking in the adoring gaze of her hubby, ML. Everyone is that much happier and smiling because of her amazing feat.

You've done us all proud, BA!

Scared Kids

After the 4th of July Celebration in Maggie Valley (another post for another time) we went on a beautiful hike in the Smokey Mountains to Rainbow Falls, pictured above, and Turtle Rock (soon to come). The hike wasn't so bad, really, but I have to admit I was a little worried when I thought about how out of shape I am and saw grown men, drenched in sweat, returning from the hike. Still, it was shady, beautiful, and worth it to see a waterfall like this one.

It's kind of hard to put it into perspective from looking at a photo, but there's actually a person to the right of the falls at the top, next to a rock, peering over the edge. It's either a woman or a boy with lots of hair (there were a lot of them there), but in the next photo I tried to point "him" out to you. I can see him quite clearly when I bring the photo up in print shop.

Their head would be a tiny dot inside the circle I drew.

I have lots of photos of the hike to these falls, lots of drama and action, but I wanted to focus on the Scared Kids.

In this photo, you can see the deep pool which is just left of the actual falls. I'm sure in the spring when everything is thawing, this entire rock face is one roaring sheet of water! That would be something to behold, but I would hate to try to hike there through slippery mud. It was hard enough with dry dirt! Anyway, about 20 to 30 feet up this rock face, toward the left side of the picture, are two girls who are scared out of their wits.

Again, it's all about perspective. The picture above looks like a pile of rocks with a puddle at the bottom, but I can assure you it's a very deep pool and this is no "pile of rocks"! In fact, that is not a twig at the bottom right of the rock face, but an honest to goodness log that was once an entire tree. The girls, stuck on the rock face, had to go through a very hazardous climb to get to where they are (including climbing down vines toward the end there) so there's NO way off the rock face but to jump into the water.

Let's use Paint Shop again to help us out:

They were on this rock face almost the entire time we were there. First one would approach the edge of the little ledge they were standing on, look back at her friend for encouragement, then step back. They'd huddle together in coversation for a bit, then the other would step to the edge and repeat the process. I tried to zoom in, but my camera is not too "up close" friendly. Of course, by this time their third friend had come to help them out, took one look over the edge, and was just as scared as they were!

I'm telling you, nothing was going to move these girls off this cliff. Not even the long line of boys that stood behind them to wait their turn, then finally started jumping off from wherever they could. In the next photo, you see the boys waiting, but one of the girls had finally jumped off. Still, red bikini girl wasn't about to be rushed.

The boy on the far left of the photo had just climbed down the vines and was working his way over to the ledge.

When they finally did jump, all of us waiting at the bottom clapped and cheered for them. You can bet they didn't go back up that cliff!

All of this is the segue into tomorrow's post. :-)

Sorry this is all bunched together. I tried to space the paragraphs all neatly and dramatically, but for some reason it keeps posting all scrunched up.

Preview

We're home! This photo is a preview of those to come from our visit to North Carolina! Don't worry, they won't ALL be of trees (since we do indeed have trees in FL). Instead, you'll see Daring Friends, Scared Kids, and Something Dead.

How's that for a preview?

Hitting the Road

Ok, we're leaving tomorrow for vacation!

Peter's staying here for us, watching the Liebert's Dog as well. I hope Jack does all right. Remember what I wrote about The Scarlet Letter? Well, now I don't have to worry since he ATE it. He does that when we haven't been paying attention to him.

I'll be posting pictures when we get home!